To paraphrase the great Charles Barkley, there are bad losses and there are bad losses, and tonight was bad for the home team. Oof! But we’ll be back at it Thursday!

In the meantime, we’re looking forward to seeing some of you at our StrictlyVC event in Athens next week, in partnership with the lovely team at Endeavor, the global entrepreneurship organization. We're starting to hear from some of you in the Bay Area who will be there at the same time. If you've written recently and haven't heard back, apologies; things have been a little chaotic on this end, and we’re hoping Athens gives us a chance to catch up with some of you in person instead! (P.S.: If you’ll be there, also come check out our chat with Index Ventures co-founder Neil Rimer a couple of days later as part of the Panathenea Festival happening in the city. We talked earlier today — he has a lot to say that you’ll want to hear.) — CL

At the Google I/O developer conference today, Google unveiled Gemini 3.5 Flash, a new AI model designed less as a chatbot and more as an autonomous agent capable of executing coding pipelines, managing long-running research tasks, spawning sub-agents, and even building an operating system from scratch with minimal human input. TechCrunch has more here.

Minnesota has become the first state to ban prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, criminalizing the hosting and advertising of event-based betting markets and setting up a legal showdown with the Trump administration, which argues the industry should be regulated federally rather than by states. NPR has more here.

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By Sarah Perez

The era of the “ten blue links” is officially over.

At its Google I/O conference on Tuesday, Google unveiled an AI-powered overhaul of Search centered around a reimagined “intelligent search box” — what the company describes as the biggest change to this entry point to the web since the search box debuted more than 25 years ago.

Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences at times. Google is also introducing tools that can dispatch “information agents” to gather information on a user’s behalf, along with tools that let users build personalized mini apps tailored to their needs.

The resulting experience will no longer look much like how people envision Google Search, which has long been defined by ranked links to websites that have the information you need.

With the revamped Search experience, the new search box simply expands to accommodate longer, more conversational queries, rather than making you decide what type of search experience or mode you want to choose at the start of your query. It will also have a new AI-powered query suggestion system that goes beyond autocomplete to help people craft more complex and nuanced queries, Google says.

Google’s AI Overviews will also allow users to ask follow-up questions in AI Mode, beginning Tuesday, the company noted.

Google is also introducing agentic capabilities and AI-powered interactive features into the search experience. This means people will spend even less time clicking the traditional blue links that Google Search used to return.

Accro Bioscience, a 10-year-old company based in New York and Suzhou, China, that is developing oral therapies for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases that target molecular mechanisms involved in regulatory cell death, raised a $50 million Series C round led by OrbiMed, with TCG Crossover, LAV, and Cenova Capital as well as previous investors Shenzhen Capital Group and Oriza Holdings also participating. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Destinus, a five-year-old Dutch startup that develops autonomous defense systems including drones, cruise missiles, loitering munitions, and interceptor platforms for military applications, is reportedly in the market to raise a $230+ million round at a $5.8+ billion valuation in advance of a possible Amsterdam IPO. Tech Funding News has more here.

Full-Life Technologies, a five-year-old Chinese startup that develops radiopharmaceutical therapies and isotope manufacturing capabilities for cancer treatment, raised a $110 million Series D round led by Vivo Capital, with SK Biopharmaceuticals, Chengwei Capital, HSG, Junson Capital, Yunion, Plaisance, Sky9 Capital, and TSG Capital also engaging. The company has raised a total of nearly $350 million in equity and debt. MarketScreener has more here.

Lexroom, a three-year-old Milan startup that offers AI-powered legal research, drafting, and analysis tools built on proprietary databases of verified legal sources for civil law jurisdictions, raised a $50 million Series B round led by Left Lane Capital, with Base10 Partners, Eurazeo, Acurio Ventures, and View Different as well as previous investor Entourage also stepping up. The company has raised a total of $72+ million. EU-Startups has more here.

