Musk’s xAI lie about Grok 3’s benchmarks? & Bybit hacked for almost $1.5 billion in biggest crypto theft ever.

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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup funding updates

Safe Intelligence, a London, UK-based provider of deep validation artificial intelligence (AI) systems, raised £4.15M in Seed funding. The round was led by Amadeus Capital Partners, with participation from new investor OTB Ventures and existing investor Vsquared Ventures.

Saronic, an Austin-based defense startup, raised a $600M Series C led by Elad Gil, with General Catalyst joining existing investors a16z, 8VC, and Caffeinated Capital. The round quadruples Saronic’s valuation to $4B as it plans to build “Port Alpha,” an autonomous ship factory to expand U.S. naval drone capabilities.

Proximity, a Chicago, IL-based provider of an automation platform optimizing 340B drug discount revenue for qualified healthcare providers, raised $3M in Seed funding. The round was led by LRVHealth with participation from Commonweal Ventures.

Karman+, a Denver, CO-based asteroid mining startup, raised $20M in Seed funding. Backers included HCVC, Kevin Mahaffey (Lookout), co-founder Teun van den Dries and angel investors.

Fireverse, a provider of an AI-driven and blockchain-powered music creation platform, received $100K from BingX Labs.

Fomo, a NYC-based fintech startup empowering technology and strategic partnerships, raised $2M in Pre-Seed funding. Investors included Raj Gokal (Co-Founder, Solana), Balaji Srinivasan (Angel Investor), Aaron Harris (Founder, Magid & Company), Kevin Miller (CEO, GR0), Jon Zacharias (President, GR0), and Bryan Pellegrino (CEO, LayerZero Labs), among others.

Swell, a Louisville, KY-based mental health company, raised $1.6M in funding. Backers included Keyhorse Capital, Bluegrass Angels, PeakState Ventures, defy.vc, and Fairwater Labs.

Capi Money, a London, UK-based FinTech startup, raised €17.2M in Series A funding. The round was led by Creandum and joined by Janngo.africa, with participation from existing investors Y Combinator, Firstminute Capital, 4Cities, The Raba Partnership, Kara Investments, Algorithmic Strategies, Rebel Fund, Maiora, and Pioneer Fund.

Kynda, a Jelmstorf, Germany-based food tech startup, raised €3M in Seed funding. The round, which brought the total amount to €5.8M, was led by Enjoy Ventures through its Invest-Impuls Scale fund, with additional participation from Swiss Clima Now and PHW Group.

Unit Network, a London, UK-based decentralized financial company enabling trade of real-world and digital assets through tokenization, received $18M in funding. The round was led by Blockchain Founders Fund and Outlier Ventures, alongside entrepreneurs.

Togheter AI, a San Francisco, CA-based AI Acceleration Cloud company, raised $305M in Series B funding, at $3.3 Billion valuation. The round was led by General Catalyst and Prosperity7, with participation from a group of global institutional and strategic investors including Salesforce Ventures, DAMAC Capital, NVIDIA, Kleiner Perkins, March Capital, Emergence Capital, Lux Capital, SE Ventures, Greycroft, Coatue, Definition, Cadenza Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, Brave Capital, Scott Banister, and John Chambers.

Arize AI, a Berkeley, CA-based AI observability and LLM evaluation company, raised $70M in Series C funding. Thew round was led by Adams Street Partners, with participation from M12, Sinewave Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Datadog, PagerDuty, Industry Ventures, and Archerman Capital. Existing investors Foundation Capital, Battery Ventures, TCV, and Swift Ventures.

Lingo.dev, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of an AI localization engine, raised $4.2M in seed funding. The round was led by Initialized Capital, with participation from Y Combinator (F2024 batch), Supabase CEO Paul Coplestone, Dependabot founders Grey Baker and Harry Marr, and investors from GitHub, Google Photos, Pitchbook, Moonfire VC, and Transpose Platform Capital.

CTGT, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an enterprise AI risk management and performance platform, raised $7.2M in Seed funding. The round was led by Gradient with participation from General Catalyst, Y Combinator, Liquid 2, Deepwater and angels including François Chollet, Michael Seibel, Paul Graham, Peter Wang, Wes McKinney, Mike Knoop, Kulveer Tagger, Andrew Miklas, and Taner Halicioglu.

Millie, a San Francisco, CA-based tech-enabled maternity clinic, raised $12M in Series A funding. The round was led by TMV and Foreground Capital, with participation from Pivotal Ventures and the March of Dimes Innovation Fund, including Ingeborg Investments, alongside BBG Ventures, Joyance, LearnStart, Amboy Street Ventures, Mother Ventures, Coyote Ventures, and Chai Ventures.

Relish, a Beachwood, OH-based enterprise app development company, raised $25M in Series B funding. The round was led by Base10 Partners with participation from Volition Capital.

CircNova, a Michigan-based biotech startup, raised a $3.3M seed round led by South Loop Ventures, with participation from Union Heritage, Michigan Rise, Invest Detroit, Kalamazoo Forward Ventures, and SPARK Capital.

INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY WORTH EXPLORING

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*Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.
*The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.
*Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com.

