Crypto vs AI vs Quantum - Bitcoin nears All Time High

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∆ Tech in the News

$42,000 Milestone - Bitcoin’s continuation of a major trend towards ATH over the past 12 months, while Gold passed its’ ATH.

Anti-Competitive - A group of Spanish papers sued Meta for ~$600M alleging a non-compliance with EU’s GDPR privacy law led to an unfair advertising market advantage.

Makin It Rain - OpenAI will purchase $51M of brain-inspired chips from Rain, a startup in which Altman personally invested $1M+. Conflict of Interest?

Holy Grail of Energy - The world's largest operational experimental nuclear fusion reactor was inaugurated in Japan on Friday.

GTA 6 2025 Release - After an internal leak, the Rockstar team launched the trailer to the most realistic Grand Theft Auto yet hitting record views on Youtube.

˚The hottest thing in tech this week

IBM’s Quantum Computing Leap Forward

IIBM unveiled major advances toward quantum supercomputing, including a new 133-qubit Heron processor optimized for modularity and System Two, modular infrastructure for connecting multiple chips. “It’s a machine unlike anything we have ever built,” says Dario Gil, head of research at IBM. Plus they announced a 10-year roadmap targeting over 1000 qubits with the 1121-qubit Condor.

The only thing preventing AI from being both cheap & super intelligent is hardware which many believe Quantum Computing can solve. Researchers are already developing new quantum algorithms that could lead to breakthroughs in how we approach ML and data analysis. Quantum-powered AI is an exciting frontier with transformative the potential to solve some of the most complex problems we face and transform multiple industries.

However, “Large-scale quantum computing is likely not going to be ready for five or six years”, German-American scientist Hartmut Neven, who founded Google’s lab told 60 Minutes in an interview. This makes it an attractive area for long-term investment and research alike, which is motivating pioneers like IBM , Google and Nvidia to throw their significant resources at the problem.

News Bytes

• Runway/Getty Images do deal to offer copyright-safe txt-2-video tools

• Tesla and India close to a ~$2B factory build/import tariff cut deal

• Google delays Gemini until Jan due to non-English language issues.

Deals We’re Watching

Founders to Watch and Opportunities to Catch

Open Deals:

Overmatch - 3D printing startup Icon founder Evan Loomis is raising $50M for a new VC firm to back banking startups accelerating innovation in defense, aerospace, and critical infrastructure sectors.

MoveinSync - This Indian mobility startup looks to raise $50M - $60M to grow its blue-chip company workplace commuting mobility solutions.

Indian Angel Network (IAN) - Closed $42.5M of its $119M target to invest in early-stage cleantech, healthtech, fintech, deeptech, space, & robotics startups.

Closed Deals:

CoreWeave - J. P.M., Nat Friedman, BlackRock, Daniel Gross, & Zoom backed the leading GPU cloud provider’s $642M Fidelity-led minority investment raise.

Extropic AI - Co-founded by Guillaume Verdon, raised $14.1M to build the first computer with design inspired by nature.

Atomic Industries - Raised a $17M seed to develop an AI software stack for tool and die manufacturing to scale U.S. industry with AI-enabled factories.

Rohirrim - VA startup raised a $15M Series A led by Insight Partners for Rohan - its domain-aware generative AI platform for enterprises.

Joon Care - Seattle startup raised $6M to grow its online mental health platform for adolescents and young adults.

Laminar - J&J MedTech acquired this heart implant startup with an upfront payment of $400M and possible added milestone-based future payments.

Companies to Watch:

GenAI x Cancer Drugs - Absci partnered with AstraZeneca to launch a new class of cancer treatments.

Keith Block + Nat Friedman + $50M AssemblyAI - AssemblyAI brings an Amazon Echo-inspired AI voice to the masses.

Pioneering DNA Data Storage - Biomemory provides an SSD alternative that lasts a minimum of 150 years, will cost $1,000.

Fidelity Backed AI Chips - Vast Data partners with Nvidia and Fidelity to raise at a massive valuation over $9B.

The Funding Buzz

Dozens of Silicon Valley VCs are altering fund structures to PE-style continuation funds to avoid liquidating their portfolio stakes in the down market.

Venture capitalists are insisting on board seats in portfolio startups in the wake of governance failures such as FTX and OpenAI.

Luxor Capital Group - The NY hedge fund is set to acquire bankrupt startup Volta Trucks after previously leading Volta's Series A, B, and C rounds. 

Tools and Buzzy Tech

Magnific AI - Upscale feature can render near-triple-A game quality.

Pika AI - Hollywood-grade generative ai video.

Fertility ring - Biosensor ring detects fertility hormones in sweat.

If you have a deal or company that you would like to host on our next issue, drop us a line: [email protected].

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The Tech Buzz Team