OpenAI filed confidentially to go public, following rival Anthropic and setting up a potential IPO race among two of the biggest AI labs and SpaceX even as OpenAI faces questions about its massive compute spending, missed growth targets, governance, lawsuits, and when it can generate more cash than it burns. TechCrunch has more here.

A federal judge blocked President Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee, ruling that the charge amounted to a tax that Congress hadn’t authorized the executive branch to impose. CNBC has more here.

The Pentagon added Alibaba, Baidu, BYD, Nio, Unitree, CALB, EVE Energy, and Robosense to a list of companies it says support China’s military, a move that could make it harder for U.S. companies to do business with some of China’s biggest AI, EV, battery, robotics, lidar, and autonomous-vehicle players. TechCrunch has more here.

Everything you need to know about Apple’s WWDC 2026 event today, including the new Siri AI. TechCrunch has more here.

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By Marina Temkin

In recent days, founders and founders-turned-investors took to X to share horror stories about being mistreated by VCs. Their complaints ranged from VCs falling asleep during pitch meetings to investors suggesting a founder fire a co-founder.

Brendan Foody, co-founder of the AI talent platform Mercor, which was last valued at $10 billion, went so far as to call out Sequoia, arguably one of the most elite VC firms in the world.

“The “sequoia scam” is worse than a single horror story,” Foody wrote on X. “in the last 6 [months] ive seen a half dozen rounds where sequoia invests in 2 tranches. everyone pretends they only did the higher valuation. founders misrepresent this to their employees & then shop it to angels too.”

TechCrunch has previously reported on VCs investing in the same round at different valuations. Under this mechanism, the lead VC firm invests a significant chunk of its capital at a lower, preferential valuation, while putting a much smaller portion of capital in at a drastically higher price. The massive “headline” valuation that gets announced manufactures the perception of a dominant market winner, masking the fact that the lead investor’s actual average entry price was significantly lower.

The disparity can be stark. For example, when the AI-driven IT helpdesk startup Serval announced a $75 million Series B at a $1 billion valuation led by Sequoia, the announcement didn’t tell the whole story, according to The Wall Street Journal. Days earlier, said the Journal, the company had been valued at less than $400 million as part of a Series A extension in which Sequoia participated — less than half the headline figure. The gap between those two numbers is the gap between perception and reality that Foody is pointing at.

Serval isn’t alone. At Aaru, a startup that uses AI to simulate user behavior for market research, lead investor Redpoint backed the company at a $450 million valuation despite an announced $1 billion headline price.

Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire pushed back on Foody’s characterization directly. “TBH I have seen some of this behavior but I think it’s unfair to call it the ‘Sequoia scam,’” Maguire wrote in response to Foody on X. “This has happened approximately five times during my seven years at Sequoia. What happens is other investors are willing to pay a high price for a hot company — usually AI — at multiples above what we’re willing to pay. So we try to decouple the company-building relationship with our partner from the capital, and this leads to two tranches at different valuations in close succession.

Databricks, a 12-year-old San Francisco company that provides data-analytics software for enterprise AI, is apparently in talks to raise a Series M (!) at a valuation between $165 billion and $175 billion. The Information has the scoop here.

Moonshot AI, a three-year-old Beijing startup that develops the Kimi chatbot and related AI models, is reportedly seeking as much as $2 billion in new funding at a $30 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg, even as it continues to close a previous round led by Meituan at a $20 billion valuation. In December, the company had a $4+ billion valuation. The Next Web has more here.

PhysicsX, a seven-year-old London startup that develops machine learning models that simulate physical systems to help engineers design, test, and optimize products across aerospace, semiconductors, energy, and manufacturing workflows, raised a $300 million Series C round at approximately a $2.4 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Temasek, with M&G Investments, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied Materials, Atomico, General Catalyst, July Fund, NGP, Nvidia, Radius, and Siemens also contributing. Silicon Republic has more here.

