OpenAI’s top product-and-business executive, Fidji Simo, is stepping down from her full-time role after an extended medical leave, leaving Sam Altman to fill a key position as the company prepares to go public and tries to catch Anthropic with enterprise customers. TechCrunch has more here.

The New York Times and The Daily News claim OpenAI hid evidence in their copyright case by saying it could not search training data or ChatGPT logs, even though an engineer allegedly testified that OpenAI had already searched for copyrighted journalism and built tools to track regurgitated outputs. TechCrunch has more here.

Deploying AI in fund ops? You have 3 problems.

1 - security, 2 - accuracy, and 3 - a context window big enough for 1000s of documents. PortfolioIQ solves all three. It extracts every number from documents, maps it to the source, keeps full audit history, and feeds clean data securely to the AI of your choice.

Build on data you can trust → PortfolioIQ.

By Tim Fernholz

Three years ago, Sequoia partner David Cahn was one of the first people to do the math and put a number on the implications of Silicon Valley’s titanic spend on AI infrastructure.

In 2023, he was reacting to Nvidia’s reported annual GPU revenue of $50 billion. Starting with that figure, and adding in the implied costs of operating the data centers and the margins for their operators, he deduced that $200 billion in revenue would be required to pay back the up-front investment.

He took it as a challenge, asking entrepreneurs to come up with AI products and services to make use of, and generate revenue from, all that infrastructure. Fast-forward to today, adding up three years of hyperscaling, and Cahn’s got a new number on AI infrastructure spending for 2026: $1.5 trillion.

All told, he calculates that the AI industry will have to earn $3 trillion to justify all those chips and other data center expenditures. And that’s probably an underestimate — the rising costs of memory and the increasing use of exotic or inference-specific chips will drive that number up. “Recently,” he writes, “the required revenue per GW of CapEx has sharply increased due to these bottleneck dynamics and rising costs of construction.”

On the other side of the ledger, Anthropic is thought to have hit $60 billion in ARR, while OpenAI reportedly earned $13 billion in 2025 (although in November 2025, it said it was at $20 billion ARR) and is presumably making more this year. But there’s clearly a large gap to be closed.

Someone minding that gap is Torsten Slok, the chief economist at Apollo, the giant asset manager. In a recent note, he points out that the hyperscalers — Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon — are all predicting massive accelerations in their free-cash flow in 2028. That is, they expect to see the payback from all those chips they bought.

Databento, a seven-year-old Salt Lake City startup that sells market data infrastructure to banks, hedge funds, AI labs, and other financial customers, raised a $97 million Series B round led by NEA, with DRW Venture Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and Tribe Capital also participating. The company has raised a total of roughly $127 million. Fortune has more here.

Gradium, a 10-month-old Paris startup that develops low-latency voice AI models for conversational agents, raised a $100 million seed round backed by Nvidia, FirstMark Capital, Eurazeo, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt, and Xavier Niel. TechCrunch has more here.

Kraken Technology, a six-year-old startup based in Fareham, UK, that develops uncrewed surface vessels and payload systems for maritime defense missions by NATO and allied military customers, raised a $175 million Series B round at a $1+ billion valuation. The deal was led by Digital Transformation Capital Partners, with support from British Business Bank, NATO Innovation Fund, Rheinmetall, Inocea Group, HICO, Thesiger Capital Group, BOKA Capital, Supernova Invest, and Hakluyt Capital. Ocean News & Technology has more here.

Leo Cancer Care, a 12-year-old company based in Crawley, UK, that develops upright cancer imaging and radiation treatment systems that let hospitals deliver proton and photon therapy with smaller treatment rooms, raised a $65 million Series D round led by Yu Galaxy, with Eventide Asset Management also engaging. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Lyzr, a three-year-old New York startup that helps enterprises build AI agents inside their own infrastructure, says it is on track to raise $100 million at a roughly $500 million valuation after using one of its own AI agents to run investor outreach and help draft investment memos. Bloomberg has more here.

Mercor, a San Francisco startup that helps companies train AI models and agents by matching them with domain experts, is reportedly in early talks to raise funding at a $20 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg. The company last raised a $350 million Series C in October at a $10 billion valuation. TechCrunch has more here.

