Microsoft cut off parts of its cloud and AI services to Israel’s defense ministry after finding its tech was used to store surveillance data on Palestinians, a rare rebuke that highlights both the company’s human-rights stance and the growing employee unrest around its ties to Israel. TechCrunch has more here.

With President Trump signing an executive order approving the TikTok deal, Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX are set to take nearly half of TikTok’s U.S. business in a $14 billion deal that leaves ByteDance with a minority stake, keeps the app alive stateside, and cements Oracle as the watchdog of its data. CNBC has more here.

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By Zack Whittaker & Sarah Perez

A viral app called Neon, which offers to record your phone calls and pay you for the audio so it can sell that data to AI companies, has rapidly risen to the ranks of the top-five free iPhone apps since its launch last week.

The app already has thousands of users and was downloaded 75,000 times yesterday alone, according to app intelligence provider Appfigures. Neon pitches itself as a way for users to make money by providing call recordings that help train, improve, and test AI models.

But Neon has gone offline, at least for now, after a security flaw allowed anyone to access the phone numbers, call recordings, and transcripts of any other user, TechCrunch can now report.

TechCrunch discovered the security flaw during a short test of the app on Thursday. We alerted the app’s founder, Alex Kiam (who previously did not respond to a request for comment about the app), to the flaw soon after our discovery. 

Kiam told TechCrunch later Thursday that he took down the app’s servers and began notifying users about pausing the app, but fell short of informing his users about the security lapse.

 The Neon app stopped functioning soon after we contacted Kiam. 

EdSights, an eight-year-old New York startup that uses AI and SMS chatbots to help colleges boost student engagement and retention, raised an $80 million round. JMI Equity was the deal lead. More here.

Factory, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that develops autonomous software agents to handle coding tasks, raised a $50 million Series B round. Investors included New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital Operations, Nvidia, and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Kraken, a 14-year-old San Francisco company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange, raised a $500 million round at a $15 billion valuation. Fortune has the scoop here.

Nscale, a one-year-old London startup that builds data centers to power AI, raised a $1.1 billion Series B round led by Aker ASA, with additional participation from Sandton Capital, Blue Owl Managed Funds, Dell, Fidelity Management & Research Company, G Squared, Nokia, Nvidia, Point72, and T.Capital. The WSJ has more here.

Sparrow Pharmaceuticals, a 12-year-old company based in Portland, OR, that is focused on developing cardiometabolic drugs, raised a $95 million Series B round co-led by RA Capital Management and Forbion, with OrbiMed, RiverVest, and US Venture Partners also participating. More here.

Corintis, a four-year-old startup based in Lausanne, Switzerland, that develops microfluidic cooling systems for computer chips, raised a $24 million Series A round led by BlueYard Capital, with additional investors including Founderful, Acequia Capital, Celsius Industries, and XTX Ventures. The company has raised a total of $33.4 million. More here.

DEXA, a four-year-old startup based in Dayton, OH, that enables at-home drone delivery for local retailers, raised a $15 million seed round led by G2A Investment Partners, with Venture 53 and Tech Square Ventures also engaging. DroneLife has more here.

Enter, a two-year-old São Paulo startup that uses AI to help corporations manage legal defenses, raised a $35 million Series A round at a $364 million post-money valuation. Founders Fund and Sequoia were the co-leads, with ONEVC and Atlantico also pitching in. Latam Republic has more here.

Fetcherr, a six-year-old Israeli startup that uses AI to help airlines and other industries make real-time pricing and inventory decisions, raised a $42 million Series C round led by Salesforce Ventures, with Battery Ventures, Left Lane Capital, and M-Fund also taking part. PhocusWire has more here.

Flox, a four-year-old New York startup that helps software teams quickly set up and share development environments, raised a $25 million Series B round led by Addition, with investors including NEA, Hetz, Illuminate Financial, and D. E. Shaw. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Juicebox, a San Francisco startup that uses AI to scan résumés, websites, and public data to find job candidates, raised a $30 million Series A round led by Sequoia. The company has raised a total of $36 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Light, a three-year-old Copenhagen startup that uses AI to automate accounting, bookkeeping, and financial reporting, raised a $30 million Series A round led by Balderton Capital, with Atomico, Cherry Ventures, Seedcamp, and Entrée Capital also stepping up. CNBC has more here.

