Ilya’s AI startup picks Google Cloud to power its AI research & OpenAI countersues Elon Musk over fake takeover and bad-faith attacks.

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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup funding updates

Ottometric, a Boston, MA-based emerging technology company which specializes in the validation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), raised $10M in Series A Funding. The round was led by Schooner Capital, with participation from existing investors Rally Ventures and Proeza Ventures, as well as new investors, including PS27 and Somersault Ventures.

Refiberd, a Cupertino, CA-based sorting technology company for textile-to-textile recycling, received $300K from eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY)’s eBay Ventures.

Springtail, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a cloud-native distributed database that separates storage from computation, raised $2.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Gradient.

Nuro, a Mountain View, CA-based autonomous driving technology company, raised $106M in Series E funding, at $6 billion valuation. Backers included funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Fidelity Management & Research Company, Tiger Global Management, Greylock Partners, and XN LP.

Solo Therapeutics, a Boston, MA-based biotechnology company advancing therapies to eliminate disease-driving cells in cancer, immunology, and other therapeutic areas, raised $41M in Series A funding. Backers included participation from five new investors Eli Lilly and Company, Biovision Ventures, Pappas Capital, Hengdian Group Capital (HgC), and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Therapy Acceleration Program, as well as continued support from existing Solu investors Longwood Fund, DCVC Bio, Santé Ventures, Astellas Venture Management, and Alexandria Venture Investments.

Diamo, a NYC-based provider of a revenue platform for independent hotels, raised $4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Thayer Ventures and Inovia Capital, with participation from Avalon Capital Group and angels investors.

Vaxess, a Woburn, MA-based biotech company developing microarray patch technology, raised $9M in funding. Backers included RA Capital Management and Engine Ventures.

Merida Biosciences, a Cambridge, MA-based biotechnology company developing a new class of precision therapeutics, raised $121M in Series A financing. The round was led by Bain Capital Life Sciences, BVF Partners and Third Rock Ventures, joined by GV and Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds (PXV Funds).

Rondah AI, a NYC-based provider of an AI platform purpose-built for dental service organizations (DSOs), raised $1.8M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by 2048 Ventures and Twelve Below.

Luzern Risk, a NYC-based provider of a captive insurance platform, raised $12M in Series A funding. The round was led by Caffeinated Capital.

Ryft, a Manchester, UK-based PSD2 and FCA-approved decentralised payments provider, raised £5.7M in Series A funding. The round, which brought total investments to £7.4m, was led by EdenBase with participation from GPOS Investments, British Business Bank, Pembroke VCT, Sidebyside and Ingenii VC.

Pax, a San Francisco, CA-based company which specializes in AI-powered duty drawback, raised $4.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Initialized Capital, alongside Sancus, Basis Set, Soma Capital, General Catalyst, Transpose, ZVC1, and Flexport angels.

Neuranics, a Glasgow, Scotland, UK-based deep-tech semiconductor company providing human-machine interactions, raised $8M in seed funding. The round was led by Blackfinch Ventures, with participation from Archangels, Par Equity, the University of Glasgow, and Old College Capital.

Octane, a San Francisco, CA-based AI cybersecurity startup, raised $6.75M in Seed funding. The round was led by Archetype and Winklevoss Capital with participation from Gemini, Circle, Legion Capital, Druid Ventures, Duke Capital Partners and angels including Balaji Srinivasan, Sina Habibian, and many others.

Plug, a Santa Monica, CA-based provider of an EV-exclusive wholesale online auction platform, raised $6.7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Floodgate, Autotech Ventures and A* with participation from Leap Forward Ventures, Renn Global, Cleo Capital, Toba Capital and ODF. Angel investors included Simon Rothman, founder of eBay Motors; John Kett, former CEO of IAA; and Car Dealership Guy Yossi Levi.

Artisan, a NYC-based AI sales agent startup, raised $25M in Series A funding led by Glade Brook Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Day One Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, Oliver Jung, Fellows Fund, and others.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital updates

Lerer Hippeau, a New York-based seed-stage venture capital firm, closed its ninth fund with $200M, bringing its total assets under management to $1.4B. The firm, known for backing NYC-born startups like Casper, Warby Parker, and Axios, upsized from its $140M eighth fund. It joins Insight Partners and Thrive Capital in boosting the city's VC momentum.

DIG Ventures, a Europe-based operator-led VC founded by MuleSoft’s Ross Mason and Melissa Klinger, announced a $100M institutional fund to back pre-seed and seed-stage B2B SaaS, AI, and cloud infra startups across Europe, Israel, and the U.S. Backed by LPs like The Hillman Company, Sofina, and Datadog's Olivier Pomel, DIG positions itself as hands-on support for deeply technical founders, with a portfolio including People.ai, Bubble, and Rasa. The new fund has already backed startups like Dash0 and Nexos.ai.

