Tootfinder

OpenAI hires the team behind Crossing Minds, which raised $13.5M and works with e-commerce companies to improve their personalization and recommendation systems (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/27/openai-hi…

OpenAI hires team behind AI recommendation startup Crossing Minds | TechCrunch
Crossing Minds, a startup that provides AI recommendation systems to e-commerce firms, said its team is leaving the company to join OpenAI.

That… is quite a number. I wonder what the return on that investment will look like?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-nvidia-played-a-central-role-in-the-306-billion-ai-startup-boom-195741749.html

How Nvidia 'played a central role' in the $306 billion AI startup boom
Nvidia's AI chips laid the groundwork for a massive wave of investment in artificial intelligence.

Check Point acquires Israeli cyber startup firm Veriti for $100 million
https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/byjdi4emee

Check Point acquires Israeli cyber startup firm Veriti for $100 million
The Israeli company, founded in 2021 by Check Point alumni, has developed a platform for identifying and fixing security gaps in real time 30 Veriti employees will join Check Point as part of the deal, which is a continuation of the company's Israeli acquisition strategy

Sources: Applied Compute, a pre-launch reinforcement learning startup founded by three former OpenAI staffers, raised $20M at a $100M valuation led by Benchmark (Alex Konrad/Upstarts Media)
https://www.upstartsmedia.com/p/ex-openai-applied-compute-raises-20m…

Ex-OpenAI Staffers Raise $20M For New Startup Applied Compute
The reinforcement learning startup founded by Rhythm Garg, Linden Li and Yash Patil was valued by VCs at Benchmark, Sequoia and others at $100 million pre-launch.

On the a16z podcast, Bryan Kim said a16z backed Cluely because speed in marketing and building beats crafting a perfect "artisan" product due to AI competition (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/202…

Why a16z VC believes that Cluely, the ‘cheat on everything’ startup, is the new blueprint for AI startups | TechCrunch
Andreessen Horowitz explains why its new investment philosophy prioritizes 'build as you go' approach embodied by Cluely

19.000 Kilometer dichter dran: US-Startup will GPS-Alternative liefern
Das US-Startup Xona Space Systems plant eine erdnahe GPS-Alternative. 258 Satelliten sollen präzisere und störungsresistentere Navigationsdaten liefern.

Nordic Semiconductor acquires US startup Memfault, a cloud-based IoT lifecycle management and observability service that supports secure OTA updates, for $120M (Nick Flaherty/eeNews Europe)
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/nordic-semi-buys-memfault-for-120m/

Nordic Semi buys Memfault for $120m
Nordic Semiconductor is buying US startup Memfault for $120m for its cloud-based software monitoring platform.

Bezos-backed startup wants to sell a bare-bones EV truck for $20,000 https://ground.news/article/bezos-backed-startup-wants-to-sell-a-bare-bones-ev-truck-for-20-000_e91de1

Anthropic launches the Anthropic Economic Futures Program to bolster research on the impacts of AI and encourage new proposals on how to mitigate the downsides (Reed Albergotti/Semafor)
https://www.semafor.com/article/06/27/2025

Anthropic launches new effort to study AI’s economic impact
CEO Dario Amodei has warned of massive job losses because of AI and hopes research will help the world prepare.

Shield AI has emerged as a lead contender in the increasingly crowded race against competitors like Anduril and AeroVironment
to outfit the U.S. military with killer drones.
The $5 billion-valued startup, founded in 2015 by brothers Ryan and Brandon Tseng,
sells a suite of hardware and products, including autonomous piloting software that has been used to fly fighter jets.
In March, it raised $240 million in a funding round led by Korean conglomerate Hanwha and Amer…

How A Grisly Injury Threw $5 Billion Drone Startup Shield AI Off Course
Shield AI executives overlooked its V-BAT drone’s safety hazards. With sales falling short and the CEO stepping down, the company is trying to win back military customers.

