SpaceX is eyeing a roughly $1.75 trillion valuation in its IPO next week and is expected to sell less than 5% of its shares, or about $60 billion to $80 billion worth, with pricing expected June 11th and trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX expected June 12th. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

President Trump signed a scaled-back AI executive order requiring some companies to voluntarily submit powerful new models for government review 30 days before release, down from an earlier 90-day proposal, as the administration tries to address AI-related cybersecurity risks without imposing the kind of mandatory oversight the industry opposed. Politico has more here.

Anthropic is expanding Project Glasswing, its AI cybersecurity initiative, to roughly 150 organizations across more than 15 countries, giving critical-infrastructure operators and security groups access to Claude Mythos to scan codebases for potentially catastrophic vulnerabilities in sectors including power, water, healthcare, communications, and hardware. TechCrunch has more here.

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By Sean O’Kane

Before Zack Eakin sold investors on his new startup, he practiced on Palmer Luckey.

When Eakin left Luckey’s defense startup, Anduril, in 2024 to start a new composites company called Layup Parts, Luckey — along with Anduril co-founders Brian Schimpf and Matt Grimm — let him workshop the pitch.

He got different feedback from each, Eakin told TechCrunch. Grimm helped him think about how to pitch VCs, Schimpf (Anduril’s CEO) pushed him on strategy, while Luckey — ever the fundraiser — guided him on the storytelling.

This miniature boot camp appears to have worked. Two years ago, Eakin raised a $9 million seed round. The startup announced Tuesday it has raised another $42 million in a Series A funding round led by dual-use venture fund Marlinspike, with participation from new investors Cerberus Ventures and Pinegrove Venture Partners, and existing backers Founders Fund and Lux Capital.

It’s a tidy sum for the Huntington Beach, California, startup, which employs just 60 people or so. And much of it will go toward people. Layup Parts used most of its seed money on capital expenditures. Eakin wants to use the new funding to grow the startup’s ranks and move into a bigger facility this year. The goal is to make ordering custom parts made of carbon fiber or fiberglass as easy as if they were sold on Amazon.

Eakin has been working with composite materials for around two decades, dating back to his time in motorsports, he told TechCrunch. The engineer started his professional career at Chip Ganassi Racing, where he worked with carbon-fiber structures and bodywork, especially for the company’s IndyCar entries and the radical (and radically controversial) DeltaWing prototype.

Eakin took a bit of a detour to become the first engineer at Elon Musk’s Boring Company in 2017. But by 2021, he was once again elbow-deep in composites when he took the role at Anduril.

Contraline, an 11-year-old company based in Charlottesville, VA, that develops male contraceptives, including a once-daily topical hormonal gel designed to suppress sperm production while maintaining normal testosterone levels, raised a $92.5 million Series B round led by BVF Partners and RA Capital Management, with GV, Lumira Ventures, and Invus also contributing. More here.

Cyera, a five-year-old Israeli startup that develops AI-based software for discovering, classifying, and protecting sensitive data across cloud environments, raised a $300 million round at a $12 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with Georgian, Greenoaks, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Cyberstarts, Coatue, Accel, and Spark Capital also piling on. The company has raised a total of $2+ billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Impulse Space, a five-year-old startup based in Redondo Beach, CA, that builds spacecraft and propulsion systems to maneuver satellites in orbit and transport them from low Earth orbit to higher orbits, raised a $500 million Series D round co-led by 137 Ventures and Banner VC, with Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Linse Capital also pitching in. TechCrunch has more here.

NewLimit, a four-year-old, South San Francisco-based anti-aging startup co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and former GV partner Blake Byers, has raised $435 million at a $3.1 billion post-money valuation. Founders Fund led the round, joined by Thrive Capital, Greenoaks, Quiet Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Eli Lilly Ventures. Fierce Biotech has more here.

ZutaCore, a 10-year-old company based in Sderot, Israel, and Foster City, CA, that develops direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems for data center processors using two-phase dielectric fluid to remove heat from high-density AI and HPC servers, raised a $100 million Series C round at a $600 million post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Mitsubishi Electric, Carrier, and Samsung Electronics. The company has raised a total of approximately $200 million. CTech has more here.

