☕ Cognition acquires Windsurf, Musk’s Grok making AI companions & Jack Dorsey launches app to track UV.
Google is merging Android and ChromeOS & Amazon delays Alexa’s web debut. .
The North and South Poles don’t have time zones.
Technically, every time zone meets there, so time just... gives up.
It’s the only place on Earth where “what time is it?” is a trick question.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Lean startup vs AI era, 2700+ US VC contacts, what not to say in VC meetings, financial model template, VC AUM hinges on liquidity, 6000+ EU VCs, AI-powered portfolios.
Former Sequoia partner Matt Miller looking to raise $355M.
Former Founders Fund GP Brian Singerman and Quiet Capital’s Lee Linden raising over $500M.
Meta may shift away from open source AI, reconsidering Behemoth model.
Cognition acquires Windsurf after OpenAI deal collapses and Google poaches execs.
Elon Musk’s Grok is making AI companions, including a goth anime girl.
Prime Day drives $24B in U.S. e-commerce; GenAI traffic surges 3,300%.
Nvidia to resume China chip sales after U.S. policy reversal.
Amazon delays Alexa’s web debut.
Nvidia CEO says China military cannot use US chips.
Jack Dorsey launches Sun Day app to track UV and vitamin D.
Google is merging Android and ChromeOS.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
MOTOR Ai, a Berlin, Germany-based provider of AI systems for autonomous driving, raised $20M in funding. The round was led by Segenia Capital and eCAPITAL, with participation of German HNWI’s.
Cobionix, a Kitchener, Ontario, Canada-based autonomous medical robotics company, closed a US $3m funding round. The round was led by TitletownTech, a venture capital firm backed by Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers, with participation from Lions Investment and Dr. Paul McBeth, among others.
Zip Security, a NYC-based provider of a platform for security, compliance and IT automation for businesses, raised $13.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Ballistic Ventures, with participation from Silver Buckshot, Mantis VC, General Catalyst, Human Capital and Box Group.
Duranta, a Seattle, WA-based provider of a software platform for landscapers and lawn care professionals and their businesses, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Base10 Partners, Pear, Coalition Operators and Sunshine Lake with participation from Thomas Dohmke and Andrew Miklas.
Asepha, a Toronto, Canada-based startup leveraging AI agents for pharmacy automation, raised $4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Glasswing Ventures and Core Innovation Capital with participation from Panache, RedBud, Ripple Ventures and Front Row Ventures.
YPlasma, Barcelona, Spain-based tech startup which specializes in developing plasma actuators spun-out from INTA (Spanish Space Agency) with the help of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona foundation, raised $2.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Faber, with participation from SOSV.
NetBox Labs, a NYC-based company that provides and manages business-critical networks and infrastructure, raised $35M in Series B funding. The round was led by Headline, with participation from Flybridge Capital, Notable Capital, Mango Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, and IBM.
Moonvalley, a Toronto, Canada-based AI research company building AI video models and tools trained exclusively on licensed content, raised $84M in additional funding. The round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Creative Artists Agency (CAA), AI cloud CoreWeave, Comcast Ventures, Khosla Ventures and YCombinator.
Dextall, a NYC-based construction technology company integrating design software with off-site manufacturing, raised $15M in Series A funding. Backers included L+M Development Partners, Essence Development and Simpson Strong-Tie.
Circuit, a New York-based provider of a digital asset recovery platform, raised $4.5m in seed funding. The round was led Nyca Partners with participation from Soma Capital, New Form Capital, The Venture Dept, Silicon Badia, Druid Ventures, and Belvedere Strategic Capital, and strategic angels and advisors from Fireblocks, Galaxy, Ripple, and more.
Abacus, San Francisco, CA-based company developing agentic CPA assistants for accounting firms, raised $6.6M in seed funding. The round was led by Menlo Ventures, with significant participation from Pear VC and participation from Recall Capital, and Original Capital.
Varda, an El Segundo, CA-based company building infrastructure to support manufacturing in microgravity and test hypersonic reentry technologies, raised $187M in Series C funding. The round was led by Natural Capital and Shrug Capital, with participation from Founders Fund, Peter Thiel, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Lux Capital, and Also Capital.
Opper AI, a Stockholm, Sweden-based company behind Unomaly, the machine learning-based observability platform acquired by LogicMonitor in 2020, raised $3M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included Luminar Ventures, Emblem Venture Capital, Greens Capital, and angel investors.
ScienceMachine, a London, UK-based biotech data analysis startup, raised $3.5m in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Revent and Nucleus Capital, with participation from Juniper and Opal Ventures, as well as unnamed angels.
Murphy, a Barcelona, Spain-based provider of an AI-native platform improving debt servicing through autonomous agents, raised $15M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Northzone, with participation from ElevenLabs, Lakestar, Seedcamp, and existing investors.
Inntelo AI, a London, UK-based hospitality technology company, raised £506K in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Haatch and British Business Bank, with participation from Look AI Ventures and angel investors including former executives from Trip.com, DocuSign, and others.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Evantic, a new venture firm founded by former Sequoia partner Matt Miller, has raised $355M for its debut fund, with Sequoia itself as an LP. Though initially pitched as a Europe-focused fund, Evantic will invest across both the U.S. and Europe, mainly backing B2B startups at Series B and growth stages. Miller, who led Sequoia’s expansion into Europe, continues to serve as a venture partner at the firm and remains on several portfolio boards.
