SpaceX is quietly lining up banks for a possible mid-2026 IPO that could raise more than $25 billion at a valuation approaching $1.5 trillion. Reuters has more here.

Most firms only tap a fraction of their network. The rest of their relationship data stays buried across inboxes and meeting histories. Affinity AI brings it all together. It automatically scores relationship strength, reveals shared connections, and prioritizes the warmest paths into high-value companies. With automated research summaries and real-time signals, your team can move quickly—even with limited resources. Turn your existing relationships into a sourcing engine. 

Explore Affinity AI 

By Julie Bort

Anysphere, the company that makes AI coding assistant darling Cursor, isn’t thinking about an IPO any time soon, its co-founder CEO Michael Truell said onstage Monday at Fortune’s AI Brainstorm conference.

After reaching $1 billion in annualized revenue in November and raising $2.3 billion at a $29.3 billion valuation last month, Truell said his company is instead focused on building out more features.

For instance, he noted that Cursor’s homegrown LLMs were geared to support specific products. Cursor also confirmed the existence of those models in November when it said in a blog post, “Our in-house models now generate more code than almost any other LLMs in the world.”

His comments about the models came up at Fortune’s event when the founder was asked how he plans to compete with the LLM makers that he relies on when the major ones — OpenAI, Anthropic — have their own AI coding offerings.

Truell likened their coding products to “a concept car,” whereas his product is a production automobile.

“It would be like taking an engine and a concept car around it instead of a whole end-to-end car that was manufactured,” Truell said. “What we do is we take the best intelligence that the market has to offer from many different providers. And we also do our own product-specific models in places. We take that, we build it together and integrate it, then also build the best tool and end UX for working with AI.”

Blue Current, a 12-year-old company based in Hayward, CA, that develops silicon solid-state batteries for electric vehicles and stationary storage, raised an $81 million Series D round led by Amazon, with Koch Disruptive Technologies, Piedmont Capital, Rusheen Capital Partners, and Allen & Company also taking part. The company has raised a total of $150 million. More here.

Boom Supersonic, an 11-year-old Denver company that is now building both a supersonic airliner and a natural gas turbine to power AI data centers, raised a $300 million Series B round led by Darsana Capital Partners, with additional participation from Altimeter Capital, ARK Invest, Bessemer Venture Partners, Robinhood Ventures, and Y Combinator. TechCrunch has more here.

Duve, a 10-year-old Israeli company that helps hotels manage guest communications and upsell services, raised a $60 million Series B led by Susquehanna Growth Equity, with XT Venture Capital also digging in. The company has raised a total of $85 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Fal, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that hosts image, video, and audio AI models for developers, raised a $140 million Series D round at a $4.5 billion valuation. The deal was led by Sequoia Capital, with Kleiner Perkins, Alkeon Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Bessemer Venture Partners also chiming in. Bloomberg has more here.

Generative Bionics, an Italian startup founded this year that develops humanoid robots for industrial use, raised an $81.6 million round led by CDP Venture Capital, with Tether and AMD Ventures also opting in. Bloomberg has more here.

Radial, a three-year-old New York company that develops clinical infrastructure and reimbursement tools for advanced mental health treatments, raised a $50 million Series A round led by General Catalyst, with Solari Capital, JSL Health Capital, Founder Collective, BoxGroup, and Scrub Capital also contributing. More here.

Saviynt, a 16-year-old company based in El Segundo, CA, that provides identity and access management for human and nonhuman users, raised a $700 million Series B round at a $3 billion valuation. KKR was the deal lead, with Sixth Street Growth and Ten Eleven Ventures as well as previous investor Carrick Capital Partners also participating. More here.

Unconventional AI, a four-month-old, San Diego startup that says it’s building a new, energy-efficient computer for AI, confirmed TechCrunch’s October reporting that it has raised $475 million in seed capital at a $4.5 billion valuation. Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Ventures led the round, joined by Lux Capital and DCVC. Unconventional was founded by Naveen Rao. Rao was most recently the head of AI at Databricks, which acquired his last company, MosaicML, in 2023. Bloomberg has more here.

Assaia, an eight-year-old Zürich startup that uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to monitor and predict aircraft turnaround activity at airports, raised a $26.6 million Series B round. Armira Growth was the deal lead. More here.

Crown, a two-year-old São Paulo startup that issues a Brazilian real-pegged stablecoin backed by government bonds, raised a $13.5 million Series A round at a $90 million valuation. The deal was led by Paradigm, with previous investors Framework Ventures, Valor Capital Group, Coinbase Ventures, Norte Ventures, and Paxos also stepping up, at a $90 million valuation. The Block has more here.

Equixly, a three-year-old startup based in Florence, Italy, that develops AI-powered software for API penetration testing, raised an $11.6 million Series A led by 33N Ventures and including Alpha Intelligence Capital, JME Ventures, 360 Capital, and Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze. The company has raised a total of $13.3+ million. SecurityWeek has more here.

Haven Energy, a four-year-old Los Angeles startup that installs and leases residential and small commercial battery storage systems aggregated into virtual power plants, raised a $40 million round led by Giant Ventures, with California Infrastructure Bank, Carnrite Ventures, Chaac Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, and Turtle Hill also pitching in. More here.

