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Stoke Space completes initial $1B Series E (total $2.3B raised) to fund Nova Pathfinder and Nova Block 2

Stoke Space Technologies completed an initial closing of a $1 billion Series E (bringing total raised to $2.3 billion) to accelerate development and testing of its fully reusable Nova Pathfinder rocket and scale toward a larger Nova Block 2, targeting a 2027 debut for Pathfinder. Reports vary on whether the $1B round is fully closed; Reuters values the company at about $10 billion.

Bloomberg: Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni’s Phia Secretly Hijacked Affiliate Commissions for Seven Months, Costing Merchants Over $10M

Bloomberg found that Phia, the AI shopping app co-founded by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, secretly injected affiliate cookies and took credit for sales for about seven months, potentially costing merchants over $10 million and collapsing Phia's revenue when the practice stopped.

Relay.ai Shuts Down; Founder Jacob Bank Rejoins Google as Chrome VP — Paid Accounts End Sept. 14, 2026

Relay, an AI workflow automation startup founded by Jacob Bank, is shutting down: free accounts lost access on August 15 and paid workspaces will be terminated on September 14, 2026. Bank is rejoining Google as VP of Product for Chrome, marking his second return after selling his earlier startup Timeful to Google in 2015.

Rippling sues Runlayer for patent infringement on Aug 10 after Runlayer accused the $16.8B HR firm of cloning its AI-agent security product

Rippling filed a patent-infringement countersuit against AI startup Runlayer on August 10 after Runlayer sued July 28 accusing the $16.8 billion HR-tech firm of using a paid trial and NDA access to clone its AI-agent security product, escalating into competing claims of theft and patent violations tied to Model Context Protocol infrastructure.

OpenAI developing $300–$400 ChatGPT-connected smart speaker with LoveFrom, targeting 2027 launch amid Apple lawsuit

OpenAI is reportedly developing a premium, portable AI-powered smart speaker that integrates with ChatGPT, learns user preferences, accesses digital services, and is expected to launch in 2027 priced around $300–$400; the project involves LoveFrom and coincides with legal disputes with Apple.

Ellis AI Raises $10M Seed to Build AI-Native Operations Platform for Private Credit; Founder Ryan Williams

Ellis AI, a Black-owned AI operations platform for private credit managers founded by Ryan Williams, raised $10 million in seed funding from investors including First Round Capital and Mellody Hobson, aiming to consolidate accounting, documents and spreadsheets into an AI-driven workflow and automate tasks like portfolio monitoring and report prep.

Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 Trained on 20,000 Nvidia GPUs via Alibaba as U.S. Alleges Export-Control Breach

Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 — a 2.8 trillion-parameter model with a one-million-token context window and public weights — was trained using a 20,000-Nvidia-GPU cluster provided through Alibaba, raising U.S. export-control concerns that restricted Nvidia Blackwell-class chips may be reaching Chinese labs via cloud and funding arrangements.

Convertible Note Converts at Lower Price: $100,000 Investor with 20% Discount and $5M Cap Converts at Cap vs. Discount Depending on Series A Valuation

The article explains how convertible note discounts and valuation caps work in conversion: the note converts at whichever yields the lower effective price per share, so only the discount or the cap 'fires' depending on the priced round, and investors often misunderstand which will benefit them in different exit scenarios.

Granola launches Apple Watch app to record and transcribe meetings, after $125M Series C made it a unicorn

AI note-taking startup Granola launched an Apple Watch app that records and transcribes in-person meetings so users don’t need to take out their phones. The watch app can be set as a watch face, shows meeting reminders, complements Granola’s iOS app, and follows the company’s $125M Series C that made it a unicorn.

Fish Audio raises $50M seed led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today after reaching $21M ARR and 8M users

Palo Alto startup Fish Audio raised $50 million in a seed round led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today to build AI voice models, after attracting over 8 million users and $21 million ARR since launching last year. The company, founded by former NVIDIA researcher Shijia Liao, offers open-source and paid speech-generation and speech-to-text models—three models are open-source while its S2.1 Pro is paid—and serves creators, game studios and enterprises.

SpaceX to acquire Anysphere (maker of Cursor) for $60 billion in stock; Cursor launches India Start plan at ₹649/month

SpaceX agreed to acquire Anysphere, the company behind AI coding tool Cursor, in a $60 billion stock deal announced June 16, while Cursor launched a new India-focused paid tier, Cursor Start, at ₹649/month to expand local market share. Cursor says India users tripled to over 3 million, making India its third-largest market, and the Start plan offers mid-tier features without the full Pro package.

Defense tech startups raise $12.3B in 2026 so far as defense primes like Lockheed Martin begin co-investing

Defense tech startups have raised at least $12.3 billion in VC funding since January 2026, surpassing 2025 totals as venture firms, defense primes and the Pentagon increasingly co-invest. Major rounds include Anduril's $5B Series H and other multi-billion financings, signaling a rapid repricing of the sector and new capital mixes with primes like Lockheed Martin investing directly.

