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OpenAI just hit $1 billion in monthly revenue, but CFO Sarah Friar says the company is devouring GPUs at the same time, which is why it’s diversifying its supplier relationships as fast as it can, including cozying up to Oracle and CoreWeave while reassuring Microsoft that it “will be an important partner for years to come.” CNBC has more here.

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Harvard Dropouts to Launch ‘Always On’ AI Smart Glasses That Listen and Record Every Conversation

By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Rebecca Bellan

Two former Harvard students are launching a pair of “always-on” AI-powered smart glasses that listen to, record, and transcribe every conversation and then display relevant information to the wearer in real time. 

“Our goal is to make glasses that make you super intelligent the moment you put them on,” said AnhPhu Nguyen, co-founder of Halo, a startup that’s developing the technology. 

Or, as his co-founder Caine Ardayfio put it, the glasses “give you infinite memory.” 

“The AI listens to every conversation you have and uses that knowledge to tell you what to say … kinda like IRL Cluely,” Ardayfio told TechCrunch, referring to the startup that claims to help users “cheat” on everything from job interviews to school exams.  

“If somebody says a complex word or asks you a question, like, ‘What’s 37 to the third power?’ or something like that, then it’ll pop up on the glasses,” Ardayfio added. 

Ardayfio and Nguyen have raised $1 million to develop the glasses, led by Pillar VC, with support from Soma Capital, Village Global, and Morningside Venture. The glasses will be priced at $249 and will be available for preorder starting Wednesday. Ardayfio called the glasses “the first real step towards vibe thinking.”

Massive Fundings

EliseAI, a nine-year-old New York startup that builds software that automates routine administrative work for housing operators and healthcare providers, such as handling tenant communications, scheduling, and call center tasks, raised a $250 million Series E round at a valuation of $2.2+ billion. The lead investor was Andreessen Horowitz, with Bessemer Venture Partners as well as previous investors Sapphire Ventures and Navitas also contributing. Reuters has more here.

FieldAI, a 2.5-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based company that’s developing what it calls “foundational embodied AI models” — essentially robot brains designed to help everything from humanoids to self-driving cars adapt to new environments — has raised $314 million in fresh funding. The round was led by Bezos Expeditions, Prysm, and Temasek; the company has now raised $405 million altogether, including from Khosla Ventures, Intel Capital, and Canaan Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Group14, a 10-year-old battery materials startup based in Woodinville, WA, has closed a $463 million funding round led by battery manufacturer SK, with participation from ATL, Lightrock, Microsoft, Porsche, and OMERS. TechCrunch has more here.

Midas, a five-year-old Istanbul startup that runs a commission-free investing app in Turkey that lets people trade local stocks, U.S. equities, mutual funds, and cryptocurrencies from a single account, raised an $80 million Series B round led by QED Investors, with International Finance Corporation, HSG, QuantumLight, and Spice Expeditions as well as previous investors Spark Capital, Portage Ventures, and Bek Ventures also stepping up. The company has raised a total of $140+ million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Overhaul, a 10-year-old Austin company that equips shippers with tracking devices and real-time monitoring services to prevent cargo theft and recover stolen shipments, raised a $105 million Series C round. Springcoast Partners and Edison Partners co-led the deal. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Seemplicity, a six-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps companies manage cybersecurity risks by gathering all vulnerability findings, ranking which ones matter most, and automatically routing fixes to the right teams, raised a $50 million Series B round led by Sienna Venture Capital, with Essentia Venture Capital as well as previous investors Glilot Capital Partners, NTTVC, and S Capital also engaging. CTech has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Bluefish AI, a two-year-old New York startup that helps Fortune 500 brands monitor and optimize how they appear in AI-generated search and recommendations, raised a $20 million Series A round led by NEA, with Salesforce Ventures, Crane Venture Partners, Swift Ventures, and Bloomberg Beta also taking part. AlleyWatch has more here.

Casca, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that lets banks and lenders process small business and commercial loans much faster by automating the application and approval steps, raised a $29 million Series A round led by Canapi Ventures, with Live Oak Bank, Huntington National Bank, Bankwell Bank, Y Combinator, Peterson Ventures, and Alliance Funding Group also investing. More here.

Develop Health, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that helps doctors and clinics automatically verify insurance coverage and complete prior authorizations for patients, raised a $14.25 million Series A round led by Wing VC, with Afore Capital, J Ventures, and South Park Commons also joining in. Mobi Health News has more here.

