Oh, man, please tell us you watched game 4 tonight of the NBA finals! 🤯

Also! Our upcoming StrictlyVC event is almost here, and it’s shaping up to be a great night. We'll have Ethan Thornton of Mach Industries, Delian Asparouhov of Founders Fund (and co-founder of Varda Space Industries), Saif Khawaja of robotics startup Shinkei Systems, and Carter Reum of M13 on the program, with more guests still to come (and hopefully you, too). A huge thank you to Aerospace Corporation for generously hosting us on their campus. Thursday night, June 18. Drinks and networking kick off at 5:00 PM and the program starts at 6:00! — CL

OpenAI is reportedly considering steep price cuts for its AI services as it braces for battle with Anthropic, a move that could make AI tools cheaper for businesses but pressure both companies’ already strained margins as they spend heavily on computing power ahead of expected IPOs. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

The CFTC proposed new rules for prediction markets that would keep most sports-related bets legal while giving regulators more room to block contracts they deem against the public interest or especially vulnerable to manipulation, including many bets tied to war, terrorism, assassinations, player injuries, or first-pitch-style events. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Former xAI engineer Devin Kim is suing xAI and parent company SpaceX, claiming he was fired after repeatedly raising concerns that Grok’s development was not prioritizing AI safety, including risks tied to discrimination, weapons-related information, and compliance with safety regulations. TechCrunch has more here.

"When we do our annual meetings with PortCos, we're just collating data. The decks are in some folder, there's an email in a partner’s inbox, there's a financial model somewhere. It's a lot of work to get the full story."  - VP Ops, $200M+ AUM VC 

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By Jagmeet Singh

Opendoor, the San Francisco-based online home-buying platform, is shutting down its India operations less than two years after expanding its presence in the country. The decision has become a flashpoint in the debate over whether AI is starting to alter the economics of offshore work.

In announcing the decision on Wednesday, CEO Kaz Nejatian cited a push to bring operational work back to the U.S., where Opendoor’s customers are, and a shift toward smaller AI-native teams. The company did not respond to requests for comment on how many employees were affected or how much of the decision was driven by AI efficiency. But the announcement quickly gained traction across Silicon Valley, where founders, investors, and outsourcing experts see it as an early example of how AI is reshaping the economics that made India a global hub for back-office operations.

To understand why they care, it helps to know what’s at stake for India. It has evolved far beyond its roots as a destination for outsourced back-office work. The country is now the world’s largest Global Capability Center market — a term for dedicated offshore units multinationals set up to handle everything from IT and finance to R&D — with more than 2,100 centers employing about 2.36 million people and generating nearly $100 billion in annual revenue.

Opendoor itself had built a large team in India to handle manual workflows across fragmented systems, Nejatian said. The company had nearly 250 employees in India when it opened offices in Chennai and Bengaluru in 2024. But the entire company has been scaling back in recent years. Securities filings show Opendoor employed 1,042 people globally at the end of last year, compared with 1,470 a year earlier. Similarly, its non-U.S. workforce declined to 184 employees at the end of last year, compared with 342 employees at the end of 2024.

Those broader workforce reductions make it difficult to view the India closure solely through the lens of outsourcing. Opendoor has been cutting costs across the business after a difficult period for the U.S. housing market that hit online home-buying companies especially hard. Still, the language Nejatian used to explain the move resonated with investors and outsourcing analysts who see AI reshaping how companies organize operational work.

CameraMatics, a 10-year-old Dublin company that provides video monitoring and driver alert systems that help commercial fleet operators prevent accidents, improve safety, and manage compliance across vehicle fleets, raised a $52.9 million round co-led by Blume Equity, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, and Goodbody Capital Partners. More here.

Cyera, a five-year-old New York startup that develops software for identifying and protecting companies’ sensitive data from AI-based security threats, raised a $600 million round at a $12 billion post-money valuation led by Evolution Equity Partners, with Cyberstarts and Temasek also joining in. The company has raised a total of $2.3 billion. The New York Times has more here.

