First Millionaire AI Agent?

TECH IN THE NEWS

Banks Rolling — JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, BOA, and Citigroup kicked off earnings with expectation-beating results on strong stock trading and dealmaking.

Not-So Magnificent Two — Tesla and Amazon are set to release earnings this week, and neither have impressed investors of late with both facing major challenges.

BTC ETF Options — The SEC gave the "accelerated approval" green light for 11 ETFs to list and trade options tied to spot bitcoin prices on the NYSE.

Return or Quit — Amazon’s AWS CEO has defended the new, controversial 5-day-per-week in-office policy, saying those who do not support it can resign.

TERMINAL OF TRUTH — An autonomous AI Agent created a new religion and launched a $280M Market Cap crypto memecoin, making it the first millionaire AI.

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DEALS WE’RE WATCHING
Closed Deals:

MASSIVE DEALS

Modular Nuclear Reactors — X-Energy, a Rockville SMR design company raised a $500M round led by Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund with Ken Griffin, Ares Management, NGP, and the University of Michigan.

Photonics for Datacenters — Lightmatter, a California startup building photonic datacenter chip tech raised a $400M Series D at $4.4B led by T. Rowe Price joined by existing backers Fidelity and GV.

Home Equity Access — Splitero, a San Diego startup unlocking home equity for owners through cash lump sums, raised a $300M round from Antarctica Capital.

Small Molecule Drug Discovery — LA AI and wet lab science startup Terray Therapeutics raised a $120M Series B co-led by Bedford Ridge and NVentures, with Maverick, Goldcrest, Madrona, Two Sigma, XTX, Digitalis, and Alexandria.

Autonomous Robotic Welding — Ohio robotic welding systems startup Path Robotics raised a $100M round co-led by Matter VP and Drive, joined by Yamaha, Taiwania, MediaTek, Gaingels, Tiger Global, and Basis Set.

Complex Customer Service AI Agents — San Francisco AI Service Agents startup Decagon raised a $65M Series B at $650M post-money led by Bain, with Elad Gil, A*, Accel, BOND, and ACME Capital.

MID-SIZE DEALS

AI Customer Service — Palo Alto startup Neuron7, which enhances complex service and repair operations through AI, raised a $44M Series B round led by Smith Point, with Battery Ventures and Nexus.

Photonics for AI & Data Centers — Santa Clara photonic chip tech startup Xscape Photonics raised a $44M Series A round led by IAG, with NVIDIA, Cisco, and others.

Blockchain & Gaming — Sacramento blockchain immersive RPG startup Azra Games raised a $42.7M Series A led by Pantera with Andreessen Horowitz, & NFX.

AI Performance Monitoring — San Francisco AI Model analysis startup Galileo raised a $45M Series B round led by Scale VP, with Databricks, Premji, and Amex.

SMALLER DEALS

Optimized Energy Storage, Distribution — San Francisco electrics software startup Equilibrium Energy raised a $39M Series B led by DCVC, with Valo and Breakthrough Energy.

Renewable Energy Risk Management — Boston data analytics & risk management company REsurety raised a $32M Series C round co-led by S2G & Citi.

IoT Device Management — Palo Alto global IoT device startup Monogoto raised a $27M Series A round led by Toyota with Samsung Next, Kickstart, and Assembly.

AI Real-time Aviation Copilot — California AI aviation tech startup Beacon AI raised a $15M Series A led by Costanoa, with Scout, JetBlue, and Sam Altman.

Ultrasound, ML Battery QC — California battery quality control startup Liminal raised a $10M round led by LG, with input from Chailease, ArcTern, and others.

Emergency Services Drone Tech — Houston drone startup Paladin raised a $5.2M seed round led by Gradient, with Khosla, 1517, and Toyota also investing.

Liquid Crypto Staking Rewards — New York startup Drop Protocol raised a $4M seed round led by CoinFund, backed by CMS, Anagram, Interop, and Cosmostation.

AI Sales Rep Training — San Francisco virtual environments training startup FullyRamped raised a $2.3M pre-seed round co-led by BoxGroup, MaC VC, and NOMO, with Greylock and Sequoia pitching in.

Exit Watch:

Squarespace — The New York website-building platform is now private after it was bought by PE firm Permira at a valuation of ~$7.2B.

Cyera — The Israeli/New York AI data protection services startup, acquired rival stealth startup, Trail Security for $162 and is now raising over $200M at a $3B pmv.

Command AI — The San Francisco AI user assistance tools startup was acquired by data analytics company, Amplitude for $45M.

Bridge — Stripe is reportedly looking to purchase Bridge, a startup that provides infrastructure for stablecoin payments, for $1B. Bridge had previously raised $58M.

Aerodome — The El Segundo automated public safety drone response systems startup was acquired by security camera software systems unicorn Flock Safety.

Companies to Watch:

Quantum Tech x AI — SandboxAQ, Eric Schmidt’s Palo Alto Alphabet spinout startup combining AI and quantum technology in cybersecurity, healthcare, and financial services, is seeking to raise funds at a $5B valuation.

Crusoe Energy Systems — The gas flare energy startup powering AI data centers borrowed $3.4B in a JV with Blue Owl to develop a Nvidia-powered facility that could be the world’s largest. Oracle will lease the site and rent servers to OpenAI.

ChargeScape — Nissan will invest an undisclosed amount in the battery charging tech company and roll out its services to EV drivers across the US and Canada.

Rocket Lab — The US/NZ space firm was awarded a second $625K contract to retrieve rock samples from the surface of Mars, with ‘opportunities in the billions’.

Numeric — The Automated AI accounting startup’s revenue is up 4x to the single-digit millions. Just five months after its $10M seed it raised a $28M Series A led by Menlo, with IVP, 8VC and Founders Fund.

The Funding Buzz

Adams Street Partners — The Chicago-based PE and VC firm, with $60B+ AUM, raised a $1.2B venture fund to invest in startups, secondaries, and other VC funds.

Acrew Capital — The San Francisco-VC firm has raised $700M to back seed to Series C startups in data and security, fintech, and health & human empowerment.

20VC — The VC firm started by U.K. podcaster Harry Stebbings, raised a third fund totaling $400M, with $125M for seed rounds and $275M for Series A deals.

Buckley Ventures — Former Product Hunt CEO Josh Buckley's VC firm is raising a $250M fund, its fourth. , according to a regulatory filing.

KdT Ventures — The Austin/NC VC firm raised $100M for its fourth fund to back startups in healthcare, chemicals, and agriculture leveraging computational tools.

Cocoa/Rerail — Anthony Danon, who launched early-stage angel investor fund Cocoa, has now launched Rerail, a fintech fund which has exceeded its $20M target.