Moderna shares more than doubled today after its personalized mRNA cancer vaccine, developed with Merck, succeeded in a late-stage melanoma trial, reducing the risk of recurrence or spread when paired with Keytruda and marking the first successful Phase 3 trial for a personalized mRNA cancer therapy. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

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By Rebecca Bellan

Elon Musk’s SpaceX attempted to acquire AI coding startup Cognition as it works to catch up to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in the AI race, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Cognition CEO Scott Wu disputed the report soon after it published, writing on X that the story was inaccurate and that Cognition “is not for sale,” adding that the two companies haven’t been in talks.

The report comes a few days after SpaceX’s $60 billion acquisition of Cursor, another AI coding startup, whose deal closed last week. 

SpaceX acquired Musk’s AI company, xAI, earlier this year. It then went public in a blockbuster IPO in June, with its market capitalization rising to nearly $2.3 trillion at its peak.

SpaceX has sold investors on its AI ambitions, which include eventually building data centers in space. But the xAI business remains relatively early-stage and has fallen behind competitors.

It’s also had to contend with its chatbot Grok’s penchant for controversy, including last year’s “MechaHitler” incident and this year’s nonconsensual sexual imagery scandals, as it tries to win over enterprise customers.

Last week, Musk told SpaceX’s employees that in about “four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value” of the company, but achieving that feat will require SpaceX to pull in much more revenue from AI.

Abcuro, an 11-year-old company based in Newton, MA, that develops monoclonal antibody treatments for inclusion body myositis, a rare autoimmune muscle disease with no approved drug therapies, raised a $66 million Series D round led by New Leaf Venture Partners, with Rock Springs Capital, Bain Capital Life Sciences, Eurofarma Ventures, Foresite Capital, Kaitai Capital, Mass General Brigham Ventures, Pontifax, RA Capital Management, Redmile Group, Samsara BioCapital, Sanofi Ventures, Shang Bay, and Soleus Capital also participating. Clinical Trials Arena has more here.

Also, a one-year-old Rivian spinout based in Palo Alto, CA, that makes pedal-assist electric bikes, electric cargo quads, and autonomous delivery vehicles, raised a $150 million Series D round led by Prysm Capital, with previous investors Eclipse, Greenoaks, and MVP Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $455 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Hopscotch Primary Care, a five-year-old Chicago startup that operates primary care clinics for rural patients, offering same-day visits, care-team access, and proactive outreach, raised a $53 million Series D round co-led by 8VC and Townhall Ventures, with Autism Impact Fund, John Doerr, Dr. Richard Merkin, and the Leon Levine Foundation as well as previous investors aMoon Fund, Citi Impact Fund, Alumni Ventures, and K2 HealthVentures also pitching in. More here.

Navi, an eight-year-old Bengaluru startup that offers digital payments, lending, insurance, and mutual funds, raised a $100 million round from Prosus at about a $1.3 billion post-money valuation. TechCrunch has more here.

Network Bio, a three-year-old Austin startup that builds disease-focused biomedical datasets from academic biobanks and uses AI to help healthcare companies find biomarkers and therapeutic targets, raised a $50 million round. Investors included Section 32, Thiel Bio, Founders Fund, Breyer Capital, Blue Venture Fund, and JSL Health Capital. More here.

Temporal, a seven-year-old startup based in Bellevue, WA, that helps developers keep complex software workflows and long-running AI agents from failing partway through, is in talks to raise about $500 million at a $12+ billion pre-money valuation, according to Bloomberg. Tech Funding News has more here.

Veeda AI, a Toronto startup founded this year and led by former Nvidia AI researcher Sanja Fidler that is developing world models to help robots and other physical AI systems learn in simulated environments, raised a $90+ million seed round. Investors include Radical Ventures and Khosla Ventures. The Logic has more here.

Ampaire, a 10-year-old company based in Long Beach, CA, that develops hybrid-electric retrofit systems for commercial aircraft that reduce fuel use, emissions, and operating costs, raised a $19 million Series B round led by DiamondStream Partners, with International Airlines Group and Alaska Airlines also buying in. UKTN has more here.

Enginprime Medical, a three-year-old startup based in Hangzhou, China, that develops catheter-based heart pumps that temporarily support blood flow for patients needing ventricular assist therapy, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Qiming Venture Partners. More here.

Flip, an eight-year-old Stuttgart startup that helps companies give deskless workers access to workplace communication, operational workflows, digital identity, and custom frontline apps, raised a $25 million round. Investors included L-Bank as well as previous investors Notion Capital and HV Capital. EU-Startups has more here.

Prevalent AI, a nine-year-old London startup that builds customer-controlled knowledge graphs that help large enterprises reconcile security data across internal tools, cloud logs, and identity systems, raised a $22 million round led by Integrity Growth Partners. Tech Funding News has more here.

Quartr, a six-year-old Stockholm startup that provides structured public-company earnings call and investor relations data for financial institutions and developers doing company research, raised an $18 million round led by Altos Ventures, with SEB also participating. ArcticStartup has more here.

Queen One, a one-year-old Brooklyn startup that helps ecommerce brands identify shoppers and coordinate personalized email, text messaging, product recommendations, customer records, and advertising, raised a $25 million round. Investors included Mercury Fund, Full In, Connecticut Innovations, CP Overture, Charge Ventures, and Inspired Capital. The company has raised a total of $37.5+ million. More here.

Relativity Networks, a three-year-old startup based in Winter Park, FL, that deploys hollow-core fiber connections that help data center operators link distant AI compute campuses with lower network latency, raised a $22 million round. Investors included Rhapsody Venture Partners, Bell Ventures, and Faster Than Glass. TechCrunch has more here.

