In observance of July 4th, we won’t be publishing tomorrow (Friday). See you back here on Monday.:)

According to reporting from the Financial Times, OpenAI has discussed giving the U.S. government a 5% stake as the $852 billion company seeks to ease political pressure and clear regulatory obstacles, with Sam Altman arguing that public ownership is a way to share AI’s upside. More here.

Europe’s top court upheld Google’s $4.7 billion Android antitrust fine, ending the company’s appeal over charges that it used pre-installation deals with phone makers to give Google Search and Chrome an unfair advantage. CNBC has more here.

Cloudflare is giving AI crawlers until September to separate bots used for search from bots used to train AI models, threatening to block crawlers on ad-supported pages if companies keep bundling the two activities together. NBC News has more here.

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Ben Guez has “a bunch of potential international wives in [his] DMs,” thanks to an automated script he set up using OpenClaw, Claude code, and Instagram trial reels.

“I think it’s crazy, like the potential is insane right now,” Guez, a content creator and startup founder, told TechCrunch. “I’m not sure if everyone’s gonna think it’s good, but I mean, it’s working.”

How is Guez wooing so many women? First, he uses the open source AI agent OpenClaw to track World Cup match results. After each game, OpenClaw triggers Claude to create and post a nearly identical Instagram “trial reel” with the same template. In the video, Guez stares out a train car window looking dejected, with the caption: “I can’t believe {COUNTRY} lost… If any {COUNTRY} girls need emotional support… my DMs are open.”

Guez has made the same post, save for the country name, more than a dozen times. But you can’t tell when you look at his profile, since trial reels don’t show up on a creator’s public page. Since he launched this automation, Guez has gotten over one million views and 200 DMs in a few days. That volume is even more impressive considering that Guez says in his profile that he will only answer DMs sent via Canary, his AI language learning app, which means that these women have to download his app.

You have to hand it to him: Guez is really taking “work smarter, not harder” to another level. But once these women realize he doesn’t actually care about Tunisian soccer, wouldn’t they feel played?

“They’re not feeling angry, they’re more impressed, like, ‘Oh, you’re thinking outside of the box, you’re a genius,’” Guez said. “I think as long as you’re open [about] what you’re doing, I think it’s fine.”

Celea Therapeutics, a one-year-old Boston startup that develops deupirfenidone, a Phase 3-ready antifibrotic drug for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and other fibrotic lung diseases, raised a $180 million round. Investors included RA Capital Management, Leaps by Bayer, founder PureTech Health, a U.S.-based healthcare-focused fund, and a sovereign wealth fund. More here.

Erebor Bank, a one-year-old digital bank launched by Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and backed by Peter Thiel, is in talks to raise money at a valuation of at least $8 billion, according to Bloomberg. The company, which is based in Columbus, OH, is focused on providing banking services for startups, crypto companies, defense contractors, and other customers often underserved by traditional lenders. Its deposits have nearly quadrupled over the past three months, just five months after it received its bank charter. The Block has more here.

Kling AI, Kuaishou’s AI video-generation unit, reportedly raised an initial $2 billion as the Chinese short-video company prepares to carve out the business into a separately funded company, with a separate report saying the unit is nearing a roughly $3 billion round at an $18 billion post-money valuation. RuntimeWire has more here.

Quantum Systems, an 11-year-old German company that makes unmanned aerial systems for defense and commercial customers, raised $1.2 billion at a roughly $8 billion valuation. The round was co-led by Airbus, Blackstone, Advent, and Noteus Partners, with BOND, Fidelity Investments, Wellington Management, A.P. Moller Holding, Elephant Lake Ventures, Balderton, and HV Capital also participating. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Shortical, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that operates a mobile microdrama app and produces short scripted series localized with AI dubbing, raised $100 million in user acquisition financing from PVX Partners. AI Business Weekly has more here.

Tripo AI, a three-year-old Beijing and San Francisco startup that develops 3D foundation models and world models for creating interactive 3D content, raised a $150 million Series A3 round. Investors included Geely Capital, 4399 Network, Tanwan, Giant Network, Fosun Capital, Orinno Capital, CoStone Capital, Addor Capital, T-Capital, and Muhua Tech Ventures. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Alva Industries, a nine-year-old startup based in Trondheim, Norway, that makes lightweight, high-torque electric motors for robotics, aerospace, medical device, and defense equipment makers, raised an $18.3 million round co-led by Nysnø Climate Investments, Sandwater, and Emerald Technology Ventures, with Samsung Ventures as well as previous investors Statkraft Ventures and EnvisionTech also participating. The Next Web has more here.