Ollama, a three-year-old Palo Alto startup that helps developers run open-weight AI models on personal computers and access larger hosted models when local hardware is not enough, raised a $65 million Series B round led by Theory Ventures, with Benchmark, Y Combinator, 8VC, Pace Capital, 49 Palms, and GTMFund also opting in. The company has raised a total of $88 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Oxylabs, an 11-year-old Vilnius company that provides proxy and web data infrastructure that helps companies and AI systems collect structured data from the open web at scale, raised a $130 million round at an approximate post-money valuation of $3.6 billion. Warburg Pincus provided the financing. More here.

TJM, a two-year-old startup based in Bear, DE, that deploys AI agents that automate prescription intake, refills, authorization support, data entry, and patient communication for pharmacies, raised a $75 million Series B round led by Elephant, with Arthur Ventures and Updata Partners also participating. The company has raised a total of $100 million. More here.

Vendelux, a five-year-old New York startup that helps marketing and sales teams choose B2B events, find target buyers, and measure event programs as revenue channels, raised a $50 million Series B round led by Tribeca Venture Partners, with S3, Pelion Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, FirstMark, and Cervin Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $71 million. More here.

Wonder, an eight-year-old New York startup that owns Grubhub and Blue Apron and operates food halls for takeout orders, is arranging hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding at a roughly $9 billion valuation, with founder and CEO Marc Lore potentially contributing up to $200 million, according to The Information. PYMNTS has more here.

Axle Energy, a three-year-old London startup that connects home energy devices to electricity markets so utilities, fleet operators, and manufacturers can balance grid demand, raised a $24 million Series A round led by Energize Capital, with previous investors Accel, Picus Capital, and Eka Ventures also participating. UKTN has more here.

Bohr Energie, a six-year-old startup based in Toulouse, France, that develops software for renewable energy companies, raised an $11.4 million Series A round led by Suma Capital, with Irdi Capital Investissement, GSO Capital, and Crédit Agricole as well as previous investors Varsity, Founders Future, and AFI Ventures also anteing up. Renewables Now has more here.

Fuchs & Eule, a five-year-old Berlin startup that helps commercial landlords and asset managers identify cost-effective energy-efficiency retrofits and subsidies across building portfolios, raised an $11.4 million round led by GET Fund, with PI Impact and WaVe-X as well as previous investors SET Ventures, Picus Capital, and Realyze Ventures also pitching in. More here.

Hephae Energy Technology, a five-year-old startup based in Spring, TX, that builds high-temperature drilling systems that help geothermal operators drill precise wells into hotter, deeper rock with less downtime, raised a $17.8 million Series A round co-led by Susquehanna Sustainable Investments and Underground Ventures, with additional participation from alfa8, Baruch Future Ventures, Centaurus Capital LP, Elemental Impact, Exa Ventures, Future Ventures, Grantham Foundation for The Protection of the Environment, New System Ventures, and True North Institute as well as previous investor Nabors Industries. The company has raised a total of $24.7 million. More here.

QIZ Security, a one-year-old New York startup that helps organizations govern encryption across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid systems by finding cryptographic weaknesses and prioritizing fixes, raised a $17 million seed round co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Merlin Ventures, with Evolution Equity Partners, Qbeat Ventures, Singtel Innov8, and Qino Cyber Capital also taking part. SecurityWeek has more here.

Forge Industries, a four-year-old Las Vegas startup that turns hard-to-recycle waste and plastics into industrial fuel that heavy manufacturers can use instead of coal, raised a $3.9 million round co-led by Next Phase Capital and 8090 Industries, with Golden Seeds also buying in. More here.

Lissi, a seven-year-old Frankfurt startup that connects financial institutions' digital services with EU digital identity wallets and verifiable credentials for compliant customer identity checks, raised a $4 million round led by Ventech, with BM H Beteiligungs-Managementgesellschaft Hessen as well as previous investors Main Incubator (Commerzbank Group) and Ninepointfive Ventures also investing. Tech.eu has more here.

Pixel-Flo, a one-year-old startup based in Sheffield, UK, that develops manufacturing equipment and materials that help display makers transfer microLEDs onto panels at lower cost, raised a $7 million seed round led by Northern Gritstone, with SCVC, Parkwalk Northern Universities Venture Fund, and HTGF also stepping up. EU-Startups has more here.