Prentis — Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus and Ritankar Das’s AI lab — seeks $100M at $1B valuation after April 2026 launch

Prentis, an AI research lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus and Ritankar Das, is negotiating to raise $100 million at a $1 billion valuation after launching in April 2026 to build AI agents that automate office workflows. The start-up claims signed contracts worth up to $50 million, a projected $75 million annualized run rate by Q3 2026, and its Hive-32B model outperforms GPT-5.4 and Claude Opus 4.6 on two internal computer-use benchmarks, though TechCrunch has not verified those results.

LinkedIn co-founder's AI start-up to raise funds at $1B valuation

Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus launch Prentis AI lab and seek $100 million to automate routine office tasks

Reid Hoffman and Marc Pincus have launched Prentis, an AI lab focused on automating routine digital tasks for knowledge workers rather than coding, and are in talks to raise $100 million. They position Prentis as a 'neolab' bridging research and product work, arguing automation of everyday office busywork is a larger market than developer tools.

Glow launches July 22, 2026 with $180M and $1.2B valuation, backed by Sequoia, Index and others

Glow, a Palo Alto endpoint-security startup founded in 2025, launched from stealth on July 22, 2026 with $180 million in funding at a $1.2 billion valuation and claims enterprise customers across healthcare, retail, and financial services. Backed by major investors including Sequoia and Index Ventures and led by ex-Meta and Snowflake security and engineering executives, Glow argues AI-driven threats on employee devices have made legacy tools like CrowdStrike obsolete.

Revolut Granted Full Australian Banking Licence by APRA on July 21, 2026, Enabling Deposits, Loans and $250,000 Guarantee

Australia's APRA granted Revolut Payments Australia a full authorised deposit-taking licence on July 21, 2026, allowing the fintech to take deposits, offer loans and provide government-guaranteed accounts to roughly 1.2 million local users and directly compete with major banks.

Carta data and viral cap-table show four founders may net $1.25M each from a $100M VC-backed exit after dilution and taxes

A popular cap-table example and Carta's 2026 Founder Ownership Report show that four cofounders at a $100 million VC-backed exit may each net only about $1.25 million after dilution and taxes, prompting founders to question whether VC funding is worth the tradeoffs. Carta's data also shows founder ownership falls sharply across rounds and that solo-founded and bootstrapped startups are becoming more common.

Whatnot Acquires Shaped, Hiring Founder Tullie Murrell and ~12 Engineers to Speed Real-Time Live-Shopping Recommendations

Whatnot acquired real-time recommendation startup Shaped and its founder Tullie Murrell to improve live-shopping recommendations, bringing roughly a dozen engineers to form an Applied AI Research group focused on low-latency personalized suggestions.

Former OpenAI CPO Kevin Weil Joins Stoke Space Board Before Nova Rocket’s Orbital Flight

Stoke Space has appointed former OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil to its board, leveraging his product leadership and fundraising experience ahead of its first orbital flight attempt this year. Weil, an early investor, will support Stoke Space's mission to build a fully reusable orbital rocket, a unique feat in American aerospace.

Former OpenAI VP Kevin Weil Joins $1.34 Billion-Funded Space Startup Stoke Space Competing with SpaceX in 2026

Former OpenAI VP Kevin Weil joined the board of Stoke Space, a Seattle-based space startup competing with SpaceX, which has raised $1.34 billion to date. His departure from OpenAI coincides with major leadership changes at the AI company in 2026.

Seattle AI Startup Venice.ai Raises $65M Series A at $1 Billion Valuation to Expand Privacy-First Chatbot Services

Seattle startup Venice.ai raised $65 million in its first funding round, reaching a $1 billion valuation as it expands its privacy-focused AI services. The company, with 3.5 million users, offers an uncensored chatbot alternative emphasizing data privacy and user control, and has become profitable.

Base44 Creates Custom AI Model Base1 to Combat Generic Designs After Wix's $80M Acquisition

Base44 CEO Maor Shlomo built a custom AI model, Base1, to avoid the generic, repetitive designs produced by common AI tools like GPT and Claude, aiming to enhance unique UI/UX in AI-generated apps. Backed by Wix's $80 million acquisition and with over $150 million ARR, Base44 focuses on design differentiation as the next key competitive factor in app development.

Trump Administration Launches Targeted Regulatory Crackdown on Anthropic, Reshaping AI Industry Competition

The Trump administration has launched a targeted regulatory crackdown against Anthropic, a leading AI company known for its focus on AI safety, which may shift the competitive dynamics among major players like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft. This enforcement action raises questions about government motives and which companies stand to benefit from increased pressure on Anthropic.

General Intuition Seeks $300M at $2B Valuation to Use Medal Gaming Clips for Advanced AI Training

General Intuition aims to leverage Medal's vast gaming clip data to train AI models that better understand spatial-temporal decision-making, differentiating itself from traditional text-based AI. The company is in talks to raise $300 million at a $2 billion valuation, signaling strong investor confidence in gaming data as a unique AI asset.