☕ Apple developing an AI-powered wearable & X open sources its algorithm.
OpenAI aims to ship its first device in 2026 & Apple plans to make Siri an AI chatbot.
Breaking News
Apple is reportedly developing an AI-powered wearable in the form of a clothing pin, according to The Information, signaling Apple’s clearest move yet toward ambient, screen-light AI. The device—described as a thin disc with cameras, microphones, a speaker, and a physical button—could launch as early as 2027, with Apple aiming to ship up to 20 million units, despite risks highlighted by the failed Humane AI Pin and rising competition from OpenAI and Meta.
Newly unsealed documents from Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI reveal how deeply Microsoft has influenced OpenAI over the past decade, including real-time involvement during the November 2023 board crisis that briefly ousted Sam Altman. The records show Microsoft helped screen potential board members despite holding no formal board seat, offering a rare look into the power dynamics behind one of the most important alliances in AI.
FROM OUR PARTNER - SEMRUSH
📈 See what drives your competitors’ growth — before they do
Every winning strategy starts with the right data. With Semrush’s Traffic & Market Toolkit, you can uncover exactly where your competitors’ traffic comes from — search, social, or even AI referrals.
Track their top pages, monitor emerging trends, and find the untapped channels fueling their growth. Whether you’re a marketer, agency, or enterprise, you’ll get daily and weekly insights to outpace rivals and lead your market with confidence. Trusted by 10M+ marketers worldwide.
Try the Traffic & Market Toolkit free →
PARTNERSHIP WITH US
🤝 Get your startup in front of over 103,000+ audience.
Our newsletter is read by 103,000+ of tech professionals, founders, investors (VCs / Angel Investors) and managers around the world. Get in touch today.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What Else Is Brewing
Investor Data Room Superpack: Everything you need to build a VC-ready data room (Guide/Templates) (Link)
6 uncommon pitch mistakes made by founders (Link)
Kevin Benoit on the biggest mistake founders make in the 1st meeting (Link)
Natia Kurdadze shares solutions to common startup problems (Link)
Hubert Thieblot on the founder trap (Link)
Startup Legal Document Pack – Essential Legal Docs for Founders. (Link)
Agile brand strategy: how to build emotional relevance efficiently. (Link)
AI bubbles to unicorns, European late-stage markets in fantasy land? (Link)
The moat of the search index. (Link)
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Robin Health, a Milan, Italy-based healthtech startup focused on prevention and digital health management, raised €2M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Step Fund.
Sable, a New York, NY-based developer of biotech-driven consumer beauty solutions, raised a pre-seed funding of undisclosed amount. Backers included Turret Capital and SOSV.
SEED
Furl, a Los Angeles, CA-based security remediation startup, raised $10M in Seed funding. The round was led by Ten Eleven Ventures, with participation from Rapid7 CEO Corey Thomas and Open Opportunity Fund.
PraxisPro, a Houston, TX-based provider of an AI-powered training platform for life sciences company, raised $6M in Seed funding. The round was led by AlleyCorp with participation from Flybridge, South Loop Ventures, Zeal Capital Partners, True Ventures, Techstars, Alumni Ventures, and Daring Ventures.
Infinitopes, an Oxford, UK-based clinical-stage cancer vaccine biotechnology company, raised additional $15.4M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by Octopus Ventures and new investor Amplify Bio, with participation from new investor Macmillan Cancer Support alongside existing investors Cancer Research Horizons and Manta Ray Ventures.
AiStrike, a San Francisco, CA-based cybersecurity company developing AI-native, preemptive cyber defense, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Blumberg Capital, with participation from Runtime Ventures, Oregon Venture Fund, and strategic angel investors.
GROWTH
Preply, a NYC-based language learning marketplace, raised $150M in Series D funding, at $1.2 Billion valuation. The round was led by WestCap.
Datarails, a NYC-based company providing an AI-native financial platform, raised $70M in Series C funding. The round was led by One Peak, with participation from Vertex Growth, Vintage Investment Partners, Zeev Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, Joey Low, Qumra Capital, and Claltech.
Renterra, a Chicago, IL-based provider of a software platform for equipment rental businesses, raised $9M in Series A funding. The round was led by Avenue Growth Partners.
Zarminali Pediatrics, a Chicago, IL-based provider of an outpatient pediatric destination purpose-built to provide integrated primary and specialty care nationwide, raised $110M in Series A funding. The round was led by Healthier Capital with participation from General Catalyst, and new investor K2 HealthVentures.
