Top News

Nvidia just invested $5 billion in Intel for a 4% stake. The two will co-build CPUs and PCs with Nvidia GPUs inside, a tie-up that could revive Intel’s AI relevance while turning up the heat on AMD. TechCrunch has more here.

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OpenAI’s Research on AI Models Deliberately Lying Is Wild

By Julie Bort

Every now and then, researchers at the biggest tech companies drop a bombshell. There was the time Google said its latest quantum chip indicated multiple universes exist. Or when Anthropic gave its AI agent Claudius a snack vending machine to run and it went amok, calling security on people, and insisting it was human.  

This week, it was OpenAI’s turn to raise our collective eyebrows.

OpenAI released on Monday some research that explained how it’s stopping AI models from “scheming.” It’s a practice in which an “AI behaves one way on the surface while hiding its true goals,” OpenAI defined in its tweet about the research.   

In the paper, conducted with Apollo Research, researchers went a bit further, likening AI scheming to a human stock broker breaking the law to make as much money as possible. The researchers, however, argued that most AI “scheming” wasn’t that harmful. “The most common failures involve simple forms of deception — for instance, pretending to have completed a task without actually doing so,” they wrote. 

The paper was mostly published to show that “deliberative alignment⁠” — the anti-scheming technique they were testing — worked well. 

But it also explained that AI developers haven’t figured out a way to train their models not to scheme. That’s because such training could actually teach the model how to scheme even better to avoid being detected. 

Massive Fundings

Upscale AI, a two-year-old Palo Alto startup that develops open-standard networking infrastructure to connect and scale AI compute, raised a $100 million seed round co-led by Mayfield and Maverick Silicon, with additional participation from StepStone Group, Celesta Capital, Xora, Qualcomm Ventures, Cota Capital, MVP Ventures, and Stanford University. More here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Atomionics, a seven-year-old Singapore startup that develops quantum gravimetry sensors to speed mineral discovery, raised a $12.7 million pre-Series A round led by Paspalis and including BHP Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Wavemaker, VU Venture Partners, and SG Growth Capital. Mining.com has more here.

Conduct, a one-year-old London startup that uses AI to modernize and manage legacy ERP systems starting with SAP, raised a $12.1 million seed round led by Creandum, with Lucid Capital and Booom also pitching in. EU-Startups has more here.

Extend, a seven-year-old New York startup that works with banks to let businesses issue virtual cards and manage employee and vendor expenses, raised a $20 million debt and equity round led by B Capital, with additional investors including March Capital, Point72 Ventures, FinTech Collective, and Commerce Ventures. Business Travel News has more here.

Markup AI, a New York startup that develops AI agents to scan, score, and rewrite content so enterprises can enforce brand, compliance, and quality standards, raised a $27.5 million Series A round co-led by Genui Partners and EMH Partners, with Capital Factory and Brad Feld also investing. More here.

Numeral, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that automates sales tax compliance with AI, raised a $35 million Series B round at a $350 million valuation. The deal was led by Mayfield, with Benchmark, Uncork Capital, Y Combinator, and Mantis also investing. TechCrunch has more here.

Rec, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that provides an operating system for community recreation to help residents discover, book, and enjoy activities while supporting recreation departments, raised an $11 million Series A round led by Crosslink Capital, with Thirty Five Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Marquee Ventures also stepping up. More here.

RegScale, a four-year-old startup based in McLean, VA, that provides AI-driven governance, risk, and compliance software with continuous controls monitoring, raised a $30 million Series B round led by Washington Harbour Partners, with M12, Hitachi Ventures, Ankona Capital, SYN Ventures, and SineWave Ventures also participating. More here.

Ultralytics, an 11-year-old company based in Frederick, MD, that develops open source computer vision models used to detect and segment objects in images and video across industries, raised a $30 million Series A round led by Elephant, with SquareOne also taking part. More here.

Smaller Fundings

Bio Protocol, a three-year-old startup based in Zug, Switzerland, that combines AI, biotech, and crypto to fund and accelerate drug discovery through decentralized research agents, raised a $6.9 million seed round led by Maelstrom Fund, with Animoca Brands, Mechanism Capital, and Presto Labs also engaging. Cointelegraph has more here.

Seapoint, a Dublin startup that provides a unified AI-powered financial platform for venture-backed startups and mid-market companies, raised a $3 million pre-seed round led by Frontline Ventures, with Tapestry VC also opting in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Synthesize Bio, a two-year-old Seattle startup that uses generative genomics models to simulate gene expression experiments and speed drug discovery, raised a $10 million seed round led by Madrona, with additional support from Sahsen Ventures, Inner Loop Capital, Point Field Partners, and AI2 Incubator. GeekWire has more here.