NEURA Robotics, a seven-year-old German startup that develops cognitive robots and humanoids that can learn and work alongside humans, announced a Series C round of up to $1.4 billion from investors including Tether, Qualcomm Technologies, Amazon, NVIDIA, imec.xpand, Bosch, Schaeffler, the European Investment Bank, Lingotto Horizon, and InterAlpen Partners. More here.

Poetic, a one-year-old startup based in Mountain View, CA, that automates complex, high-stakes enterprise processes such as fraud investigations, transaction monitoring, and underwriting by encoding workflows into executable programs, raised a $50 million round at a $500 million valuation. Kleiner Perkins was the deal lead, with additional support from Founders Fund, First Harmonic, and OpenAI. Silicon Republic has more here.

SonoThera, a five-year-old South San Francisco startup that develops ultrasound-mediated delivery methods to transport DNA and RNA therapies into targeted tissues without viral vectors for genetic disease treatment, raised a $125 million Series B round led by Vida Ventures, with ARK Invest, CureDuchenne Ventures, Leaps by Bayer, Otsuka Pharmaceutical, SymBiosis, UCB Ventures SA, and Vivo Capital as well as previous investors ARCH Venture Partners, Alexandria Venture Investments, Duquesne Family Office, Illumina Ventures, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Medical Excellence Capital, RA Capital, and Vertex Ventures HC also piling on. More here.

TensorWave, a two-year-old Las Vegas startup that provides cloud infrastructure for AI companies using AMD chips instead of Nvidia GPUs, raised a $350 million Series B round at a $1.55 billion post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by AMD and Magnetar Capital, with Perpetual Investors as well as previous investors Index Ventures and Salesforce Ventures also investing. WSJ has more here.

01Health, a four-year-old London startup that provides infrastructure that enables general clinics to deliver specialist care through remote specialist oversight, standardized clinical protocols, and patient management workflows, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Gresham House Ventures, with previous investors Balderton Capital, Eka Ventures, and Wavemaker360 also participating. The company has raised a total of $25 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Aryon Security, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that enforces cloud security policies across infrastructure to prevent vulnerabilities from reaching production environments for enterprises operating complex regulated cloud systems, raised a $29 million Series A round co-led by Brightmind Partners and Skinos Ventures, with Datadog Ventures and Startpoint Capital as well as previous investors Blumberg Capital and Viola Ventures also taking part. The company has raised a total of $38 million. CTech has more here.

Billables AI, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that automates time tracking and analyzes work activity data to generate billing records and operational insights for law firms, raised a $10.2 million Series A round led by Avenue Growth Partners, with previous investors Wing VC, SignalFire, and Alumni Ventures also contributing. More here.

Capsa AI, a three-year-old London startup that organizes, searches, and analyzes investment data across emails, CRMs, and documents to support sourcing, due diligence, and portfolio monitoring for private capital firms, raised an $18 million Series A round co-led by TX Ventures and Pivot Investment Partners, with Bek Ventures as well as previous investors Antler, Outward VC, and Cornerstone VC also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $20 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Cellares, a seven-year-old startup based in South San Francisco, CA, that automates the manufacturing of cell therapies for biopharmaceutical companies, raised a $20 million Series D extension from ARK Invest. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Dapple, a one-year-old New York startup that develops dedicated, single-tenant AI infrastructure for enterprises running production AI workloads, raised a $30 million seed round from The Raptor Group and Ion Pacific. More here.

F2, a one-year-old New York startup that automates credit deal sourcing, underwriting, and portfolio monitoring for private credit funds and banks by embedding agents into investment workflows and institutional data, raised a $14 million seed round led by HighlandX, with previous investors Left Lane Capital, NFX, Y Combinator, and Torch Capital also stepping up. The company has raised a total of $24 million. More here.

Golden Analytics, a Seattle startup founded this year that connects to cloud data warehouses, analyzes datasets, and generates charts, dashboards, and written summaries with natural-language queries and adjustable automation, raised a $14 million seed extension. Insight Partners was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $21 million. More here.