GPx, a new VC firm founded by former Founders Fund GP Brian Singerman and Quiet Capital’s Lee Linden, is raising over $500M for a fund with a unique dual strategy. Around 20% will go into emerging VC funds at the pre-seed and seed stage, while the rest will back later-stage breakout deals from those same portfolios. The fund blends direct investing with a fund-of-funds twist, aiming to help small VCs exercise pro-rata rights and lead Series B+ rounds.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Meta may shift away from open source AI, reconsidering Behemoth model:
Meta’s Superintelligence Lab is reportedly considering dropping its open source Behemoth model in favor of closed AI development, though no final decision has been made.
While Meta claims its open source stance is “unchanged,” internal testing of Behemoth halted after underwhelming results, raising doubts about future open model releases.
A shift toward closed models would mark a strategic pivot, potentially reshaping the open-source AI landscape and tightening control among Big Tech players like Meta and OpenAI.
Cognition acquires Windsurf after OpenAI deal collapses and Google poaches execs:
Cognition, maker of AI agent Devin, has acquired Windsurf’s product, IP, and remaining team after OpenAI’s $3B deal expired and Google hired away Windsurf’s top execs.
Windsurf had $82M in ARR and hundreds of enterprise customers; the deal reunites the startup with Claude AI model access, which it lost amid acquisition rumors.
Cognition now combines Devin’s coding agent with Windsurf’s AI IDE, bolstering its position against AI coding rivals like OpenAI, Cursor, and Anthropic.
Elon Musk’s Grok is making AI companions, including a goth anime girl:
xAI’s chatbot Grok has launched AI companions for its $30/month “Super Grok” tier, including characters like Ani, a goth anime girl, and Bad Rudy, a 3D fox.
It’s unclear if the companions are intended as romantic features or cosmetic personas, but the move follows rising interest—and concern—around emotional AI relationships.
The launch comes just days after Grok faced backlash for antisemitic responses, raising further scrutiny over xAI’s content moderation and ethical safeguards.
Prime Day drives $24B in U.S. e-commerce; GenAI traffic surges 3,300%:
U.S. online retailers saw $24.1 billion in sales during Amazon’s expanded four-day Prime Day event, marking a 30.3% year-over-year increase.
Generative AI-driven shopping traffic jumped 3,300% YoY, though it still trails major channels like paid search (28.5% of sales) and influencer-driven purchases (19.9%).
Top-performing categories included appliances (+112%), office supplies (+105%), and electronics (+95%), with late-event discount spikes fueling shopper activity.
Nvidia to resume China chip sales after U.S. policy reversal:
Nvidia will resume H20 AI chip sales to China and introduce a new RTX Pro chip tailored for compliance, following months of export restrictions and lobbying.
The Trump administration initially banned H20 exports, risking $15B+ in revenue, but reversed course after CEO Jensen Huang’s Mar-a-Lago visit and U.S. investment pledges.
The episode highlights tensions between national security goals and commercial interests, as U.S. lawmakers criticize the flip-flop and China accelerates AI progress with Nvidia chips.
Amazon delays Alexa’s web debut:
Amazon has postponed the web launch of its new Alexa assistant, known as Project Metis, from its original target date at the end of June.
Internal documents did not specify the reasons for pushing back the release, and managers have not explained the cause of the schedule change to staff.
A company spokesperson denied that Alexa.com is delayed, stating it will be available with Alexa+ Early Access for users sometime during the summer.
Nvidia CEO says China military cannot use US chips:
Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang believes China’s military cannot rely on US chips for defense systems because Washington could limit access to them at any time.
He stated the country already has enough internal computing power and therefore does not require Nvidia hardware to build up its own military forces.
Despite these claims, a Chinese AI startup named DeepSeek has reportedly supported the nation's military while using Nvidia chips to train its language models.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕Other news
Jack Dorsey launches Sun Day app to track UV and vitamin D:
Jack Dorsey’s new app Sun Day helps users monitor UV exposure and vitamin D intake based on skin type, clothing, and real-time weather data.
The app is available via TestFlight on iOS and is open source on GitHub, built using Goose, an alternative to popular AI coding tools like Cursor and Claude Code.
Users can track sun sessions and see how much vitamin D they’ve absorbed, reflecting Dorsey’s continued interest in health and experimental app development.
Google is merging Android and ChromeOS:
Google's President of the Android Ecosystem, Sameer Samat, has officially confirmed the company is combining its ChromeOS platform with the mobile operating system, Android.
The announcement provided no concrete details, leaving open questions about how this affects current ChromeOS users, enterprise clients, and the typical decade-long support window for laptops.
A small hint suggests a focus on productivity, aligning with Google’s separate, ongoing development of a desktop UI experience for its main Android operating system.
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)
Investment Analyst - Camber Partners | USA - Apply Here
Associate (Software Infrastructure) - Omerse Venture | USA - Apply Here
Partner 36 - a16z | USA - Apply Here
Senior Associate - Serica VC | USA - Apply Here
Investment Intern - DTCP | UK - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Blue Capital | India - Apply Here
Partner 36 - a16z | USA - Apply Here
VC Growth Partner - Exit fund | India - Apply Here
Corporate Development & Strategy - Figma Venture | USA - Apply Here
Portfolio Analyst - GCO Venture | Spain - Apply Here
Associate - OMERSE Venture | USA - Apply Here
Principal - Al Fund | USA - Apply Here
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