Top News

xAI’s Grok chatbot accidentally exposed its internal prompts, revealing personas ranging from a “crazy conspiracist” to an “unhinged comedian,” a leak that not only underscores shaky guardrails around Musk’s AI project but also comes as scrutiny mounts over how chatbots interact with kids and spread fringe views. TechCrunch has more here.

Texas AG Ken Paxton is turning up the heat on Meta and Character.AI, accusing them of duping kids by marketing chatbots as mental health aids while quietly harvesting data for ads. TechCrunch has more here.

The White House is considering converting some of Intel’s promised Chips Act funding into a 10% equity stake, a move that would make the government one of the chipmaker’s largest shareholders. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Speaking of Intel, SoftBank is investing $2 billion in the chipmaker. TechCrunch has more here.

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HR Giant Workday Says Hackers Stole Personal Data in Recent Breach

By Zack Whittaker

Workday, one of the largest providers of human resources technology, has confirmed a data breach that allowed hackers to steal personal information from one of its third-party customer relationship databases.

In a blog post published late Friday, the HR technology giant said the hackers stole an unspecified amount of personal information from the database, which Workday said was primarily used to store contact information, such as names, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Workday did not explicitly rule out that customer information was taken in the data breach, stating only that there was “no indication of access to customer tenants or the data within them,” which corporate customers typically use to store the bulk of their human resources files and employees’ personal data.

The company said the stolen information may be used to further social engineering scams, where hackers trick or threaten victims into giving them access to sensitive data.

Workday has more than 11,000 corporate customers, serving at least 70 million users around the world, per the company’s website. Bleeping Computer reports that the hack was discovered on August 6.

Workday did not identify the breached third-party customer database platform, but follows in a recent spate of cyberattacks targeting Salesforce-hosted databases used by large companies to store customer data. In recent weeks, Google, Cisco, airline giant Qantas, and retailer Pandora have all had reams of data stolen from their Salesforce databases.

Massive Fundings

IVIX, a six-year-old Tel Aviv startup that uses publicly available data and AI to help tax and law-enforcement agencies uncover hidden business activity and financial crimes such as money laundering, sanctions evasion, and tax non-compliance, raised a $60 million Series B round led by O.G. Venture Partners, with Insight Partners, Citi Ventures, Team8, Disruptive AI, Cardumen Capital, and Cerca also piling on. CTech has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Anocca, an 11-year-old Swedish company that develops engineered T-cell therapies for difficult-to-treat cancers such as pancreatic cancer, raised a round of approximately $46 million led by Mellby Gård, with AMF and Ramsbury also taking part. More here.

Medallion, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that automates credentialing, enrollment, and compliance workflows for healthcare organizations, raised a $43 million round led by Acrew Capital, with investors including Washington Harbour Partners, Sequoia Capital, GV, Spark Capital, and NFDG. The company has raised a total of $130+ million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Tote.ai, a two-year-old startup based in Redwood City, CA, that makes an AI point-of-sale system for fuel and convenience stores, raised a $22.6 million round led by Cota Capital and including Storm Ventures and Cervin Ventures. More here.

Smaller Fundings

BetterPic, a two-year-old startup that creates AI tools that let both individuals and brands generate professional headshots and fashion photoshoots, raised a $2.5 million seed round. MOC Capital and Shilling VC co-led the investment. More here.

Innerworks, a six-year-old London startup that uses synthetic threat intelligence, device fingerprinting, and bot/AI detection to tell real users apart from near-flawless AI fakes and block attacks on exchanges, token launches, and payment flows, raised a $4 million seed round led by AlbionVC, with additional participation from Digital Currency Group, Founders Capital, Firestreak Ventures, NVTBL Ventures, and Metaversal Ventures. EU-Startups has more here.

Paradigm, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that embeds thousands of AI agents into spreadsheets to automate data entry and workflows, raised a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst. The company has raised a total of $7 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Spike AI, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that automatically tests and adjusts a company’s online marketing by starting with websites and expanding into ads, SEO, email, and influencer campaigns, raised a $1.9 million pre-seed round co-led by Sorin Investments and Principal Ventures Partners, with GSI also participating. Entrepreneur has more here.

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New Funds

Artha India Ventures, a nine-year-old Mumbai VC firm that backs high-growth Indian startups, raised a $49.4 million fund to back the top 15% of high-performing startups from Artha's portfolio of over 135 companies. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Exits

A group of investors led by hotel giant MCR Hotels just struck a $1.8 billion deal to take Soho House private, paying shareholders $9 per share and ending hedge fund activist Dan Loeb's push for a higher price. The move will free the exclusive members' club empire, which counts celebrities like Lady Gaga and Prince Harry among its 200,000+ members across 46 global locations, from the pressure of quarterly earnings reports as it continues its rapid expansion. As part of the deal, actor-investor Ashton Kutcher is joining the board. The WSJ has more here.

Going Public

Figure Technology, a seven-year-old New York company that uses the blockchain to facilitate loans, filed publicly for an IPO after generating $29.1 million in first-half 2025 profit on $43.8 million in revenue. Figure’s backers include Apollo Global Management, 10T Holdings, and Ribbit Capital. Bloomberg has more here.

He’s baaack. The so-called Pied Piper of SPACs, Chamath Palihapitiya, is back with a new SPAC called American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp. Pitchbook has more here.

People

Meta shelled out a record $27 million last year to protect Mark Zuckerberg, nearly 4x the $6.8 million Google spent on guarding Sundar Pichai. (Elon Musk’s companies did not fully disclose how much they are spending on his security.) FastCompany has more here.

Post-Its

Given that it is five times oversubscribed for a $5 billion raise at a $170 billion valuation, Anthropic is putting the kibosh on SPVs and telling investors like Menlo Ventures it only wants direct capital commitments, not big pools of outside money. Business Insider has more here.

Essential Reads

OpenAI is stacking its California team with Democratic power players as it tries to persuade state regulators to bless its plan to convert its for-profit arm into a full for-profit entity and unlock a $20 billion SoftBank investment. Politico has more here.

Job hopping is out and job hugging is in, as Gen Z and other workers hunker down in their current roles amid layoffs, sluggish hiring, and AI-fueled uncertainty, leaving recruiters scrambling to lure top talent. FastCompany has more here.

Detours

China’s Humanoid Robot Games pitted 280 machines against each other in soccer, track, and kickboxing, and even though some can now backflip and even run a decent 1,500 meters, they fell down a lot. The New York Times has more here.

Hey boomer! Leggings are losing their long grip on athleisure as Gen Z swaps skintight sets for baggy ’90s-style workout pants.

Sisyphus’s inbox.

Brain Rot

Track Star challenges Elvis star Austin Butler to name that tune.

Retail Therapy

A Dutch designer just unveiled an €89,000 mini luxury boat inspired by The Spy Who Loved Me, complete with joystick steering, leather seats, and a champagne fridge.

Lamborghini's limited-edition Fenomeno, which can rocket from 0-62 mph in just 2.4 seconds and has a top speed of 217 mph, is the automaker’s most powerful car ever.

A cliffside compound near Monterey, CA, that doubled as Sharon Stone’s seaside lair in Basic Instinct just hit the market for $91 million, nearly twice its 2019 ask.

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