Cosmos, a NYC-based provider of a platform for people to collect, discover, and credit images online, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Shine Capital, with participation from Matrix, PNP, and Squarespace founder & CEO Anthony Casalena. The round brings total funding to $21M, following a $6M seed led by GV and Accel.
Finst, an Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based provider of a crypto platform, raised €8M in Series A funding. The round was led by Endeit Capital, with participation from existing investors such as Eelko van Kooten (founder Spinnin’ Records) and DEGIRO co-founder Mark Fransen.
Eat App, a Dubai, UAE-based provider of a restaurant reservation and guest management platform, raised $10M in funding. The round was led by PSG Equity through its portfolio company Zenchef SAS.
Atlas Invest, a NYC-based company which specializes in commercial real estate lending, raised a $25M facility. The round was led by BlackRock.
Jetson, a Denver, Colorado and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based provider of home electrification solutions, raised $50m in Series A funding. The round was led by Eclipse, with participation from 8VC, Activate Capital, and existing investors including Garage Capital and Active Impact.
Fracttal, a Madrid, Spain-based AI-powered maintenance management and physical asset software company, raised $35M in funding. The round was led by Riverwood Capital, with participation from existing investors, including Seaya Ventures.
Ultra, a New York City based-developer of nicotine-free functional pouches, raised $11m in Series A funding. The round was led by Left Lane Capital, with participation from top CPG founders from brands like Harry’s and Rockstar Energy, as well as celebrity athletes including Joe Burrow, Lindsey Vonn, and Dak Prescott.
XBuild, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI platform purpose-built for construction, raised $19M in Series A funding. The round was led by N47 with participation from Rackhouse Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz.
Nasdaq Private Market, a NYC-based provider of liquidity and investment solutions for the private market ecosystem, raised $37.6m in Series C financing. The round was led by Cerity Partners with participation from Optiver and existing backers including Nasdaq, DRW Venture Capital, and HiJoJo Partners.
Upscale AI, Inc., a Santa Clara, California-based developer of AI networking infrastructure, raised $200m in Series A funding. The round was led by Tiger Global, Premji Invest, and Xora Innovation, with participation from Maverick Silicon, StepStone Group, Mayfield, Prosperity7 Ventures, Intel Capital, and Qualcomm Ventures.
Benepass, a NYC-based provider of a benefits capital management platform, raised $40M in Series B funding. The round was led by Centana Growth Partners, with participation from FoW Partners and existing investors Portage Ventures and Threshold Ventures.
AnswersNow, a Richmond, VA-based company which specializes in virtual applied behavioral analysis (ABA) therapy, raised $40M in Series B funding. The round was led by HealthQuest Capital, with participation from existing investors Left Lane Capital, Owl Ventures, and others.
Zanskar, a Salt Lake City, UT-based AI-native geothermal energy company, raised $115M in Series C funding. The round was led by Spring Lane Capital with participation from Obvious Ventures (who led the Series B), Union Square Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital.
OpenEvidence, a Miami, FL-based provider of an AI platform for doctors, raised $250M in Series D funding, at $12 Billion valuation. The round was led by Thrive Capital and DST Global. Previous investors included Sequoia, Google Ventures, Nvidia, Kleiner Perkins, Blackstone, Henry Kravis, Coatue, Thrive Capital, Conviction, ICONIQ, Greycroft, Breyer Capital, BOND, Craft Ventures, Goanna, Meritech, Alkeon, Mayo Clinic and others, many of which also followed on in this round.
TODAY’S RESOURCE PICK
📬 What investors ask and how to answer (Q&A prep kit for founders)
Most founders don’t lose investors because of their pitch deck. They lose them in the Q&A.
This Investor Q&A Prep Kit helps you answer investor questions clearly, confidently, and without second-guessing yourself.
Inside:
Real questions VCs, angels, and accelerators actually ask
What investors are really testing with each question
Simple answer frameworks that work in real conversations
Sample founder-style answers (no generic fluff)
Common mistakes founders make and how to avoid them
Organised across team, market, product, traction, financials, strategy, risk, and fundraising, so you’re prepared for every meeting.
If you want to walk into investor conversations prepared instead of anxious, this is the doc you’ll keep coming back to.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates
Heartland Ventures, a Columbus, OH-based venture capital firm accelerating the reindustrialization of America, held the first close of its third fund, Heartland Ventures Fund III. The $60m fund will bring Heartland Ventures’ total capital raised across all funds and investment vehicles to over $140m. LPs come from a network of nearly 1,000 Midwestern industrial owner-operators across industries, including manufacturing, construction, logistics, and real estate. They include JR Renbarger, Vice President of Capital Management at Shiel Sexton.
