Just a quick reminder that we’re shutting down this baby for a couple of weeks beginning on Monday for our Annual Summer Break™. (We mentioned this last week, but in case you missed it . . .)

OpenAI disclosed that its rogue AI agent used exposed credentials to gain unauthorized access to accounts on four additional online services in addition to attacking Hugging Face. Gizmodo has more here.

xAI is suing Minnesota to block a new law banning apps that generate nonconsensual sexualized images, arguing that its $500,000-per-image penalties violate the First Amendment and could expose platforms to billions of dollars in liability. CNBC has more here.

The Trump administration banned imports of newly released Chinese humanoid and quadruped robots and connected power inverters, citing risks of espionage, cyberattacks, and supply-chain disruption as it seeks to protect U.S. AI infrastructure and encourage domestic manufacturing. TechCrunch has more here.

Following Sam Altman’s declaration that humanity has entered the technological singularity, more than 1,100 employees from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, and other tech companies urged Washington to support international tools for deliberately slowing advanced AI development when necessary. Reuters has more here.

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By Julie Bort

For a year now, the AI safety testing firm Andon Labs has tasked frontier models with various real-world tasks to determine how well they do as agents running for long periods with no human supervision.

On Wednesday, Andon published a new installment in how things are going in its Vending-Bench research, where the lab has frontier models run a simulated vending machine business for a simulated year. The mission is simple: make more money than the other models. It benchmarks the results in areas like final cash balance, prices paid to suppliers, and refunds paid.

Across these tests, it has watched various AI models — largely from Anthropic and OpenAI — lie, cheat and collude their way to the top.

In the latest test, the models grew especially shady after their simulation told them their vending machine would be placed near the other models’ machines on a busy tourist street in San Francisco. This included Claude Opus 5, GPT-5.6 Sol, and Kimi K3.

Each was given email access to the other models, all under human name pseudonyms. They knew the others were models, but didn’t know which model was behind which human name.

They were also given an email address to their “management” should they need help. But management always replied “Report has been received and may or may not be acted upon” and never once intervened.

Sol soon realized it could gain an edge by convincing its competitors to collude on a price floor. The models were all buying drinks at $1.50 a bottle, and Sol proposed they agree to sell for no less than $2.15. It lured them with the promise that all of them would sell out in a couple of days at a profit.

CAIS, a 17-year-old New York company that helps independent financial advisors evaluate, buy, and administer alternative investments across client portfolios, raised a $170 million Series D at a $2+ billion valuation. The deal was led by Vista Equity Partners, with AllianceBernstein, funds managed by Blue Owl Capital, Carlyle, Fortress Investment Group, Golub Capital, Lord Abbett, and Royal Bank of Canada also engaging. The company has raised a total of nearly $600 million. More here.

ChipAgents, a two-year-old startup based in San Jose, CA, that uses AI agents to help semiconductor companies automate chip design, verification, and debugging, including turning specifications and code into production-ready RTL and verification assets, raised a $60 million Series A2 round. Investors included B Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Micron, MediaTek, Ericsson, and ScOp. The company has raised a total of $134 million. More here.

Claros Technologies, an eight-year-old Minneapolis startup that destroys and measures PFAS chemicals in industrial water and contaminated groundwater for manufacturers, utilities, remediation firms, and government agencies, raised a $55 million Series B round led by Treehouse Family Capital, with Daikin America, Veralto, Bush Foundation, Nord Asset Management, and Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation also pitching in. Innovation News Network has more here.

Eliyan, a five-year-old startup based in Santa Clara, CA, that makes chiplet interconnect technology for AI compute, memory, and networking systems, raised a $145 million Series C round at a $1 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Seligman Ventures, with Cisco Investments and Lumentum also participating. The company has raised a total of $1+ billion. More here.

Freehand, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI agents to verify supplier bills, track supply chain milestones, and negotiate spending adjustments for large enterprises, raised a $75 million seed round at a $300 million post-money valuation, according to Axios. The deal was co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners, with Nexus Venture Partners and Penny Pritzker also participating. The company has raised a total of $100 million. Crunchbase News has more here.

Groundcover, a five-year-old Tel Aviv startup that monitors application, infrastructure, and AI workload performance by collecting telemetry data inside customers’ own cloud environments, raised a $100 million Series C round at a valuation of approximately $500 million. The deal was led by One Peak, with Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital as well as previous investors Zeev Ventures, Angular Ventures, Heavybit, and Jibe also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $160 million. CTech has more here.

LearnVector, a new Palo Alto startup founded and led by Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng that is building an AI-native learning platform that adapts to how users learn and helps them master new skills, received a $100 million strategic equity investment from Coursera. More here.