Jedify, a three-year-old New York startup that builds context graphs that help AI agents understand a company’s data, permissions, workflows, and terminology, raised a $24 million Series A round led by Norwest, with Oceans Ventures and Snowflake as well as previous investors S Capital VC and Cerca Partners also stepping up. The company has raised a total of about $33 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Maneva, a five-year-old Toronto startup that uses computer vision on existing factory cameras to detect inefficiencies, diagnose root causes, and trigger automated actions across machinery, workflows, and teams, raised a $27 million Series A round led by U.S.Venture Partners, with Gokul Rajaram as well as previous investors Bling Capital and Freestyle Capital also engaging. The company has raised a total of $38.4 million. More here.

Pi, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that develops agentic software for finding and fixing product security vulnerabilities, raised a $25 million round led by Third Point Ventures. The company previously raised a $10 million round led by Brightmind Partners. CTech has more here.

Pogo, a five-year-old New York startup that connects brands with purchase-verified consumers using transaction and receipt data to run targeted interviews, surveys, and behavioral research, raised a $32 million round. Investors included Buckley Ventures, Mantis, 20VC, and Village Global. More here.

Campground, a three-year-old Oakland startup that helps workforce training and social service groups track participants, manage employer relationships, and report whether their programs are helping people get jobs, raised a $2.2 million round. Investors included Precursor Ventures, Acumen Americas, Underdog Labs, and the Access Georgia Foundation. More here.

Chptr, a six-year-old New York startup that helps funeral homes and other local businesses turn community announcements into broadcast, radio, and digital content, raised a $5.5 million Series A round led by CityRock Ventures, with Tribute Technology also investing. The company also announced strategic partnerships with iHeartMedia, Sinclair, and Hearst. More here.

Enlaye, a three-year-old Boston startup that analyzes construction project data to identify, predict, and mitigate risks for builders, owners, and insurers, raised a $5 million seed round co-led by Glasswing Ventures and Link Ventures, with Imad Ventures, AiSprouts, Hannah Grey Ventures, and Apprentis Ventures also investing. More here.

Flux, a two-year-old Boston startup that develops software for analyzing code changes to help engineering leaders track risk, technical debt, team dynamics, and the impact of AI-assisted development, raised $5 million in new funding led by Calibrate Ventures, with previous investors True Ventures and Glasswing Ventures also participating. More here.

Granarium Technologies, a two-year-old Helsinki startup that develops nanocellulose-based supercapacitors from waste biomass for fast-response energy storage in grid stability and industrial power quality applications, raised a $1+ million pre-seed round co-led by BSV Ventures, with Beamline, FiBAN, EstBAN, and LatBAN also joining in. ArcticStartup has more here.

Kyber, a four-year-old Paris and San Francisco startup that develops real-time infrastructure for controlling robots, drones, and autonomous systems remotely, raised a $5 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Ovni Capital and Kima Ventures also chiming in. More here.

Mesoware, a one-year-old Palo Alto startup that enables manufacturers to design and deploy robotic work cells by capturing tasks and handling variation without frequent reprogramming, raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round. Pillar VC was the deal lead. More here.

Niteshift, a one-year-old New York startup that provides cloud development environments where AI coding agents can run, test, and verify software, raised a $7 million seed round led by Greylock, with Amplify Partners, Lux Capital, BoxGroup, and SV Angel also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Odessia Travel, a San Francisco Bay Area startup founded this year whose AI-powered travel agent allows users to plan and book entire trips in a single conversation, raised a $6 million round led by Sequoia. More here.

Orbital, a Los Angeles startup founded this year that builds satellites equipped with GPUs to perform AI inference in orbit using space-based power and thermal conditions, raised a $5 million pre-seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Basis Set, Human Element, Wayfinder, Antler, Anti Fund, Ascent, Rubik, Zero Knowledge Ventures, LYVC, Feld Ventures, New Legacy, FNDR, UpHonest, and Asterisk also digging in. TechCrunch has more here.

Rotomate, a two-year-old Helsinki startup that analyzes industrial machine data, maintenance history, and operating context to generate diagnostic reports with root causes and recommended actions for equipment failures, raised a $2.3 million pre-seed round led by Kvanted and including Robin Capital, Angel Invest, Business Finland, and Accel's scout program. Tech Funding News has more here.

