SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share, raising $75 billion in the largest public offering ever and valuing Elon Musk’s 24-year-old space and AI company at roughly $1.75 trillion ahead of its Nasdaq debut under the ticker SPCX. TechCrunch has more here.

Citigroup is rolling out a blockchain-based system that lets wealthy and institutional clients trade tokenized shares of private companies, initially for foreign investors, as Wall Street looks for new ways to broaden access to closely held companies staying private longer. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

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SpaceX makes its public debut on Friday, and some investors who backed the company through special purpose vehicles (SPVs) still don’t know how many shares they’re entitled to or whether they’ll get any shares at all.

Investing through SPVs, where multiple parties pool their money to invest in a single company, has been around for a while. But SpaceX represents an unprecedented case of an IPO with multiple layers of these vehicles. Since demand for SpaceX allocations has been so high in recent years, investors in an SPV have occasionally formed a new SPV from their shares, creating a structure sometimes stacked four or five layers deep.

SpaceX will be the first major test of the legitimacy of multi-layer SPV. In recent months, Anthropic and Anduril have announced that they are disallowing these structures.

Nearly a dozen SPV managers and secondary market investors who spoke to TechCrunch said that backers in lower-tier vehicles might find they own fewer shares than they think or, in rare cases, that they may not receive any shares at all.

In most situations, these investors won’t learn how many SpaceX shares they actually own until the company’s rolling lock-ups, scheduled to take place over about four months, begin to lift. That’s because SPV managers won’t begin distributing shares to investors in these vehicles until they get access to the shares themselves, sources told TechCrunch. Lock-up agreements prevent insiders, including employees, their friends and family, and venture investors, from selling shares for a set period after an IPO to prevent excessive selling pressure on the stock.

The first-layer SPV will have 30 days to distribute stock to its investors, said Justin Ernest, founder and managing partner of Sabertooth Capital, a firm that invests primarily in first-layer SPVs. Consequently, the next layer down likely won’t get its shares for as long as 30 days, meaning the vehicle below that must wait even longer to deliver stock to its own backers. For the final disbursement, the bottom SPV layer may have to wait eight or nine months, Ernest estimates.

Current, an 11-year-old New York company that provides consumer banking services that help individuals manage cash flow, access credit, build savings, and manage their accounts via mobile accounts, raised an $80 million Series E round at a $1.5 billion valuation. The deal was led by Springcoast Partners. More here.

Digital Asset, a 12-year-old New York company that develops the Canton Network, a privacy-focused blockchain for institutional finance that supports tokenized asset workflows across banks, exchanges, asset managers, and other financial institutions, raised a $355 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with 7RIDGE, ABN Amro, ADIA, Alumni Ventures, Apollo Funds, BNP Paribas, Broadridge, Citadel Securities, CME Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Greenwulf Asset Management, Hanwha Investment & Securities, HSBC, iCapital, Liberty City Ventures, Optiver, Polychain, R136 Ventures, S&P Global, SBI Group, Smash Capital, SoFi, Tradeweb, and William Blair also piling on. More here.

Endurance Energy, a two-year-old Seattle startup that aims to harness deep-ocean geothermal energy near tectonic plate boundaries, raised a $54 million Series A round led by Founders Fund, with Ascend, Construct Capital, Felicis Ventures, First Round Capital, Point72 Ventures, Riot Ventures, and Voyager Ventures also taking stakes. TechCrunch has more here.

Hypha, a one-year-old New York startup that organizes fragmented investment data into structured insights to support underwriting, portfolio management, and capital deployment across private credit, equity, and real estate, raised a $50 million seed round led by TriEdge Investments, with Bankwell, Cammeby's International, CFG Bank, Crescent Heights, Dwight Capital, MonticelloAM, and Yakar Partners also contributing. The company has raised a total of $50 million. More here.