KEY STORIES IN TECH

📜 Latest in tech

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, launches an API for Grok 3:

• xAI has opened API access to its Grok 3 and Grok 3 Mini models, with pricing starting at $3/M input tokens and $15/M output tokens, and premium versions available at higher rates.

• Grok 3 offers image analysis and reasoning capabilities but is more expensive than rival models like Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro, while falling short of its promised 1M-token context window.

• Despite Musk's claims that Grok would be politically neutral and “anti-woke,” earlier Grok versions were found to lean left on social issues, raising ongoing questions about its model behavior.

Safe Superintelligence picks Google Cloud to power its AI research:

• Ilya Sutskever’s new AI startup, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), is partnering with Google Cloud to use its TPU chips for developing safe superintelligent AI systems.

• Google Cloud is reportedly SSI’s primary computing provider, continuing its trend of supporting ex-Google AI researchers with major infrastructure deals.

• Backed by $1 billion in funding, SSI has kept a low profile since its launch, focusing solely on building safe frontier AI models under Sutskever’s leadership.

Google unveils Gemini 2.5 Flash for faster cheaper AI performance:

• Google has introduced Gemini 2.5 Flash, a lightweight AI model optimized for speed, efficiency, and cost, set to launch soon on Vertex AI.

• The model supports tunable computing for balancing latency, accuracy, and cost — ideal for high-volume applications like chatbots and real-time summarization.

• Google plans to roll out Gemini models, including 2.5 Flash, to on-premises environments via its Distributed Cloud offering in Q3, in partnership with Nvidia.

OpenAI countersues Elon Musk over ‘bad-faith’ takeover bid and public attacks:

• OpenAI has filed a countersuit against Elon Musk, accusing him of launching a “fake takeover bid” and spreading bad-faith attacks to disrupt the company’s transition into a for-profit entity.

• The legal battle follows Musk’s claim that OpenAI abandoned its nonprofit mission; a judge allowed the case to proceed to jury trial in 2026 but denied Musk’s injunction request.

• OpenAI says its restructuring aims to build “the best-equipped nonprofit the world has ever seen,” while Musk’s team argues the board ignored a serious acquisition proposal.

Amazon plans to build tens of millions of Kuiper dishes to rival Starlink:

• Amazon's Project Kuiper aims to challenge Starlink's dominance with plans to produce tens of millions of satellite internet dishes, featuring three models with speeds ranging from 100Mbps to 1Gbps.

• The company has built gateway stations across the globe, from Australia to Germany, to relay high-speed internet from ground to satellites, and is developing partnerships with Airbus for in-flight connectivity.

• Amazon faces significant challenges including launching half of its planned 3,200 satellites by July 2026 to meet FCC requirements, with its first batch of 27 satellites scheduled for imminent deployment.

Google unveils new AI accelerator chip:

• Google unveiled its seventh-generation TPU AI accelerator chip called Ironwood during the Cloud Next conference, designed specifically for running AI models and scheduled to launch later this year for Google Cloud customers.

• The Ironwood chip delivers 4,614 TFLOPs of computing power at peak, features 192GB of dedicated RAM, and includes an enhanced SparseCore for processing data in advanced ranking and recommendation workloads.

• Google plans to integrate the Ironwood TPU with its AI Hypercomputer in Google Cloud, entering a competitive AI accelerator market dominated by Nvidia but also featuring custom solutions from Amazon and Microsoft.

China warns TikTok sale must comply with national laws:

• China reiterated that any deal involving TikTok must comply with its laws, including tech export rules requiring government approval.

• The statement follows President Trump’s 75-day extension for TikTok’s U.S. sale deadline, which was reportedly delayed after new tariffs.

• China’s commerce ministry criticized “plunder by force” and emphasized that TikTok’s algorithm is a controlled technology under a 2020 export law

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕Other news

Instagram is finally working on an iPad app after 15 years:

• Instagram is reportedly developing a dedicated iPad app after nearly 15 years, according to an Instagram employee who spoke to The Information, despite previous statements from head Adam Mosseri citing lack of staff and user demand.

• The timing of Instagram's iPad app development may be related to TikTok's uncertain future in the U.S., as Meta would want to promote alternatives on as many devices as possible if TikTok faces a ban.

• Currently, iPad users can only access a scaled-up iPhone version of Instagram with large black borders, similar to Snapchat which recently released its own iPad app after a 13-year wait.

Trump thinks the US has the ‘resources’ needed to make iPhones:

• President Trump's 104% tariffs on China have taken effect, potentially impacting Apple's supply chain, while White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated Trump believes Apple can relocate iPhone manufacturing to the United States.

• Leavitt claimed America has the necessary workforce and resources for iPhone production, citing Apple's $500 billion investment commitment in the US as evidence, though this investment doesn't specifically include iPhone assembly plans.

• Apple has been building up iPhone inventory in the United States to temporarily buffer against tariff impacts and avoid immediate price increases, while some experts consider US-manufactured iPhones unrealistic.

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