☕ OpenAI and Perplexity take on Google, Microsoft saves $500M after cutting 9,000 jobs & X CEO Yaccarino steps down.
Amazon to invest multibillion-dollar in Anthropic & NVIDIA reach $4 trillion.
Lightning 101: count, divide… panic.
To estimate how far away it is, count the seconds between flash and thunder.
Then, divide by 5 to get how many miles away. Basically, if you're not getting past 2... maybe go inside.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Antler's problem framework, 30 startup ideas, Lovable's viral loop, Andreessen on VC rejection, why VCs chase hype, valuation + term sheet guides, 3 sales frameworks, investor data room, $500K/mo AI app.
Boldstart Ventures, a NYC-based fund closed Fund VII, at $250m.
Microsoft saves $500M from AI, days after cutting 9,000 jobs.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino steps down amid AI controversies.
California renews push to make AI giants disclose safety measures.
OpenAI to launch AI-powered browser in challenge to Chrome.
Perplexity launches Comet, its AI-powered browser.
Nvidia becomes the first company to reach $4 trillion.
Amazon considering multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic.
OpenAI and Microsoft to train 400,000 teachers in AI.
Apple eyes Formula 1 streaming rights in U.S..
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
⏱️ Read Time: 3 minutes
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DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
Antler's framework for finding the right problem to solve..
30 startup ideas you can actually build in 2025...
Inside Lovable’s viral loop and where it might break.
Marc Andreessen's Guide: What to Do When VCs Say "No"..
Why do VCs pass on profitable startups and chase hype instead?
The only startup valuation guide you need as a founder.
All-in-one term sheet guide for founders.
The 3 sales framework that every founder should know.
Investor data room guide & templates for founders.
This AI companion app hit $500,000/month, just 11 months after launch.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
ZeroEntropy, a San Francisco, CA-based startup that makes an AI retrieval engine for developers, raised $4.2M in seed funding. The round was led by Initialized Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Transpose Platform, 22 Ventures, a16z Scout, Thomas Wolff (Hugging Face), Mathilde Collin (Front), Jean Lafleur (Airbyte), Laura Modiano (OpenAI, Sequoia Scout), Tyler Bosmeny (Clever), Founders Future, Kima Ventures, Batch Ventures, Richard Aberman (WePay), Kulveer Taggar (Zeus), and other angel investors.
Neuros Medical, Inc., an Aliso Viejo, CA-based maker of the Altius® Direct Electrical Nerve Stimulation System, an FDA-approved, breakthrough non-opioid treatment for chronic post-amputation pain, raised $56m in Series D financing round. The round was led by new investor EQT Life Sciences, with participation from existing investors including US Venture Partners, Amzak Health, Osage University Partners, Sectoral Asset Management, Aperture Venture Partners and other investors.
Inshur, a Phoenix, AZ-based provider of insurance solutions for the on-demand economy, received $35M in Growth financing. Trinity Capital provided the financing.
Novenda Technologies (Lake3D), an Eindhoven, the Netherland-based company developing multi-material jetting printer, raised $6.1M in funding. The round was led by Brightlands Venture Partners with participation from KBC Focus Fund (Belgium), Borski Fund (NL) and Limburg Business Development Fund/LIOF (NL) as well as a group of angel investors and an Innovation Credit from RVO.
Ryft, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of a cloud data management platform, raised $8M in Seed funding. The round was led by Index and joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from members of the founding teams at Wiz as well as executives from Zscaler, Crowdstrike, Confluent, and Cisco.
Moment, a NYC-based company automating trading and portfolio management workflows for fixed income teams, raised $36M in Series B funding. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Venrock, Neo, and Contrary Capital.
Layer, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an embedded accounting platform for small and medium-size business (SMB) software, raised $6.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Emergence Capital, with participation from Better Tomorrow Ventures.
MaintainX, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a maintenance and asset management platform, raised $150M in funding. Backers included Bessemer Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, D. E. Shaw Ventures, Amity Ventures, August Capital, Founders Circle Capital, Sozo Ventures, Fifth Down Capital, Rahul Mehta, Dave McJannet, and others.
Altr, a Phoenix, AZ-based beverage technology company, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Demeter with participation from Suntory Global Spirits, Techmind, AZ Venture Capital Inc., FTW Ventures, Bluestein Ventures, Solvable, and Xinomavro.
Nominal, a NYC-based AI-native enterprise resource planning (ERP) startup, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by Next47, with participation of Workday Ventures, Bling Capital, and Hyperwise Ventures.
Odos, a Dublin, Ireland-based startup driving climate action in the agri-food sector, raised €680K in funding. The round was led by Capsa Food, TTAF by CLAVE, and Angels.
Polimorphic, a NYC-based company using AI to digitize resident services for local governments and their constituents, raised $18.6M in Series A funding. The round was led by General Catalyst, and continued backing from investors M13 and Shine.
ServiceUp, a Los Gatos, CA-based tech platform to manage vehicle repairs, raised $55M in Series B funding. The round was led by PeakSpan Capital, with participation from existing investors Hearst Ventures, Trestle Partners, Capital Midwest Fund, and Litquidity Ventures.
OllyGarden, a US company which specializes in telemetry pipelines optimizing their observability data, raised $1.6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by DIG Ventures with participation from Datadog Ventures, Grafana Labs, and Dash0, and angel investors such as Ben Sigelman (co-founder of Lightstep), Chris Aniszczyk (CTO of CNCF), Batuhan Uslu (ex-Isovalent), and Ian Livingstone (ex-Snyk).
Unblock, a Buenos Aires, Argentina-based energy infrastructure company, raised $13.5M in total funding. The round was led by Goldcrest Capital and Collaborative Fund with participation from Pampa Energia, Grupo Sielecki, FJ Labs, NYDIG, Luxor Technology, Sunna Ventures, and other Latin American entrepreneurs.
