☕ Klarna hits $1 million in revenue per employee & Nvidia opens up its chip ecosystem.
China begins assembling its supercomputer in space & Why Apple still hasn't cracked AI.
Important stat: Squirrels forget where they hide 74% of their nuts.
The upside to their forgetfulness? They accidentally plant thousands of trees a year. Chaos, but make it reforestation.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Sam Altman’s fundraising guide, 2700+ US VCs, AI UX shift, $1M dorm-room product, 6000+ Euro VCs, IPO watchlist, agent economy, AI hallucinations. Valuation & financial model guides, VC interview tips, legal docs.
Klarna nears $1M revenue per employee by leaning on AI.
Nvidia opens up its chip ecosystem.
Why Apple still hasn't cracked AI.
China begins assembling its supercomputer in space.
Microsoft wants AI ‘agents’ to work together and remember things.
Google launches stand-alone NotebookLM apps for Android and iOS.
Ex-Siri chief pushed for Gemini over ChatGPT in Apple AI plans.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
⏱️ Read Time: 3 minutes
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
Sam Altman's Guide to Startup Fundraising: What Really Works.
2700+ US Angel Investors & VC Firms Contact Database (Email + LinkedIn Link).
The only startup valuation guide you need as a founder.
Making a Million-Dollar Product From a Dorm Room.
6000+ European VC Firms Contact Database (LinkedIn Links).
Excel Template: Early Stage Startup Financial Model For Fundraising.
AI Hallucinations Are Getting Worse.
Building the agent economy: How cloud leaders are shaping AI’s next frontier.
8 venture-backed IPO candidates to watch in 2025.
Do Early-Stage startups need a financial model for fundraising?
All-In-One Guide To Venture Capital Interview Questions (And How to Answer Them)
Investor data room guide & templates for founders.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Persist AI, a Sacramento, CA-based pioneer in AI-driven robotics for pharmaceutical formulation development and Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC), closed a $12m Series A financing round. The round was led by Spero Ventures with participation from MBX Capital, Shimadzu Future Innovation Fund managed by Global Brain Corporation, Eli Lilly & Company, SignalFire, Ford Street Capital, Purdue Ventures, Good AI Capital, Cartography Capital, Asymmetry Ventures, and existing investors 2048 Ventures, Innospark, and YCombinator.
Button Finance, Inc., a NYC-based fintech company focused on home equity lending, closed a strategic $5m Series A funding round. The round was led by Hildene Capital Management, with participation from existing investors.
CellCentric, a Cambridge, UK-based clinical-stage biotechnology company, raised $120M in Series C funding. The round was led by RA Capital Management and new investor Forbion, with participation from Avego Bioscience Capital, as well as BrightEdge, the American Cancer Society’s venture capital and impact investment arm.
Hy2Care, a Geleen, the Netherlands-based company that is advancing an injectable hydrogel, raised €4.5M in funding. Half of the funding came from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund investment awarded to Hy2Care in 2022 as part of the EIC Accelerator.
Seniorverse, a NYC-based startup for senior care, raised $2.1M in seed funding. Backers were not disclosed.
Thndr, a Cairo, Egypt-based provider of a retail investment platform in the MENA region, raised $15.7M in funding. The round was led by Prosus Ventures, with participation from BECO Capital, JIMCO Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, Y Combinator, and a U.S. university endowment, among other new investors.
Theo Ai, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of an AI-driven prediction platform for litigation, raised $4.2M in Seed funding. The round was led by NextView Ventures and new investor Collide Capital with participation from nvp capital, Ripple Ventures, Beat Ventures, Four Acres Capital.
LIS Technologies, an Oak Ridge, TN-based proprietary laser technology company, raised $11.93M in funding. Backers included Innovating Capital, alongside other investors.
Dazos, a Boca Raton, FL-based provider of a CRM platform for behavioral health providers, raised $25M in Series A funding. The round was led by Radian Capital.
BreachRx, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an incident response platform for enterprises, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Ballistic Ventures, with participation from SYN Ventures, Overline, and Silver Buckshot Ventures.
Riverse, a Paris, France-based provider of a carbon crediting platform, raised €5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Alven and Racine², an impact-focused fund managed by Serena and Makesense, with continued support from SpeedInvest and Kfund.
akeno, a Hamburg, Germany-based provider of an AI-based real time production planning software platform, raised €4.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Cusp Capital, TS Ventures, and another.vc.