Trially, a two-year-old startup based in Kansas City, MO, that uses AI to match, engage, and enroll patients in clinical trials to reduce costly recruitment delays, raised a $4.7 million seed round led by Flyover Capital, with Alpaca, Atria, Blu Ventures, Looking Glass Capital, Redbud, The Council, and Gaingels also chipping in. Clinical Trials Arena has more here.

Vibranium Labs, a one-year-old New York startup that uses AI to monitor, triage, and resolve IT incidents and outages, raised a $4.6 million seed round. Calibrate Ventures and Mirae Asset were the co-leads, with Andreessen Horowitz, Franklin Templeton, Plug and Play, Gaingels, Wildcard Capital, FalconX, and DCG also anteing up. PYMNTS has more here.

XL Batteries, a six-year-old startup based in Marlborough, MA, that develops non-flammable, long-duration organic flow batteries for grid-scale energy storage, raised a $7.5 million seed round led by Merrin Investors. The company has raised a total of $28 million. More here.

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New Funds

T.Rx Capital, a new Boston-based VC firm co-founded by the son of Moderna co-founder Bob Langer, raised its first fund in the amount of $77.5 million. The firm will target early-stage biotech and technology-driven life sciences startups. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Exits

Productivity software powerhouse Atlassian is paying $1 billion to buy DX, a five-year-old Salt Lake City startup that helps companies spot what’s slowing down their engineering teams. TechCrunch has more here.

CrowdStrike is shelling out $260 million for four-year-old Palo Alto startup Pangea, which monitors how AI systems interact with users and software to block prompt-injection and other emerging attacks. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Going Public

Netskope popped 18% in its Nasdaq debut to hit an $8.6 billion market cap after an IPO that was more than 20 times oversubscribed, marking another strong cybersecurity listing in a suddenly hot IPO market. CNBC has more here.

Octopus Energy is spinning off its AI arm Kraken, which already powers utilities serving 75 million customers, in a move that could value the standalone entity at $15 billion and tee up a near-term IPO. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

People

Trump’s UK state banquet swapped Hollywood glitter for Big Tech muscle, with Tim Cook, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Ruth Porat, Satya Nadella, Marc Benioff, and David Sacks on the guest list as the US and UK inked a “Tech Prosperity Deal” alongside $42 billion in new American AI infrastructure pledges for Britain. TechCrunch has more here.

While other tech CEOs schmooze with President Donald Trump, Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei is waging a billion-dollar ideological war with Trump’s AI czar, David Sacks, over the future of artificial intelligence. The WSJ has more here.

Since breaking with Trump in June, Elon Musk has apparently gone all-in on xAI, camping out at its Palo Alto office, reshuffling researchers, and chasing splashy products like “Macrohard” and flirty bots. The New York Times has more here.

Fresh off of Gemini’s IPO, the Winklevii are throwing their weight around in Washington by pressuring President Trump to stall the nomination of Brian Quintenz to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission after Quintenz refused to take up their grievance with Biden-era regulators. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Post-Its

Essential Reads

According to The Wall Street Journal, several top executives have bailed from xAI after clashes with Elon Musk’s inner circle over management and financial projections. More here.

In a peer-reviewed article in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, China’s DeepSeek claimed that it trained its R1 model for just $294,000 on 512 Nvidia H800s, a bargain that undercuts its U.S. rivals’ nine-figure budgets, raises fresh questions about China’s chip access, and shows the AI race may hinge as much on efficiency as raw scale. Reuters has more here.

With Meta’s new Ray-Ban smart glasses featuring a neural wristband that lets you text silently at nearly smartphone speed, Mark Zuckerberg has begun his quest to kill the smartphone, TechCrunch concludes. More here.

Google Cloud is quietly stealing share from AWS and Azure, signing up unicorn coding startups Lovable and Windsurf as part of a push that now has it working with nine of the top 10 AI labs and 60% of generative AI startups. TechCrunch has more here.

Detours

Americans are going all-in on “catios,” with some owners like YouTuber Ryan Lapinski dropping $125,000 on elaborate tunnels and enclosures to keep cats safe outside.

Brain Rot

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Retail Therapy

La Marzocco just dropped the Officine Fratelli Bambi Strada, a handmade, limited-run upgrade of its flagship espresso machine that blends the Strada’s benchmark engineering with bespoke finishes and craftsmanship, instantly making it the “holy grail” for design-obsessed baristas and collectors.

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