Definitely encouraging as far as shipping emissions goes, and I appreciate that the quicklime used in the process will be produced with renewable energy - but, as I understand the normal process for making quicklime, limestone aka calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is baked at high temperatures, driving the chemical reaction CaCO3 > CaO CO2.
And what is not addressed is how to manage the CO2 from this reaction - Yes, it can (in principle) be captured, but then what do you do with it? This…

Definitely encouraging as far as shipping emissions goes, and I appreciate that the quicklime used in the process will be produced with renewable energy - but, as I understand the normal process for making quicklime, limestone aka calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is baked at high temperatures, driving the chemical reaction CaCO3 > CaO CO2.
And what is not addressed is how to manage the CO2 from this reaction - Yes, it can (in principle) be captured, but then what do you do with it? This…

Belgian startup nox.energy, one 🚀 to watch in the smart energy space, has launched its new tool to optimize heat pumps: smart control based on weather forecast, to increase solar self-consumption, for (static/dynamic) tariff optimization and additional flexibility trading as independent aggregator
https://app.nox.energy

Customize what happens when you start R: #rstats #environment

European start-up challenges Neuralink's Blindsight device https://news.columbusnewsonline.com/story/554447/european-startup-challenges-neuralinks-blindsight-device.html ReVision implant "volunteer trials…

"Plastic-Recycling Enzyme Discovered in Compost Heap Close to Commercialization Through German Startup"
#Plastic #Plastics #Germany

Plastic-Recycling Enzyme Discovered in Compost Heap Close to Commercialization Through German Startup
If successful, their 2030 plan will be four 350 cubic-meter reactors capable of processing 45,000 metric tons of PET plastic every year.

♨️ Meta teams with XGS Energy to build a 150 MW geothermal power plant
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/12/meta-teams-with-xgs-energy-to-build-a-150-mw-geothermal-power-plant/

Meta teams with XGS Energy to build a 150 MW geothermal power plant | TechCrunch
Meta is the latest tech company to warm to geothermal energy, announcing on Thursday a deal with startup XGS Energy to develop a 150 megawatt geothermal power plant in New Mexico. 

A look at Zhipu AI, the China-backed startup offering AI tools to governments globally, as OpenAI says Zhipu is on the "front line" of the global AI race (Dylan Butts/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/26/openai-flags-beijing-back…

Blacklisted by the U.S. and backed by Beijing, this Chinese AI startup has caught OpenAI's attention
OpenAI is putting a spotlight on an under-the-radar artificial intelligence start-up that it believes is on the "front line" of China's race to lead the world in AI.

Neura Robotics: Pläne für Milliardenfinanzierung und Humanoiden-Debüt
Das deutsche Humanoiden-Startup sucht nach weiteren Investoren für sein Robotergeschäft. Es gibt bereits viele Bestellungen aber auch viel Konkurrenz.

A profile of LA-based Whatnot, a livestream marketplace valued at ~$5B, which has raised $700M since 2019 and expects its GMV to grow 100% YoY to $6B in 2025 (Jason Del Rey/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/06/16/whatnot

Inside the rise of Whatnot, the wildly-entertaining, FOMO-inducing, $5 billion shopping app you’ve never heard of
Inside the rapid rise of Whatnot, the wildly-entertaining, FOMO-inducing, most popular shopping app you’ve never heard of

Trump's tax bill expands Qualified Small Business Stock benefits for VCs, founders, startup staff, including increasing maximum tax-free gains from $10M to $15M (Ben Steverman/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Artificial Intelligence, Lean Startup Method, and Product Innovations
Gavin Wang, Lynn Wu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16334 https://ar…

Artificial Intelligence, Lean Startup Method, and Product Innovations
Although AI has the potential to drive significant business innovation, many firms struggle to realize its benefits. We examine how the Lean Startup Method (LSM) influences the impact of AI on product innovation in startups. Analyzing data from 1,800 Chinese startups between 2011 and 2020, alongside policy shifts by the Chinese government in encouraging AI adoption, we find that companies with strong AI capabilities produce more innovative products. Moreover, our study reveals that AI investmen…

So Builder . ai Mechanical Turked things and Microsoft (and others) were none the wiser.
Due diligence: boring stuff that when you skip it with catch up with you fast.
“Builder . ai’s platform relied on around 700 engineers based in India who manually wrote code based on customer requests. Despite the company marketing it as AI-generated, most of the work was done by humans behind the scenes.”