Garage, a nine-year-old New York startup that runs an online marketplace for municipalities and first responders to buy and sell essential equipment like emergency vehicles and government surplus, raised a $13.5 million Series A round led by Infinity Ventures, with Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, Benchstrength, Wayfinder Ventures, and FJ Labs also participating. The company has raised a total of $18 million. More here.

Iantrek, a seven-year-old startup based in White Plains, NY, that develops surgical implants made from biologic material that lower eye pressure in glaucoma patients by opening the uveoscleral drainage pathway, raised a $42 million Series C round led by USVP, with aMoon as well as previous investors Visionary Ventures, Sectoral Asset Management, Radius Special Situations Fund, and Civilization Ventures also anteing up. Fierce Biotech has more here.

Phoebe, a two-year-old London startup that uses AI agents to detect, diagnose, and fix software bugs before they cause outages, raised a $17 million round. GV and Cherry Ventures were the co-leads. EU-Startups has more here.

TinyFish, a one-year-old Palo Alto startup whose AI-powered web agents navigate websites, gather information, extract data, and run business processes that would normally require large teams of people, raised a $47 million round led by Iconiq, with USVP, Mango Capital, MongoDB Ventures, ASG, and Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners also piling on. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Zed, a five-year-old Boulder startup that builds an open-source code editor that lets developers work together in real time and link conversations directly to specific parts of their code, raised a $32 million Series B round led by Sequoia. The company has raised a total of $42 million. More here.

Smaller Fundings

Convoke, a two-year-old startup based in Cambridge, MA, that helps drug companies speed up development by pulling together data, automating routine research tasks, and producing documents needed for decisions and regulatory filings, raised an $8.6 million seed capital co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Dimension Capital, with ACME, Comma Capital, Liquid2, Not Boring Capital, Audacious, and Lux Capital also stepping up. More here.

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New Funds

BlackRock is launching its first fund dedicated to buying discounted venture capital stakes from other investors, with VC deals trading at about 75% of their actual value. The move marks another step in BlackRock's expansion into hot private markets alongside heavyweights like Blackstone and Apollo. Bloomberg has more here.

Veteran Ventures Capital, a six-year-old VC firm based in McLean, VA, that backs veteran-led companies developing dual-use national security technologies, raised its second fund in the amount of $60 million. More here.

Exits

Character.AI, the chatbot startup that watched its founders decamp to Google in a $2.7 billion deal last year, is now shopping itself around to potential buyers while simultaneously courting investors for a funding round. It’s a tricky act either way, given the company is not only burning through millions monthly to keep its anime-character chatbots operational but also fending off lawsuits and a Texas attorney general's investigation into allegedly harmful content for children. The Information has the story here.

Going Public

After failing to get IPO approval in New York and London, fast-fashion giant Shein is now considering moving its headquarters back to China to sweeten the deal for a Hong Kong listing. We hope it works! The Singapore-based retailer is running out of places willing to host its long-awaited public debut. Bloomberg has the latest twist here.

People

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, who grew up in Georgia and keeps roller skates in her trunk, is quietly winning the robotaxi race against Tesla's flashier promises, logging 250,000 driverless rides per week. Vanity Fair jumps in the car with her.

Data

Business Insider analyzed nearly 300 anonymous Microsoft software engineer salary submissions to figure out who's making what, though Microsoft itself politely declined to spill the tea. Unsurprisingly, engineers in its AI and cloud divisions look to be pulling down the most. The catch: higher-paid employees don’t typically share their compensation details on spreadsheets, so these numbers might be on the conservative side.

Essential Reads

Google's Pixel 10 launch event today with Jimmy Fallon was so cringey that it made watching QVC seem like high art by comparison, complete with fake Reddit quotes and Fallon shouting "I P 6 8!" like he'd just discovered fire. TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez offers her take here.

In under seven minutes of parliamentary debate today, India passed a sweeping ban on all real-money online gaming that could wipe out $23 billion in startup valuations and 200,000 jobs. TechCrunch has more here.

It’s not just Meta; GM is reportedly trying to build its own elite AI dream team by poaching talent from Google, Meta, and Apple. The WSJ has more here.

Detours

Tiger Woods is leading a new committee with a "clean sheet of paper" to potentially revolutionize the PGA Tour with fewer events, smaller fields, and higher stakes. “Nothing’s off the table,” Woods tells the WSJ.

Male fantasy football talk, translated.

Brain Rot

Johno Verity pops off about London’s history during dawn bike rides around the city.

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Retail Therapy

Gunther Works just unveiled a 1,000-horsepower Porsche restomod that looks like a fighter jet had a baby with a 935 race car, and we're not sure our hearts can handle it.

Secret watches.

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