Thinking Machines, the one-year-old San Francisco startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has struck a multiyear chip supply partnership with Nvidia worth tens of billions of dollars and secured another significant investment from the chipmaker. Financial Times has more here.

A former software engineer at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency allegedly copied two tightly restricted Social Security Administration databases containing records for more than 500 million Americans onto a thumb drive and told colleagues he planned to use the data at a new job. TechCrunch has more here.

Affinity — The State of AI in Investing

AI is moving from theory to implementation and private capital is paying attention. Some firms are already transforming how they operate, while others are exploring where AI can deliver the most value. Join Affinity for a conversation with experts from BlackRock and OpenAI as they discuss where AI is gaining traction, how it's changing deal team workflows, and what signals investors should watch. Watch on demand →

By Tim Fernholz

The reusable rocket has transformed the space industry in the last decade, and a new startup led by a SpaceX veteran wants to do the same for satellites.

Brian Taylor, who helped build satellites for networks like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Leo, founded Lux Aeterna in December 2024 to develop satellite structures with a built-in heat shield that will allow them to return to Earth with their payloads intact.

The company, which came out of stealth last year, announced a new $10 million seed round Tuesday morning led by Konvoy, with participation from Decisive Point, Cubit Capital, Wave Function, Space Capital, Dynamo Ventures, and Channel 39. The company declined to disclose its valuation.

The capital will support the design and construction of Lux Aeterna’s Delphi spacecraft, which has a confirmed spot on a SpaceX rocket expected to launch in the first quarter of 2027. That mission will prove out Lux’s technology by offering customers a chance to test hosted payloads and materials that will then be returned to Earth at Australia’s Koonibba Test Range through a partnership with the aerospace company Southern Launch.

Bringing anything back from space requires diving back into Earth’s atmosphere at incredibly high speeds, which generates extreme heat. Spacecraft that want to survive the journey must be covered in materials that protect them from that heat, adding extra weight. Because that weight makes getting to space on a rocket more expensive, most spacecraft aren’t designed for a return journey.

That calculus typically limits reentry to vehicles that carry humans, like the Space Shuttle (which saw one vehicle lost due to the extreme environment of reentry) or SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX’s repeated attempts to land its massive Starship rocket have made that challenge vivid for anyone who’s watched them on YouTube.

AMI Labs, a Paris startup founded this year by Yann LeCun that creates AI world models designed to enable machines to understand the physical world, raised a $1.3 billion round at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation. Investors included Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, HV Capital, Bezos Expeditions, Tim and Rosemary Berners-Lee, Jim Breyer, Mark Cuban, and Eric Schmidt. TechCrunch has more here.

Armadin, a one-year-old Menlo Park startup co-founded by Mandiant founder Kevin Mandia that uses AI-powered red teaming techniques to find and exploit security weaknesses, raised a $190 million seed round led by Accel, with additional support from GV, Kleiner Perkins, Menlo Ventures, and In-Q-Tel as well as previous investors 8VC and Ballistic Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Eridu, a three-year-old startup based in Saratoga, CA, that builds networking chips and systems designed for AI data centers, raised a $200 million Series A round co-led by Socratic Partners, John Doerr, Matter Venture Partners, Hudson River Trading, and Capricorn Investment Group, with SBVA, MediaTek, Bosch Ventures, TDK Ventures, Eclipse, and VentureTech Alliance also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $230 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Jazz, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that is building a data loss prevention platform that analyzes how organizational data moves and identifies potential data leak risks, raised a $61 million seed round. Glilot Capital Partners and Team8 were the co-leads, with Ten Eleven Ventures and Merlin Ventures also investing. The company has raised a total of $61 million. CTech has more here.

Juicebox, a two-year-old San Francisco startup whose AI recruiting platform is designed to identify and reach job candidates before they apply, raised an $80 million Series B round at an $850 million valuation. The investment was led by DST Global, with Sequoia, Coatue, Y Combinator, NFDG, and Verified Capital also contributing. More here.

