The U.S. Department of Commerce has lifted a requirement that Anthropic obtain a license before exporting its Mythos and Fable models abroad, a restriction that effectively cut off public access to what are widely considered the most advanced AI models released to date. TechCrunch has the story here.

Visa, Stripe, Coinbase, Mastercard, BlackRock, and more than 100 other companies are joining an industry consortium called Open Standard to launch Open USD, a stablecoin launching later this year that will directly challenge the economics behind dominant stablecoin issuers like Circle and Tether. Fortune has more here. [Expect Tether’s CEO to have some thoughts on this when he takes the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt this fall.]

Realta Fusion says it became the first private company to publicly show direct electricity generation from a fusion reaction, using its Wisconsin test reactor to produce usable power without first converting heat into steam. TechCrunch has more here.

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Three former DeepMind researchers who created an AI that beat humans at poker have now applied the same technology to trading stocks — and the bet appears to be paying off. Their Prague-based AI lab, EquiLibre Technologies, is now valued at $500 million after raising an undisclosed-sum Series A, TechCrunch learned.

The round was led by Creandum, and, although the VC also declined to disclose the size of the round, vice president Cameron Sellers confirmed that it was the largest single investment the firm “has ever made in one go into a company,” he told TechCrunch.

The common denominator between poker and Wall Street is that they are well suited for reinforcement learning, an AI training technique where self-learning models are incentivized by rewards. According to Martin Schmid, EquiLibre CEO, “The nice thing about trading and markets is that the scoring is super simple: how much money did the agent make?”

This isn’t just game money. In partnership with quant firm Tower Research Capital, EquiLibre’s algorithms have been trading billions in daily volume across the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. The startup claims its agents have been doing well since their rollout on crypto markets in 2025, and now on stock exchanges, with “a perfect record of zero negative months since inception,” meaning they have finished each month with their investments up overall.

By applying its AI to quant hedge funds, the startup is in a field where automation is commonplace and, if successful, improvements can quickly turn into cash. That made the startup appealing to Creandum, Sellers said.

“The potential total addressable market of trading in the financial markets is one of the biggest on earth, and there are countless funds over the years that have generated quantums of profit that make most venture-backed successes look small,” Sellers said. But he noted that EquiLibre explicitly defines itself as “a lab first, not a finance firm.”

Dominion Dynamics, a one-year-old Ottawa startup that develops command-and-control software, Arctic surveillance sensors, and autonomous drone systems for defense operations in extreme environments, raised a $97.9 million Series A round led by Georgian, with Valor Equity Partners, Expeditions, Lakestar, OMERS, Business Development Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Deloitte Ventures Canada, and JDY Capital as well as previous investors BCI, Bessemer Venture Partners, Garage Capital, Golden Ventures, and Silent Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $119 million. More here.

Etched, a four-year-old startup based in San Jose, CA, that is building rack-scale AI inference systems, emerged from stealth with a working chip, $1+ billion in signed customer contracts, and $800 million raised across multiple rounds, including a $500 million financing at a $5 billion post-money valuation from investors including VentureTech Alliance, Peter Thiel, Jane Street, Hudson River Trading, Jump Trading, Two Sigma, Stripes, Ribbit Capital, Radical Ventures, Primary VC, and Positive Sum. TechCrunch has more here.

Higharc, an eight-year-old startup based in Durham, NC, that develops AI software for homebuilders to automate design, estimating, sales, and construction workflows, raised a $95 million Series C round led by Insight Partners, with Wellington Management as well as previous investors Fifth Wall, Spark Capital, Lux Capital, SE Ventures, Simpson Strong-Tie, PSP Partners, RXR Arden Digital Ventures, Suffolk Technologies, Vertex Ventures, NC Tweener Fund, and MetaProp also joining in. The company has raised a total of $170+ million. More here.

LeapXpert, a nine-year-old New York startup that captures and governs customer conversations on consumer messaging channels so enterprises can meet compliance, security, and oversight requirements, raised a $180 million round led by Riverwood Capital. More here.

Stathera, an eight-year-old Montreal startup that develops MEMS silicon oscillators that replace quartz crystals in electronics and synchronize data transfers in GPU clusters and network switches, raised a $55 million Series B round led by Maverick Silicon, with Celesta Capital, BDC Capital, MediaTek Innovation Fund, TXC Corporation, and Ultratech Capital Partners also buying in. The company has raised a total of $75 million. More here.

1001, a London startup founded this year that uses AI to help aviation, ports, shipping, and energy companies in the Gulf region to improve operations and develop new products, raised a $30 million Series A round led by Lux Capital, with 9Yards, Hanabi, and Sanabil also participating. Semafor has more here.

