Tesla delays new low-cost model by months & Google AI Overviews drain clicks from websites.

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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup funding updates

Terra Security, a NYC and Tel Aviv, Israel-based Agentic AI-native penetration testing service-as-software platform provider, raised $7.5M in seed funding. The round was led by SYN Ventures and FXP Ventures with participation from Underscore VC and angel investors including former Google CISO Gerhard Eschelback and Ofer Ben-Noon and Ohad Bobrov, founders of Talon Security.

Cluely, a controversial AI tool startup founded by suspended Columbia students, raises $5.3M Co-founded by 21-year-olds Chungin “Roy” Lee and Neel Shanmugam, Cluely offers hidden AI assistance for interviews, exams, and sales calls—tools it calls the “calculator of knowledge work.” Backed by Abstract and Susa Ventures, the startup says it’s hit $3M in ARR and is stirring debate over ethics in the AI era.

Brellium, a New York based provider of an AI-Powered clinical compliance platform, raised $13.7m in Series A funding. The round was co-led by First Round Capital and Left Lane Capital, with participation from Menlo Ventures, Digital Health Venture Partners, and Necessary Ventures, alongside a group of angel investors including Andrew Adams (CEO of Headway), Steve Gutentag and Demitri Karagas (co-founders of Thirty Madison), Cory Levy (Z Fellows), and Fiat Ventures.

Electra.aero, Inc., a Manassas, VA-based advanced aerospace company, secured $115m in Series B funding. The round was led by Prysm Capital, and Jay Park.

Roh, a NYC-based hospitality industry’s payments management platform, closed a $9.2m financing round. The round was led by Highgate Technology Ventures and Acrew Capital. As part of the transaction, Raja Goel and Kurien Jacob of HTV, and John Gardner of Acrew Capital are joining ROH’s Board of Directors.

Wasp, a Croatian provider of a platform to build modern web applications, raised $3.7m in funding. The round was led by HV Capital, with participation from Fifth Quarter Ventures, Big Bets, and Metis Ventures, Ant Wilson, and Søren Bramer Schmidt.

Cosmic Robotics, a San Francisco, CA-based robotics startup, raised $4m in funding. The round was led by Giant Ventures, with participation from MaC Venture Capital and HCVC.

Catchfree, a Zurich, Switzerland-based maker of seafood from plants, raised $1.5m in funding. The round was co-led by FortyOne Group and Stiftung Startfeld.

Resolv Labs, the company advancing the DeFi protocol Resolv, closed a $10m seed funding round. The round was led by Cyber.Fund and Maven11, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, SCB Limited, Arrington Capital, Gumi Cryptos, NoLimit Holdings, Robot Ventures, Animoca Ventures and others.

Yarbo, a NYC-based developer of a multipurpose intelligent yard robot, closed its Series B funding round, raising approx. $27M USD. The round was backed by a group of strategic and financial investors.

Neutrl, a Panama City, Panama-based provider of a DeFi protocol developing a market-neutral synthetic dollar called $NUSD targeting OTC arbitrage strategies, raised USD 5M in Seed funding. The round was led by STIX and Accomplice, with participation from Amber Group, SCB Limited (SIG), Figment Capital, and Nascent, alongside angel investors such as Guy Young and Steven Shi of Ethena, DCF Capital, Flood (Insilico Trading), Huss, Jez (izebel.eth) and Josh Lim (Arbelos Markets).

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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital updates

VC podcaster and On Deck co-founder Erik Torenberg joins a16z as GP, bringing his Turpentine show with him. A prolific early investor in Scale AI, Figma, and Perplexity, Torenberg adds to a16z’s growing roster of hires, which recently included ex-Congressman Patrick McHenry and Marine vet Daniel Penny.

KEY STORIES IN TECH

📜 Latest in tech

ChatGPT search usage surges in Europe, nears DSA regulation threshold:

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT search feature reached 41.3 million average monthly active recipients in Europe as of March 2025, up from 11.2 million in October 2024.

• If usage surpasses 45 million, ChatGPT search may be classified as a “very large” online platform under the EU’s Digital Services Act, triggering stricter transparency and compliance requirements.

• Despite growing adoption, studies show ChatGPT search remains less accurate than traditional engines like Google, misidentifying up to 67% of articles in one analysis.

AI startup plans to replace all human workers:

• New US company Mechanize plans to replace all human labor using artificial intelligence by developing virtual environments and benchmarks that replicate comprehensive job functions completely.

• Targeting the vast $60 trillion global wage pool, founder Tamay Besiroglu clarified the venture's immediate objective is automating administrative and professional roles, not manual tasks currently.

• This ambitious goal prompted considerable backlash and reflects broader public apprehension about potential job displacement from AI, even as some economists foresee augmentation instead of obsolescence.

Alibaba AI cancer tool receives FDA breakthrough status:

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration awarded "breakthrough device" designation to Alibaba's Damo Academy for its Damo Panda artificial intelligence technology aimed at spotting cancer.

• Introduced in a Nature Medicine paper, the sophisticated AI system Damo Panda is specifically built to help identify pancreatic cancer earlier in individuals undergoing medical checks.

• Alibaba is already implementing this innovative diagnostic tool in trials throughout China, having examined around 40,000 individuals at a medical facility in Ningbo city so far.

Meta is ramping up its AI-driven age detection:

• Meta is employing artificial intelligence to identify young users on Instagram who falsely claim to be adults, automatically placing them into more restricted Teen Accounts for safety.

• These special Teen Accounts automatically apply safeguards limiting interactions and the type of content viewable by users verified as being younger than eighteen years old.

• The social media giant is also educating parents about discussing age verification online and recently expanded this protective account system to Facebook and Messenger platforms.

Data reveals Google AI Overviews drain clicks from websites:

• New research from Ahrefs reveals Google's AI Overviews are causing a substantial 34.5% decrease in clicks for the premier organic search listings, challenging the platform's claims.

• Ahrefs' research, analyzing 300,000 primarily informational queries via Google Search Console, documented a significant fall in user clicks for the highest-ranked organic search result.

• This pattern suggests continued erosion of direct website traffic, potentially altering the web's structure and forcing content creators to comply with platform rules for visibility.

OpenAI’s new reasoning AI models hallucinate more:

• OpenAI’s latest reasoning models, o3 and o4-mini, outperform in coding and math but hallucinate more frequently than older models like o1 and GPT-4o, with o4-mini hallucinating nearly 48% of the time on PersonQA.

• OpenAI admits it doesn’t fully understand why hallucinations are increasing, suggesting the models' tendency to make more claims overall could be driving both more correct and incorrect responses.

• Third-party researchers and users have reported fabricated actions and broken links in o3’s answers, indicating that while reasoning improves capabilities, it may also amplify unreliability.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕Other news

Tesla reportedly delays new low-cost model launch by months:

• According to reports, the electric car maker has pushed back the planned debut of its more affordable vehicle by several months, possibly into late 2025 or early 2026.

• This postponement coincides with the company experiencing reduced worldwide demand attributed to aging products, executive controversies, and lower-than-expected Cybertruck results impacting buyer perception.

• Chief Executive Elon Musk seemingly cancelled the initiative for a completely new budget automobile, redirecting efforts toward manufacturing less expensive iterations of the existing Model Y and Model 3.

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