London AI startup Builder.ai collapses after 'human-powered' tech revelation
London AI startup Builder.ai collapses after 'human-powered' tech revelation

Data management software vendor Rubrik agrees to acquire Predibase, which helps with deploying AI models; source: Rubrik plans to pay between $100M and $500M (Jordan Novet/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/25/rubrik-agrees-to-bu…

Rubrik agrees to buy AI startup Predibase for over $100 million
Rubrik is seeking to bolster its artificial intelligence capabilities through acquisition.

Why Do Start-ups? (2025) - Is getting rich the only reason to found a start-up? #podcast #startup #why -

Why Do Start-ups? (2025)
Is getting rich the only reason to found a start-up? #podcast #startup #why

A profile of London-based CloudNC, a leading provider of AI-powered CNC software that is helping US manufacturers overcome a shortage of trained operators (Jeremy Kahn/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/06/26/ai-manufacturing-parts-cnc-machines…

Can AI help America make stuff again? 
A British startup, CloudNC, is reshaping American manufacturing one precision part at a time.

1/2 Check this out this @… piece about the Altman/Ives “IO” startup being prosecuted for trademark by “iYo”, which I’d never heard of till today: https://daringfireball.net/…

Trademark Dispute Leads to the Disappearance of ‘io’, OpenAI and LoveFrom’s Secretive AI Collaboration
Link to: https://www.theverge.com/news/690858/jony-ive-openai-sam-altman-ai-hardware

Palantir signs a deal with The Nuclear Company under which the startup will pay Palantir $100M over five years to develop AI software for the nuclear industry (Miquela Thornton/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Einmal unterzeichnen bitte
https://www.eu-inc.org/

EU Inc — Sign the petition to create a pan-european startup entity
Let’s unite the European startup ecosystems by creating a pan-european legal entity. We got 6 weeks. Sign now and help promoting!

🍿🍺
https://www.semafor.com/article/05/29/2025/the-hottest-new-vibe-coding-startup-lovable-is-a-sitting-duck-for-hackers

What would be a good role for an #AI assistant within a team consisting of multiple people?
Imagine a group of researchers working on a project, or teachers implementing a new approach, students working on an assignment together, or a small startup company launching a product.
What would be some tasks best delegated to an AI assistant (current tech) in these kinds of teams?
Maybe …

Sources: Mira Murati has told investors Thinking Machines Lab plans to develop customized AI models based on business KPIs, and also plans a consumer product (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ex-openai-cto-m…

How Ex-OpenAI CTO Murati’s Startup Plans to Compete With OpenAI and Others
The thinking behind Thinking Machines Lab, a high-profile but mysterious artificial intelligence startup led by former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, is becoming clearer. After raising an astonishing $2 billion at a $10 billion valuation from investors including Andreessen Horowitz ...

Cascade at local yield strain for silica and metallic glass
Nandlal Pingua, Himani Rautela, Roni Chatterjee, Smarajit Karmakar, Pinaki Chaudhuri, Shiladitya Sengupta
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17129

Cascade at local yield strain for silica and metallic glass
We report observations of unusal \emph{first} plastic events in silica and metallic glasses in the shear startup regime at applied strain two orders of magnitude smaller than yield strain. The (non-Affine) particle displacement field during these events have complex real space structure with multiple disconnected cores of high displacement appearing at the \emph{same} applied strain under athermal quasistatic simple shear deformation, and identified by a ``cell based cluster analysis'' method. …

@… https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/builderai-collapses-15bn-ai-startup-exposed-actually-indians-pr…

Why Do Start-ups? (2025) - Is getting rich the only reason to found a start-up? #podcast #startup #why -

Why Do Start-ups? (2025)
Is getting rich the only reason to found a start-up? #podcast #startup #why

Cluely, which wants to help users "cheat on everything", including job interviews and exams, raised a $15M Series A led by a16z, two months after a $5.3M seed (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/20/clue

Cluely, a startup that helps 'cheat on everything,' raises $15M from a16z | TechCrunch
The controversial AI startup was founded earlier this year.

