OpenAI has scrapped the planned October release of GPT-6.1 Astra after internal testing found the model was more deceptive than its predecessor and sometimes acted without permission or reached for outside tools in potentially unsafe ways. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is asking a state court to block OpenAI from developing new AI models without independently approved safety guardrails and to bar minors from using ChatGPT, escalating a June lawsuit that accuses the company of marketing an unsafe product. Politico has more here.

SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit for the first time on its 14th full-scale test flight, deploying 26 next-generation Starlink satellites before controllers cut the planned 10-hour mission short after roughly three hours and brought the spacecraft down in the Pacific, where it tipped over and burst into flames. TechCrunch has more here.

Top researchers at OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Meta are calling for urgent oversight of automated AI research, warning that self-improving systems could trigger an “intelligence explosion” that compresses years of technological progress into months or less and outpaces humans’ ability to understand or control it. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Harmonic 

Hey Scout 
“Every Monday, show me the deals my competitors did in the previous week.” 

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By Tim Fernholz

AMD is acquiring World Labs, one of the leading developers of deep learning models intended to understand physical reality, in an $8.2 billion deal, the two companies said today.

World Labs justified the deal in a statement saying that AI development required “close collaboration across model research, systems and compute.” AMD, in turn, says that understanding frontier workloads, like those created at World Labs, will shape its chip-making roadmap.

The acquisition will see World Labs founder Fei-Fei Li join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist. AMD and World Labs formed an inference optimization-and-training partnership last year, and ties have remained close. Notably, Li was a guest at AMD’s CES presentation earlier this year.

Li, a Stanford computer science professor, is considered a pioneer in AI, particularly computer vision, for her work building the ImageNet database and the AI competitions it inspired. In 2024, Li founded World Labs to develop deep learning models with a more robust understanding of the physical world, arguing that true general intelligence required a grounding in physics and the ability to understand and reason about data beyond text.

In a post announcing the deal, Li described the partnership as the result of a desire to scale World Labs’ technical breakthroughs beyond the lab. “Now that we have tangible proof of the possibilities, we want to do everything we can to accelerate the future,” Li wrote in the post. “To do this requires scaling our efforts, widening our reach, and getting closer to the hardware.”

Instinct, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that develops a personal AI agent that can handle tasks such as bookings, purchases, bills, and research, raised a $1 billion Series C round at a $10 billion post-money valuation. Investors included Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Coatue. The valuation is quadruple the $2.5 billion valuation it secured just last month. TechCrunch has more here.

Modal Labs, a five-year-old New York startup that lets developers train AI models and run compute-heavy workloads without managing their own servers, is reportedly nearing a $750 million round at a $15.75 billion post-money valuation, more than triple its $4.65 billion valuation four months ago. Accel is the purported lead. TechCrunch has more here.

Quartermaster, a three-year-old startup based in Arlington, VA, that uses ship-mounted cameras and radios to collect and analyze maritime activity, raised a $140 million Series B round comprising about $100 million in equity and a $40 million debt facility. The equity financing was led by Insight Partners, with Overmatch Ventures as well as previous investor First Round Capital also chipping in. Stifel provided the debt facility. TechCrunch has more here.

SiMa.ai, an eight-year-old San Jose startup that develops chips and software that let robots, drones, cameras, and other devices run AI locally, raised a $150 million Series C round at a $1.45 billion post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Fidelity and Amplify, with Alter Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, and StepStone Group also engaging. The company has raised a total of $500+ million. TechCrunch has more here.

The Biological Computing Company, a four-year-old Baltimore startup that uses neural activity from rat brain cells to improve AI video-generation models, raised an additional $25 million extension led by Builders VC, with Wonder Ventures, Jeff Dean, and Tusk Ventures also stepping up. The company has raised more than $50 million. Wired has more here.

Complaion, a two-year-old startup that helps SMEs manage ISO certifications and regulatory compliance using software and certified auditors, raised a $15.4 million round co-led by Eurazeo and Italian Founders Fund, with Shapers, 2100 Ventures, K-Fund, Sella Direct Ventures, Enzo Ventures, Vento, Ithaca, Eden Ventures, and Vesper also participating. Startupbusiness.it has more here.

Erad, a four-year-old Riyadh startup that provides Shariah-compliant working capital financing to SMBs in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, raised a $22 million Series A round led by Middle East Venture Partners, with SVC, 500 Global, S60 Ventures, ANB Capital, Conjunction Capital, and Araya Ventures as well as previous investors Khwarizmi Ventures, Nuwa Capital, Aljazira Capital, Oraseya Capital, and Joa Capital also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $32 million in equity funding. More here.

Modulate, a nine-year-old Boston startup that develops voice-analysis software that transcribes calls and detects emotion, deepfakes, scams, and compliance violations, raised a $25 million round led by Future Ventures, with Hyperplane and Lakestar also investing. TechCrunch has more here.

Outmarket, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to automate paperwork for commercial insurance agencies and brokers, raised a $34.5 million Series B round at a $335 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by SignalFire, with Fika Ventures, Permanent Capital Ventures, TTV Capital, and Dash Fund also taking part. TechCrunch has more here.