Board, a three-year-old New York startup that has built a 24-inch touchscreen gaming device that recognizes physical game pieces, blending board games with video-game-style interactivity for homes, schools, hospitals, and restaurants, raised a $20 million round led by Union Square Ventures, with additional support from Adjacent, BoxGroup, Coalition Operators, First Round Capital, Lerer Hippeau, IRL Ventures, Metrodora Ventures, Patron, SV Angel, Twelve Below, and Haystack, as well as angel investors like Biz Stone and Tim Ferriss. The company has raised a total of $35 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Ilant Health, a four-year-old New York startup that provides clinician-led obesity and cardiometabolic care programs for employers and health plans, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Cornucopian Capital, with naturalX, Peakbridge, Semcap AI, Evidenced, Operator Partners, Celtic, LifeX, and AlphaLab also investing. The company has raised a total of $22+ million. More here.

IMU Biosciences, a seven-year-old London startup that analyzes blood samples using multi-omic techniques and machine learning to measure immune system activity and generate detailed immune profiles for clinical research and treatment decisions, raised a $38.4 million Series A round co-led by IQ Capital and Molten Ventures and including The British Business Bank and Meltwind. The company has raised a total of $60 million. More here.

Novellia, a three-year-old New York startup that consolidates patient medical records from hospitals, clinics, and labs; extracts structured data from clinical text; and provides de-identified datasets for pharmaceutical research with patient consent, raised an $18 million Series A round led by Spark Capital, with Khosla Ventures, Acrew Capital, Bling Capital, and TMV also engaging. The company has raised a total of $28 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Oak Hill Bio, a five-year-old UK startup that acquires and advances rare disease drug candidates, including antisense oligonucleotide therapies that target gene expression, raised a $32.5 million Series A round co-led by Balyasny Asset Management, venBio, and Janus Henderson Investors. More here.

Subtle Medical, a nine-year-old Menlo Park startup that develops machine learning models that enhance MRI, PET, and CT images, reduce scan times, denoise scans, and improve image quality on existing imaging equipment, raised a $44 million round led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, with Shinhan Venture Investment as well as previous investors Fusion Fund, EnvisionX, BRV, and Samsung Ventures also opting in. The company has raised a total of $86 million. More here.

Tilt, a five-year-old London startup that enables sellers to host live video auctions, interact with buyers, and convert livestreamed products into listings while providing tools for pricing, search, and content clipping, raised a $26 million round. Investors included Vinted Ventures as well as prior backers TQ Ventures, Balderton Capital, Earlybird, and Seedcamp. The company has raised a total of $50+ million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Archestra, a two-year-old London startup that brokers access between artificial intelligence agents and sensitive enterprise data, raised a $10 million round. 20VC was the deal lead, with 20 Product, Visible Ventures, Tenacity Capital, and Commit Fund as well as previous investor Datadog also participating. The company has raised a total of $13.5 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Bayshore, a one-year-old Munich startup that translates legal rules into machine-readable code to train AI agents for compliance teams, raised an $8 million seed round led by Earlybird Venture Capital, with Lucid Capital, Booom, and Heliad also taking part. Tech Funding News has more here.

Blulabs, a five-year-old Miami startup that provides global supply chain, sourcing, manufacturing, and logistics services to major airlines, hospitality groups, distributors, retailers, and Fortune 500 customers, raised a $7 million round at a $160 million pre-money valuation. Lodestone Capital led the transaction. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Borro, a two-year-old Brussels startup that operates a digital deposit system for reusable cups and containers that links each item to a visitor’s bank card and automatically refunds deposits when items are returned, raised a $1.5 million round. Investors included Seeder Fund, Imec.istart, Bluesnipe, PMV, and Butterfly & Elephant. BeBeez International has more here.

INXM, a one-year-old Berlin startup that develops AI software for automating enterprise processes with deterministic and auditable workflows, raised a $6.6 million pre-seed round co-led by Cherry Ventures and Redstone, with Angel Invest and Linden Capital also stepping up. More here.

Kosmos, a recently founded Chicago startup that correlates customer cases, code changes, and service incident data across tools like Jira, Salesforce, GitHub, ServiceNow, and observability systems to identify root causes and help engineering teams resolve incidents, raised a $5 million seed round led by Norwest. More here.

Oplane, a four-year-old startup based in Malmö, Sweden, that automates threat modeling by mapping codebase architecture, identifying system-level security requirements, and delivering remediation guidance within developer workflows for teams using AI coding tools, raised a $5.2 million seed round. Seed Capital was the deal lead, with previous investor Icebreaker.vc also chipping in. Arctic Startup has more here.

Plot, a four-year-old, New York-based social video marketing platform, has raised $10 million in seed funding co-led by seed. XYZ Venture Capital and Mischief Ventures led the round, joined by Seven Seven Six and Acme Capital. Adweek has more here.