PhoenixAI, a four-year-old startup based in Menlo Park, CA, that develops analytical database software for AI agents to query live enterprise data, raised an $80 million Series B round led by Sky9 Capital, with Atypical Ventures and Olive Technology Ventures also opting in. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Prometheus, a seven-month-old San Francisco startup co-founded and co-led by Jeff Bezos that aims to build AI systems for designing and manufacturing complex physical products, confirmed today that it has raised $12 billion at an approximately $41 billion post-money valuation. Investors included Bezos, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock. TechCrunch has more here.

Rylo, a five-year-old New York and Tel Aviv startup formerly known as Nagish that develops real-time captioning, text-to-speech, and sign-language-translation tools for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, raised a total of $85 million in financing consisting of a $10 million round led by Canaan, with previous investors Vertex Ventures and Contour also participating, as well as $75 million from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund. The company has raised a total of $100+ million in equity and non-dilutive financing. Business Wire has more here.

Satispay, a 13-year-old Milan company that operates a mobile payments network that connects users’ bank accounts to merchants and enables in-app investing, corporate welfare benefits, and installment payments, announced that it is raising up to $138 million at a $1+ billion valuation. Previous investors Addition, Greyhound Capital, and Lightrock have reportedly committed roughly half of this amount. The company has raised a total of $500+ million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Theker, a four-year-old Barcelona startup that builds autonomous generalist robots that adapt to changing industrial environments to perform varied tasks across logistics, retail, manufacturing, and waste operations, raised an $85 million Series A round led by CRV, with additional support from Samsung, LVMH, Cathay Innovation, 20VC, and Henkel Ventures as well as previous investors Inditex and Kibo Ventures. Techcrunch has more here.

Coram, a four-year-old startup based in Sunnyvale, CA, that uses AI to help organizations search security-camera footage, detect incidents, and respond faster, raised a $35 million Series B round co-led by Ansa Capital and Battery Ventures, with UP.Partners, 8VC, and Mosaic Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $66 million. Business Insider has more here.

Earlytrade, an eight-year-old Denver startup that enables construction subcontractors to receive early invoice payments by offering discounted payouts and optimizing payment timing between general contractors and subcontractors, raised a $25 million round co-led by S3 Ventures and Brick & Mortar Ventures. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Mendo, a five-year-old Paris startup that embeds guidance and analytics into enterprise AI chat tools to help employees use generative AI effectively and track adoption across organizations, raised a $13.8 million Series A round co-led by Ventech and Educapital, with Tomcat and OVNI also investing. The company has raised a total of $17.9 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Turnout, a two-year-old startup based in Solano Beach, CA, that helps consumers secure government, financial, healthcare, and education benefits by managing applications, records retrieval, and agency communications through AI agents and human advocates, raised a $35 million round at a $400 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by HighPost Capital, with Shine Capital, LGVP, Mangusta Capital, Honeystone Ventures, and Omri Casspi also chiming in. More here.

Upriver, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that deploys AI agents that connect to enterprise data systems to identify and fix data quality issues, maintain pipelines, and create new datasets, raised a $14 million seed round co-led by Valley Capital Partners and Hetz Ventures. CTech has more here.

Concentrate AI, a one-year-old New York startup that routes AI tasks across different models so developers can control token costs, monitor overspending, and keep applications running when individual models or providers go down, raised a $5 million pre-seed round. Investors included True Ventures and RRE Ventures. Business Insider has more here.

Fearn, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that automates patent drafting, figure generation, and compliance workflows to help engineers and scientists produce patent filings faster and at lower cost, raised a $5.5 million seed round led by Kindred Ventures, with Andreessen Horowitz, Designer Fund, and Essence VC also participating. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Lium, a two-year-old Dallas startup that ingests complex scientific and industrial datasets and restructures them into formats large language models can query to generate consistent analytical outputs, raised a $5.5 million seed round. Investors included SJF Ventures, Wavemaker 360, Reach Capital, and GC&H Investments. More here.