Legora, a three-year-old Stockholm startup whose AI platform helps lawyers research, review, draft, and advise on legal matters, raised a $550 million Series D round at a $5.55 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Accel, with Alkeon Capital, Bain Capital, Firstmark Capital, Menlo Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Sands Capital, and Starwood Capital as well as previous investors Benchmark, Bessemer, General Catalyst, ICONIQ, Redpoint Ventures, and Y Combinator also piling on. TechCrunch has more here.

Nexthop AI, a two-year-old Santa Clara startup that provides networking hardware and software for AI and cloud data centers, raised a $500 million Series B round at a $4.2 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Andreessen Horowitz, Altimeter, and existing investors also participating. More here.

Nitra, a four-year-old New York startup that embeds AI agents into healthcare practice operations to automate financial, commerce, inventory, and patient management workflows, raised a $50 million Series B round. Investors included Actions Capital, AppWorks, Comma Capital, Dunamu & Partners, Era Funds, NEA, Pantera Capital, Sazze Partners, AAF, Gaingels, Hyphen Capital, K8, Mana Ventures, Necessary Ventures, PIDC/Uni-President, Purestone Silks, SignalRank, Simu Liu/Markham Valley, and Soma Capital. The company has raised a total of $90 million in equity. PYMNTS has more here.

Rhoda AI, a two-year-old startup based in San Jose, CA, that trains industrial robots using AI models built from publicly available internet videos, raised a $450 million round at a $1.7 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Premji Invest, with Khosla Ventures, Temasek Holdings, and John Doerr also pitching in. Bloomberg has more here.

Slide, a three-year-old startup based in Norwalk, CT, that provides business continuity and disaster recovery software for managed service providers, raised a $70 million Series B round led by General Catalyst, with Base10, Outsiders Fund, futurepresent, Vine Ventures, Glynn Capital Management, Benchstrength, Top Down Ventures, and Connecticut Innovations also taking stakes. The company has raised a total of $95 million. CRN has more here.

Uzum, a four-year-old Uzbekistan startup that operates an e-commerce marketplace and provides digital banking and fintech services, raised an $81.5 million round at a $2.3 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by sovereign wealth funds from Oman, with previous investors Tencent, VR Capital Group, and FinSight Ventures also taking part. It also secured $50 million in debt. TechCrunch has more here.

Vitestro, a nine-year-old Dutch startup that provides an autonomous robotic system that performs diagnostic blood draws in clinical settings, raised a $70 million Series B round. Investors included Labcorp Venture Fund, Mayo Clinic, Sutter Health, InterVest, MGFO, PGGM, Puma Venture Capital, and ROM Utrecht as well as prior backers Invest-NL, EIC Fund, Fred Moll, NYBC Ventures, and Sonder Capital also pitching in. More here.

Amigo AI, a two-year-old New York startup that builds AI agents that interact directly with patients across healthcare workflows including intake, triage, care navigation, and support, raised an $11 million Series A round led by Madrona, with Optum Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $17 million. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Avvoka, a 10-year-old London company whose AI-powered drafting infrastructure converts legal documents into structured templates for law firms, raised an $18.7 million round led by Valhalla Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.

Dify, a three-year-old startup based in Sunnyvale, CA, that is developing an open-source platform for building, deploying, and operating AI applications and agentic workflows, raised a $30 million pre-Series A round at a $180 million valuation. The deal was led by HSG, with GL Ventures, Alt-Alpha Capital, 5Y Capital, Mizuho Leaguer Investment, and NYX Ventures also engaging. More here.

Escape, a five-year-old Paris startup that uses AI agents to simulate attacker behavior and identify security vulnerabilities in live applications, raised an $18 million Series A round led by Balderton Capital, with Uncorrelated Ventures as well as previous investors IRIS and Y Combinator also stepping up. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Outpost, a four-year-old Austin startup that provides infrastructure that manages payments, tax compliance, and regulatory obligations for cross-border commerce, raised a $17.5 million Series A round led by Ribbit, with previous investor Better Tomorrow Ventures also digging in. EU-Startups has more here.