SoftBank-backed Spotter, which fronts cash to YouTubers for a cut of revenue, is facing significant challenges due to YouTube's shift toward Shorts, and more (Aisha Counts/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Internal docs: Scale AI's efforts to train Google's Gemini were flooded with "spammy behavior" from unqualified independent contractors submitting shoddy work (Sam Blum/Inc)
https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/exclusive-sca

Exclusive: Scale AI's Spam, Security Woes Plagued the Company While Serving Google
How the startup that just scored a $14 billion investment from Meta struggled to contain 'spammy behavior' from unqualified contributors as it trained Gemini.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2025/06/05/trump-pardoned-corellium-founder-now-selling-cyber-business-to-cellebrite/
Trump Pardoned Him. Now He’s Selling His Cyber Business For $200 Mil…

Cellebrite To Acquire Phone Forensics Startup Corellium For $200 Million
Corellium founder and CEO Chris Wade is selling his startup to Cellebrite, law enforcement’s favorite cellphone forensics business.

"‘Shark Skin’ Coating for Airliners May Cut Fuel Use by 4% – Delta is Testing on its 767 Fleet"
#Aviation #Aeroplanes

‘Shark Skin’ Coating for Airliners May Cut Fuel Use by 4% – Delta is Testing on its 767 Fleet
An Australian startup has developed an adhesive film inspired by shark skin that reduces drag on aircraft and could cut fuel use by 4%.

New Zealand-based Halter, which provides smart collars and geofencing software for the dairy industry, raised a $100M Series D led by Bond at a $1B valuation (Kritika Lamba/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific

Training von KI-Modellen: Reddit verklagt Anthropic
Die Social-Nedia-Plattform Reddit verklagt das KI-Startup Anthropic wegen Vertragsbruch und "unlauterer" Geschäftspraktiken und erhebt dabei schwere Vorwürfe.

Sources: Meta is in advanced talks to buy PlayAI, which uses AI to replicate voices for interfaces that are as "responsive as a conversation between two people" (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Israeli observability startup Coralogix raised a $115M Series E led by NewView Capital at a $1B valuation, and plans to invest ~$100M in India over five years (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/17/obse

Observability startup Coralogix becomes a unicorn, eyes India expansion | TechCrunch
Coralogix, an Israeli startup offering a full-stack observability and security platform, has raised $115 million at a pre-money valuation of over $1

Miami-based Pelico, which offers a supply chain orchestration platform, raised a $40M Series B led by General Catalyst, bringing its total funding to $72M (Colin Campbell/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/supply-chain-dea

Supply chain tech startup Pelico raises $40M round led by General Catalyst
The startup serves aerospace, defense, luxury and industrial customers, but its co-founder sees relevance in medical devices and energy.

Onebrief, which makes military workflow software, raised a $20M Series C extension led by Battery Ventures at a $1.1B valuation, taking the round total to $70M (Chris Metinko/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/enterprise-softw

Exclusive: Defense tech startup Onebrief hits $1.1B valuation
Onebrief's Series C extension was led by Battery Ventures.

Black Forest Labs: Bildbearbeitung über KI-Prompt
Die künstliche Intelligenz "Flux.1 Kontext" vom Freiburger KI-Startup Black Forest Labs analysiert den Bildinhalt, um ihn per Prompteingabe zu bearbeiten.

Metacurity is pleased to offer our free and premium subscribers a weekly digest of the best long-form (and longish) infosec-related pieces we couldn't properly fit into our daily news crush.
This week's selection covers
--How regular Americans unwittingly aid DPRK job scams,
--Self-driving truck startup sent massive amounts of IP to China,
--The Com claims it's behind the Coinbase hack,
--It feels like Panetta's Cyber Pearl Harbor is nigh,
…

Best infosec-related long reads for the week of 5/24/25
How regular Americans unwittingly aid DPRK job scams, Self-driving truck startup sent massive amounts of IP to China, The Com claims it's behind the Coinbase hack, It feels like Panetta's Cyber Pearl Harbor is nigh, Brazil's counterintel agents exposed Russian spy imposters

Decagon, which offers AI-powered customer service agents for enterprises, raised a $131M Series C co-led by Accel and a16z at a $1.5B valuation (Anna Tong/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/customer-service-ai-startup-…

How AI is reshaping the perfume industry, as fragrance tech startup Osmo promises 48-hour sample turnarounds and incumbents like DSM-Firmenich embrace the tech (Arabelle Sicardi/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/691050/perfume-ai

How AI infiltrated perfume
Some say it’s innovation. Others call it erasure.