CarbonSix, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that builds robotic hands and training tools that let manufacturers teach robots to automate complex factory tasks without coding, raised a $40 million Series A round co-led by DSC Investment and LB Investment, with IMM Investment, Korea Development Bank, SV Investment, Cortentia, and A Squared as well as previous investors Foothill Ventures, Storm Ventures, Zeitgeist Capital, Xquared, and CarbonBlack Fund also anteing up. SiliconANGLE has more here.

geoSurge, a one-year-old London startup that helps brands understand and improve how they appear in AI-generated answers, raised a $12 million seed round led by AlbionVC, with Play Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Celero Ventures, and Boost Capital as well as previous investors Passion Capital and Tuesday Capital also participating. More here.

LinqAlpha, a four-year-old New York startup that analyzes filings, transcripts, news, and client research to help hedge funds and asset managers connect market events to holdings, raised a $22 million Series A round co-led by AVP, Atinum Investment, and GFT Ventures, with financial institutions in Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and India also chiming in. The company has raised a total of about $28.6 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

StirlingX, a two-year-old London startup that captures and analyzes sensitive operational data for defense agencies and critical infrastructure operators in complex or contested environments, raised a $20 million Series A round. Investors included Ventura Capital and Rokos Capital Management. Tech.eu has more here.

Materna Medical, a 16-year-old company based in Mountain View, CA, that develops women’s pelvic health devices to treat vaginal pain and reduce pelvic floor injuries during childbirth, raised a $5 million “B3” round co-led by InnovaHealth Partners, Wavemaker360 Health, and Band of Angels. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Wultra, a 12-year-old Prague company that helps banks and fintechs replace legacy login and identity checks with post-quantum, phishing-resistant authentication and transaction authorization, raised a $7.8 million Series A round led by Seventure Partners, with previous investors J&T Ventures and Elevator Ventures also pitching in. Financial IT has more here.

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Magnify Ventures, a five-year-old Los Angeles VC firm that invests in startups focused on families, caregiving, health, and household management, raised a $46.6 million second fund from LPs including Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Jersey Mike’s, the sandwich chain known for its sub shops, mentioned AI 22 times in its IPO filing, including in investor-risk disclosures, showing how far the AI hype cycle has spread into non-tech companies preparing to go public. TechCrunch has more here.

Court filings show Anthropic’s Pentagon relationship broke down after Dario Amodei pushed for limits on Claude’s use in domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, while Defense Department officials insisted they needed flexibility to use AI in all lawful national-security cases. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Mark Zuckerberg told Meta employees at an internal town hall that AI agents have not advanced as quickly as executives expected, saying the company’s AI-focused restructuring and job cuts have yet to deliver the hoped-for gains. TechCrunch has more here.

Lucid Motors CFO Taoufiq Boussaid is leaving as new CEO Silvio Napoli replaces five senior roles — chief financial officer, chief technology officer, chief customer officer, chief digital officer, and chief transformation officer — while cutting his direct reports in half and trying to simplify the struggling EV maker. TechCrunch has more here.

A Delaware court ruled JPMorgan must keep paying Charlie Javice’s legal defense bills, which the bank says have reached $144.2 million after her fraud conviction over Frank, the student-aid startup JPMorgan bought for $175 million. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

SAP says it is trying to avoid more AI-driven layoffs by having employees reinvent their jobs around AI agents, with engineers shifting from routine coding toward managing bots, building customer tools, and developing new roles like forward-deployed engineers. The New York Times has more here.

Crunchbase News reports that global venture funding hit a record $510 billion in H1 – with OpenAI and Anthropic alone accounting for 43% of the total – as IPOs and M&A rebounded and billion-dollar rounds spread into AI infrastructure, defense, robotics, and healthcare. More here.

Anthropic is reportedly in talks with Samsung about developing a custom AI chip, as the OpenAI rival looks to diversify beyond Nvidia, Google, and Amazon hardware amid chip shortages and intensifying competition over inference costs. TechCrunch has more here.

Spotify confirmed that bots had inflated streams for songs used in Kalshi music-chart markets after a top trader flagged suspicious activity, highlighting how prediction markets can create new incentives to manipulate streaming data. Wired has more here.

IQM became Europe’s first publicly traded quantum company through a Nasdaq SPAC merger at a roughly $1.9 billion valuation, but shares slipped in their debut after the Finnish startup warned that large-scale commercial demand for quantum computing may never materialize. TechCrunch has more here.

Pew Research Center says 56% of U.S. adults support banning children under 16 from using social media, with support cutting across party lines, age groups, and parents and non-parents alike. More here.

The best Fourth of July movies to watch this weekend.

Which Founding Father are you?

Misophonia fireworks.

The Impossible Watch’s robot-like face that tells time through spinning discs, weekday apertures, and a small LCD display.

The NAVEE flying speedboat.

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