Chinese AI Startup Takes on Anthropic and OpenAI with New Model

Mark your calendars: our next StrictlyVC Insider event is Thursday night, September 10, at the West Village's Ideal Glass Studios, 9 W 8th Street. As always, drinks, bites, and networking on either side of talks you won't want to miss, including with Tristan Walker, who sold his men's grooming brand, Walker & Company Brands, to Procter & Gamble and is now building a startup that teaches craftsmanship. (Yes, the irony is not lost on us, and yes, it's very real.) We're also thrilled to have Jason Levien, CEO and Co-Chairman of D.C. United, join us. Beyond running the club, Levien is an active investor in sports-tech and media startups and has built a career financing franchises the way founders finance companies. Expect him to talk about that playbook on the heels of this historic World Cup summer for American soccer. Also joining us: Craig Shapiro of Collaborative Fund, our partner for the evening — a very sincere thank you to Craig and his team for raising their hands to collaborate with us on this one!

We’ll have more speaker announcements in the coming days and weeks; nab your spot while you can and we’ll see you there.:)

Top News

Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K3, a 2.8 trillion-parameter open-weight model that still trails OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol and Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 overall but beat both on one front-end development benchmark, challenging assumptions that Chinese labs remain months behind U.S. rivals. Gizmodo has more here.

SpaceX Suddenly Aborts Second Starship V3 Launch After Ignition

Image Credits: SpaceX

By Sean O’Kane

SpaceX abruptly aborted the second attempted launch of its upgraded Starship rocket system on Thursday, just moments after the booster ignited at the company’s complex in South Texas.

CEO Elon Musk said on his social media platform X that “[s]ome of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort” and that the company will replace two of them. SpaceX won’t try to launch Starship again until next week, he wrote.

SpaceX was hoping to launch its first third-generation Starlink satellites into space — although they are supposed to burn up around 20 minutes after deployment, as Starship has not yet demonstrated the ability to reach Earth orbit.

This is also SpaceX’s first Starship test launch attempt since it went public on June 12 in the largest IPO in history. The company raised more than $85 billion in the transaction and briefly touched the valuations of Amazon and Microsoft, though its stock has steadily fallen over the intervening month.

On Thursday, SpaceX’s stock price closed below its IPO price of $135. Its stock sank more than 4% in after-hours trading after the aborted launch.

SpaceX was trying to return to flight just a few weeks after the first-ever launch of Starship V3 in May. That mission was a mixed bag.

Getting off the launchpad with the first version of a newly upgraded rocket was a big step forward, and the company was able to deploy a number of Starlink simulators into space. But the Super Heavy booster stage suffered a failure before it could attempt a simulated landing in the Gulf of Mexico, leading to an FAA-ordered review of what went wrong. (The FAA cleared the company to fly Starship again earlier this week after identifying a number of causes and fixes for the booster failure.)

Massive Fundings

Alpaca, an 11-year-old company based in San Mateo, CA, that provides brokerage infrastructure that lets financial companies embed investing, tokenized asset, and automated trading capabilities through APIs, raised a $135 million Series D round led by Peak XV Partners, with Elefund, Opera Tech Ventures, the venture capital arm of BNP Paribas Group, and Unbound also buying in. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Fireworks, a four-year-old startup based in San Mateo, CA, that helps developers and enterprises customize and run open AI models on company data for business-specific tasks, raised a $1.5 billion Series D round at a $17.5 billion valuation. The deal was co-led by Atreides Management, Index Ventures, and TCV, with additional support from 20VC, Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Partners, Lone Pine Capital, Menlo Ventures, Operator Collective, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Original Capital, Prysm Capital, Quantum Capital, and TIME Ventures as well as previous investors Evantic Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and NVIDIA. CNBC has more here.