Nourish, a five-year-old New York startup that operates a virtual metabolic health clinic that combines dietitians, physicians, lab testing, GLP-1 management, and AI care tools to treat chronic disease, raised a $100 million Series C round led by Menlo Ventures, with Thrive Capital, Index Ventures, JPMorgan Growth Equity Partners, Maverick Ventures, Y Combinator, BoxGroup, Atomico, Daybreak, and Operator Partners also piling on. The company has raised a total of $215 million. Fierce Healthcare has more here.

Radar, a 13-year-old New York startup that develops RFID-based inventory tracking systems for retailers, raised a $170 million Series B round at a $1+ billion valuation. The deal was co-led by Gideon Strategic Partners and Nimble Partners, with Align Ventures also anteing up. CNBC has more here.

SendCutSend, an eight-year-old Reno company that develops software for ordering custom-manufactured parts and operates rapid-turnaround U.S. manufacturing facilities, raised a $110 million round at a $1 billion post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Sequoia, Paradigm, and Patrick and John Collison. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Unframe, a two-year-old startup based in Cupertino, CA, that sells an enterprise AI deployment platform that integrates with existing systems and data to launch production AI applications, raised a $50 million Series B round led by Highland Europe, with previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Craft Ventures, TLV Partners, Third Point Ventures, Cerca Partners, and Vintage Investment Partners also participating. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Viktor, a Warsaw startup founded this year that offers AI coworker software that operates inside Slack and Microsoft Teams to automate reporting, workflows, app creation, and operational tasks across connected business systems, raised a $75 million Series A round led by Accel, with Bek Ventures, Kaya VC, Inovo VC, Tenacity Capital, and Stewart Butterfield also investing. More here.

WIRobotics, a five-year-old South Korean startup that is building wearable robotics and humanoid robotics platforms using human movement data and physical AI technologies, raised a $68 million Series B round led by JB Investment, with InterVest, Hana Ventures, Smilegate Investment, SBVA, NH Investment & Securities, Company K Partners, GU Investment, and FuturePlay also piling on. AI Insider has more here.

Zyphra, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that develops open-weight AI models and cloud infrastructure services, is raising a $500 million Series B round at a valuation of at least $5 billion, with AMD expected to participate. Forbes has more here.

Blink, an 11-year-old Boston company that provides mobile workforce communication, scheduling, and employee engagement tools for frontline-heavy industries including restaurants, hospitality, and retail, raised a $17 million round from Enlightened Hospitality Investments. More here.

Bunch, a four-year-old Berlin startup that provides AI-native fund administration and operations infrastructure for private equity and venture capital firms, raised a $35 million Series B round led by Portage, with Motive Partners, Cherry Ventures, and Fintech Collective also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $58+ million. Financial IT has more here.

Cosmico, a six-year-old Milan startup that operates a managed talent marketplace that matches companies with digital professionals, creators, and AI-augmented work teams, raised a $13.9 million round led by P101 SGR, with Prana Ventures also investing. Tech Funding News has more here.

GGWP, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that provides AI-based community moderation and safety tools for gaming and online platforms, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Smilegate Investment, Korea Investment Partners, and Headline Asia and including previous investors Samsung Ventures, SK Telecom Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Bandai Namco Entertainment. Maeil Business has more here.

Hellbender, a five-year-old Pittsburgh startup that is creating edge AI camera systems and computer vision hardware for robotics, industrial monitoring, and autonomous systems, raised a $12.5 million seed round co-led by Magarac Venture Partners and Veredas Partners and including Mana Ventures, Gaingels, Sum VC, and Active Angels Network. Technical.ly has more here.

Nof1, a three-year-old New York startup that trains AI models for financial markets and autonomous trading applications, raised a $15 million round co-led by SUI Group and Karatage Opportunities. More here.

