☕ Nvidia to launch its first laptops with its own processors & Anthropic accuses Chinese AI labs of distilling Claude at scale.
Investor loyalty frays as VCs back both OpenAI and Anthropic & DeepSeek allegedly trained new model on Nvidia Blackwell despite US export ban
Breaking News
Anthropic has accused Chinese AI labs including DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax of creating 24,000+ fake accounts to generate over 16 million Claude interactions through large-scale distillation. The company claims the activity targeted advanced capabilities like agentic reasoning and coding, warning that models built through illicit extraction may bypass safety safeguards. The allegations land amid intensifying U.S. debate over AI chip exports and national security risks tied to frontier model replication.
Investor “loyalty” norms are fraying as at least a dozen venture firms — including Founders Fund, Iconiq, Insight Partners, and Sequoia Capital — back both OpenAI and Anthropic. As mega-rounds swell (with OpenAI nearing a reported $100B raise), VCs appear increasingly willing to hedge across direct rivals, raising new questions around confidentiality, board duties, and competitive alignment in the era of trillion-dollar AI labs.
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🗞️ What else is brewing
Startup legal document pack – essential legal Docs for founders. (Link)
What investors ask and how to answer : A practical Q&A prep kit for founders. (Link)
Is AI quietly eliminating customer support jobs? (Link)
Should LPs back small VC funds for upside or large funds for stability? (Link)
Anthropic Research: Where AI agents are actually being deployed and where the real opportunity lies. (Link)
Mark Cuban’s AI Thesis: The $495B AI opportunity that most founder missing. (Link)
The FBI negotiation tactic founders should use in every pricing call. (Link)
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Reload, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI workforce management platform, raised $2.275M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Anthemis with participation from Zeal Capital Partners, Plug and Play, Cohen Circle, Axiom, and Blueprint.
Patientdesk AI, a San Francisco, CA-based company building patient-aware AI for dental clinics, raised $1M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Y Combinator and E2VC.
Turgo.ai, a NYC-based provider of an AI-powered marketing execution platform, raised $1M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers were not disclosed.
Potpie AI, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a foundational context layer service, raised $2.2M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Emergent Ventures with participation from All In Capital, DeVC and Point One Capital.
SEED
Comeryx, a Denver, CO-based AI-native, digital Managing General Agent company, raised $7.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Altai Ventures, with participation from American Family Ventures, Intact Ventures, Boulder Ventures, Arch Capital Group Ltd, and Echelon.
Solid, a NYC-based enterprise software company, raised $20M in Seed funding. Backers included Team8 and SignalFire.
Sherpas, a Kansas City, MO-based provider of an AI-native infrastructure platform, raised $3.2M in Seed funding. The round was led by 1248 with participation from AUA Private Equity Capital, GoHub Ventures, and others.
GROWTH
Flinn.ai, a Vienna, Austria-based software development startup that automates regulatory and quality workflows for MedTech companies, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by HV Capital, with participation from Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments, Cherry Ventures, Speedinvest, and SquareOne.
Coral Care, a NYC-based provider of a platform expanding access to in-home pediatric speech, occupational, and physical therapy, raised $13M in Series A funding. The round was led by Haymaker Ventures, with participation from FCA Ventures, Peterson Ventures, Alleycorp, Reach Capital, Jefferson River Capital, Greymatter Capital, Mother Ventures, and Charge Ventures.
7Rivers, a Milwaukee, WI-based technology services company managing data and AI, raised $5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Inoca Capital Partners.
Freeform, a Hawthorne, CA-based 3D-printing metal manufacturing company, raised $67M in Series B funding. Backers included Apandion, AE Ventures, Founders Fund, Linse Capital, NVentures, Threshold Ventures, and Two Sigma Ventures.
Arqitech, Inc., a Boca Raton, FL-based provider of a non-custodial infrastructure platform connecting institutional finance with digital assets, closed its Series A financing. The round was led by Siebert.
Portkey, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a unified control plane for production AI, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Elevation Capital, with participation from Lightspeed.
Inscope, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI-powered financial reporting platform built for accounting firms and enterprises, raised $14.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Norwest, with participation from Storm Ventures, existing investors Better Tomorrow Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, and others.
ZaiNar, a Belmont, CA-based provider of a platform for Physical AI turning wireless networks into a sensing system, raised $100M in funding, at $1 Billion valuation. Backers include Steve Jurvetson, Jerry Yang, Tom Gruber, Jaan Tallinn, and Nicholas Pritzker.