RELAI, a two-year-old startup based in Bethesda, MD, that analyzes AI agent failures and feedback to identify root causes and continuously update prompts, workflows, and memory while validating improvements against prior performance, raised a $5.4 million pre-seed round led by .406 Ventures, with the AI Tinkerers Fund also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $6.9 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Swarm Engineering, a 10-year-old company based in Irvine, CA, that ingests data from ERP systems, spreadsheets, and supply chain feeds to model scenarios and optimize operational decisions for agri-food and manufacturing companies, raised a $10 million Series A round led by S2G Investments and AgRogue Growth Partners, with Radicle Growth, Grit Road Partners, Middleland Capital, Open Prairie, Serra Ventures, and Trailhead Capital also engaging. More here.

TurnUp, a four-year-old Belgian startup that predicts missed healthcare appointments and automates patient communications, scheduling, and waitlist management to help medical and dental practices fill unused appointment slots, raised a $2.3 million seed round led by Newion and including RDY Ventures. More here.

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OpenAI has agreed to acquire Ona, a nine-year-old New York startup formerly known as Gitpod that provides secure, pre-configured cloud environments where AI agents can access tools, systems, and context to complete longer-running software-development tasks. Terms were not disclosed. CNBC has more here.

Quantum Space, a six-year-old startup based in Rockville, MD, that is developing maneuverable spacecraft for U.S. military reconnaissance and other national security missions, agreed to go public through a SPAC merger that values the company at $1.2 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Some investors are questioning whether SpaceX can justify its planned $1.77 trillion IPO valuation, with critics including Jim Chanos, Michael Burry, and Ross Gerber pointing to the company’s heavy losses, fast-rising AI spending, and sweeping projections for space-based data centers, lunar factories, and a $28.5 trillion addressable market. The New York Times has more here.

In a New York Times op ed, John O’Farrell, a former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, calls out his old firm and other Silicon Valley AI players for spending heavily through political action committees to defeat pro-regulation candidates. The New York Times has more here.

Axios argues that Elon Musk has become effectively immune from traditional corporate blowback, with investor demand for SpaceX’s $1.75 trillion IPO overwhelming concerns about his increasingly incendiary political rhetoric on X, where he has amplified far-right claims about immigration, crime, and Western decline. More here.

Speaking of Elon Musk, a giant inflatable effigy of the South African trillionaire appeared in Times Square today, with a child-safety coalition warning investors that SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI and its Grok chatbot could expose shareholders to lawsuits, investigations, fines, and reputational damage. Business Insider has more here.

The Times profiles Justin Fishner-Wolfson, the 137 Ventures founder who spent 15 years amassing secondary shares in SpaceX and whose firm now owns more than 1% of the company, a stake worth roughly $20 billion at SpaceX’s expected $1.77 trillion IPO valuation. More here.

Boris Power, who is OpenAI’s head of applied research, is taking on an additional role as head of research at Thrive Holdings, saying the dual post will help tighten the feedback loop between real-world AI deployment and OpenAI’s product and model development. More here.

Microsoft’s Xbox division is preparing major layoffs and possible studio changes as CEO Asha Sharma warns of an “Xbox reset,” telling staff that the business has spent more than $20 billion on content, platform, and hardware subsidies over the past five years, excluding Activision Blizzard King, while annual revenue has fallen by nearly $500 million. The Verge has more here.

Coinbase launched an AI agent that can trade crypto on behalf of users and pay for premium research or on-demand compute through the x402 payment protocol, part of a broader push to build finance tools for a web increasingly navigated by autonomous agents. TechCrunch has more here.

A federal judge in Mississippi sanctioned four lawyers on both sides of a civil case after finding that some had used AI tools to cite fake legal cases in court filings, barring two from the court for two years, fining all four, removing them from the case, and canceling the trial. The New York Times has more here.

In an article in New York magazine, author Katie Arnold-Ratliff argues that gifted-and-talented programs rest on shaky assumptions about intelligence, with unreliable testing, racial and socioeconomic disparities, inconsistent curricula, and little evidence that the programs meaningfully improve academic outcomes for the children selected into them.

Researchers say people across cultures, ages, and handedness tend to veer left when walking freely, a surprisingly consistent bias that has shown up in experiments in Spain and Japan and still has no clear explanation.

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