Moonshot AI, a three-year-old Beijing startup that develops the Kimi chatbot and open-weight AI models, closed a $3.5 billion round at a $35 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg. Investors include China’s National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund. Silicon Republic has more here.

ThreatLocker, a nine-year-old startup based in Orlando, FL, that helps organizations block unauthorized applications, AI tools, storage access, privileges, and network traffic across endpoints, networks, and cloud environments, raised a $190 million Series F round. The deal was led by Elephant, with D. E. Shaw Ventures, Arthur Ventures, and Koch Disruptive Technologies also stepping up. The company has raised a total of nearly $500 million. SecurityWeek has more here.

Agon, a one-year-old London startup that builds secure training-data infrastructure for defense AI systems, helping governments and contractors train autonomous weapons, command software, drones, missiles, and uncrewed vehicles on confidential data, raised a $23 million seed round. Investors included Lakestar, Lux Capital, Northzone, and XYZ Venture Capital. The company has raised a total of $30 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Array Labs, a seven-year-old startup based in Redwood City, CA, that builds radar-satellite fleets that map Earth and track aircraft and vessels for defense and security customers, raised a $21 million round led by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, with Catapult Ventures, Kompas VC, and Y Combinator also chipping in. More here.

Centralize, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that helps enterprise revenue teams map buying committees, track stakeholder changes, and find relationship paths needed to protect and close deals, raised a $19 million round led by New Enterprise Associates, with Salesforce Ventures, Y Combinator, 20 Sales, Ritual Capital, Adverb Ventures, Stewart Butterfield, and Scott Woody also investing. Crunchbase News has more here.

COR, a nine-year-old San Francisco startup that helps agencies and professional services firms manage client projects, staffing, time tracking, and profitability across human and AI work, raised a $30 million round led by FTV Capital. More here.

Encore AI, a four-year-old Tel Aviv startup that trains customer-support and sales agents by analyzing call recordings, emails, text messages, and CRM data, raised a $30 million Series A round led by Team8, with Planven, Lukatz, Garage, and unnamed banks and insurers also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Greyparrot, a seven-year-old London startup that uses camera systems above recycling sorting belts to identify waste materials, product types, and brands for facility operators and packaging producers, raised a $27 million Series B round led by Omar Mir. The company has raised a total of $60 million. Recycling Today has more here.

Henry AI, a two-year-old New York startup that automates offering memorandums, underwriting packages, pitch decks, and buyer lists for commercial real estate transaction teams, raised a $16.5 million Series A round led by FirstMark Capital, with Thomson Reuters Ventures as well as previous investors Y Combinator, Susa Ventures, 1Sharpe, StoryHouse Ventures, Pioneer Fund, RXR Arden Digital Ventures, Karman Ventures, and Coalition Operators also digging in. More here.

Qureight, an eight-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, that helps pharmaceutical companies use lung and heart scan data to design clinical trials and assess how drugs affect disease progression, raised a $20 million Series B round led by Molten Ventures, with Hargreave Hale AIM VCT, XTX Ventures, Guinness Ventures, Meltwind, and Ascension also pitching in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Terminal, a three-year-old Toronto startup that connects insurers, fleet managers, logistics providers, and lenders to normalized telematics data from commercial vehicle systems, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Battery Ventures, with Intact Private Capital and Penske as well as previous investors Y Combinator and Wayfinder Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $26 million. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Unit AI, a two-year-old Boston startup that automates warehouse inventory management, order fulfillment, and returns for retailers and third-party logistics providers without major facility redesigns, raised a $12 million seed round co-led by Prologis Ventures, Dynamo Ventures, and Ground Up Ventures, with eGateway Capital, Recursive Ventures, Think + Ventures, ZEP Fund, and Crosscourt also taking part. Tech Funding News has more here.

Weave, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that measures human and AI coding output so engineering and finance leaders can track productivity and spending returns, raised a $13.5 million Series A round led by Standard Capital, with Y Combinator, Moonfire, Burst Capital, IrregEx, and the Agent Fund also taking stakes. More here.

Antares Labs, a one-year-old Chicago startup that builds custom AI systems for real estate owners, developers, investors, and asset managers, using their internal data to support acquisitions, leasing, tenant retention, forecasting, and property operations, raised a $7.3 million seed round led by Fifth Wall, with Base10 Partners, Bloomberg Beta, and Sandwith Ventures also chiming in. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Aurenar, a three-year-old startup based in St. Louis, MO, that makes a single-use, non-invasive neuromodulation device designed to reduce stroke-related complications in ICU patients, raised a $5.7 million seed round co-led by the Go Red for Women Venture Fund and Solas BioVentures, with BJC Health and Kaleida Capital also participating. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Credible Data, a one-year-old Boulder startup that helps companies define business metrics, relationships, policies, and access controls so AI tools can interpret structured data consistently across systems like BigQuery, Snowflake, and PostgreSQL, raised a $10 million seed round co-led by Gradient, SignalFire, and K5 Global. More here.