BR-DGE, an eight-year-old Edinburgh startup that helps enterprise merchants improve payment routing and resilience across complex provider and regulatory environments, raised a $13.3 million round led by Bettor Capital. The Scotsman has more here.

Jota, a two-year-old Brazilian startup that offers entrepreneurs an AI-enabled digital bank account through its app and WhatsApp, raised a $30 million Series A round at a $185 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by Haun Ventures, with HOF Capital, Alter Global, and Greyhound Capital also participating. Brazil Journal has more here.

MDOTM, an 11-year-old London company that develops AI tools for institutional investors to analyze markets, rebalance portfolios, and generate investment commentary, raised $27 million in growth equity funding led by Expedition Growth Capital. The company has raised a total of $36.5 million. More here.

Omni, a six-year-old London startup that makes vet-formulated plant-based dog foods and supplements for pets with allergies, gut issues, anxiety, and weight problems, raised a $14.6 million Series A round. The deal was co-led by IW Capital and Redrice Ventures, with RootBridge Capital, Digitalis Ventures, and Lever VC as well as previous investor Deborah Meaden also taking part. Green Queen Media has more here.

Pie, a one-year-old New York startup that helps small businesses make their websites and products visible in AI search results, raised a $19.5 million Series A round led by Lightspeed, with SciFi VC, F-Prime, Commerce Ventures, and WEX Venture Capital also chipping in. More here.

The Protein Brewery, a six-year-old Dutch startup that develops fermentation-based protein ingredients that help food and beverage manufacturers replace animal proteins with lower-resource fungal biomass, raised an $18 million Series B extension led by ABN AMRO, with previous investors Invest-NL, Novo Holdings, Madeli, and the Brabant Development Agency also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $80+ million. ESG Today has more here.

Queue, a one-year-old Palo Alto startup that builds robotic pharmacy kiosks that verify prescriptions by QR code and dispense common medications in retail, hospital, and underserved locations, raised a $12.6 million seed round led by AlleyCorp, with House Capital, Ubiquity Ventures, Grep Ventures, and Banter Capital also participating. The company has raised a total of $18.6 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Taxwire, a three-year-old New York startup that develops software to automate sales tax coding, rate calculations, and filing workflows across U.S. and international jurisdictions, raised $25 million in combined seed and Series A funding from Headline Ventures, XYZ VC, Vinyl, Recall Capital, and Nomo Ventures. More here.

Arato, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that simulates user interactions with AI applications so developers can find failures, risks, and compliance issues before deployment, raised a $10 million seed round led by TLV Partners, with Jibe Ventures also anteing up. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Archimede, a two-year-old Sicilian startup that helps companies monitor and control remote infrastructure and equipment where internet and power connections are unreliable, raised a $1.7 million seed round led by Primo Capital, with CDP Venture Capital, Plug and Play, ELIS, 40Jemz, and Irritec also buying in. Startup Rise EU has more here.

Arcturus, a two-year-old Los Angeles startup that infuses carbon nanomaterials into metals to improve electrical, thermal, and mechanical performance, emerged from stealth with an $8 million seed round led by Initialized Capital, with 1517, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Toyota Ventures, and Wireframe Ventures also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $10 million. More here.

Baz Technologies, a three-year-old Boston startup that helps development teams use AI agents to review planned code changes and catch security or reliability problems before release, raised a $9 million seed extension co-led by Battery Ventures and Boldstart Ventures, with AFG Partners and Disruptive VC also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $17 million. More here.

Build, a two-year-old New York startup that uses AI to automate due diligence for infrastructure and data center projects, raised an $8.5 million seed round led by Index Ventures, with Pebblebed, Puzzle Ventures, and Tiny.vc also investing. Tech Funding News has more here.

Coast 4C, a six-year-old Australian startup that connects Southeast Asian smallholder seaweed farmers with global carrageenan processors through traceable supply chains and farm support, raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Hatch Blue, with Conservation International Ventures, elea, RS Group, Potato Impact Partners, Minderoo Foundation, Kibo Invest, and Azulito Fund also digging in. iGrow News has more here.

GenerativeX, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that deploys engineers to help large enterprises turn AI strategy into production code while managing governance, compliance, and security, raised a $4 million Series A round led by Nissay Capital, with Salesforce Ventures, Angel Bridge, DeepCore, and SMBC Venture Capital also engaging. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Nomerra, a one-year-old Berlin startup that uses AI agents to automate fund accounting, treasury, and transfer agency workflows for private market asset servicers and asset managers, raised a $2 million round. 14Peaks Capital was the deal lead, with Redstone Fintech also pitching in. More here.

