Anthropic is expected to tell IPO investors that its total addressable market exceeds $30 trillion, topping SpaceX’s $28.5 trillion estimate and only about $2.5 trillion short of the U.S. GDP. Anthropic is reportedly eyeing a potential $2 trillion valuation and could seek as much as $100 billion in its offering. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

OpenAI says its new Jalapeño AI chip outperformed Nvidia’s Blackwell on an inference benchmark, delivering both faster responses and more throughput per unit of power; small-volume deployment is expected by year-end, with broader rollout in 2027. TechCrunch has more here.

DeepSeek is reportedly about to close a funding round that values the Chinese AI startup at roughly $74 billion, with backers like CATL and some heavy-hitting new investors lining up, all while the company quietly gears up for a possible Shanghai IPO as soon as 2027. South China Morning Post has more here.

Bitcoin briefly topped $81,000 as renewed inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs and improving risk appetite extended a rally that has lifted the cryptocurrency more than 20% since last week, its biggest three-day gain since 2023. CNBC has more here.

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Users of OpenAI’s software engineering tool Codex might know Thibault Sottiaux as the guy who resets their token limits whenever the product hits a growth milestone. Now, OpenAI is trying to bring that dopamine hit to the rest of us with ChatGPT Work, a platform for white-collar workers to leverage AI agents. I spoke to Sottiaux for our feature on the product and its challenges, but we wanted to share more of that conversation with our readers. Here’s a lightly edited and condensed version of our interview about winning over skeptics, discovery as a product design philosophy, and the cost of intelligence.

I know you’re a member of the technical staff. Is it right to say that you’re the product lead for Codex and Work? 

I lead all of core products — that is API, agent infrastructure, enterprise, all of ChatGPT, which includes ChatGPT Work, but also ChatGPT classic, and then everything that is Codex as well.

Am I right in thinking you report to Greg Brockman?

Yeah, Greg. I like to say that everyone reports to Greg at the end of the day.

Why is ChatGPT Work so important to OpenAI?

We wanted to bring the power of coding agents to everyone, and so this is an exercise in taking something that was made for technical people, and then packaging it in a way that is safe and delightful to use, but also you can use on the go on mobile, on web, and making it available to as broad of a population as possible. This is why we launched it as part of the Plus plan as well, which is only $20 a month, and the amount of value you get out of it is quite incredible. So that’s what we were pursuing. It’s like, “make this technology available to the broadest population possible.”

Analysts say that there’s an important economic motivation here, that OpenAI needs to own the application relationship with the user.

The more value and the more utility that we generate for users, the more they will be willing to also pay for some part of that utility, and that’s how we’ve always seen ChatGPT as well. It’s like, I’m bringing so much utility to you as a user that you just sort of sit there and you’re like, “of course I want to pay $20 bucks a month for this,” because you know the value that you get is so much more.

Alice, an eight-year-old Tel Aviv and New York startup that tests AI models and monitors deployed systems to help model developers and enterprises prevent jailbreaks, prompt injection, data leakage, and policy violations, raised a $140 million round led by Apax Digital, with Samsung, SentinelOne, Maj Invest, MoreTech, and Phoenix Insurance as well as previous investors Resolute Ventures, Grove Ventures, CRV, Highland Europe, Vintage Investments, Norwest, NFX, and Claltech also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $280 million. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Emerald AI, a two-year-old startup based in Washington, DC, that orchestrates AI workloads and onsite energy resources so data centers can reduce power draw during grid stress without disrupting critical computing, raised $150 million in Series A funding at a $1.05 billion valuation. The deal was co-led by Energize Capital and DCVC, with Nvidia, Samsung Ventures, Siemens, Aramco Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, GE Vernova, RWE, JERA Ventures, ADVentures, Sabanci Climate Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Radical Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, Lowercarbon Capital, Marunouchi Innovation Partners, Emerson Collective, The Olayan Group, the Temerty Group, John Doerr, Tom Steyer, Earthshot Ventures, Collective Global, and General Catalyst's scout fund also chipping in. More here.

