Wishing our very first subscriber a very happy birthday. :) Also! Don’t forget to cancel all your plans next Thursday if you live in New York and join us for a fun night covering a range of topics, from the business of sports to how not to lose a fortune in this market to the opportunities founders are racing toward as AI automates more and more. We couldn’t be happier about our featured speakers, including Brynn Putnam (Mirror, Board), Tristan Walker (Bevel, Heirloom), Jason Levien (DC United), Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures), Deven Parekh (Insight Partners), and our co-host for the evening, Craig Shapiro of Collaborative Fund. We’ll also have bites and drinks. West Village. Doors open at 5. More details here.

OpenAI is fighting back against Apple’s trade-secret lawsuit, calling it “a mess of Apple’s own making” and accusing the iPhone maker of using baseless claims to hamper its recruiting and slow development of competing AI hardware. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

At a G20 technology meeting in North Carolina, the U.S. pressed member countries to take a hands-off approach to AI regulation, urging them to avoid entirely new oversight regimes and instead apply existing rules to novel AI situations; China has already signed on to the proposed “Carolina Principles.” Reuters has more here.

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By Tim Fernholz

OpenAI shared new details on its forthcoming Astra model, which the company said is the first large language model to meet its “critical cybersecurity threshold,” in preparation for its imminent release.

“We plan to make Astra available soon,” OpenAI’s blog post reads, “but access to its most advanced cybersecurity capabilities will be more limited.”

The frontier lab determined that Astra is capable of finding unknown security flaws in computer systems, and exploiting them without a person’s guidance. That’s similar to the concerns Anthropic raised about its Mythos model earlier this year, and OpenAI is taking comparable precautions as it prepares to roll out the Astra.

Without any third-party confirmation, it is difficult to evaluate OpenAI’s claims about safety or preparedness. The company said it would preview the model with a group of testers but did not say who they were or how they would be chosen. It’s not clear if OpenAI is working with the U.S. government to evaluate the model ahead of release.

OpenAI noted that Astra scored a perfect score on ExploitBench, an evaluation of an LLM’s ability to hack into known system vulnerabilities. In a modified version of the test developed by OpenAI engineers, the model discovered and exploited two zero-day vulnerabilities, the company said.

AfterQuery, a 19-month-old San Francisco AI training-data startup that helps train models and agents to perform tasks like professionals, raised an undisclosed amount at a $3.2 billion post-money valuation, according to Forbes. That’s more than a 10x jump in valuation in just five months. TechCrunch has more here.

Félix, a six-year-old Miami startup that lets Latino immigrants in the U.S. send money to families across Latin America through WhatsApp, raised $200 million in Series C financing, including an $87 million equity round led by Andreessen Horowitz and $113 million in debt from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund. QED Investors, Castle Island Ventures, Switch Ventures, Contour Venture Partners, and Endeavor Catalyst also participated in the equity round. Crunchbase News has more here.

HiBob, an 11-year-old London company that manages employee data, organizational structures, permissions, and HR workflows for companies running workforce operations and deploying internal AI tools, raised a $160 million round at a $3.2+ billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Salesforce, with Farallon Capital Management also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $700+ million. CTech has more here.

HubX, a four-year-old startup based in Izmir, Turkey, that operates and acquires consumer mobile and web apps across generative AI, education, health, and fitness, raised a $50 million round at a $1.2 billion pre-money valuation. The deal was led by Point72 Private Investments. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Physical Superintelligence, a one-year-old startup based in Cambridge, MA, that is building a physics lab where AI models and simulations act as virtual physicists to optimize data centers and pursue new physics discoveries, raised a $58 million seed round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, with Dragon Global, Robot Ventures, Solari, Susa, SV Angel, and Valkyrie also participating. More here.

Scan.com, a nine-year-old London startup that connects employers, health plans, doctors, and patients with medical imaging centers to schedule scans, handle paperwork, and deliver results, raised a $90 million round led by Noteus Partners, with Aviva, Concord Health Partners, YZR Capital, and Oxford Capital also stepping up. The company also raised $130 million in debt. Medical Device Network has more here.

AIR Security, a six-month-old Tel Aviv startup that protects AI agents from malicious instructions and compromised add-ons by filtering what enters their context, raised a $50 million round co-led by Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks, with Swish Ventures and Netz also partaking. CTech has more here.