PointFive, a two-year-old Tel Aviv and New York startup that helps companies uncover and reduce wasteful cloud and AI infrastructure spending, raised a $60 million growth investment at a $500 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by Accel, with Perpetual Investors as well as previous investors Index Ventures and Salesforce Ventures also anteing up. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

A Security, a New York startup founded this year that develops AI software that continuously attacks customers’ systems to find and help fix security weaknesses before hackers exploit them, raised a $37 million round from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Cyberstarts as well as angel investors including Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport and Cyera CEO Yotam Segev. Fortune has more here.

Blnk, a six-year-old Egyptian startup that provides point-of-sale consumer financing through merchant networks using automated underwriting to approve and issue installment loans for retail purchases to banked and unbanked consumers, raised a $12.5 million Series A round led by Algebra Ventures, with SANAD Fund for MSME, Endeavor Catalyst, National Bank of Egypt, Suez Canal Bank, Bank Albaraka, Corplease, Globalcorp, and BM Lease as well as previous investor Emirates International Investment Company also taking part. The company has raised a total of $69.1 million. More here.

EDGE Markets, a six-year-old New York startup that develops payment and banking infrastructure for gaming and prediction markets, raised a $29.2 million Series A round led by CoinFund, with Indicator Ventures, Mantis VC, StepStone Group, and Bullpen Capital also stepping up. More here.

Infinity Constellation, a three-year-old New York startup that builds AI tools and software businesses for professional services markets, raised a $24 million Series A round from Rafferty Ventures, Oxford Funds, Freestyle VC, Backed VC, BY Ventures, and Millennial Ventures. Axios has more here.

BeatpulseLabs, a two-year-old London startup that aims to transform multimedia content and domain expertise into structured, labeled, and validated training datasets for enterprises to train, fine-tune, and evaluate multimodal AI models, raised a $1.8 million pre-seed round co-led by Araya Ventures and Lighthouse Ventures, with Alumni Ventures and Avalancha Ventures also participating. More here.

Reset, a four-year-old Menlo Park startup that provides earned-wage access software for credit unions and community banks, raised a $6 million seed round from Georgia's Own Credit Union, InTouch Credit Union, Chartway Credit Union, VyStar Credit Union, One Washington Financial, Curql, Navari, and Bankers Helping Bankers Fund. The company has raised a total of $8+ million. More here.

Volteum, a six-year-old Budapest startup that aggregates charging, mileage, maintenance, and vehicle data for electric and mixed fleets, connects to manufacturer systems, and automates reporting, cost optimization, and anomaly detection for fleet operators, raised a $2.9 million round led by Movens Capital, with WakeUp Capital, Aidiom, Day One Capital, Techstars, and Nesprit also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $4.3 million. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Zaro, a London startup founded this year that is developing an AI workspace that lets companies connect their own data, agents, and custom applications in a shared context layer, raised a $5.1 million pre-seed round led by Cherry Ventures, with Flourish Ventures also investing. More here.

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San Francisco-based Kindred Ventures has raised $355 million in new funds — its largest fundraise to date — spanning an early-stage fund, a growth fund, and several subfunds. Led by Steve Jang and Kanyi Maqubela, the firm is doubling down on AI models, infrastructure, robotics, and computational biology, backed by a standout track record: according to the pair, their 2022 Fund III has reached a 5.1x TVPI (meaning that for every $1 invested, the fund is currently worth $5.10, net of fees), well above the 90th-percentile benchmark for its vintage. The WSJ has more here.

Medical device giant Medtronic has agreed to acquire SPR Therapeutics, a 16-year-old Cleveland company that makes a temporary peripheral nerve stimulation therapy designed to treat chronic pain without opioids, surgery, or a permanent implant. The deal consists of an upfront cash payment of approximately $650 million. More here.

Bending Spoons, a 13-year-old Milan app studio that acquires and operates digital businesses including Eventbrite, Vimeo, WeTransfer, Evernote, Brightcove, Komoot, and AOL, filed to go public in the U.S., reporting more than 500 million monthly active users, 9 million paying customers, $1.31 billion in 2025 revenue, and $27.4 million in Q1 profit. TechCrunch has more here.

