Lordy, there were a lot of fundings today. We took a breather on the treadmill with “Wahl Street,” the docuseries about Mark Wahlberg’s business dealings, as homework for our sit-down with him at Disrupt next week. We’re only a couple of episodes in, and it’s early 2020. He’s just locked up a master franchisee deal with F45 and plans to blanket the country with gyms, but, spoiler alert, there’s a pandemic taking shape! Perhaps you all know this already, but we’d somehow missed this series entirely, and it’s really good. | | Top News | The Trump administration froze new and pending permanent labor certification applications involving Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini, citing alleged abuse of skilled-worker immigration programs and potentially disrupting a common route to green cards for foreign tech workers. TechCrunch has more here. | OpenAI told investors that its annualized revenue reached roughly $50 billion at the end of September, well below the $68 billion widely reported last month, the Financial Times first reported. The news sent Nvidia down 3%, Oracle 6%, CoreWeave 8%, and several other AI stocks sharply lower. CNBC has more here. | New York alleges that TikTok secretly gave thousands of users – including teens and children – placebo versions of safety features they believed were protecting them from unwanted or harmful content, while the company studied effects on engagement and ad revenue. Reuters has more here. | SpaceX has agreed to acquire nationwide low-band spectrum that it says will help turn Starlink into a major U.S. mobile carrier, sending shares of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon down more than 5% in after-hours trading. Bloomberg has more here. | | |
"I write 100s of emails every quarter requesting data. There are different information rights, so I need to ask different things to each company. Then many many follow-ups. This is my life." - Associate, $7B+ AUM VC | Automate your data requests with PortfolioIQ. | | Cal AI’s 19-Year-Old Founder Just Raised $10M for His New AI Startup |  | Image Credits: MyFitnessPal |
| By Julie Bort | Zach Yadegari, the teen co-founder of calorie tracking app Cal AI, has launched Persona, a new AI agent startup, and already raised $10 million. Vine Ventures led the round, with Z Fellows founder Cory Levy and Collective Global participating. | In March, MyFitnessPal acquired Cal AI for an undisclosed sum after it zoomed ahead of the older calorie app in the app store rankings. The deal was big enough to convince Yadegari and his co-founders to sell the company after it had pulled in over $30 million in annual revenue in under two years, MyFitnessPal told TechCrunch at the time. | Yadegari and his co-founders originally went to work for their new owner, continuing development on Cal AI, but he left the bigger company in June, he tells TechCrunch. He then went right to work on his next idea. (He is working with another co-founder who has yet to be announced.) | That idea is Persona, a personal AI assistant similar to Instinct or Meta’s Muse but with a hardware component that will soon be available: a $179 wearable band. | That makes Persona somewhat more like Bee, the wearable AI device that Amazon acquired in 2025, but Persona’s device differs in several ways, Yadegari tells TechCrunch. For one, it won’t be ambient AI, meaning it won’t always be listening and recording. The band will have a button that activates the assistant, or it can be set up to activate with the flick of one’s wrist. | Yadegari also says that Persona is designed with user privacy in mind. Persona doesn’t run its AI model or store user data on the device. Instead, the model runs in Persona’s cloud, and user data is sent there. The assistant protects privacy by encrypting data in transit and at rest. Users can also delete their data, the company says. | | | Massive Fundings | Arena, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that runs crowdsourced AI model leaderboards and sells performance analytics to model makers and enterprises, raised a $200 million Series B round at a $3.1 billion valuation, up from $1.7 billion in January. The deal was co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures, with Salesforce Ventures, 01 Advisors, Dell Technologies Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, and Felicis also investing. TechCrunch has more here. | Gallatin AI, a two-year-old startup based in El Segundo, CA, that uses AI to connect military logistics data and automate vehicle readiness, supply, medical, and mission-support workflows, raised a $50 million Series A round. Investors included 8VC and Silent Ventures. The company has raised a total of $70 million. More here. | Hone, a five-month-old San Francisco startup that builds AI agents to handle