Aranya, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that turns bare-metal servers into production-ready GPU clusters for AI inference in less than 48 hours, raised a $9 million seed round led by First Round Capital, with BoxGroup, Vermilion Cliffs Ventures, and previous investor Asylum Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $11 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Aslan, a one-year-old startup based in Washington, D.C., that deploys human-supervised AI agents to infiltrate criminal forums and other online spaces and collect digital evidence for law enforcement and intelligence agencies, raised a $20.8 million round co-led by Khosla Ventures and XYZ Venture Capital, with 2048 Ventures, BoxGroup, Liquid2, and Alumni Ventures also engaging. Axios has more here.

Clipto, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that indexes videos, audio, images, meetings, and documents on users’ devices so they can search files and share selected context with AI tools, raised a $15 million round at a $250 million post-money valuation. Investors included HSG, GL Ventures, EnvisionX Capital, Palm Drive Capital, Hans Tung, Lu Zhang, and 522 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Empirik, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that maps changes across enterprise infrastructure to predict their downstream effects and prevent outages, raised a $21 million seed round. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Canapi Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Gridsight, a six-year-old Sydney startup that helps utilities identify available grid capacity and connect new demand faster using AI models built around their own networks, raised a $26 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, with Galvanize as well as previous investors Airtree, Energy Transition Ventures, and Aera VC also chipping in. More here.

Light, a three-year-old Austin startup that enables businesses to offer branded electricity plans by handling licensing, power procurement, billing, customer support, and grid programs, raised a $46 million Series A round led by Matrix, with Activate Capital as well as previous investors Spark Capital, Mischief, Gigascale Capital, MCJ, and BoxGroup also investing. The company has raised a total of approximately $60 million. More here.

Locus Robotics, a 12-year-old company based in Wilmington, MA, that builds warehouse robots that help automate goods movement and other warehouse operations, raised a $41.6 million Series G round. Investors included Tiger Global, Goldman Sachs, G2 Venture Partners, and Scale Venture Partners. Dealroom has more here.

SciFin, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that helps revenue teams unify scattered context across accounts, deals, forecasts, reps, territories, and customer conversations to surface risks and recommended actions, raised a $44 million seed round co-led by Altimeter and Madrona, with Foundation Capital, S32, and Zetta Ventures also anteing up. More here.

Alteon, a one-year-old Bengaluru startup that builds small autonomous aircraft that gather energy from ocean winds to give governments visibility into maritime activity, raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round led by Lachy Groom, with Together Fund also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

DataAgent, an eight-month-old Tel Aviv startup that deploys autonomous agents inside customers’ cloud infrastructure to identify production failures and apply verified fixes, raised a $10 million pre-seed round co-led by MizMaa Ventures and Alicorn Venture Partners. CTech has more here.

Guickly, a one-year-old startup based in San Jose, CA, that helps enterprises track AI usage, spending, access, and ROI while keeping sensitive data on premises, raised a $4.2 million seed round led by Engineering Capital, with Converge VC and Neon Fund also participating. More here.

Leanwatts, a four-year-old Hyderabad startup that designs and manufactures EV chargers and power electronics systems for vehicle makers, fleet operators, and energy applications, raised a $2 million seed round led by Trivest Partners. More here.

Molten Salt Solutions, an eight-year-old Santa Fe startup that produces enriched lithium-6 and lithium-7 isotopes for fusion systems and molten salt fission reactors, raised a $7 million seed round led by Dolby Family Ventures, with Vanedge Capital Partners, Alumni Ventures, Gaingels, True Ventures, and Future Ventures also pitching in. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Newlight, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that makes hydrogen-injection retrofits for cargo ships to reduce diesel use and emissions, raised a $9 million seed round from investors including lomarlabs, BIRD Energy, Undeterred Capital, CiRi Ventures, and Fusion VC. TechCrunch has more here.

Xorlab, an 11-year-old Zurich company that analyzes enterprise email messages to block phishing and business email compromise across on-premises, hybrid, and European cloud environments, raised a $5.8 million Series A round led by previous investor Spicehaus Partners, with Grapha Holding, EquityPitcher Ventures, and ZKB Start-up Finance also taking part. More here.