Pepper, a NYC-based provider of an end-to-end technology platform for independent food distributors, raised $50M in Series C funding. The round was led by Lead Edge Capital, with participation from existing investors including ICONIQ, Index Ventures, Greylock, Harmony Partners, and Interplay.
QT Sense, a Groningen, The Netherlands-based biotech startup, raised €4M in funding. The round was led by Cottonwood Technology Fund, with participation from existing investor QDNL Participations and an angel investor.
Copla, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based developer of an ICT compliance operating system, raised €6M in Series A funding. The round was led by Iron Wolf Capital, with participation from Operator Stack, Specialist VC, SuperHero Capital, FirstPick, NGL Ventures, and Loggerhead Partners.
happyhotel, an Offenburg, Germany-based revenue management software company for independent hotels and hotel groups across Europe, raised €6.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Reimann Investors with participation from BW Innovation Fund, seed + speed Ventures and the family office Wecken & Cie.
Hypercore, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of a loan management platform for private credit funds, raised $13.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Insight Partners.
Aalyria, a Livermore, CA-based aerospace communications company, raised $100M in Series B funding, at $1.3 Billion valuation. The round was led by Battery Ventures and J2 Ventures, with participation from DYNE and other investors.
TODAY’S RESOURCE PICK
📬 Startup legal document pack
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Employment, contractor & advisor agreements
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Customer contracts, TOS & privacy policies
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Quantonation Ventures, a NYC and Paris, France-based venture capital firm focused on quantum and physics-based technologies, closed its second flagship fund, at €220m. LPs included Vertex Holdings; Fonds National d’Amorçage 2, managed by Bpifrance on behalf of the French State; and Bradley M. Bloom, co-founder and former Managing Director of Berkshire Partners, as well as new backers European Investment Fund, Grupo ACS, Novo Holdings, Planet First Partners, and Toshiba.
Peak XV, the India- and APAC-focused venture firm that split from Sequoia Capital in 2023, has raised $1.3 billion across new funds, with most of the capital earmarked for India. Based in India and managing over $10B in AUM, the firm plans to deploy the fund over the next 2–3 years, focusing heavily on AI, fintech, and consumer startups. Led by managing director Shailendra Singh, Peak XV says it will prioritize returns over scale as competition from global VCs like General Catalyst intensifies in the Indian market.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Nvidia to launch its first laptops with its own processors
Nvidia is reportedly working on laptops powered by its own processors, which would mark the company’s push to become a recognizable consumer brand beyond its existing GPU business.
The company is partnering with both Intel and MediaTek on chip efforts, but the MediaTek deal is arguably more interesting because it involves actual Nvidia CPUs built on ARM designs.
Dell, Lenovo, and other PC makers are reportedly circling the full Nvidia SoC, likely hoping the company’s AI reputation creates a halo effect that boosts their laptop sales.
Sam Altman dismisses AI water-usage concerns as fake
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called concerns about AI water usage “fake” and “totally insane” during an interview at the India AI Impact summit, dismissing claims that ChatGPT consumes 17 gallons per query.
Altman compared AI energy costs to the energy it takes to “train a human,” arguing that 20 years of food and life experience should factor into any fair efficiency comparison.
Despite Altman’s dismissals, the IEA projects global data center electricity use could roughly double by 2030 to around 945 TWh, and water drawn for cooling is expected to triple.
DeepSeek allegedly trained new model on Nvidia Blackwell despite US export ban
A U.S. official says DeepSeek trained its upcoming model on Nvidia’s most advanced Blackwell AI chips, despite U.S. export controls barring those shipments to China, with the chips reportedly clustered in an Inner Mongolia data center.
The official claims DeepSeek may remove technical indicators showing use of U.S. chips; shipments of Blackwell are banned, while debate continues over allowing sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips under strict guardrails.
The model is also believed to rely on distillation of leading U.S. systems from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI, intensifying Washington’s concerns over chip exports and AI competition with China.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Stargate $500B AI project stalls over partner disputes
The $500 billion Stargate AI data center project, announced by President Trump in January 2025, has stalled because OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank kept arguing over responsibilities and how the collaboration should be structured.
OpenAI tried to build its own data centers but couldn’t get financing because lenders wouldn’t back billion-dollar projects from a company with an unproven business model and heavy losses.
To cover its computing power needs during the delays, OpenAI cut deals with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, AMD, and chip startup Cerebras, while a 1-gigawatt Texas campus broke ground in October.
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