Ocean, a two-year-old New York and Tel Aviv startup that develops AI-powered email security software, raised $28 million led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with previous investor Picture Capital and Cerca Partners also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Scope, a two-year-old London startup that automates industrial inspection documentation and reporting workflows using AI-generated summaries, form completion, and field data capture, raised a $20 million round led by Index Ventures, with Susa Ventures, Entrepreneurs First, and Syndicate 1 also opting in. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Status AI, a five-year-old New York startup that develops AI-powered social role-playing and interactive entertainment apps, raised $17 million in combined seed and Series A funding from investors including Abstract, General Catalyst, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator, and LightShed Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Tomorrow.io, a nine-year-old Boston startup that provides weather intelligence and satellite-based forecasting systems for operational decision-making across industries, raised a $35 million Series F extension. Investors included Pitango, Harel Group, HarbourVest, and Stonecourt. The company has raised a total of approximately $535 million. CTech has more here.

Vortex Imaging, a five-year-old Tel Aviv startup that develops cloud-based 3D ultrasound imaging systems that use computational reconstruction and GPU infrastructure to generate volumetric medical images, raised a $12 million round. Investors included 10D Ventures, Entrée Capital, Harel T.E.C Partnership, Connecticut Innovations, and PhiFund Ventures. More here.

Aeon, a one-year-old Hong Kong startup that aims to build blockchain-based settlement and payment infrastructure to enable AI agents to execute and verify autonomous financial transactions, raised an $8 million pre-seed round led by YZi Labs, with IDG Capital, HashKey Capital, Stanford Blockchain Builders Fund, Oak Grove Ventures, SevenX Ventures, Alchemy Ventures, Draper Dragon, Contribution Capital, and UpHonest Capital also taking part. More here.

Benji, a two-year-old New York startup that connects loyalty programs across industries through APIs for rewards earning, redemption, transfers, and partnership integrations, raised a $6.25 million seed round co-led by Preface Ventures and Atinc, with Great North Ventures, M25, and Hyde Park Venture Partners also contributing. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Elvy, a three-year-old Stockholm startup that offers subscription-based home energy systems including solar panels, batteries, and heat pumps with no upfront installation costs, raised a $6.8 million round co-led by Daft Capital and Essential Capital. Tech Funding News has more here.

FaceUp, a nine-year-old startup based in Charleston, SC, that develops ethics and compliance software for anonymous reporting and workplace investigations, raised a $5 million Series A round led by Fil Rouge Capital, with JIC Ventures, Venture to Future Fund, and Gi21 Capital as well as previous investors Tilia Impact Ventures and Reflex Capital also joining in. The company has raised a total of approximately $9 million. More here.

Gradiant, a 13-year-old company based in Woburn, MA, that provides industrial water treatment and wastewater management systems for data centers, semiconductor manufacturers, and other industrial customers, raised an undisclosed amount for its Series E round at a $2 billion valuation. The deal was co-led by Safar Partners and Hostplus Superannuation Fund, with ClearVision Ventures also digging in. Data Center Dynamics has more here.

Leadbay, a three-year-old San Francisco and Paris startup that aims to supply SMB sales teams with AI-powered prospecting and lead generation tools that identify and qualify businesses with limited online data, raised a $4.3 million seed round. Investors included Y Combinator, Rebel Ventures, Roosh Ventures, Inovexus Ventures, TS Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Bright Ventures by Bright Data, Transpose Platform, and Deel Ventures. More here.

Melazyme, a one-year-old Salt Lake City startup that engineers biomolecules through precision fermentation for applications including sunscreens, sweeteners, pigments, and industrial materials, raised a $2 million seed round led by SeaX Ventures, with Stellaris Venture Partners and Plug and Play Ventures also chiming in. BackScoop has more here.

Resurrect Bio, a five-year-old London startup that uses AI and protein interaction modeling to identify gene edits that help crops restore natural resistance to pathogens and pests, raised a $2.3 million Series A round led by Corteva, with Calculus Capital, Pymwymic, UKI2S, SynBioVen, and AgFunder also anteing up. AgFunderNews has more here.