Rundoo, a five-year-old startup based in Redwood City, CA, that helps independent supply stores manage sales, purchasing, customer relationships, e-commerce, accounting, and loyalty programs, raised a $30 million Series B round led by Battery Ventures, with prior backers Bessemer Venture Partners and CRV also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $48 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Thunder Compute, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that virtualizes GPUs so cloud providers and enterprises can pool idle data center capacity and run more workloads on existing hardware, raised a $13 million Series A round led by Matrix Partners, with Y Combinator and CEAS Investments also engaging. More here.

Aisel Health, a two-year-old Copenhagen startup that converts interview recordings, documents, and patient accounts into structured insights that psychiatrists can access during consultations, raised a $2 million pre-seed round led by Caesar Ventures, with Nordic Web Ventures, LifeX, and Angel Invest as well as previous investors Rockstart and EIFO also anteing up. Tech Funding News has more here.

Capitan Orthopedics, a one-year-old startup based in Grand Rapids, MI, that develops orthopedic shoulder implants to treat irreparable rotator cuff tears in younger, active patients, raised a $4.1 million seed round. Investors included Genesis Innovation Group. More here.

Codio, a 13-year-old company based in Cambridge, MA, that helps colleges and workforce learning groups teach technical skills and AI literacy through hands-on software environments, raised a $5 million round led by Armada Investment. More here.

Computomics, a 14-year-old company based in Tübingen, Germany, that helps crop breeders predict how plant varieties will perform under heat, drought, and other field conditions, raised a $6.3 million Series B round led by Convent Capital Agri Food Fund, with High-Tech Gründerfonds, MBG Baden-Württemberg, and Amathaon Capital also engaging. EU-Startups has more here.

HeyBreez, a one-year-old Amman startup that helps companies run enterprise voice agents across calls, callbacks, follow-ups, and integrations, raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Lunara Partners, with Jabbar Group and DASH Ventures also participating. SaaS News has more here.

Medly AI, an 18-month-old edtech startup that helps students prepare for exams with an AI tutor that adapts to their progress and learning style, raised an $8 million seed round led by Felix Capital, with previous investors Eka Ventures and Ada Ventures also participating. UKTN has more here.

Quantizr, a two-year-old Park City startup that helps artist teams manage tour finances by turning offers, contracts, budgets, expenses, and settlements into a single operating view, raised a $5 million seed round led by TTV Capital. More here.

Singular Photonics, a two-year-old Edinburgh startup that develops photon-counting image sensors that process data on the chip for machine vision and industrial automation, raised a $2.15 million round led by ACF Investors, with Wren Capital, Scottish Enterprise, and Quantum Exponential as well as previous investors Cambridge Angels and Old College Capital also chipping in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Synthefy, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that develops models that analyze structured numerical data to help enterprises forecast demand, set prices, and detect operational risks, raised a $6.5 million seed round led by Wing Venture Capital, with Haystack, Samsung Next, Canonical, and Lightscape also digging in. More here.

At an all-hands meeting Wednesday, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees the company “will be a public company in 2027” and could debut sooner if growth accelerates; she also said rival Anthropic could unseal its confidential filing in the coming weeks and go public as early as September. CNBC has more here.

The Big Short investor Michael Burry is warning that AI chip startup Etched could pose “serious competition” to Nvidia, pointing to its unusually fast chip deployment, lower-cost performance claims, and workforce stocked with former Nvidia engineers. Business Insider has more here.

Former FTX executives Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang received five-year trading bans from the CFTC but avoided financial penalties because of their cooperation in the investigation into the collapsed crypto exchange; Ellison also faces a 10-year registration ban and Wang an eight-year ban. Bloomberg has more here.

Gwyneth Paltrow is reportedly hosting a private, off-the-record dinner for Sam Altman at her Hamptons home on August 29, as the actress and Goop founder deepens her ties to AI through investments in OpenAI, Lovable, and other startups. TechCrunch has more here.

Ashish Aggarwal has joined IronArc Ventures as a partner, focusing on growth-stage investments in full-stack AI and physical AI from Series B through pre-IPO. He was previously a partner at Chamaeleon. More here.

After discovering more than 450 files containing code served from Flock Safety’s own login pages, Wired reconstructed the company’s new police AI system, revealing tools that can identify drivers, track vehicles by movement patterns, surface associates, and search police and commercial databases for personal information. More here.

Offshore sportsbook BetOnline is taking bets on the Little League World Series – where players are 10 to 12 years old – and says wagering demand is so strong it expects more action than on the WNBA, MLS, pro tennis, or golf. TechCrunch has more here.

Blue Hood Games has just released Europe Heatwave Simulator, a darkly comic survival game that challenges players to endure 14 days in a Paris apartment without air conditioning during 42°C heat while juggling hydration, remote work, mosquitoes, and overpriced cooling gadgets.

Creatures of Coachella.

A private island between Sorrento and Positano is now available to rent for roughly $386,000 a week, including a five-suite villa, infinity pool, helipad, two docks, private chef, waiter, and maid, with room for up to 12 guests.

Iceland’s first beachfront boutique hotel has opened on a black-sand peninsula 45 minutes from Reykjavík, with 79 rooms and suites and an 80-seat restaurant; a geothermal spa overlooking the Atlantic is due to open this fall.

TechCrunch reviews the $69 Xteink X3, a 3.7-inch magnetic e-reader that snaps onto the back of an iPhone and offers a deliberately stripped-down, distraction-free alternative to doomscrolling, with no apps, no touchscreen, and weeks of battery life.

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