ITG, a 13-year-old Fort Lauderdale company that designs, builds, installs, maintains, and upgrades broadband, fiber, wireless, data-center, and utility networks for cable operators, telecom providers, wireless carriers, and utilities, filed to go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker ITG. Reuters has more here.

“The Big Short” investor Steve Eisman says he is wary of SpaceX’s IPO, arguing that Elon Musk’s company has become far more capital intensive as it pushes into AI infrastructure. He notes that capex has risen from 42% of revenue in 2023 to 215% in the most recent quarter and warns that SpaceX’s future now depends more on AI than on rockets or Starlink. Business Insider has more here.

FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried has formally applied for a presidential pardon from President Trump, more than two years after he was convicted over the multibillion-dollar collapse of his crypto exchange and sentenced to 25 years in prison. TechCrunch has more here.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has given Apple, Google, and other tech companies until September to add software that blocks children from taking, sharing, or viewing explicit images on phones and tablets, warning that the government will legislate if they do not comply. The Guardian has more here.

Leopold Aschenbrenner, the 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher whose AI forecasts made him an online cult figure, has grown his hedge fund, Situational Awareness, to more than $20 billion in assets after gains of more than 1,000% since inception, with backing from Jane Street and big bets on Anthropic, SK Hynix, and other AI-linked companies. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Tools for Humanity, an eye-scanning identity startup co-founded by Sam Altman and Alex Blania to support Worldcoin, a crypto project that uses iris scans to verify that users are human and issue them digital identities, is reportedly laying off staff as it struggles to generate revenue, even after raising money at a $2.5 billion valuation from backers like Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Anthropic says its Mythos Preview cybersecurity model can now turn newly disclosed software vulnerabilities into working exploits within hours, with internal tests showing it generated a proof-of-concept exploit for a Windows kernel flaw in 31 minutes and built working code-execution exploits from Firefox security patches, shrinking the window companies have to patch known bugs before attackers can weaponize them. Axios has more here.

Two new studies suggest smartphones may be a major factor in falling birthrates, with researchers finding that fertility rates dropped faster in places with early iPhone access, broader smartphone adoption, and better high-speed mobile networks, possibly because young people socialized less in person, had less sex, or gained easier access to contraception and abortion information. The New York Times has more here.

Well, that was quick! Meta has removed the face-recognition code from its smart-glasses companion app one day after Wired reported that the company had quietly embedded the unreleased system, called NameTag, into Meta AI. Meta had dismissed the original report as misleading but has not said why the code was removed or whether the feature will return. Wired has more here.

For years, Apple has been accused of being one of the biggest stragglers in the AI arms race. Doubters have argued that Apple’s lack of a clear AI strategy have cost it its edge, and Wall Street analysts have worried that the gap could start hurting iPhone sales. But it's slow-and-steady AI bet is starting to look pretty smart, argues TechCrunch's Lucas Ropek. More here.

Johnny Hilbrant Partridge, a 36-year-old former SoulCycle instructor from Wellesley, MA, has become a social media star with PE Guy, a fake private-equity banker whose filtered face, smug delivery, and endless humble-brags about Nantucket, Palm Beach, Harvard MBAs, and “wifey” satirize the entitlement and wealth-flexing of the finance class.

American Airlines network planner Austin Sagan has one of the most coveted jobs imaginable: he gets paid to watch sports on TV, tracking playoff games, World Cup matchups, fan travel patterns, and airport constraints so the airline can add or adjust flights as teams advance and fans rush to follow them.

A new spacesuit from Prada.

Mandarin Oriental opened its first hotel in Mallorca, a 131-room cliffside resort on the Costa d’en Blanes with access to two natural coves, seven acres of gardens, six restaurants, a seaside spa, and rates starting at about $1,500 a night.

Patio chairs from Porsche.

Taco case.

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