Catalyxx, a Sevilla, Spain-based startup turning bioethanol into renewable chemicals, raised €3M in funding. The round, which brought the total amount other than $18M, was led by Axon Partners Group.
remberg, a Munich, Germany-based AI-powered maintenance software company, raised €15M in Series A+ funding. The round was led by Acton Capital and Oxx, with participation from existing investors Earlybird, Speedinvest, and Fly Ventures.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Headline Asia, a Tokyo- and Taipei-based VC firm, raised a $145M Fund V to back early-stage tech startups across the Asia-Pacific region. The fund targets companies in e-commerce, fintech, logistics, IP, and AI with check sizes between $1M–$5M, focusing on Japan, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and select opportunities in South Korea. LPs include JIC, NDF, KVIC, and SME Support Japan. Investments to date include Newmo, Jenfi, and Pi-xcels.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Klarna nears $1M revenue per employee by leaning on AI:
Klarna’s internal AI push, powered by OpenAI, has helped the company hit nearly $1 million in revenue per employee — a sharp jump from $575K last year.
The company replaced hundreds of customer service contractors with AI, cut its Salesforce CRM contract, and slowed hiring to boost efficiency.
Despite a 13% revenue rise in Q1 2025, Klarna delayed its planned U.S. IPO due to market volatility sparked by Trump’s tariff moves.
Nvidia opens up its chip ecosystem:
At Computex 2025, Nvidia unveiled "NVLink Fusion," a new initiative permitting third-party CPUs and GPUs to connect with its own hardware inside AI data centers using the NVLink interface.
The company's new NVLink Fusion strategy lets businesses create tailored AI infrastructure by combining different processors with Nvidia components, positioning NVLink as core to upcoming AI frameworks.
Nvidia also launched "NVIDIA DGX Cloud Lepton," a new cloud service offering developers widespread access to extensive GPU resources across a global network for AI development.
Why Apple still hasn't cracked AI:
A new report suggests Apple accelerated its artificial intelligence work after ChatGPT's arrival, encountering problems when trying to merge new AI code with Siri's existing system.
Internal assessments apparently showed Apple's own language models performed less accurately than competitor OpenAI's, leading the company to seek outside partners for enhanced capabilities.
Issues like a former AI head's purported lack of urgency and poor communication between development and marketing teams reportedly contributed to Siri's setbacks and affected employee morale.
China begins assembling its supercomputer in space:
China has begun assembling an orbital supercomputer, launching the first twelve satellites capable of processing collected data directly in space rather than on Earth.
These initial spacecraft collectively offer five peta operations per second and are part of a planned 2,800-satellite network targeting 1,000 POPS of computational strength.
This celestial computing network aims to overcome terrestrial data transmission limitations and reduce energy consumption by utilizing solar power and space-based heat radiation.
Microsoft wants AI ‘agents’ to work together and remember things:
Microsoft's technology chief announced a vision for AI agents from different companies to work together using common industry standards like the Model Context Protocol.
The software corporation is also developing methods to improve the memory of these AI systems, so they can better recall past interactions using structured retrieval augmentation.
This initiative for enhanced inter-agent cooperation and improved digital recall aims to create an "agentic web," with more details expected at Microsoft's developer conference.
Google launches stand-alone NotebookLM apps for Android and iOS:
Google’s AI-powered note-taking assistant, NotebookLM, is now available on mobile via new Android and iOS apps after previously being desktop-only.
Users can access features like AI-generated Audio Overviews, offline playback, smart summaries, and Q&A support based on uploaded content.
The launch comes just ahead of Google I/O 2025, where the company is expected to spotlight NotebookLM as part of its AI announcements.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕Other news
Ex-Siri chief pushed for Gemini over ChatGPT in Apple AI plans:
Former Siri lead John Giannandrea reportedly urged Apple to partner with Google’s Gemini instead of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, citing concerns over data privacy and long-term viability.
Despite his pushback, Apple went ahead with ChatGPT integration in Siri in 2024, later launching it for users to handle queries Siri couldn’t answer.
Apple is now exploring deeper AI integrations, including talks with Perplexity to offer its chatbot in Siri and as a search engine in Safari.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & startup job opportunities
Investor - Founders Factory | UK - Apply Here
Portfolio Growth - Point 72Venture | USA - Apply Here
Internship - Octopus Venture | UK - Apply Here
Investor - Founders Factory | USA - Apply Here
Investment Fellow(s) - Pi Venture | India - Apply Here
Fundraising Manager - Entrepreneur First | USA - Apply Here
Investment team - Next Bharat Venture | India - Apply Here
Capital Formation Associate - B Capital Group | USA - Apply Here
Chief of Staff - First Round Capital | USA - Apply Here
Venture Capital Analyst - Cervin Family Office | India - Apply Here
Investment Manager - 3M Venture | USA - Apply Here
Analyst / Associate - Kairon Capital | India - Apply Here
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)
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