Sherpa, a Munich startup that automates supplier sourcing, contract data searches, RFPs, and vendor onboarding for procurement and external workforce management teams, raised a $2.2 million pre-seed round. Investors included Seedcamp, DN Capital, Activant Capital, and Brighteye. More here.

Wonderdog, a startup based in Hermosa Beach, CA, that provides at-home blood tests and longitudinal health records for dogs to help owners catch disease before symptoms appear, raised a $5 million pre-seed round co-led by WndrCo and Maveron, with Jeffrey Katzenberg also buying in. More here.

The AI Platform Powering Top Funds' Deal Sourcing 

Stop spending weeks building market maps and chasing founders. Raylu's AI agents find companies matching your thesis, score them against your firm's investment criteria, sync bi-directionally with your CRM, and run automated founder outbound that hits 4x reply rates. Trusted by 50+ of the world's leading investment funds.  

See Raylu in action 

Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf says the defense-tech company is in no rush to go public, warning that IPOing “in the middle of a hype cycle” can backfire as defense and AI startups draw “crazy high valuations” on expectations of future growth. CNBC has more here.

Microsoft President Brad Smith says the Trump administration’s AI policy has become “regulation without transparent or complete rules,” arguing that recent restrictions on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 show Washington needs clearer tools for reviewing frontier models without undermining trust in U.S. tech supply. Fortune has more here.

FanDuel is being sued for allegedly using VIP perks to deepen gambling addiction, with The Philadelphia Inquirer reporting that the sports-betting company used Phillies star Bryce Harper to send a personalized video message to a high-spending customer who had wagered $18.5 million and later sought treatment for gambling addiction. TechCrunch has more here.

A federal judge approved Elon Musk’s $1.5 million SEC settlement over his delayed disclosure of his Twitter stake, despite “significant misgivings” and earlier questions about whether Musk was receiving special treatment from the Trump administration; the SEC said the delay “ultimately saved him a whopping $150 million.” TechCrunch has more here.

Marc Andreessen will co-lead a new Federal Reserve task force on productivity and jobs, giving the Trump-allied venture capitalist and AI booster a role in shaping how the central bank assesses AI’s impact on growth, inflation, and the future of work. The Washington Post has more here.

Sonos cut several senior design and product executives – including much of its UX research team – as CEO Tom Conrad tries to streamline the company after its app debacle, raising internal concerns about whether the speaker maker has weakened the teams needed to create its next generation of products. Bloomberg has more here.

U.S. venture funding hit $412.7 billion in the first half, already nearly 30% above all of 2025, but PitchBook says the boom is overwhelmingly an AI story, with AI companies capturing 86% of dollars and a handful of giant rounds and SpaceX deals driving the market. SiliconANGLE has more here.

As OpenAI rolls out Sol, experts say the Trump administration still has no clear process for deciding which frontier AI models are safe to release, raising concerns that an ad hoc system could favor companies with the best political access. TechCrunch has more here.

TechCrunch argues that Nvidia is becoming a victim of the compute market it created: its GPUs made AI infrastructure the hottest trade in tech, but as compute supply broadens and GPU prices fall, investors are shifting toward the less glamorous memory-chip companies now sitting at the data-center bottleneck. More here.

SpaceX’s IPO and possible public offerings from Anthropic and OpenAI could create more value than all U.S. VC-backed exits since 2000 combined, underscoring how AI’s capital demands and late-stage private valuations are pushing tech’s financial scale far beyond the Google, Meta, Tesla, and Uber eras. TechCrunch has more here.

SpaceX’s historic IPO has spawned a strange resale market for company swag, with sellers asking $150 for launch-party glow sticks, $228 for a framed S-1, $1,400 for SpaceX chopsticks, and $1,499 for a Falcon 9 carbon-fiber skateboard.

GQ profiles the finance workers still wearing suits through triple-digit Manhattan heat, finding that for Wall Street interns and bankers, the summer dress code is less about comfort than signaling discipline, cultural fluency, and belonging.

We’re not sure what is more confusing about the Nespresso Martini Candle - the fact that Nespresso is making candles or that it is styling the scent after martinis and not espresso shots.

Return of the Nano-like MP3 player.

The busy bar. (Why not just ask people to take a number?)

Please send all of your hot gossip to [email protected] or [email protected].

To book ads directly, contact us at [email protected].