Aliisa Rosenthal, OpenAI’s former sales leader, has joined San Francisco-based Acrew Capital as a general partner. After scaling OpenAI’s enterprise sales team and launching products like ChatGPT and Sora, she now plans to back enterprise AI startups with defensible moats built on context, memory, and cheaper inference models.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
X open sources its algorithm
X has open sourced its recommendation algorithm for the second time, sharing code and documentation on GitHub that explains how the platform decides which posts appear in user feeds.
The system relies entirely on X’s Grok-based transformer to learn what users find relevant by tracking their engagement history, with no manual human adjustments to how content relevance is determined.
Critics previously called the 2023 code release “transparency theater,” and X faces ongoing scrutiny including a $140 million EU fine for violating transparency rules and pressure over Grok-generated explicit content.
Meta AI lab delivers first major models internally
Meta’s new AI research group, Meta Superintelligence Labs, has delivered its first important models to internal teams this month, according to CTO Andrew Bosworth speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The team has been working for about six months, and Bosworth called the AI models “very good,” though he did not say which specific projects were completed or mention the codenames Avocado or Mango.
Meta had faced criticism over its Llama 4 model’s performance, and Bosworth noted the technology still needs significant post-training work before it can be released to consumers or used internally.
OpenAI aims to ship its first device in 2026, and it could be earbuds
OpenAI says it is on track to announce its first hardware device in the second half of 2026, following its acquisition of Jony Ive’s startup io and months of speculation around screen-free AI hardware.
Recent reports suggest the first device could be a pair of AI-powered earbuds, codenamed “Sweet Pea,” designed to handle some AI tasks locally on a custom chip and potentially ship 40 to 50 million units in its first year.
The move would give OpenAI more control over distribution beyond smartphones, but success is uncertain, as past AI devices like Humane’s AI Pin struggled to gain traction and competing wearables from Meta and Amazon are already improving fast.
Apple plans to make Siri an AI chatbot, report says
Apple is reportedly planning to turn Siri into a full AI chatbot, closer to ChatGPT, according to a report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
The revamped Siri, internally codenamed “Campos,” would support both voice and text, ship with iOS 27, and could headline Apple’s WWDC event in June, signaling a shift from Apple’s earlier resistance to chatbot-style assistants.
The move comes as Apple faces pressure from rivals and after it finalized an AI partnership with Google to use Gemini, following earlier evaluations of OpenAI and Anthropic.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Google says Gemini won’t have ads
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis confirmed at Davos that the company has no plans to add ads to its Gemini chatbot anytime soon, just weeks after OpenAI started testing ads in ChatGPT.
Hassabis suggested OpenAI may need extra revenue, while Google can keep Gemini ad-free because it already earns over $200 billion yearly from advertising through its search business and AI Overviews.
Hassabis also confirmed that Gemini models will soon power the next generation of Siri through a partnership with Apple, a deal that helped Alphabet’s valuation pass Apple’s for the first time since 2019.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & Startup Job Opportunities
All-In-One VC Interview Preparation Guide: With a leading investors group, we have created an all-in-one VC interview preparation guide for aspiring VCs. Don’t miss this. (Access Here)
Portfolio Management Intern - LVL1 Accelerator | India - Apply Here
Associate, Growth Equity - Adam Street Partner | USA - Apply Here
Venture Relations Associate - Angellist | USA - Apply Here
Due Diligence Fellow - Velocity Digital | USA - Apply Here
Investment Principal - Aramco Venture | USA - Apply Here
VC Fellowship - 1752 VC | USA - Apply Here
Executive Assistant - RET Venture | USA - Apply Here
Analyst - Griffin Gaming Partner | USA - Apply Here
VC Associate - Proglobal Search | UAE - Apply Here
Intern - Prologis Venture | USA - Apply Here
WHEN YOU’RE READY, HERE’S HOW I CAN HELP:
💁 You might need our help!
Reach 103,000+ Founders & Investors: Partner with our newsletter to reach a highly engaged audience.
Build Your Pitch Deck: We write, design and model your pitch deck into a storyteller book within 4-5 days.
Do you have any news to share about your Startup or VC fund? Please email us.
We’ll be back in your inbox on Tomorrow.