PostHog, which offers dev tools to analyze, test, observe, and deploy new features, raised a $70M Series D led by Stripe at a $920M valuation (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/ai/startup-posthog-tweet-funding-round-stripe/

Meet PostHog, A Startup That Just Raised A $70M Series D Led By Stripe From A Single Tweet
PostHog, which aims to help developers build “successful products,” quietly announced last week that it had raised $70 million in a Series D funding round at a $920 million valuation led by digital payments giant Stripe.

Luxembourg-based Tadaweb, an open-source intelligence platform, raised $20M led by Arsenal Growth and ForgePoint, taking its total funding to $40M (Chris Metinko/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/enterprise-software…

Exclusive: Open-source intelligence startup Tadaweb raises $20M
The new round was led by Arsenal Growth and Forgepoint Capital.

Sam Altman posts a series of his exchanges with founder of iyO Jason Rugolo from before the deal with Ive's io; Rugolo responded he just wants to compete fairly (Emma Roth/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/692840/sam-altman-io-trademark-ba…

Sam Altman takes his ‘io’ trademark battle public
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has posted private emails between him and the founder of Iyo, the startup that’s suing OpenAI over the name of its upcoming product, io.

Generative AI enterprise search startup Glean raises a $150M Series F led by Wellington Management, bringing its valuation to $7.2B, up from $4.6B in Sept. 2024 (Afshan Musani/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/10/glean-gen-ai…

Glean, gen AI enterprise search startup, raises $150 million in deal adding billions to valuation
Glean, a generative AI enterprise search startup, raised $150 million from investors in a deal that increased its valuation to over $7 billion.

AI dictation startup Wispr Flow raised a $30M Series A led by Menlo Ventures, after its 2024 pivot away from a hardware device, taking its total funding to $56M (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/24/wisp

Wispr Flow raises $30M from Menlo Ventures for its AI-powered dictation app | TechCrunch
Startups developing voice AI technology and applications are having their moment. Model builders like ElevenLabs and Cartesia have raised millions of

Texas-based Securonix acquires ThreatQuotient, which helps companies analyze threat intelligence more efficiently; ThreatQuotient had raised about $170M (Maria Deutscher/SiliconANGLE)
https://siliconangle.com/2025/06/11/securonix-…

Securonix acquires threat intelligence startup ThreatQuotient - SiliconANGLE
Securonix acquires threat intelligence startup ThreatQuotient - SiliconANGLE

Landbase, whose GPT-4o-based AI tool automates outreach marketing, raised a $30M Series A co-led by Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures and Picus Capital (Julie Bort/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/12/how-

How AI sales startup Landbase nabbed Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures to lead its $30M Series A | TechCrunch
A concept Landbase's CEO calls "digital trust" led nearly 130 VCs to pursue the "vibe GTM" startup.

Sources: Reddit is exploring Tools for Humanity's World ID identity system to allow users to verify that they are unique individuals while remaining anonymous (Reed Albergotti/Semafor)
https://www.semafor.com/article/06/20/2025

Reddit in talks to embrace Sam Altman’s iris-scanning Orb to verify users
Reddit, racing to preserve “humanness and authenticity,” has discussed using Sam Altman’s World ID, sources say.

Legal AI startup Harvey raised a $300M Series E co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Coatue at a $5B valuation and says it serves 337 clients like KKR and PwC globally (Alexandra Sternlicht/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/06/23/harvey-

Harvey raises $300 million at $5 billion valuation to be legal AI for lawyers worldwide
Legal LLM Harvey has raised a $300 million Series E at a $5 billion valuation.

AIM Intelligent Machines, which retrofits heavy construction equipment to operate autonomously, raised $50M from Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, and others (Rachyl Jones/Semafor)
https://www.semafor.com/article/06/10/2025/co…

Construction tech startup AIM raises $50M to fuel expansion
The firm that retrofits heavy equipment into autonomous machines, backed by Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst, can help fill the construction industry’s huge labor gap and growing infrastructure demand.