RedotPay, a two-year-old startup that offers stablecoin cards, multi-currency wallets, and global payout services, raised a $47 million round at a $1+ billion valuation. Coinbase Ventures as well as previous investors Galaxy Ventures and Vertex Ventures, plus an unnamed “global technology entrepreneur,” invested in the deal. The Block has more here.

Sunrise Group, a 10-year-old Belgian company that develops sleep health technology and operates Dreem Health, its U.S. digital sleep clinic, raised a $29 million round led by Eurazeo, with Amazon’s Alexa Fund, WE International, Kurma Partners, Vives Fund, Majycc, Namur Invest, Seventure Partners, Investsud, Sambrinvest, Noshaq, IMBC, and Invest.BW also piling on. More here.

Burnt, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to automate back-office tasks in food supply chains, raised a $3.8 million seed round led by NBA star Steph Curry’s Penny Jar Capital, with Scribble Ventures and Formation VC also investing. TechCrunch has more here.

Cosmoserve Space, a Hyderabad startup founded this year that develops autonomous robotic spacecraft to remove space debris, raised a $3.2 million pre-seed round led by Alan Rutledge, with AUM Ventures and Shakti VC also participating. The Economic Times has more here.

Divine, a San Francisco startup founded last year that runs an undercollateralized lending protocol called Credit, raised a $6.6 million seed round. Paradigm was the deal lead, with Nascent also anteing up. Blockworks has more here.

Doorstep, a New York startup that tracks food deliveries indoors using phone sensors to cut down on missing orders and disputes, raised an $8 million seed round led by Canaan Partners, with Antler, Cercano Management, and Cassius also contributing. TechCrunch has more here.

enaDyne, a four-year-old German startup that develops plasma catalysis reactors to convert CO₂ and other emissions into valuable chemicals, raised an $8.2 million seed round co-led by Amadeus APEX Technology Fund and Energy Capital Ventures, with Antares Ventures and Possible Ventures also chiming in. The company has raised approximately $25+ million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Navigator, a UK startup that helps brands target consumers with digital ads using first-party travel and booking data, raised a $5.3 million round led by IW Capital. Sky News has more here.

revel8, a two-year-old Berlin startup that trains employees to defend against AI-powered cyberattacks, raised a $6.6 million seed round, including a $5.7 million seed round led by Peak, with Fortino Capital and Merantix Capital also opting in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Trismik, a startup founded this year based in Cambridge, England, that develops adaptive AI evaluation tools using psychometric methods to assess large language models, raised a $3 million pre-seed round led by Twinpath Ventures, with Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, Parkwalk Advisors, Fund F, Vento Ventures, and Ventures Together also taking part. Tech.eu has more here.

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Russell AI Labs, a platform that builds and backs frontier AI companies and was founded this year by Luminar founder Austin Russell, Mercedes CTO Markus Schaefer, former SoftBank Vision Fund partner Murtaza Ahmed, has launched with an inaugural $300 million stake in agentic AI player Emergence AI. More here.

StubHub has already shed more than $2.2 billion in market cap since its IPO last week, marking the worst first-week performance for a US IPO raising over $500 million since 2007. Bloomberg has more here.

Yang Song, a former OpenAI researcher whose early work at Stanford helped shape DALL·E 2, the text-to-image model that turned written prompts into photorealistic pictures, has been poached by Meta’s Superintelligence Labs. Wired has more here.

xAI is suing OpenAI again, this time for poaching employees who allegedly walked off with source code and data center strategies. “By hook or by crook, OpenAI clearly will do anything when threatened by a better innovator …” xAI’s lawyers hissed. The Washington Post has more here.

Speaking of OpenAI, the company says its new GDPval benchmark shows its latest system matches or beats human experts in over 40% of tasks across nine major industries. TechCrunch has more here.

HSBC says tests using IBM’s quantum tools boosted bond-trading predictions by 34%, a dramatic proof-of-concept that suggests quantum trading may be closer to reality than previously thought. The Financial Times has more here.

“Ghost of Yotei,” an open-world game that tells the story of a samurai named Atsu who is bent on avenging her family, “plays like a page-turner,” says The Washington Post.

Rediscovering lost movies in Bologna.

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Foilone’s Pegasus, a hand-built electric single-seat hydrofoil, can reach speeds of up to 30 knots and starts at around €65,000.

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