Soffi, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that turns deployed applications into shared workspaces connected to codebases and design systems so product managers, designers, and engineers can collaboratively edit interfaces and ship production-ready code, raised a $4.6 million pre-seed round led by Innovation Endeavors, with Motive Force Ventures and Darkmode Ventures also anteing up. More here.

Uncovr, a one-year-old Paris and New York startup that analyzes surgical and endoscopic video to generate operative reports and procedural billing codes for surgeons and hospitals, raised a $7 million seed round led by Index Ventures, with Seedcamp, Frst, No Label Ventures, and Entrepreneurs First also opting in. Tech Funding News has more here.

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Pegasus Tech Ventures, a 15-year-old San Jose venture firm whose portfolio includes OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, Airbnb, Coinbase, and X, partnered with Cyberdyne, a Japanese robotics company best known for its HAL wearable exoskeleton, to launch a $60+ million corporate venture fund focused on robotics, physical AI, healthcare automation, and technologies that combine humans, machines, and intelligent systems. More here.

Warner Music Group has acquired Sureel AI, a four-year-old San Francisco startup whose technology creates “AI DNA” for songs to trace how AI models use music, artist voices, likenesses, and other creative elements. Terms were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Einride, a 10-year-old Stockholm company that develops electric self-driving freight vehicles and software platforms for customers across North America, Europe, and the Middle East, will begin trading on the Nasdaq after completing a SPAC merger that valued its equity at $1.35 billion before proceeds from the deal. The company’s investors include EQT Ventures, Northzone, Temasek, Norrsken VC, NordicNinja, and IonQ. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

SpaceX’s IPO has reportedly drawn more than $250 billion in investor demand, or nearly four times the $75 billion the company is seeking to raise. Reuters has more here.

According to The Information, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly told employees he expects the company to go public “within the next year.” He also said OpenAI is preparing a tender offer “very soon” at the current share price of $687.69. Reuters has more here.

Bill Gates told a closed-door House Oversight Committee hearing today that Jeffrey Epstein tried to use information about Gates’s extramarital affairs to pressure him to renew ties after Gates had begun distancing himself from Epstein. The New York Times has more here.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is urging the government to prepare cash-style support for people whose jobs are displaced by AI companies like Anthropic. For its part, Anthropic is pledging an initial $200 million to study AI’s impact on work. The Associated Press has more here.

Speaking of Dario Amodei, he has only one direct report. (If you doubted his genius, doubt no more.) TechCrunch has more here.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp says enterprise customers are privately “unhappy” with frontier AI labs, arguing that companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are too focused on selling token usage and not enough on implementation, where he says most of the value from large language models will be created over the next several years. CNBC has more here.

Cybersecurity researchers are complaining that Anthropic’s new Claude Fable model is blocking even benign security-related work, with some saying its guardrails are so broad that prompts for secure code, code review, or cybersecurity blog analysis can trigger a downgrade to Claude Opus 4.8. TechCrunch has more here.

Nearly a year in, Tesla’s robotaxi rollout remains modest: 59 vehicles in three Texas cities, a long way from the sweeping deployment Elon Musk had promised. Bloomberg has more here.

Visa is partnering with OpenAI to make agent-based shopping work inside ChatGPT, securing purchases made by OpenAI-powered bots with Visa’s payment network, fraud controls, and credentialing tools while letting users set spending limits and require approvals before transactions go through. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

CrowdStrike says China-linked hackers are escalating attacks on U.S. tech companies to steal AI capabilities and intellectual property, with Chinese entities accounting for more than 58% of state-sponsored targeted cyberattacks on tech firms over the 12 months ended March 31. It meanwhile said that North Korean entities are primarily responsible for infiltrating IT workforces across the U.S., Europe and Asia to generate revenue for the regime.

The first trailer for the sequel to The Social Network just dropped. The internet agrees: Jeremy Strong nails Mark Zuckerberg’s voice.

An engineer used Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5, his Whoop data, and his calendar to create a meeting-stress leaderboard, ranking colleagues by how much they appeared to raise or lower his heart rate.

A $29.99 remote for people who find turning pages on their e-reader to be too taxing.

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