Gatik, a nine-year-old startup based in Santa Clara, CA, that operates self-driving box trucks for middle-mile delivery, raised a $200 million round co-led by Qatar Investment Authority and Koch Disruptive Technologies, with Millennium Management, ARK Invest, and Intact Private Capital also participating. The company has raised a total of about $500 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Generalist, a two-year-old startup based in San Mateo, CA, that develops AI models that let factory teams teach robotic arms new tasks by demonstrating movements instead of writing custom code, raised a $200 million round led by 8VC. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Lambda, a 14-year-old company based in San Jose, CA, that rents Nvidia GPU infrastructure to companies that train and run AI models outside the major cloud providers, is in the market to raise up to $3 billion at a $12+ billion valuation, according to Bloomberg. The Next Web has more here.

Stability AI, a seven-year-old London startup that builds generative AI tools for professional creatives across music, gaming, and entertainment, raised a $76 million Series B round from investors including Electronic Arts, Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, AMD Ventures, Pacific Alliance Ventures, Coatue, Greycroft, Kadmos Capital, Sean Parker, and Eric Schmidt. TechCrunch has more here.

Airbound, a three-year-old Bengaluru startup that builds lightweight autonomous drones that carry medical samples and other small goods between facilities without relying on runways, raised a $37 million Series A round led by Greenoaks, with DoorDash, Lachy Groom, Lightspeed, and Humba Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of nearly $50 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Corvus Robotics, a nine-year-old startup based in Mountain View, CA, that deploys autonomous drones and forklift-mounted systems that track warehouse inventory locations and pallet movements for distribution centers, raised a $20 million round led by Catalyst Investors, with Cibus Capital as well as previous investors S2G Investments, Spero Ventures, and F7 Ventures also buying in. The company has raised a total of $38 million. Modern Materials Handling has more here.

FSH Technologies, a five-year-old Philadelphia startup that replaces outdated government IT systems for cities, school districts, and state agencies handling services like food operations, tax support, and scheduling, raised a $20 million Series A round co-led by Lachy Groom and Acrew Capital, with Operator Partners and Cooley as well as previous investor Contrary also engaging. The company has raised a total of $25 million. More here.

Hivemind Digital Group, a five-year-old New York startup that manages institutional investment strategies and builds tokenization infrastructure for moving financial assets onto blockchain rails, raised a $17 million round led by M&G Investments, with CPIC Investment Management, ZA Bank, FalconX, and Sonic Boom Ventures also opting in. More here.

Keenable, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that builds web-scale search indexes and retrieval APIs that help AI systems ground answers in current web documents, raised a $26 million seed round led by Accel, with Conviction Partners also stepping up. TechCrunch has more here.

Mem0, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that enables developers to store and reuse user memories across AI models, apps, and agents to personalize future interactions, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Basis Set Ventures, with Peak XV Partners and the GitHub Fund as well as previous investors Kindred Ventures and Y Combinator also taking stakes. The company has raised a total of $24 million. TechCrunch has more here.

NeoSoul, a two-year-old Singapore startup that lets traders configure AI agents to make decisions and execute trades autonomously, raised an $11 million seed round. Investors include MH Ventures, Amber Group, ArkStream Capital, 0G Foundation, Kirin Capital, CatcherVC, and New Oak International. The Block has more here.

Primero, a one-year-old Mexican startup that helps large Latin American companies connect fragmented legacy systems and deploy AI agents to automate complex internal workflows, raised a $12 million seed round co-led by Kaszek and General Catalyst. Reuters has more here.

Rezolv, a two-year-old Mumbai startup that uses AI to automate borrower collections outreach and calls and then route complicated delinquency cases to human agents for lenders, raised a $12.5 million Series A round led by Norwest, with Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India as well as previous investor 3one4 Capital also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $16 million. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Embedd, a three-year-old London startup that automates code generation that lets semiconductors communicate with system software in robots, vehicles, and other connected hardware, raised a $2.3 million pre-seed round led by Seedcamp, with Cocoa, Connect Ventures, 2100 Ventures, Vesna Capital, U.ventures, Underline Ventures, Common Magic, and Roosh Ventures also chiming in. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Euler, a three-year-old San Diego startup that deploys AI agents to automate partner onboarding, training, deal registration, attribution, and support for B2B software companies, raised a $4.3 million seed round led by Channel Equity Partners. More here.

Itoflow, a three-month-old London startup that deploys AI agents that help investment firms research strategies, backtest ideas, and monitor portfolios against their own rules, raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round led by Balderton Capital. Tech Funding News has more here.