Lin Health, a five-year-old Denver startup that delivers virtual behavioral care for chronic pain patients, raised an $11 million Series A led by Proofpoint Capital, with Osage Venture Partners, NewHealth Ventures, aMoon, Mayo Clinic, Saban Ventures, Shoni HealthVentures, and Viola Ventures also piling on. More here.

Prime Security, a two-year-old New York startup that develops autonomous AI agents for design-stage software security reviews, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Scale Venture Partners, with Foundation Capital, and Flybridge Ventures also investing. The company has raised a total of $26 million. CTech has more here.

Pryzm, a three-year-old Boston startup that uses artificial intelligence to streamline defense-tech procurement for U.S. government agencies and contractors, raised a $12.2 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with previous investors XYZ, Amplify.LA, and Forum Ventures also participating. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Relation Therapeutics, a seven-year-old London startup that uses artificial intelligence and multi-omics data to identify and validate drug targets, raised a $26 million round. Investors included prior backers NVentures, DCVC, and Magnetic Ventures. Pharmaphorum has more here.

Resemble AI, a six-year-old startup based in Mountain View, CA, that builds tools to detect AI-generated deepfakes across audio, video, images, and text, raised a $13 million round. Investors included Berkeley CalFund, Berkeley Frontier Fund, Comcast Ventures, Craft Ventures, Gentree, Google’s AI Futures Fund, IAG Capital Partners, Javelin, KDDI Open Innovation Fund, Okta Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, Taiwania, and Ubiquity. The company has raised a total of $25 million. SecurityWeek has more here.

Algori, a seven-year-old Madrid startup that helps brands and retailers improve distribution, sales and marketing, raised a $4.2 million round led by Red Bull Ventures, with Tech Transfer Agrifood (Clave Capital), Co-Invest Capital, AttaPoll, Firstpick, Shilling, Flashpoint, and Change Ventures also anteing up. More here.

Orbital Marine Power, a 23-year-old Scottish company that uses floating tidal turbines to generate electricity from tidal currents, raised a $9.3 million round led by PXN Ventures, with previous investor Scottish Enterprise also engaging. Tech Funding News has more here.

Rotostitch, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that develops automated textile manufacturing systems for apparel production, raised a $1 million pre-seed co-led by Boost VC and Nova Threshold. More here.

HSBC Innovation Banking US 

Discover founder-first banking for the future. HSBC Innovation Banking US is committed to helping leaders in the innovation economy get started on the future faster by providing access to an extensive global network, dedicated sector experts, and a robust suite of banking products and services. 

EquipmentShare.com, a 10-year-old company based in Columbia, MO, that provides fleet management, tracking, and maintenance tools for construction contractors, filed for a U.S. IPO revealing nine-month revenue of $2.81 billion, up 27% from the same period last year. Reuters has more here.

Denise Dresser is leaving Slack to become chief revenue officer at OpenAI, a senior hire that signals growing emphasis on enterprise sales as the company scales business customers beyond research and consumer experimentation. WIRED has more here.

Hinge CEO Justin McLeod is stepping down from his role to launch a new AI dating product called Overtone. TechCrunch has more here.

Fresh off a volatile post-IPO year marked by debt-fueled expansion and failed deals, Coreweave’s co-founder and CEO Michael Intrator pushed back on criticism of insider-heavy AI financing, likening circular AI deals to “working together.” TechCrunch has more here.

VSCO, an Oakland company that runs a photo editing and photography community app, cut 24 employees as it restructures away from a weakening consumer business toward serving professional photographers. TechCrunch has more here.

The Wall Street Journal digs into the "code red" that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called last week, revealing how competitive pressure from Google is pushing OpenAI to favor short-term growth over its longer-term quest for breakthrough research. More here.

OpenAI, Anthropic, and Block are pooling key agent standards under a new Linux Foundation-backed nonprofit, signaling a push by U.S. AI leaders to shape interoperability before Chinese open models and cloud incumbents set the rules. WIRED has more here.

Australia’s ban on social media for users under 16 went into effect last night, cutting teens off from major apps and setting up a test of whether age verification can work or it’ll instead send kids hunting for workarounds. The Washington Post has more here.

The New York Times argues that today’s AI boom echoes dot-com era exuberance but differs materially because it is driven by cash-rich incumbents, faster enterprise adoption, lighter regulation, and investor caution that could blunt the kind of crash that happened back in 2000. More here.

Gen Z daters confront the “swag gap.”

Pantone’s color of the year is “cloud dancer.”

Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky is debuting a $75 smart ring that records brief voice notes with a button press, runs locally without subscriptions, and reflects a growing push toward narrow, privacy-minded hardware. TechCrunch has more here.

Google’s AI glasses should also hit the market next year.

Harmonic 

Thousands of investors from firms like F-Prime, USV, and 8VC use Scout, the AI agent made for VCs, to source and evaluate opportunities. 

Join them! 

Please send all of your hot gossip to [email protected] or [email protected].

To book ads directly, contact us at [email protected].