The Pentagon says it has stopped using Anthropic's Claude after the company refused to remove safeguards against mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. The military had relied on Claude for months for classified research, intelligence analysis and operations, including through Palantir's Maven system. BBC has more here.

Vinod Khosla called the AI coding startup Factory a "struggling second tier competitor" last week, and Menlo Ventures answered today with a glowing blog post, touting its investment with the company. A source tells TechCrunch the firm would have invested even more in Factory’s last round if it could have. More here.

Hackers stole personal information belonging to roughly 8 million Danish citizens and residents from a government identity database, an extraordinary breach in a country with an estimated population of just 6 million; the compromised data included names, addresses, social security numbers, and other information. TechCrunch has more here.

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Although it’s only been a couple of months since Etched raised $700 million at a $21 billion valuation, the AI chip startup is already being plied with investment offers at double or more its value, according to people familiar with the company.

Etched is reviewing incoming bids that range from $40 billion from top-tier investors to $50 billion from lesser-known backers, one person said. These fundraising talks are early, so terms of any deal, should one happen, may change. Etched declined to comment.

While this may seem like a fast timetable to raise another mega round, Etched is pursuing a particularly expensive segment of the AI industry: building full AI hardware systems powered by its own proprietary chips. The person familiar with these offers said that if it raises as much as its last round, this could give Etched a cushion of as much as 3.5 years of runway.

There are reasons why VCs are hot to own a piece of Etched. The four-year-old startup shows promise of challenging Nvidia. Not only did quant trading firm Jane Street lead the last $700 million round, it is also a customer that took delivery of an early system. Etched said in July that it had already secured $1 billion in customer orders, including the one from Jane Street, after manufacturing its test chip at a TSMC factory this summer.

Co-founder and COO Robert Wachen previously told TechCrunch that investors are so enthusiastic because Etched has designed two new components from scratch to speed up inference — the computing process that happens after a user submits a prompt.  

Monzo, an 11-year-old London digital bank, is in early talks with CVC and Advent International about selling a stake of up to 15% after takeover discussions with Nubank collapsed over Monzo’s desired valuation of as much as £10 billion. The Financial Times has more here.

Valon Technologies, a seven-year-old New York startup that provides mortgage servicers with a unified operating system and AI agents that automate loan-servicing workflows, raised a $150 million Series D round at a $2.3 billion valuation. Investors included Ribbit Capital as well as previous investor Andreessen Horowitz. More here.

Buntar Aerospace, a three-year-old Kyiv startup that develops reconnaissance drones and software that helps operators plan and manage combat missions, raised a $16 million round led by Freedom Fund, with Gardar, Iron Wolf, and Autonomy Capital also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $30 million. More here.

Ghost, a one-year-old San Francisco startup founded by a 19-year-old that is developing a personal computer that runs AI agents locally to understand users’ data and perform tasks on their behalf, raised an $11 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Abstract Ventures, Audacious Ventures, SV Angel, and Nova also stepping up. TechCrunch has more here.

Namespace, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that provides coding, build, and test environments for software developers across Mac, Windows, and Linux, raised a $42 million Series B round led by Scale Venture Partners, with 20VC, NEA, Essence, and Burst Capital also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $65.2 million. EU-Startups has more here.

OneByZero, a three-year-old Singapore startup that deploys and governs AI agents inside large enterprises, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Jungle Ventures. TechEdt has more here.

Pandektes, a three-year-old Copenhagen startup that collects, structures, and connects legislation and court rulings for legal research and enterprise AI systems, raised a $15.2 million Series A round led by Alstin Capital, with PROfounders Capital and Scale Capital also digging in. More here.

Reclinker, a four-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, that turns demolition waste into cement using electric arc furnaces that also recycle steel, raised a $13.2 million Series A round co-led by Clean Growth Fund and AP Ventures, with Development Bank of Wales, Kibo Invest, and Cambridge Enterprise as well as previous investor Zero Carbon Capital also investing. Tech Funding News has more here.

Reuse, an eight-year-old Chilean startup that runs trade-in and refurbishment programs for consumer electronics across Latin America, raised a $21 million Series A round led by At One Ventures, with Coppel Ventures, ALIVE Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, IGNIA, and Dalus Capital also contributing. Startups Latam has more here.

RobCo, a six-year-old Munich company that builds autonomous industrial robots for repetitive factory tasks, sold $40 million of shares – most held by employees – in a secondary transaction valuing it at more than $1 billion, double its roughly $500 million valuation in January. Investors included Cherry Ventures and European Tech Collective as well as previous investors Sequoia, Lightspeed, Lingotto, and Leitmotif. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

SafeWorld, a one-year-old Palo Alto startup that evaluates robotic control systems by simulating how robots respond to unpredictable human behavior, raised a $12.2 million seed round co-led by Shine Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, with Box Group, Carnegie Mellon University Endowment, Innovation Endeavors, and SV Angel also engaging. TechCrunch has more here.