long-running business tasks over weeks or months, raised a $60 million seed round at a $285 million post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Benchmark and Index Ventures, with Elad Gil, Hanabi, Definition, and Diffusion also investing. Bloomberg has more here. | Isomorphic Labs, a five-year-old London startup that applies AI to drug discovery and designs medicines in-house, is reportedly in early talks to raise a new round at a valuation of at least $40 billion, potentially as high as $50 billion. Bloomberg has more here. | Manus, a four-year-old Singapore startup that builds tools for making apps, websites, presentations, and video, just raised more than $500 million, co-led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with Tencent, HSG, and ZhenFund also putting in money. It’s the company’s first raise since Meta’s $2 billion deal to buy it, announced last December, blew up. Chinese authorities ordered the deal unwound in April, reportedly over fears of losing AI talent to the West. Manus has been operating independently again since August. TechCrunch has more here. | Matchpoint Therapeutics, a five-year-old startup based in Watertown, MA, that develops oral medicines targeting disease-related proteins involved in autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, raised a $150 million Series B round co-led by Nextech Invest and Norwest, with Invus, BB Biotech, T1D Fund, and BOLD Longevity Growth as well as previous investors Access Biotechnology, Atlas Venture, Sanofi Ventures, and Digitalis Ventures also piling on. Dealroom has more here. | Oratomic, a startup founded this year based in Pasadena, CA, that develops quantum computers using laser-trapped neutral atoms and error correction to reduce computational failures, raised a $475 million Series B round at a $5.5 billion post-money valuation. Investors included ARCH Venture Partners, Spark Capital, Khosla Ventures, Index Ventures, General Catalyst, and Bezos Expeditions. The company has raised a total of $775 million. SiliconANGLE has more here. | Universal Quantum, an eight-year-old startup based in Brighton, UK, that develops modular quantum computers by linking trapped-ion chips for scientific and government institutions, raised a $100+ million Series A round co-led by DCVC and Firgun Ventures, with additional support from EDBI, Artal, Integral GlobalTech, Main Sequence, Hostplus, NGS Super, IAG Capital, EdenBase, Eigenstate.holdings, Dave Baszucki, Nauta Capital, and The Venture Collective. SiliconANGLE has more here. | Veir, a seven-year-old startup based in Woburn, MA, that designs and manufactures superconducting systems that deliver electricity within AI data centers, raised a $110 million Series C round co-led by Matter Venture Partners and Tyche Partners, with LG Technology Ventures, Gates Frontier, Sabanci Climate Ventures, and Hui Capital as well as previous investors Engine Ventures, Galvanize Climate Solutions, Piva Capital, Congruent Ventures, and VXI Capital also participating. The company has raised a total of $225 million. More here. | Yazen, a five-year-old startup based in Malmö, Sweden, that provides obesity treatment combining weight-loss medication with ongoing digital care from doctors, dietitians, psychologists, and physiotherapists, raised a $56.1 million round led by Verdane, with Evli Growth Partners also buying in. More here. | | Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings | Catalyst, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that builds AI agents that turn investment ideas into trading strategies and execute them, raised a $30 million seed round led by Sequoia Capital, with Jump Trading, Peak XV Partners, Lux Capital, AntiFund, Coinbase, and Premji Invest also anteing up. Fortune has more here. | Fortastra, a one-year-old startup based in Torrance, CA, that designs and operates maneuverable spacecraft that monitor critical space assets and respond to potential orbital threats, raised a $30 million Series A round led by First In, with Upfront Ventures, Space Capital, Rsquared, Side Door Ventures, and ATX Ventures also anteing up. Payload has more here. | Meanwhile, a four-year-old startup based in Hamilton, Bermuda, that offers Bitcoin-denominated life insurance and digital-asset underwriting infrastructure, raised a $37.5 million round at a $350 million valuation. The deal was led by Bain Capital Crypto, with Haun Ventures, Framework Ventures, Apollo, and Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures also digging in. More here. | Rein Security, a two-year-old New York startup that secures enterprise AI agents by monitoring their actions and blocking harmful activity as they operate, raised a $25 million Series A round co-led by Glilot Capital and Sienna Venture Capital, with Corner Ventures |
|