Centivax, a San Francisco, CA-based immunity company providing a proprietary computational immune-engineering platform, raised $45M in Series A funding. The round was led by Steve Jurvetson of Future Ventures, an early backer of Tesla, SpaceX, Prellis Biologics, Cambrian Bio, and others which in aggregate represent $1.4 Trillion of value creation. Other investors included NFX, BOLD Capital Partners, Base4 Capital, Kendall Capital Partners, Amplify Partners.
CURATED RESOURCES FOR FOUNDERS
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Ego Death Capital, a bitcoin ecosystem venture firm investing in bitcoin layer 3 projects, closed its second fund, at $100m. The new vehicle will invest in bitcoin-focused software companies with $1m to $3m in revenue. The fund is focused on Series A rounds with a minor part to be used for pre-seed and seed stage investments.
Boldstart Ventures, a NYC-based inception fund for technical founders building the autonomous enterprise, closed Fund VII, at $250m. The vehicle is focused on the core primitives powering a generational rewrite of the enterprise; one where software, agents, and machines operate at machine scale, continuously reasoning, learning, and acting.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Microsoft saves $500M from AI, days after cutting 9,000 jobs:
Microsoft revealed it saved over $500M in call center costs thanks to AI tools improving productivity across sales and engineering.
The disclosure comes just days after laying off 9,000 employees, adding to 15,000 job cuts in 2025 alone.
With $26B in quarterly profit and a $3.74T market cap, critics call the timing of cost-saving remarks and layoffs tone deaf.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino steps down amid AI controversies:
Linda Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X, Elon Musk’s social platform, just months after it was acquired by his AI startup xAI, citing her own decision though details remain unclear.
Her exit follows mounting challenges, including strained advertiser relationships, AI-driven controversies like Grok’s antisemitic posts, and potential friction with Musk’s leadership style.
Yaccarino’s departure adds to broader instability in Musk’s business empire, which includes Tesla executive exits and X’s ongoing efforts to transform into an “everything app.”
California renews push to make AI giants disclose safety measures:
California Senator Scott Wiener amended SB 53 to require major AI companies to publish safety protocols and incident reports, reviving efforts from the vetoed SB 1047.
The bill, shaped by California’s AI policy group, includes whistleblower protections and proposes a public cloud (CalCompute) for AI research — but avoids making developers liable for AI harms.
With federal regulation stalled, SB 53 signals California’s attempt to lead AI governance, while resistance remains from major players like OpenAI and Google.
OpenAI to launch AI-powered browser in challenge to Chrome:
OpenAI is reportedly preparing to launch its own AI web browser in the coming weeks, aiming to compete with Google Chrome and Perplexity’s Comet.
The browser will likely integrate OpenAI’s web-browsing agent, Operator, and keep some user interactions within ChatGPT instead of linking out.
The move signals OpenAI’s push to control the user interface layer and gather data firsthand, moving beyond being just a tool inside other platforms.
Perplexity launches Comet, its AI-powered browser:
Perplexity launched Comet, an AI-driven browser aimed at replacing Google Search, initially available to its $200/month Max subscribers and select invitees.
Key features include Comet Assistant, a side-panel AI agent that can summarize emails, navigate web pages, and manage tabs — though it requires significant user permissions.
While Comet shows promise in streamlining web interactions, it still struggles with complex tasks and hallucinations, highlighting the limits of current AI agents.
Nvidia becomes the first company to reach $4 trillion:
The technology giant became the world's first public company to reach a $4 trillion market valuation, with its shares climbing to a new record high of $164.
Its valuation quadrupled in only two years, a growth pace that far outstrips the time it took rivals Apple and Microsoft to reach the same milestone.
After dipping sharply in April due to trade tensions, the company's stock has since rebounded by roughly 74 percent, driven by optimism about its role in AI.
Amazon considering multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic:
Amazon is reportedly considering another major investment in Anthropic, adding to its existing $8 billion stake to reinforce its AI ambitions.
The move would help Amazon remain one of Anthropic’s top shareholders, ahead of Google, which has invested over $3 billion.
As rivals like OpenAI and Google advance in generative AI, Amazon is looking to secure its position through deeper partnerships and increased AI spending.
OpenAI and Microsoft to train 400,000 teachers in AI:
The American Federation of Teachers union is collaborating with Microsoft and OpenAI on the new National Academy for AI Instruction, a center focused on educator training.
The program aims to train 400,000 educators over five years, beginning with a New York cohort this fall before expanding across the entire country.
Microsoft is providing $12.5 million to the initiative, while OpenAI adds $8 million in funding and another $2 million in technical resources to the project.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕Other news
Apple eyes Formula 1 streaming rights in U.S.:
Apple is in talks to acquire U.S. streaming rights for Formula 1, challenging ESPN, whose current deal ends next year.
This move aligns with Apple's growing push into live sports, following deals with MLB and MLS.
Interest in F1 is surging in the U.S., boosted by Netflix’s Drive to Survive and Apple’s own hit F1 film produced with Lewis Hamilton.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & startup job opportunities
Principal - Al Fund | USA - Apply Here
Associate - Energy Impact Partner | USA - Apply Here
Chief of Staff to Founding Partner - One Way Venture | USA - Apply Here
Investor - Griffin Gaming Partner | USA - Apply Here
Investor (AI) - Samsung Next | USA - Apply Here
Investment Fellow - Outward VC | UK - Apply Here
Operations Associate - Techstars | USA - Apply Here
Associate - Investor Relations - Kinetic Investment | USA - Apply Here
Investment Trainee (US) - Hashkey Capital | USA - Apply Here
Associate - Episode 1 Venture | UK - 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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