Fleuret AI, a Paris startup founded this year that uses AI agents to continuously test companies' systems, identify exploitable security vulnerabilities, and verify fixes, raised a $4.5 million pre-seed round led by RAISE Ventures, with Auriga Cyber Ventures, Wind Capital, and Better Angle also buying in. More here.

hexafarms, a five-year-old Berlin startup that develops sensors, yield-forecasting software, and scouting robots for commercial growers, raised a $5.4 million seed round co-led by Ananda Impact Ventures and Green Generation Fund, with Grey Silo Ventures and better ventures as well as previous investors Speedinvest, Mudcake, and Techstars also opting in. Tech Funding News has more here.

UpSmith, a four-year-old Dallas startup that uses AI agents to identify and follow up on missed sales opportunities for home-services contractors, raised a $10 million Series A round led by SemperVirens, with Hannah Grey Ventures, Asymmetric Capital Partners, CIV, Synetro Group, and WaterStone Impact Fund also investing. More here.

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Linse Capital, an 11-year-old Puerto Rico deep-tech venture firm, raised a $75 million early-stage fund called Linse Ignition alongside $75 million in co-investment vehicles, marking a shift from its longtime focus on later-stage bets in areas including space, robotics, energy, defense, semiconductors, and AI. More here.

Bewater, a seven-year-old São Paulo VC firm that backs growth-stage companies across Latin America, is raising a $150 million second growth fund through a Delaware limited partnership, a new SEC filing shows. More here.

First Order Fund, a two-year-old Pittsburgh VC firm founded by Gecko Robotics co-founders Troy Demmer and Jake Loosararian that backs early-stage startups building hard-to-replicate data advantages, is raising a $50 million second fund. More here.

Firmus plans to allocate about half of its up to $5.5 billion IPO to selected existing investors as demand exceeds the shares available, with the Australian data center operator’s valuation having nearly tripled since an August funding round to about $30.6 billion. Reuters has more here.

In an interview with Politico, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said society should be willing to live with some AI harms, like hacks, scams and misuse, in return for the technology's benefits and wide availability. He drew the line at catastrophic risks, such as losing control of AI, which he said remain unacceptable. It's a sharper contrast with Anthropic's more restrictive approach. More here.

Speaking of Sam Altman, he bares all to Vanity Fair in a two-part interview, opining on subjects like pronatalism, President Trump, extinction risk, and the IPO delay. More here and here.

Elon Musk says he will rename SpaceXAI as SpaceXSI, embracing President Donald Trump’s push to replace “artificial intelligence” with “super intelligence,” though Musk gave no timeline for the change. Reuters has more here.

According to an independent security researcher, Meta’s viral AI agent Muse creates detailed profiles of users’ family, friends, colleagues, and other contacts, including relationship histories, important dates, shared interests, and suggestions for strengthening those relationships. Wired has more here.

Very relatable.

Tech billionaires account for all $845 billion in wealth gains on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index so far this year, while billionaires outside technology lost a combined $62 billion, underscoring how dramatically the AI boom has widened the gap between tech fortunes and everyone else. Bloomberg has more here.

New York Magazine interviews defectors from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind who left over fears that the race toward increasingly autonomous AI is moving faster than companies can control it, with several describing the powerful psychological pull of staying inside the labs even when they believe the work could have catastrophic consequences. New York Magazine has more here.

Businesses are struggling to budget for AI because token usage can vary wildly even for the same task: only 11% of nearly 400 companies surveyed accurately forecast their AI spending, while researchers found that lower-priced models actually cost more than pricier ones in 32% of tests. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Two former Groq engineers sued over Nvidia’s $20 billion licensing-and-hiring deal with the AI chip startup, alleging Groq’s board bypassed a required shareholder vote, accepted a “lowball” price, and structured the transaction to benefit insiders while leaving other stockholders shortchanged. CNBC has more here.

Independent researchers are tracking a “fleet” of AI agents apparently running on Tencent infrastructure and querying Alibaba’s Amap service for directions to entrances at public places, activity they say involves many parallel agents performing similar tasks without evidence of coordination. TechCrunch has more here.

Philadelphia staged its first parallel parking championship, with 14 contestants navigating 3 rounds without backup cameras. Mario Zucca won the title, $76, and a trophy made from a piece of street curb.

A months-old Reddit forum called r/BoyDinnerDiaries where men post photos of their meals has unexpectedly become a venue for candid discussions of breakups, loneliness, grief, and other personal struggles, drawing 4.3 million weekly users and more than 40,000 weekly contributions.

Omega unveiled new Seamaster Diver 300m models tied to James Bond, including its first Spectre-themed watches. The two steel models are priced at $8,600, while two limited-edition box sets – each containing a steel version and a platinum-gold model – can be yours for $89,800 apiece.

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