Palo Alto Networks acquired Console, an AI-native platform that lets companies use natural-language AI agents to investigate signals, resolve alerts, and automate operational tasks. Terms were not disclosed. Console raised a total of $29.2 million across its seed and Series A rounds. Investors included Thrive Capital, DST Global Partners, SV Angel, Abstract Ventures, Chapter One, True Ventures, Jetstream, and C2 Investment. More here.

GoPro, the struggling action-camera pioneer, agreed to merge with newly formed optical-photonics company Starman Optical in a $285 million deal that will wipe out $92 million in debt while keeping GoPro public and pushing the business further into commercial, defense, and AI infrastructure markets. TechCrunch has more here.

Unacademy, an 11-year-old Bengaluru edtech startup backed by SoftBank, Tiger Global, and General Atlantic, has been acquired by rival upGrad in an all-stock deal valuing it at $206 million, about 94% below its $3.44 billion 2021 peak. TechCrunch has more here.

SoftBank-controlled SB Energy filed for an IPO with several substantial caveats: it is “substantially dependent” on OpenAI; none of its data centers are operational; and the business has yet to generate data-center revenue. The company also lost roughly $3.2 billion in the first half of 2026. CNBC has more here.

John Ternus became Apple’s CEO today, taking over from Tim Cook, who led the company for 15 years and will remain as executive chair. The 51-year-old hardware veteran inherits an AI push, a looming foldable iPhone launch, executive turnover, and an exodus of employees to OpenAI. The New York Times has more here.

Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner says the firm would not have backed FIFA’s proposed $20 billion commercial venture had it known the deal would trigger such a political firestorm. UEFA is now seeking Thrive documents, and the firm has hired Elon Musk lawyer Alex Spiro. TechCrunch has more here.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s recently ousted defense minister and former digital transformation chief, is launching a defense-tech company to turn the country’s wartime technology lessons into new capabilities, with Palantir CEO Alex Karp as its first lead investor. Business Insider has more here.

The New York Times Magazine profiles Greg Chism, a pioneering lawn-care YouTuber who followed the platform’s incentives into bizarre “Bad Baby” videos that generated 13 billion views before his channel was banned and the ensuing backlash upended his life. More here.

The cost of running AI models has fallen to record lows, with a widely watched token-price index dropping by more than half since early summer as cheaper Chinese models, industry price cuts, and lower production costs intensify pressure on OpenAI, Anthropic, and other providers. CNBC has more here.

Florida and Texas are moving to curb Flock’s license-plate camera network over privacy and misuse concerns, with Florida ordering cameras off state highways and Texas cutting state funding after allegations that police officers abused the system to track people without authorization. TechCrunch has more here.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is betting heavily on $2,195 smart glasses despite investor skepticism, mounting competition from Meta, and a struggling core business; Snap has never posted an annual profit, its shares are down more than 30% this year, and roughly 500 employees are working on Specs. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

“Pheromone-maxxing” is leading some young men to skip showers, deodorant, and clean clothes despite no conclusive evidence the practice enhances their sex appeal. Meanwhile, dermatologists warn they might simply be “bacteria-maxxing.” (We’ve had to sit down with the interns to get the facts straight about this one.)

Yoga is losing its place as America’s defining symbol of wellness as independent studios struggle with razor-thin margins, pandemic-era damage, and competition from trendier workouts such as Pilates.

The U.S. Open may need to read the room. With resale grounds passes reaching $363, $23 Honey Deuces, $40 lobster rolls, and $100 caviar-flecked chicken nuggets, the event is increasingly out of reach for ordinary tennis fans. Case in point: 336,000 New Yorkers applied for just 1,000 discounted $100 tickets.

Dyson has launched the $499 CameraJet, a camera-equipped electric toothbrush that livestreams the inside of your mouth to a smartphone while AI identifies gaps between teeth and automatically fires a mouthwash jet to clean them.

Gleneagles, the century-old Scottish Highlands resort billed as a “Glorious Playground,” is offering a posh summer camp for grown-ups, with golf, falconry, shooting, fishing, horseback riding, padel, whisky tastings, and catered Land Rover picnics; summer rooms run roughly £800 to £900 a night.

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