The U.S. Department of Justice has seized $15 billion in cryptocurrency from a massive Cambodian “pig butchering” operation, marking its largest forfeiture ever and signaling a crackdown on industrial-scale fraud rings that blend crypto scams with forced labor. CNBC has more here.

Instagram is tightening teen protections to PG-13 content as California forces social apps to display mental health warnings, signaling mounting political pressure on Meta to prove it can police harmful material before lawmakers do it for them. The Washington Post has more here.

OpenAI has a five-year plan to turn $13 billion in annual revenue into $1 trillion, reports the FT, which suggests that the broader U.S. economy really needs the company’s math to work at this point. More here.

Observations from ingesting 20,000+ private company quarterly updates: 

Metrics aren’t called the same. (Net Dollar Retention had 23 different names.) Last quarter’s ARR is routinely restated this quarter. (Always downwards. Never acknowledged.) Monthly numbers sometimes add up to quarterly numbers. (Not very often.)

 No wonder analyzing your portfolio is so painful! See how we’ve solved it >> 

By Maxwell Zeff

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced in a post on X Tuesday the company will soon relax some of ChatGPT’s safety restrictions, allowing users to make the chatbot’s responses friendlier or more “human-like,” and for “verified adults” to engage in erotic conversations.

“We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right,” said Altman. “In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our ‘treat adult users like adults’ principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.”

The announcement is a notable pivot from OpenAI’s months-long effort to address the concerning relationships that some mentally unstable users have developed with ChatGPT. Altman seems to declare an early victory over these problems, claiming OpenAI has “been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues” around ChatGPT. However, the company has provided little to no evidence for this, and is now plowing ahead with plans for ChatGPT to engage in sexual chats with users.

Several concerning stories emerged this summer around ChatGPT, specifically its GPT-4o model, suggesting the AI chatbot could lead vulnerable users down delusional rabbit holes. In one case, ChatGPT seemed to convince a man he was a math genius who needed to save the world. In another, the parents of a teenager sued OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT encouraged their son’s suicidal ideations in the weeks leading up to his death.

Dexory, a ten-year-old London company that provides real-time warehouse intelligence through autonomous robots and an AI data platform, raised a $165 million Series C round led by Eurazeo, with LTS Growth, and Endeavor Catalyst as well as previous investors DTCP, Atomico, Lakestar, Elaia, Latitude Ventures, and Wave-X also stepping up. The Times has more here.

Kailera Therapeutics, a two-year-old startup based in Waltham, MA, that develops clinical-stage injectable and oral therapies for obesity, raised a $600 million Series B round led by Bain Capital Private Equity, with Adage Capital Management, CPP Investments, Invus, Janus Henderson Investors, Qatar Investment Authority, Royalty Pharma, Surveyor Capital, and T. Rowe Price as well as previous investors Atlas Venture, Bain Capital Life Sciences, RTW Investments, and Sirona Capital also piling on. Fierce Biotech has more here.

Lila Sciences, a three-year-old startup based in Cambridge, MA, that builds AI systems for scientific discovery, raised a $115 million Series A extension. Investors included Nventures, Analog Devices, IQT, Dauntless Ventures, Catalio Capital Management, and Pennant Investors. Reuters has more here.

ŌURA, the 12-year-old San Francisco and Finnish company that makes smart rings for health tracking, raised a $900 million round at an approximately $11 billion valuation. The deal was led by Fidelity, with ICONIQ as well as previous investors Whale Rock and Atreides also pitching in. TechCrunch has more here.

Arbio, a four-year-old Berlin startup that is building an AI-native operating system for short-term rental property management and hospitality, raised a $36 million Series A round led by Eurazeo, with Open Ocean and Atlantic Labs also taking part. The company has raised a total of $45+ million. Tech.eu has more here.

Caracol, an eight-year-old Italian startup that delivers large-format robotic manufacturing platforms for polymer and metal additive production, raised a $40 million Series B round co-led by Omnes Capital and Move Capital, with CDP Venture Capital, Primo Capital, Eureka! Venture, and Neva also contributing. More here.

Clove, a London startup founded this year that offers AI-assisted financial advice through human advisers, raised a $14 million pre-seed round led by Accel, with Kindred Capital and Air Street Capital also investing. Tech Funding News has more here.

FleetWorks, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to match small trucking carriers with freight, raised a $15 million Series A round led by First Round Capital, with Y Combinator, Saga Ventures, and LFX Venture Partners also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $17 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Flow Engineering, a two-year-old company that develops tools to help hardware teams manage evolving engineering requirements, raised a $23 million Series A round led by Sequoia, with Odyssey Ventures and Patrick and John Collison also participating. Fortune has more here.