Frenos, a three-year-old startup based in Charlotte, NC, that simulates penetration tests on digital twins of industrial control networks to identify exploitable attack paths without disrupting production, raised a $1.5 million seed round co-led by Momenta and Exposition Ventures, with Riptide Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $6.4 million. SecurityWeek has more here.

Mirae, a New York startup founded this year that uses conversational AI to turn daily symptoms and clinical data into structured records that help clinicians manage autoimmune disease, raised a $5.4 million round led by Oxford Science Enterprises. More here.

Modus, a Tel Aviv startup founded this year that helps enterprises give AI agents current business context from company systems so they retrieve less irrelevant data, raised a $10 million seed round led by Insight Partners, with Soma Capital also investing. CTech has more here.

Pangram, a three-year-old Brooklyn startup that detects AI-generated text and images for publishers, schools, recruiters, and online readers checking whether content was made by humans, raised a $9 million round led by Menlo Ventures, with Haystack, ScOp, Script Capital, and Cadenza also opting in. TechCrunch has more here.

General Compute raised $15 million to build the world's first ASIC cloud. By removing the GPU bottleneck, it runs frontier LLMs up to 16x faster than standard GPU clouds. And because ASIC silicon is far more energy efficient, it deploys in air-cooled data centers, making expansion dramatically easier. Learn more at generalcompute.com. 

Ionic Digital, a bitcoin miner formed from Celsius Mining’s bankruptcy assets, jumped 25% in its Nasdaq debut to a roughly $2.75 billion valuation as it shifts toward AI data-center infrastructure, including a 10-year lease worth nearly $2 billion. The Block has more here.

Russia charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorism, alleging Ukrainian spies used the app to recruit young Russians for attacks, and placed him on an international wanted list; Telegram responded by posting an image of Durov giving Moscow the middle finger. Reuters has more here.

AI companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to recruit and train thousands of electricians, carpenters, and other skilled workers for data-center construction, where installation and maintenance jobs pay 42% more than comparable roles elsewhere. The New York Times has more here.

PwC, a firm that advises clients on responsible AI adoption, published four Middle East “thought leadership” reports on AI, public services, and electric vehicles containing fake footnotes, misattributed claims, and unverifiable information. The Financial Times has more here.

Anthropic is facing a Silicon Valley backlash over launching products that compete with partners, advocating restrictions on open-weight models, and imposing opaque safeguards and data-retention policies, prompting some startups and researchers to shift toward cheaper alternatives. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

X has settled its lawsuit accusing the World Federation of Advertisers of organizing an illegal advertising boycott, ending the dispute after a federal judge dismissed X’s claims and the trade group agreed not to restart its brand-safety coalition. TechCrunch has more here.

BNY, the world’s largest custodian bank, is putting its transfer-agency records on blockchain, moving tokenization into core Wall Street infrastructure and replacing fragmented ledgers with a shared ownership record, faster settlement, and 24/7 trading. The Financial Times has more here.

Kalshi and Polymarket now let users bet on whether the FDA will approve specific drugs, while Kalshi is also preparing markets tied to clinical-trial outcomes, prompting warnings about insider trading, distorted research incentives, and eroding trust in medical studies. The New York Times has more here.

The first trailer for The Thomas Crown Affair just dropped.

Ferrari reached its full-year sales target for the Luce, its $630,000 first electric vehicle, just two months after unveiling it, defying criticism of the Jony Ive-designed five-seater and an 8% post-launch stock drop.

A $12,000, 25-minute laser procedure that permanently changes eye color is gaining popularity despite remaining experimental and drawing warnings from ophthalmologists about vision loss, infection, light sensitivity, and pigment changes.

Esquire recommends XGIMI’s $249 Vibe One – a portable 1080p projector with Google TV, automatic image correction, JBL speakers, and a rechargeable battery – as a packable alternative to a conventional smart TV for gaming, streaming, and outdoor movie nights.

Pre-matched investor meetings for deep tech founders 

Onward FX is your warm intro to sector-focused VCs and corporate ventures like Chevron, Exxon, ARPA E, Eclipse, Halliburton, and 20 more. Meetings are pre-matched and vetted against investor mandates. 1 in 4 founders leave with a term sheet. October 27 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Accepting applications now. 

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