Neno, a one-year-old Amsterdam startup that automates bookkeeping, reconciliation, VAT preparation, and reporting for small businesses with human accountants reviewing the results, raised a $7.7 million seed round led by AlleyCorp, with Motive Partners and Firstminute Capital also participating. Tech Funding News has more here.

Repodo, a Copenhagen startup founded this year that runs an audit firm that automates data collection, reconciliations, documentation, and transaction analysis, raised a $9.6 million pre-seed round co-led by Hedosophia and Seed Capital. Tech Funding News has more here.

Supermemory, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that helps AI apps remember user context by extracting insights from files, chats, emails, and other unstructured data, raised a $2.6 million seed round co-led by Susa Ventures, Browder Capital, and SF1.vc. TechCrunch has more here.

Volve, a two-year-old Oslo startup that helps contractors prepare tender packages, assess project risks, price bids, and compare subcontractor proposals, raised a $3 million seed round led by Skyfall Ventures, with J12, Norrsken Evolve, OBOS Ventures, Antler, and StartupLab also digging in. Tech Funding News has more here.

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Fiat Ventures, a five-year-old San Francisco fintech venture firm, is rebranding as FGV Capital and combining with its growth consultancy, while launching a $35 million second fund to back at least 25 startups with $1 million to $1.5 million checks. TechCrunch has more here.

Gamma, the AI presentation startup valued at $2.1 billion last year, has acquired three-year-old Accel-backed design startup Lica, whose co-founders will lead a new research lab inside Gamma that explores more personalized, interactive, and multimodal forms of visual communication. TechCrunch has more here.

The Wall Street Journal traces how 24-year-old Leopold Aschenbrenner parlayed elite Silicon Valley connections, a viral AI manifesto, and almost no investing experience into a $45 billion hedge fund before leverage and concentrated AI bets helped trigger a 67% collapse and draw scrutiny from securities regulators. More here.

OpenAI’s head of data centers, Chris Malone, left the company last week, joining a recent exodus of senior executives as the AI giant heads toward a 2027 IPO and ramps up projected computing spending to roughly $750 billion through 2030. TechCrunch has more here.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri testified Tuesday in a bellwether youth-addiction trial that there are “no silver bullets” for teen safety as four states accuse Meta of designing addictive features and misleading consumers about their risks. The New York Times has more here.

Mosseri’s defense of Instagram comes on the heels of testimony by former Meta scientist George Volichenko, who stated yesterday that fewer than 0.2% of teens used Instagram’s early “Take a Break” tool and said company leaders showed little interest in expanding safety features that might hurt engagement. Bloomberg has more here.

Silicon Valley’s newest status symbol is an ultra-rare OpenAI-branded watch: Sam Altman commissioned seven custom pieces from Swiss maker Vanguart based on its $180,000 titanium Orb and engraved with insider touches including “COMPUTE IS DESTINY,” “SCALING,” and “if AGI.aligned: deploy().” The Wall Street Journal has more here.

The New York Times chronicles how hard it is for AI companies to contain their increasingly powerful models after safety tests by security startup Irregular inadvertently gave OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta systems internet access that they used to hack outside organizations. More here.

Uber is piloting a feature that lets parents watch a live feed from a driver’s selfie camera during a teen’s ride, with both rider and driver notified; recordings are encrypted and automatically deleted after 14 days unless a safety report is filed. Engadget has more here.

Little-known ChapsVision, a seven-year-old Paris-based data and AI software company, is positioning itself as Europe’s answer to Palantir after winning a contract to replace the U.S. company at France’s domestic intelligence agency and pursuing major German defense and police deals. The Financial Times has more here.

A new Silicon Valley insult is making the rounds: “meat proxy,” shorthand for coworkers who blindly copy and paste AI-generated output into Slack, code, or other work without reviewing, digesting, or adding any value of their own. Business Insider has more here.

The first trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen’s new Ali G movie just dropped.

Washington Post columnist Tamar Haspel makes the case for giving up lettuce, arguing that leafy greens cause more foodborne illness than any other food category while offering little nutrition, generating significant waste, and consuming land and resources better used elsewhere.

RIP, Dolly Parton.

Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman have just launched Luffu Link, a $250 LTE-enabled health and safety band that tracks health data, location, and voice updates, and can send help requests to trusted contacts without a nearby phone.

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