Supermeat, a 10-year-old Tel Aviv company that produces cultivated chicken using cell cultivation processes designed to reduce production costs and support commercial-scale manufacturing, raised a $6 million Series A round. Investors included Agronomics, New Agrarian, and Milk & Honey Ventures. The company has raised a total of $24.5 million to date. Green Queen Media has more here.

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According to a Bloomberg report, Google DeepMind has agreed to pay about $100 million to license technology from AI startup Contextual AI and hire more than 20 of its researchers, including cofounder and CEO Douwe Kiela, in the latest “acquihire” deal designed to secure AI talent without triggering a formal acquisition review. Reuters has more here.

Mach Industries, a three-year-old Huntington Beach defense startup founded by MIT dropout Ethan Thornton, has acquired Victorville-based solid rocket motor startup Exquadrum in a $50 million cash-and-equity deal aimed at securing one of the biggest supply-chain bottlenecks in modern drone and munitions warfare. TechCrunch has more here.

Emmi AI, a 17-month-old startup based in Linz, Austria, that builds AI models capable of simulating complex physics processes such as airflow, heat transfer, and material stress, has been acquired by Mistral AI as the French AI company pushes deeper into industrial and manufacturing applications. Terms were not disclosed. Reuters has more here.

SpaceX is reportedly planning to acquire AI coding startup Cursor roughly 30 days after its expected IPO, a move that would give the company control of one of the fastest-growing AI developer tools as competition intensifies around software agents capable of autonomously writing, debugging, and managing code. Bloomberg has more here.

SpaceX is expected to release its S-1 tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Former OpenAI cofounder and ex-Tesla AI chief Andrej Karpathy has joined Anthropic’s pre-training team, where he will work on using Claude to accelerate AI research and large-scale model training. TechCrunch has more here.

Even though Elon Musk accused Sam Altman and Greg Brockman of “stealing” OpenAI’s nonprofit mission, testimony in the trial showed Musk pushed OpenAI researchers to work on Tesla’s self-driving efforts without reimbursement and sought sole control of a potential OpenAI for-profit entity. TechCrunch has more here.

A nonfiction book about truth in the AI era by media entrepreneur Steven Rosenbaum has been found to contain multiple fabricated or misattributed quotes apparently generated by AI tools including ChatGPT and Claude. The New York Times has more here.

Kleiner Perkins has hired former Harvey VP of Product Aatish Nayak as a partner. In addition to Harvey, Nayak’s background includes stints at Scale AI and Shield AI. More here.

LinkedIn is laying off 606 California employees — most of them Bay Area engineers — as the Microsoft-owned company restructures around leaner teams that executives say will increasingly rely on AI to move faster and operate more efficiently. SFGATE has more here.

OpenAI cleared a major obstacle to its expected IPO after a jury rejected Elon Musk’s lawsuit on statute-of-limitations grounds, but the company still faces intensifying pressure from Anthropic and Google, mounting copyright and wrongful-death lawsuits, and lingering scrutiny over its shift from a nonprofit to a for-profit structure. The New York Times has more here.

A $50 million San Francisco startup called Sperm Racing is trying to turn male fertility into a spectator sport by racing sperm cells through microscopic tracks, staging influencer competitions, selling fertility gummies and boxer briefs, and betting that viral internet content can become a consumer health business aimed at declining sperm counts among young men. The New York Times has more here.

And don't miss our chat with Theo Baker — the Stanford senior who broke one of the biggest stories in the university's history before his freshman year was even over, and whose new book on Silicon Valley's talent extraction machine is something this audience will find uncomfortably familiar. (Alternately, can listen to that conversation here.)

Pedro Almodovar’s new film, Bitter Christmas, received a nine-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival debut tonight.

Red carpet looks from Cannes.

Doesn’t every child eat like this?

A newly listed $54 million clifftop estate in San José del Cabo is being billed as one of the most expensive homes ever offered in Cabo. The 18,000-square-foot property features six bedrooms, multiple pools, a private spa setup, and access to the Querencia Golf and Beach Club.

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