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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital updates

Afore Capital, a pre-seed-focused VC firm, raised a $185M fourth fund to back early-stage startups with a more flexible investment approach. The firm, founded by Anamitra Banerji and Gaurav Jain, will continue writing checks up to $2M but is also launching a Founders-in-Residence (FIR) program to support entrepreneurs still in their ideation stage. Afore has backed over 200 startups, including Modern Health, BenchSci, and Hightouch.

Cherryrock Capital, founded by ex-TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot, closed its $172M Fund I to back Series A and B startups, particularly diverse founders. LPs include JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, MassMutual, Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Reid Hoffman, Mellody Hobson, and Sheryl Sandberg. The firm co-led Coactive AI’s Series B with Emerson Collective and invested in Vitable’s Series A alongside Citi Impact Fund and First Round Capital.

KEY STORIES IN TECH

📜 Latest in tech

Musk’s xAI lie about Grok 3’s benchmarks?:

• OpenAI employees accused xAI of misleading benchmark results for Grok 3, arguing that its comparison omitted OpenAI’s o3-mini-high score at “cons@64,” a setting that improves accuracy.

• xAI co-founder Igor Babushkin defended the data, claiming OpenAI has used similar tactics, while independent researchers released a more complete benchmark comparison.

• AI experts note that benchmarks often lack transparency, especially in revealing the computational and financial costs behind a model’s best performance.

Court docs reveal Meta considered using Pirated Books to train AI:

• Unsealed court documents show Meta employees debated training AI on copyrighted books without permission, citing speed and competitive pressure as key reasons.

• Internal chats mention discussions about scraping Libgen, a site hosting pirated books, while also tuning AI models to avoid revealing copyrighted training data.

• Meta’s leadership reportedly reconsidered past decisions on training sets, pushing for more data as its internal platforms like Facebook and Instagram weren’t enough.

OpenAI plans shift from Microsoft to SoftBank for AI compute power:

• OpenAI expects 75% of its data center capacity to come from SoftBank-backed Stargate by 2030, moving away from Microsoft, its current primary provider.

• While the transition is gradual, OpenAI will continue increasing spending on Microsoft data centers in the near term before ramping up reliance on SoftBank.

• OpenAI projects cash burn to hit $20B in 2027, with AI inference costs surpassing training expenses as demand for model deployment grows.

Bybit hit by largest Crypto theft in history, losing $1.4B in Ethereum:

• Hackers stole 401,346 ETH (~$1.4B) from Bybit’s offline wallet in what is now the largest crypto theft ever, surpassing the Ronin and Poly Network breaches.

• The attackers gained control of a cold wallet and moved funds to a warm wallet, despite cold wallets being designed for offline security.

• Bybit CEO Ben Zhou assured users the exchange remains solvent and can cover the loss, with total assets estimated at $16B as of last week.

The Vision Pro is getting Apple Intelligence in April:

• Apple confirmed that its generative AI platform, Apple Intelligence, will arrive on Vision Pro in April via visionOS 2.4, bringing text and image generation tools like Rewrite, Proofread, and Image Playground.

• The update enhances workflows by improving text input via voice dictation and AI-powered writing tools, addressing the headset’s current typing limitations and streamlining interactions across apps.

• Alongside visionOS 2.4, Apple is launching a Vision Pro iPhone app with iOS 18.4, enabling content browsing and guest account management to improve usability and battery efficiency.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕Other news

Google’s new AI video model Veo 2 will cost 50 cents per second:

• Google quietly listed Veo 2’s pricing at 50 cents per second, translating to $30 per minute or $1,800 per hour for AI-generated video.

• DeepMind researcher Jon Barron compared this to Avengers: Endgame, which cost ~$32,000 per second, highlighting Veo 2’s potential cost efficiency.

• OpenAI’s rival model, Sora, is currently available to ChatGPT Pro users for $200/month, signaling growing competition in AI video generation.

OpenAI bans accounts used to develop Chinese surveillance tools targeting the West:

• OpenAI has banned several accounts linked to a Chinese surveillance tool that used ChatGPT to develop sales pitches and debug code for monitoring anti-China protests in Western countries.

• According to Bloomberg, OpenAI's principal investigator, Ben Nuimmo, highlighted concerns about authoritarian regimes exploiting U.S.-developed technology to potentially undermine the U.S. and its allies.

• The banned accounts also referenced other AI tools like Meta's Llama, and the suspected surveillance software, "Qianyue Overseas Public Opinion AI Assistant," was designed to track discussions on human rights in China across social media platforms.

HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES

💼 Today’s VC & startup job opportunities

• Sr Associate/VP - Novo Holdings | USA - Apply Here

• Investment Analyst - Stellaris Venture Partner | India - Apply Here

• Business Development Associate - One Planet Capital | UK - Apply Here

• Jr. Venture Associate - Spin Venture | UK - Apply Here

• Venture Fellow - Iron Key | USA - Apply Here

• Investment Manager - Vorwerk Venture | Germany - Apply Here

• Vice President, Communications - Softbank Vision Fund | UK - Apply Here

• Managing Director - Connecticut Innovations | USA - Apply Here

• Principal - Fitch Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Investment Manager - Techstars | USA - Apply Here

• Legal Intern - Plug and Play Tech Center | USA - Apply Here

• Ventures Associate - Aerospace - Plug and Play Tech Center | USA - Apply Here

CURATED RESOURCES

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