Fora, a five-year-old New York startup that provides a platform for people to become travel advisors and plan trips for clients, raised a $60 million Series D round co-led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures at a $1 billion post-money valuation, with Insight Partners and Thrive Capital also taking stakes. The company has raised a total of $138.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Microagi, a one-year-old Munich startup that helps industrial companies collect factory-floor data and fine-tune existing robotics models for plant-specific tasks, raised a $55 million seed round led by Hummingbird, with Northzone, LocalGlobe, Village Global, and Redalpine also opting in. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Wonder, an eight-year-old New York startup that operates food halls and owns Grubhub and Blue Apron, raised a $650+ million Series D round at a $9 billion post-money valuation. Investors include AllianceBernstein, ARK Invest, and Kayne Anderson as well as previous investors Accel, Google Ventures, and NEA. According to reporting from The Information, the round includes an IPO ratchet that will reward investors with extra shares if the IPO prices below 1.5 times the current round’s share price. Wonder has raised a total of $3+ billion. Fortune has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Applied Computing, a three-year-old London startup that develops foundation models for energy operations, raised a $20 million round led by KBR, with Databricks Ventures also engaging. Tech.eu has more here.

Beacon Security, a two-year-old New York and Tel Aviv startup that normalizes enterprise security data so security teams and AI agents can detect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats, raised a $13 million seed round led by Notable Capital, with Holly Ventures, AlphaDrive Ventures, SVCI, and Jefferies Family Office also chipping in. CTech has more here.

Bunkerhill Health, an eight-year-old San Francisco startup that develops AI agents and FDA-cleared clinical algorithms to help hospitals automate clinical and operational work, raised a $25 million Series B round led by Khosla Ventures, with Sequoia, Felicis, Optum Ventures, and Y Combinator also opting in. The company has raised a total of $55 million. Fortune has more here.

Runta, a recently founded San Francisco startup that builds runtime controls and sandboxing infrastructure to help companies safely deploy AI agents, raised a $20 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz at a $100+ million post-money valuation. Crypto Briefing has more here.

Sable, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that is developing AI agents that can navigate software, demonstrate products, and handle customer conversations, raised $45 million in funding co-led by Sequoia Capital and 8VC, with BoxGroup, SV Angel, and Valor Atreides AI Fund also participating. CTech has more here.

Syntetica, a three-year-old Paris startup that uses green chemistry to recycle mixed nylon textile waste, raised a $30 million Series A round led by Bpifrance’s Ecotechnologies 2 fund, with SWEN Capital Partners, Lululemon, MAS Holdings, EQT Ventures, and family offices linked to Peugeot, Etam, and Indorama Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of about $34.5 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Smaller Fundings

Aina, a one-year-old San Francisco and Bengaluru startup that builds small hardware keypads that let knowledge workers trigger AI agents and automate shortcuts across apps, raised a $5.5 million round co-led by Redstart Labs and 360 ONE, with MIXI Global Investments, Antler and Blume Founders Fund also anteing up. TechCrunch has more here.

EverSettled, a San Francisco startup founded this year that helps executors settle estates by locating assets, managing debts and documents, and coordinating family tasks through probate, raised a $5 million seed round led by Emergence Capital, with Seedcamp, Bridge Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Entrepreneurs First, and Transpose Platform also engaging. Tech Funding News has more here.

Float, a seven-year-old Stockholm startup that provides non-dilutive growth capital, credit lines, and revenue-based financing to European software and subscription businesses, raised a $5.1 million Series A round led by CHAPTERS Group. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Self Inspection, a five-year-old San Diego startup that uses smartphone photos and AI to assess vehicle damage and generate inspection reports, raised a $10 million round led by Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, with U.S. AutoForce, Westlake Financial, Costanoa Ventures, Rebellion Ventures, and BrightCap Ventures also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Prefer-Not-to-Say Fundings

Blue Energy, a three-year-old startup based in Chevy Chase, MD, that develops prefabricated nuclear power plants that use proven reactor technology and shipyard-style manufacturing to shorten deployment timelines, raised an undisclosed strategic investment from Constellation Technology Ventures. More here.