Saltroad, a two-year-old UK startup that connects families with NHS speech and language therapists and automates therapy-session notes to expand private speech therapy for children, raised a $2 million round led by Techstart Ventures, with Ascension and ScaleX also anteing up. It also acquired Ogma, an AI documentation platform designed for SLT. Tech.eu has more here.

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Schneider Electric is acquiring Cognite, a nine-year-old Oslo industrial AI software company whose tools organize factory, energy, and infrastructure data for analytics and AI workflows, for $3.1 billion in cash, with plans to fold it into AVEVA. More here.

Aikido Security, a four-year-old cybersecurity startup based in Ghent, Belgium, that helps developers find and fix software-security risks across code, cloud, and runtime, is acquiring Root, a five-year-old Tel Aviv startup that uses AI agents to patch open-source and container vulnerabilities without upgrades or migrations, for an estimated $70 million to $100 million. CTech has more here.

Bending Spoons priced its Nasdaq IPO above range, raising $1.68 billion and giving the Milan company that buys and revamps aging software brands like Vimeo, WeTransfer, Evernote, and AOL an $18.4 billion market value. Shares are expected to start trading Wednesday under the ticker BSP. Bloomberg has more here.

Lime raised $167 million in its U.S. IPO after selling shares at the midpoint of its range, giving the nine-year-old San Francisco company, which rents e-bikes and scooters in more than 230 cities, fresh capital as public-market demand rebounds. The Uber-backed company is slated to debut Wednesday on Nasdaq under the ticker LIME. Reuters has more here.

Marc Andreessen joined the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest given Andreessen Horowitz’s major stakes in defense-tech companies like Anduril, Skydio, Shield AI, Saronic, and Flock Safety. The Next Web has more here.

Mark Zuckerberg met with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour last year about a possible acquisition before Meta decided to build Arena, a prediction-market app using play money instead of real bets. NPR has more here.

Brown economics professor Roberto Serrano says at least 50 students cheated with AI on a take-home mathematical economics midterm, with 40 students scoring 100 and the class averaging a whopping 96. The average grade for a subsequent in-person final was 48. El País has more here. [H/T Futurism]

Neon, the independent studio behind Parasite and Anora, has purchased Artificial, Luca Guadagnino’s $40 million film about Sam Altman’s firing and rehiring at OpenAI, after Amazon dropped the project following its $50 billion investment in the company. The New York Times has more here.

Vint Cerf, often called one of the "fathers of the internet," is stepping down next week from his role as Google's chief internet evangelist, closing out one of the most influential careers in tech history. Fittingly, even his colleagues' fondest memories are a little offbeat: computer scientist David Patterson recalls meeting Cerf as a grad student in the 1970s, already dressed in a three-piece suit. "He's always been the best dressed computer scientist I've ever met," Patterson said Tuesday night of Cerf. TechCrunch has the story here.

A study by corporate-spend firm Ramp and workforce-data firm Revelio Labs of nearly 22,000 companies found that heavy AI adopters – defined as firms spending about $30 per employee per month on AI for 3 months – grew headcount 10.2% overall and 12% in entry-level roles, countering the argument that AI kills jobs. TechCrunch has more here.

According to reporting from The Information, OpenAI cut inference costs for guest ChatGPT users by more than 50%, dropping the number of Nvidia GPUs needed to serve them to a few hundred and underscoring how software optimization could buy AI labs breathing room amid slow data-center buildouts. The Decoder has more here.

Hotels, travel agencies, and aggregators are racing to build loyalty programs and AI-native booking tools as agentic chatbots threaten to become a new travel-planning layer that could steer customers away from Expedia, Booking.com, and other incumbents. The Financial Times has more here.

7-Eleven is celebrating the Slurpee’s diamond anniversary with a special birthday flavor: Mountain Dew Confetti Chill. Fans are divided, with one saying “This is why we live in the greatest country on earth!” and another dismissing it as “an AI-slop-style drink.”

New York social clubs built around low-pressure activities like debates, puzzles, and reading are drawing people who want more meaningful in-person connections without the usual dating-app churn or professional small talk.

Mount Etna erupts.

Artist Daniel Arsham is selling his converted 1887 SoHo firehouse for $8.995 million, a landmarked former FDNY station with a studio-ready ground floor, mint-green spiral staircase, roof terrace, and a brick-and-terra-cotta facade.

Clicks Technology is previewing the $499 Clicks Communicator, a BlackBerry-inspired Android phone with a physical keyboard, customizable notification light, headphone jack, microSD storage, and other throwback hardware touches ahead of a planned Q4 launch. TechCrunch has more here.

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