PactFi, a five-year-old New York startup that is building a secure platform for executing and servicing private credit transactions and managing workflows across counterparties, raised a $25 million Series A round led by 7Ridge and including Vestigo Ventures. More here.

Qevlar AI, a three-year-old Paris startup that uses AI to automate security alert investigations in security operations centers, raised a $30 million round co-led by Partech and Forgepoint Capital International, with EQT Ventures also chipping in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Saltz, a four-year-old Vilnius startup that connects professional kitchens directly with verified food suppliers through a digital marketplace, raised a $23.3 million Series A round. Investors included EBRD, Inovo, Lifeline Ventures, and Change Ventures. EU-Startups has more here.

Sandbar, a three-year-old New York startup that makes a smart ring that records voice notes and connects to an AI assistant, raised a $23 million Series A round co-led by Adjacent and Kindred Ventures. The company has raised a total of $36 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Seprify, a four-year-old Swiss startup that produces cellulose-based ingredients that replace titanium dioxide in food, cosmetics, and coatings, raised a $15.6 million Series A round. Investors included Inter IKEA Group, Una Terra Early Growth Fund, Zürcher Kantonalbank, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, and Kickfund. The company has raised a total of $25.6 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Sigma360, a 10-year-old New York company that operates a risk intelligence platform that helps financial institutions detect and prevent financial crime, raised a $17.3 million Series B round led by Moderne Ventures, with Vocap Partners, Orrick, Contour Ventures, and Mosaik Partners also investing. PYMNTS has more here.

AgentMail, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that provides an email platform designed for AI agents, raised a $6 million seed round led by General Catalyst, with additional participation from Y Combinator, Phosphor Capital, and Paul Graham. TechCrunch has more here.

Anchr, a one-year-old New York startup that deploys AI agents that automate operational workflows for wholesale food distributors across purchasing, inventory, and invoicing processes, raised a $5.8 million seed round. Investors included Andreessen Horowitz Speedrun, Anterra Capital, Offline Ventures, and Long Journey Ventures. Forbes has more here.

Arya, a four-year-old New York startup that offers an AI platform that purports to help couples improve communication, intimacy, and relationship health, raised a $4 million seed round led by Ibex Ventures, with Bitkraft also providing $17 million in cohort financing. Tech Funding News has more here.

Crafting, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that aims to create infrastructure for building and operating AI agents and agent-based applications, raised a $5.5 million seed round led by Mischief, with WndrCo also opting in. More here.

Cytotrait, a three-year-old startup based in Manchester, UK, that develops crop engineering technology that delivers gene edits directly into plant organelles to modify agricultural traits, raised a $4 million seed round led by Northern Gritstone, with the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund and Northern Universities Ventures Fund also digging in. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Intelligent Legal Solutions, a four-year-old London startup that automates side letter management, MFN elections, and other post-close workflows for private investment funds lawyers, raised a $3 million seed round led by Chicago Ventures. More here.

NjiaPay, a two-year-old Amsterdam startup that enables merchants to manage multiple payment service providers and route transactions through a single API to reduce payment failures, raised a $2.1 million seed round led by Newion. Tech in Africa has more here.

Orca Fraud, a two-year-old Cape Town startup that detects and prevents financial crime in payment systems by monitoring transactions across multiple payment rails in real-time, raised a $2.4 million round led by Norrsken22, with OneDayYes, Enza Capital, and CV VC Africa also contributing. Tech Funding News has more here.

Talvy, a one-year-old startup based in Cambridge, MA, that replaces traditional resumes with short-form video profiles that allow employers to evaluate job candidates through video and natural language search, raised a $2 million seed round led by Link Ventures. More here.

Yourco, a five-year-old Indianapolis startup that provides an SMS-based platform that enables two-way communication with frontline employees and analyzes those conversations to generate operational insights, raised a $6 million Series A round led by High Alpha. More here.