Prime Minute, a one-year-old Palo Alto startup that develops AI-assisted aerial wildfire-response systems that help emergency crews assess conditions, coordinate resources, and suppress fires, raised a $15 million pre-seed round led by Eclipse, with 8VC also digging in. More here.

Ramona, a 10-year-old company based in Durham, NC, that develops computational microscopes for analyzing large biological datasets for research and drug discovery, raised a $25 million Series A round led by ARCH Venture Partners. More here.

Autoheal, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that develops tools that evaluate, manage, and improve AI agents used throughout enterprise software development, raised a $7.9 million seed round led by Innovation Endeavors, with Emergent Ventures, U&I Ventures, Darkmode Ventures, Batch Ventures, and Param Hansa Values also anteing up. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Cotierra, a three-year-old Zurich startup that develops decentralized biochar systems that turn agricultural waste into soil-improving biochar and track carbon removal, raised a $3 million round. The deal was co-led by PINC and Carbon Removal Partners, with Zürcher Kantonalbank, Carbon Drawdown Initiative, better ventures, GOTA Ventures, Hungry4Impact, and Triple Impact Ventures also investing. The company has raised approximately $4.75 million. More here.

Feather, a one-year-old startup based in East Palo Alto, CA, that develops customizable humanoid robots and software tools for developers building machines for real-world tasks, raised a $7.6 million pre-seed round led by Gradient Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Red Queen Bio, a one-year-old Boston startup that uses AI to design antibody drugs against emerging viral threats and potential bioweapons, raised an undisclosed round from OpenAI. The company has raised a total of $36 million. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

International Fund for Peace 

An Opportunity for Impact 

The world spent nearly $2.9 trillion on militaries last year. IF4Peace is bringing together technology, systems thinking and leadership to tackle one of humanity’s oldest challenges. For founders, technologists and investors looking to create impact beyond their companies and portfolios, this is an opportunity to help build systems that identify risks earlier, strengthen resilience and prevent violence before it spreads. Good for business. Good for humanity. Let’s meet: Bob Berg, Chair, IF4Peace.org 

Sofinnova Partners, the Paris-based life sciences venture firm, closed its oversubscribed fourth MD Start fund at €82 million ($93.3 million) to create six to eight new medtech companies in Europe and the U.S. over the next five years. Medical Device Network has more here.

Reuters got a look at Anthropic’s IPO prospectus, which shows the five-year-old AI company could seek a valuation of more than $2 trillion after revenue jumped 12-fold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025 even as its operating loss widened to $8.06 billion and it disclosed $518 billion in future cloud, computing, and infrastructure obligations. Reuters has more here.

More on Anthropic’s IPO: the five-year-old AI company plans to give its seven co-founders 50.1% of voting power through a new “Founder LLC,” a structure designed to let them prioritize the company’s public-benefit mission even when doing so conflicts with shareholders’ financial interests. Reuters has more here.

Blockchain.com, a 15-year-old London crypto services company with a U.S. headquarters in Dallas, is targeting an IPO this year that could raise about $500 million at a valuation of $4 billion to $6 billion as the crypto market begins to thaw. Bloomberg has more here.

Meta is launching Meta Enterprise Platform to sell its AI tools to businesses and has hired MongoDB CEO Chirantan “CJ” Desai to lead the effort, a move that sent MongoDB shares down more than 17%. TechCrunch has more here.

Rep. Ro Khanna plans to introduce the Human Control Over AI Act, which would ban recursively self-improving AI models until federal safeguards are in place and create a new agency to license and audit frontier systems from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and xAI. CNBC has more here.

China has expanded travel restrictions on top AI and chip talent to include spouses and children of certain executives, requiring them to obtain Beijing’s approval before traveling abroad as the government seeks to prevent critical technology and know-how from flowing to the U.S. Bloomberg has more here.

Uber’s year-old safari business in Kenya is struggling amid fierce resistance from traditional guides, with the company stripping branding from its vehicles over safety concerns and customers often unable to book rides in Nairobi National Park. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

An indie developer has built a virtual Walkman for Apple’s forthcoming foldable iPhone Duo using the device’s two screens to mimic inserting a cassette and closing the player to start listening. The hackathon project has already drawn 1.8 million views and is now being turned into a real app. TechCrunch has more here.

It turns out acorns aren’t just for squirrels.

Oheka Castle, the 127-room Long Island estate said to have inspired the lavish parties in The Great Gatsby, is heading to auction Oct. 27 after its owner filed for bankruptcy last year. The 109,000-square-foot property – the second-largest private home in the U.S. – includes formal gardens, a hotel, restaurant, wedding venue, and an adjoining golf course.

Adidas has unveiled a concept running shoe with a carbon plate whose stiffness can be adjusted on the fly, letting runners soften it for training or uneven terrain and stiffen it for greater propulsion; one version is controlled manually, while another can be adjusted from a smartphone or smartwatch.

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