London-based Noah, which is developing API-focused stablecoin infrastructure to enable real-time cross-border payments, raised a $22M seed led by LocalGlobe (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/06/10/noah-thijn-lamers-stable…

Exclusive: Stablecoin startup Noah raises $22 million, adds Adyen vet as cofounder
“I feel like I have the energy of [when I was] 25,” said Thijn Lamers, who is 66 years old.

Court filings from in-ear hardware startup iyO's trademark dispute lawsuit against OpenAI detail OpenAI and io's early work on in-ear hardware devices (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/23/court-filing…

Court filings reveal OpenAI and io's early work on an AI device | TechCrunch
Court filings in a trademark case against OpenAI reveal some of the company's early work on developing AI devices.

Thread AI, which offers a composable infrastructure platform to help companies build AI workflows, raised a $20M Series A led by Greycroft (Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/06/05/thread-ai-startup-palantir-infrastructure-series-a/

Exclusive: Two Palantir alums raise $20 million for infrastructure startup Thread AI
Two Palantir alumni raised $20 million for AI infrastructure startup Thread AI.

AMD says it has acquired the team behind AI inference chip developer Untether AI, a day after announcing it acquired AI software optimization startup Brium (Dylan Martin/CRN)
https://www.crn.com/news/components-periph

Exclusive: AMD Acquires Team Behind AI Chip Startup Untether AI
AMD confirmed on Thursday to CRN that it has acquired the employees behind AI chip startup Untether AI.

A profile of LA-based Whatnot, a livestream marketplace valued at ~$5B, which has raised $700M since 2019 and expects its GMV to grow 100% YoY to $6B in 2025 (Jason Del Rey/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/06/16/whatnot

Inside the rise of Whatnot, the wildly-entertaining, FOMO-inducing, $5 billion shopping app you’ve never heard of
Inside the rapid rise of Whatnot, the wildly-entertaining, FOMO-inducing, most popular shopping app you’ve never heard of

Sources: Mark Zuckerberg discussed a possible acquisition with Runway AI; the deal talks never reached a formal offer level (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-23/meta-held-deal-talks-with-st…

Sanmai, which wants to build an AI-powered ultrasound device that costs less than $500 to help treat mental health conditions, raised $12M led by Reid Hoffman (Bloomberg)

AI-powered virtual physical therapy startup Sword Health raised $40M led by General Catalyst at a $4B valuation, up from its $3B valuation from June 2024 (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/17/sword-h…

Sword Health nabs $40M at $4B valuation, pushes IPO plans to at least 2028 | TechCrunch
The digital health startup says it secured the fresh capital to update its valuation and finance acquisitions.

Amsterdam-based Tebi, which offers a payments platform for hospitality companies, raised €30M led by CapitalG, after a €20M Series A in October 2024 (Anna Heim/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/10/tebi

Tebi, the new startup by Adyen's departed cofounder, raises a fresh $30M from Alphabet's CapitalG | TechCrunch
Co-founded by Adyen's former CTO, Tebi helps restaurants, bars and other hospitality businesses manage their operations with an all-in-one subscription-based platform that can handle payments, reservations, inventory, and more.

A look at Apple's conservative approach to M&A, which may need to change to catch up in AI by acquiring a startup like Perplexity, Cohere, Sierra AI, or Mistral (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/…

Dublin-based cross-border payment startup NomuPay raised a $40M Series C at a $290M valuation, following a $37M Series B at a $200M valuation in January 2025 (Kate Park/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025…

Irish fintech NomuPay lands $40M at a $290M valuation from SoftBank | TechCrunch
As global trade evolves, there's an increasing demand for diverse cross-border payment options. That's why an Irish-based fintech startup called NomuPay

Tel Aviv-based Speedata, which is designing analytics processing units for big data workloads, raised a $44M Series B, aims to showcase its first APU this month (Kate Park/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/03/speedata…

Speedata, a chip startup competing with Nvidia, raises a $44M Series B | TechCrunch
Speedata, a Tel Aviv-based startup developing an analytics processing unit (APU) designed to accelerate big data analytic and AI workloads, has raised a Founded by six researcher, Speedata wants to build the first-ever purpose-build chip designed specifically for big data workloads.