Fidelity — Your Pitch Isn’t the Only Thing Investors Are Evaluating 

Investors don’t just listen to what you say—they look at how your company operates. Is ownership clear? Do your numbers match your story? Can you answer follow-up questions without digging through spreadsheets? The Fundraise-Ready Startup Kit equips founders with the materials investors expect to see, before pressure is on. Because confidence in the room doesn’t come from slides. It comes from preparation. 

General Catalyst, a 25-year-old VC firm based in San Francisco and Cambridge, MA, that invests across early-stage and growth startups in sectors including AI, healthcare, fintech, and enterprise software, is raising about $10 billion across several new venture vehicles. Bloomberg has more here.

Spark Capital, a 21-year-old San Francisco VC firm that invests in consumer, fintech, and enterprise startups, is raising about $3 billion in new funds, about 50% larger than the vehicles it raised two years ago. The firm’s 2023 investment in Anthropic has appreciated roughly 100×. The Information has more here.

Ithaca Holdings, a new investment firm launched by Sequoia Capital partner Ravi Gupta and former Meta chief revenue officer John Hegeman, is raising more than $1 billion to acquire at least one public or private company and apply new technology including AI. Bloomberg has more here.

Breakout Ventures, a 10-year-old San Francisco VC firm that backs early-stage startups translating scientific research into commercial companies, raised a $114 million third fund and has begun deploying it with seed bets on AI-enabled science startups. More here.

Meta has acquired Moltbook, a Reddit-like social network where AI agents communicate with one another using the OpenClaw interface, bringing its founders Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr to Meta Superintelligence Labs. The project recently went viral for posts about autonomous agents that researchers later showed could be easily spoofed by humans. TechCrunch has more here.

Reuters is reporting that SpaceX is leaning toward listing on Nasdaq for a potential IPO in part because the exchange is proposing a rule that would allow newly listed megacaps to join the Nasdaq 100 index within weeks rather than waiting up to a year. More here.

Mark Zuckerberg just happened to post a photo of himself linking arms with Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang days after reports surfaced that Meta reorganized its AI division in a way that sidelines Wang’s team. Business Insider has more here.

Laid-off professionals including lawyers, writers, and scientists are increasingly taking gig work on platforms such as Mercor, Scale AI, and Surge AI and producing training data for AI systems that often automate the same jobs they once held. The Verge has more here.

China’s export boom is increasingly powered by “dark factories” using AI-driven automation and robotics that require few or no workers, leaving factory laborers in manufacturing hubs such as Guangdong facing falling wages and disappearing jobs. Bloomberg has more here.

AI-powered apps convert users to paid subscriptions more effectively than traditional apps but struggle to retain them long term, with subscribers canceling about 30% faster and annual retention lagging non-AI apps, according to a report from subscription platform RevenueCat. TechCrunch has more here.

Why is everyone saying the word “tranche”?

The strange story of Nike’s superhero mascot.

Imagining how stone age people spoke.

Conservation for microbes.

The first single from AI avatar Tilly Norwood.

Cult Japanese watchmaker Otsuka Lotec has just introduced the No. 8, a $6,300 mechanical watch inspired by the Beatles-era Abbey Road REDD.37 mixing console with a jumping hour display and retrograde minute “fader.”

Yesterday, we reported about Augur’s new round, but we should have noted that it is a UK company that was founded in August of 2024. Our apologies for the error. Here is an article in Tech Funding News that explains more about the company.

UK Quantum – Accelerating Healthcare Prevention 

The UK’s National Health Service is already placing quantum at the centre of its preventative healthcare strategy. By 2030, the UK aspires to use quantum sensing to improve early diagnosis and treatment, from cancer screening to enhanced MRI scanning. Quantum sensors can detect extremely faint biological signals such as trace biomarkers or subtle neural activity that conventional devices overlook, enabling earlier and more reliable diagnoses. As the tech becomes smaller, more robust and affordable, point-of-care testing outside specialist facilities becomes realistic. 

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