SpeedLabs, a one-year-old New York startup that is building a market engine that analyzes live sports games to generate and price new event-driven betting markets based on in-game moments, raised a $6.5 million seed round led by Parlay Capital, with Bullpen Capital, TA Ventures, and EdgeEquity also anteing up. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Zazume, a five-year-old Barcelona startup that digitizes residential rental management by handling tenant onboarding, rent collection, maintenance, and financial services for property owners and real estate agencies, raised a $2.9 million Series A round co-led by Nordstar and GTV Capital, with previous investor Sabadell Venture Capital also investing. Tech.eu has more here.

ZeroDrift, a New York startup founded this year that looks for compliance violations in AI-generated messages and rewrites them to meet regulatory standards, raised a $10 million seed round. Investors included Andreessen Horowitz, Reign Ventures, PitchDrive Ventures, and U&I Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

SewerAI, a seven-year-old startup based in Walnut Creek, CA, that automates sewer inspection analysis, condition coding, risk scoring, rehabilitation planning, and capital project prioritization using data from underground pipe inspections, raised an undisclosed amount led by JMI Equity, with previous investors Innovius Capital, Epic Ventures, and Bentley Systems also digging in. More here.

Version One Ventures, the Vancouver-based early stage firm led by longtime VC Boris Wertz, has closed $108 million across two new funds — a $78 million vehicle focused on pre-seed and seed investments and a $30 million follow-on fund for its most promising portfolio companies. Geekwire has more here.

Morningstar initiated coverage of SpaceX with a $780 billion fair-value estimate, less than half the roughly $1.8 trillion valuation the company is targeting in its IPO, arguing that investors may be able to buy shares at more attractive levels after the offering and flagging uncertainty around xAI, orbital data centers, and Elon Musk’s voting control. Yahoo Finance has more here.

Mercor CEO Brendan Foody says the $10 billion AI training startup already spends more on AI tokens for internal agents than on employee salaries, a pattern he predicts will spread across corporate America as companies deploy AI agents across more business functions. Business Insider has more here.

The New York Times analyzed more than 600 public goals Elon Musk set for his companies over the past 15 years and found he achieved only about 19% on time, with another 35% delivered late or not at all, raising fresh questions about his timelines as SpaceX heads toward one of the largest IPOs ever. More here.

Martin Scorsese has signed on as a partner and adviser to Black Forest Labs, the German AI image-generation startup behind tools used by Adobe, Canva, Microsoft, and Meta, though the director says he is using the technology only to create storyboards faster. TechCrunch has more here.

America’s AI data-center buildout is falling behind despite surging tech spending, with a JPMorgan analysis finding that more than 60% of the capacity planned for 2027 is not yet under construction and another 7% is delayed, as power constraints, permitting fights, and supply-chain backlogs slow projects. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

At its Build developer conference today, Microsoft unveiled Majorana 2, a new quantum computing chip designed with help from AI, saying the lead-based materials produced a 1,000-fold improvement on some performance metrics and put the company on track to build commercially useful quantum machines by 2029. Still, some physicists say Microsoft still has not released enough data to verify its claims. Reuters has more here.

A group of 16 mathematicians has published a declaration urging caution as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and others push deeper into research-level math, warning that proprietary AI systems could distort the field’s priorities, flood journals with hard-to-check proofs, and undermine norms around openness, credit, and human understanding. The New York Times has more here.

Wired has a tick-tock of the internal White House fight that preceded today’s AI executive order, reporting that officials were split over how much early access the government should have to frontier AI models, with some national security officials pushing for pre-release cybersecurity review while David Sacks and other deregulation advocates warned that too much oversight could slow the U.S. race against China. More here.

New York Magazine explores the rise of “loneliness influencers,” creators who build aspirational lifestyle content around having no friends, showing quiet nights alone in tidy apartments and turning social isolation into a relatable, and increasingly bankable, online identity.

An Upper East Side bar is offering free drinks if the Knicks win Game One of the NBA Finals, and it’s using Kalshi to hedge the risk.

“Business AI for business … Business, business, business. AI, AI, AI.”

A 31.5-acre waterfront estate on Martha’s Vineyard owned by Boston tech entrepreneur and investor Michael Bronner is hitting the market for $49 million, a price that would set a record for the island if it sells near ask. The Edgartown compound includes a renovated 6,500-square-foot main house, a guesthouse, multiple cottages, 2,500 feet of frontage on Edgartown Great Pond, and a private path to the beach.

Mattress toppers for billionaires.

Girly cyberdecks.

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