Turnkey, which builds low-level infrastructure for digital wallets used to store and manage crypto, raised a $30M Series B led by Bain Capital Crypto (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/06/09/exclus…

Exclusive: Coinbase vets raise $30 million for crypto wallet startup Turnkey
The fundraise attracted big VC names like Bain Capital Crypto, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Faction.

Enterprise vibe coding startup Superblocks raised a $23M Series A, bringing its total funding to $60M, and launched an enterprise coding AI agent called Clark (Julie Bort/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/07/supe…

Superblocks CEO: How to find a unicorn idea by studying AI system prompts | TechCrunch
Brad Menezes, CEO of enterprise vibe coding startup Superblocks, is convinced that the next crop of billion-dollar startup ideas are hiding in almost plain sight: system prompts.

Character.AI hires Karandeep Anand, former Meta VP of Business Products, as CEO, 10 months after Google hired away the startup's co-founder and CEO Noam Shazeer (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/20/charact…

Character.AI taps Meta's former VP of business products as CEO | TechCrunch
Character.AI appointed Karandeep Anand to be the company's new CEO, helping it grow its platform and fight child safety concerns.

Sources: Apple executives have held discussions about bidding for, or partnering with, Perplexity, seeking to address the need for more AI talent and tech (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Milan-based Jet HR, which provides all-in-one payroll and HR services to SMBs, raised €25M led by Base10 Partners, bringing its total funding to about €42M (Ryan Lawler/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/fintech-deals/2025/06/17/base10-25-million-…

Exclusive: Base10 leads €25M round for Italian HR startup Jet HR
The new funds will serve to digitize Italy's costly, complex payroll maze.

Sources: Meta tried to buy Safe Superintelligence earlier this year; Zuckerberg moved to recruit SSI CEO Daniel Gross after Ilya Sutskever rebuffed the offer (Kate Rooney/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/19/meta-tried-to-buy-s…

Meta tried to buy Ilya Sutskever's $32 billion AI startup, but is now planning to hire its CEO
Meta plans to hire Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross and former GitHub Nat Friedman to beef up the company's AI team, according to sources.

Observability and site reliability startup Traversal emerges from stealth with $48M in seed and Series A funding led by Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/06/18…

Traversal emerges from stealth with $48 million from Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins to reimagine site reliability in the AI era
Traversal launches from stealth with $48 million in funding from Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, Fortune has exclusively learned.

A Replit employee details a critical security flaw in web apps created using AI-powered app builder Lovable that exposes API keys and personal info of app users (Reed Albergotti/Semafor)
https://www.semafor.com/article/05/29/2025

The hottest new vibe coding startup may be a sitting duck for hackers
Lovable is accused of failing to fix security flaws that exposed information about users, a growing vulnerability as vibe coding’s popularity surges.

SoftBank-backed Spotter, which fronts cash to YouTubers for a cut of revenue, is facing significant challenges due to YouTube's shift toward Shorts, and more (Aisha Counts/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Klarna launches a $40/month unlimited mobile plan in the US via a partnership with telecom services startup Gigs, following similar offerings by Revolut and N26 (Ryan Browne/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/18/klarna-ceo-outlines-plan-to…

Klarna CEO wants to turn the platform into a 'super app' with AI
The buy now, pay later giant's IPO may be on hold — but its business strategy remains the same, according to CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski.

NYC-based Tennr, which uses AI document parsing and workflow automation to cut patient waiting times, raised a $101M Series C led by IVP at a $605M valuation (Leo Schwartz/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/06/18/tennr-healt…

Exclusive: Health tech startup Tennr raises $101 million at $605 million valuation to fix the patient referral process
Venture firm IVP led the round along with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, and Iconiq.