OneImaging, a three-year-old Miami startup that simplifies medical imaging by connecting patients and employers to a network of accredited imaging centers, raised a $38 million round led by Vy Capital and including Aquiline, Sempervirens Venture Capital, XRC Ventures, Dylan Field, and Balaji Srinivasan. More here.

Afori, a Berlin startup founded this year that is developing an AI platform to automate administrative workflows for insurance brokers, raised a $4.6 million pre-seed round led by General Catalyst, with Yellow and Booom also participating. EU-Startups has more here.

Airbound, a five-year-old Bengaluru startup that builds ultra-light blended-wing delivery drones, raised an $8.65 million seed round led by Lachy Groom, with additional participation from Humba Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Altitude, a New York healthcare startup founded this year that uses AI to support and train nurse practitioners in clinical decision-making, raised a $5.4 million round led by Lerer Hippeau. STAT has more here.

Epiminds, a Stockholm startup founded this year that develops AI agents to automate marketing analytics and campaign optimization, raised a $6.6 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with EWOR and Entourage also taking stakes. Forbes has more here.

Flint, a San Francisco startup founded this year that builds AI tools to autonomously generate and update websites, raised a $5 million seed round led by Accel, with Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners and previous investor Neo also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

GEVI, a three-year-old Pisa startup that develops AI-powered vertical-axis wind turbines for distributed energy generation, raised a $3.1million seed round. 360 Capital and CDP Venture Capital co-led the deal, with NextSTEP One also participating. Vestbee has more here.

Isentroniq, a Paris startup founded this year that is developing next-generation wiring for superconducting quantum computers, raised an $8.7 million round led by Heartcore, with OVNI Capital, Kima Ventures, iXcore, Better Angle, Epsilon VC, Bpifrance, and the French National Research Agency also anteing up. Tech Funding News has more here.

Patchworks, a 12-year-old London company that connects retailers’ e-commerce, ERP, and other systems, raised a $7 million round. Gresham House Ventures led the transaction, with Palatine Growth Credit also joining in. UK Tech Investment News has more here.

Pimly, a four-year-old Chicago startup that provides a Salesforce-native product cloud for connecting product, commerce, and CRM data, raised a $2.25 million round led by High Alpha. More here.

Scotch, a one-year-old Denver startup that is working on an all-in-one operating system for liquor retailers to manage inventory, compliance, and sales, raised a $10 million seed round led by First Round Capital, with Lerer Hippeau, Toba Capital, Watchfire Ventures, and Snoop Dogg also participating. Forbes has more here.

Strawberry, a two-year-old Stockholm startup that embeds AI companions into the browser to automate digital workflows, raised a $6 million round co-led by General Catalyst and EQT Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.

Trove AI, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that builds AI agents for private equity workflows, raised a $7.1 million seed round led by Menlo Ventures, with Khosla Ventures also investing. The company has raised a total of approximately $9 million. More here.

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Maximum Frequency Ventures, a one-year-old VC firm founded by Aptos alumni, has raised a $50 million inaugural fund to invest very early and co-build companies in Web3 infrastructure, consumer crypto, and AI-native networks. More here.

LevelBlue, a one-year-old Dallas-based cybersecurity company formerly known as AT&T Cybersecurity, is acquiring Boston’s Cybereason, a 13-year-old firm specializing in extended detection and response and digital forensics. Terms were not disclosed. Cyberscoop has more here.

Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian told the hosts of TBPN yesterday that much of today’s internet is “botted” or quasi-AI, saying the shift toward dead, automated content will drive a new wave of social platforms built around verifiable human presence and live interaction. Business Insider has more here.

Researchers have found that roughly half of geostationary satellites are transmitting unencrypted consumer, corporate, and even military data, exposing sensitive communications and underscoring a massive, long-running security blind spot in critical infrastructure. TechCrunch has more here.

Good news, bad news. A new report from SEO firm Graphite finds that AI slop has plateaued at roughly 52% of new online articles, suggesting content farms may be losing traction as search engines increasingly seek out human-written work. Futurism has more here.

A growing wave of screenwriters and studios are testing AI tools like Greenlight and ScriptSense to summarize and score scripts, raising fears among Hollywood story analysts that cost-cutting execs may eventually swap human gatekeepers for faster but less discerning bots. Variety has more here.

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