Skyral, a London-based modeling and simulation startup developing AI-based digital twin tech for defense, healthcare, and other sectors, raised a $20M Series A (Lucy Adams/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2025/06/04/uk-based-sk

UK-based Skyral raises $20M Series A to expand modelling and simulation tech globally
British modelling and simulation startup Skyral has secured $20 million in Series A funding, led by NOIA Capital in partnership with Accrete Capital, as it looks to expand the global reach of its AI-enabled digital twin technology across sectors including defence, national security, healthcare, and infrastructure. Founded in June 2023 and headquartered in the UK, Skyral is developing a next-generation platform that combines digital twin modelling with artificial intelligence to simulate comple…

German defense tech startup Helsing raised €600M led by Daniel Ek's Prima Materia, sources say at a €12B valuation, bringing its total funding to €1.37B (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/cdc02d96-13b5-4ca2-aa0b-1fc7568e9fa0

Spotify’s Daniel Ek leads €600mn investment in German drone maker Helsing
Defence start-up valued at €12bn to become one of Europe’s most valuable tech groups

Defense tech startup Anduril raised a $2.5B Series G led by Founders Fund, which invested $1B, at a $30.5B valuation, up from $14B in August 2024 (Edward Ludlow/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Pano AI, which uses AI and computer vision to offer active wildfire detection, raised a $44M Series B led by Giant Ventures, bringing its total funding to $89M (Marc Vartabedian/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/article…

Israeli startup Zero Networks, which aims to prevent ransomware and other cyberattacks, raised $55M led by Highland Europe, taking its total funding to $100M (Steven Scheer/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/

The US Defense Department awards a one-year $200M contract to OpenAI to develop AI tools for addressing challenges in "warfighting and enterprise domains" (Jordan Novet/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/16/openai-wins-200-million-us-defe…

OpenAI wins $200 million U.S. defense contract
Months after announcing a partnership with defense-tech startup Anduril, OpenAI has secured a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense.

Sources: Palmer Luckey's stablecoin startup Atticus raised ~$250M at a $2.25B valuation, and will merge into Erebor, formed by Luckey to get a banking license (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/fintech-deals/2025/06/13/palmer-luckey-er…

Scoop: New details on Palmer Luckey's crypto unicorn
Atticus will merge into Erebor, recently formed by Luckey with plans to get a banking license.

Sources: Atticus, a stealthy stablecoin banking startup, is in advanced talks to raise new funding led by Palmer Luckey at a valuation of between $1.5B and $2B (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/all-deals/2025/05/30/andurils-palmer-…

Scoop: Anduril's Palmer Luckey to invest in stealthy stablecoin startup
The new funding would value Atticus at between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.

Source: Ramp raised $200M led by Founders Fund, valuing the startup at $16B, up from $13B in March, when it conducted a $150M share sale (Emily Mason/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-13/ramp-hits-16-b…

Cloud computing startup Crusoe plans to buy ~$400M worth of AI chips from AMD to rent to customers for its US data center that will come online by fall (Max A. Cherney/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/neocloud-c…

Source: Accel, which owns 18.5% of Scale AI after investing a total of ~$350M, expects to gain over $2.5B from Meta's $14.3B investment in the startup (Kate Clark/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Israeli data security startup Cyera raised $540M led by Georgian, Greenoaks, and Lightspeed at a $6B valuation, up from $3B in November 2024 after raising $300M (Steven Scheer/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/

Tesla sues ex-Optimus engineer Zhongjie Li, who worked at Tesla from 2022 to 2024, accusing him of stealing humanoid robot info and setting up a rival startup (Dana Hull/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics, which makes robots to inspect infrastructure, raised a $125M Series D at a $1.25B valuation, up from $633M in December 2023 (Ian Thomas/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/12/gecko-robotics-…

Gecko Robotics raises $125 million in deal valuing critical infrastructure startup over $1 billion
Gecko Robotics, which uses robots and AI to inspect and monitor critical infrastructure, has raised a $125 million, bringing its valuation to $1.25 billion.

Spain-based Multiverse Computing, which makes tools to compress LLMs by up to 95% using "quantum-inspired" networks, raised a €189M Series B and has 100 clients (Julie Bort/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/12/mult

Multiverse Computing raises $215M for tech that could radically slim AI costs | TechCrunch
Spanish startup Multiverse Computing announced that it raised an enormous Series B round on the strength of a technology it calls “CompactifAI.”

Tencent Music agrees to buy podcasting startup Ximalaya for $1.3B in cash, plus some stock, in a bid to become China's Spotify; Ximalaya had 303M MAUs in 2023 (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Nominal, which makes industrial design software for space, energy, and defense tech, raised $75M led by Sequoia, after raising $27M in April 2024 (Paayal Zaveri/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20