Meta Removes Ads from Lawyers Seeking Social Media Addiction Plaintiffs

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Meta is removing ads from its platforms that seek to recruit plaintiffs for social media addiction lawsuits as it faces mounting legal pressure after recent trial losses. The WSJ has more here.

Florida’s attorney general has launched an investigation into OpenAI over claims that ChatGPT was used to help plan a deadly 2025 shooting at Florida State University. TechCrunch has more here.

Is Anthropic Limiting the Release of Mythos to Protect the Internet — or Anthropic?

Image Credits: Pauline Pham / Dust

By Tim Fernholz

Anthropic said this week that it limited the release of its newest model, dubbed Mythos, because it is too capable of finding security exploits in software relied upon by users around the world.

Instead of unleashing Mythos on the public, the frontier lab will share it with a group of large companies and organizations that operate critical online infrastructure, from Amazon Web Services to JPMorgan Chase.

OpenAI is reportedly considering a similar plan for its next cybersecurity tool. The ostensible idea is to let these big enterprises get ahead of bad actors who could leverage advanced LLMs to penetrate secure software.

But the “e-word” in the sentence above is a hint that there might be more to this release strategy than cybersecurity — or the hyping of model capabilities.

Dan Lahav, the CEO of the AI cybersecurity lab Irregular, told TechCrunch in March, before the release of Mythos, that while the discovery of vulnerabilities by AI tools matters, the specific value of any weakness to an attacker depends on many factors, including how they can be used in combination.

“The question I always have in my mind,” Lahav said, “is did they find something that is exploitable in a very meaningful way, whether individually or as part of a chain?”

Anthropic says Mythos is able to exploit vulnerabilities far more than its previous model, Opus. But it’s not clear that Mythos is actually the be-all and end-all of cybersecurity models. Aisle, an AI cybersecurity startup, said it was able to replicate much of what Anthropic says Mythos accomplished using smaller, open-weight models. Aisle’s team argues that these results show there is no single deep learning model for cybersecurity, but instead depends on the task at hand.

Massive Fundings

Chapter, a six-year-old New York startup that helps older Americans choose Medicare coverage through a platform used by licensed advisors, raised a $100 million Series E round led by Generation Investment Management, with Fifth Down Capital, 8VC, Stripes, XYZ Venture Capital, Addition, Narya Capital, Susa Ventures, and Maverick Ventures also anteing up. More here.

Portal Space Systems, a five-year-old Seattle startup founded by a SpaceX lead engineer that is developing solar thermal propulsion systems for spacecraft, raised a $50 million Series A round at a $250 million post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Geodesic Capital and Mach33, with Booz Allen Ventures, ARK Invest, AlleyCorp, and FUSE also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

SiFive, a ten-year-old company based in San Mateo, CA, that designs customizable processors based on the RISC-V architecture for data centers and AI workloads, raised a $400 million Series G round at a $3.65 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Atreides Management, with Nvidia, Apollo Global Management, Point72 Turion, and T. Rowe Price as well as previous investors Prosperity7 Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures also opting in. Data Center Dynamics has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

AfterQuery, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that provides expert-generated datasets and training environments for AI models, raised a $30 million Series A round at a $300 million valuation. The deal was led by Altos Ventures, with The Raine Group as well as previous investors Y Combinator and BoxGroup also participating. Tech Funding News has more here.

Haast, a four-year-old New York and Sydney startup that automates compliance checks for AI-generated content before it is published, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Peak XV Partners, with DST Global Partners, Airtree, Aura Ventures, and Black Sheep Capital also taking part. The company has raised a total of $17+ million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Pipe, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that lets software platforms offer financing to their small business customers, raised a $16 million round. Fin Capital and MaC Venture Capital were the co-leads. More here.

Rork, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that turns text prompts into fully functional mobile apps that can be published to app stores, raised a $15 million seed round led by Left Lane Capital, with Peak XV, True Ventures, Goodwater, and previous investor Andreessen Horowitz also engaging. The company has raised a total of $17.8 million. More here.

Smaller Fundings

Golden Analytics, a Seattle startup founded this year that enables users to turn raw data into dashboards and reports, raised a $7 million seed round co-led by NEA and Madrona, with Breakers also joining in. More here.

Handhold, a three-year-old Tallinn startup that uses AI agents to run sales conversations, demos, and onboarding for software companies, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by Entourage Capital, with Inovia Capital and e2vc also contributing. EU-Startups has more here.

Livid, a London startup founded this year that hosts and manages video content for creators and small businesses, raised a $10 million round. Investors included Geige Vandentop and Dan Briggs. More here.

PeakMetrics, a seven-year-old Los Angeles company that uses AI to analyze how narratives spread online and help organizations detect manipulated or coordinated information campaigns, raised a $6 million Series A round led by Moneta Ventures, with previous investors Techstars, Parameter Ventures, VITALIZE Venture Capital, and Gurtin Ventures also stepping up. The company has raised a total of $16.3 million. More here.

Plume, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that analyzes geospatial data to help developers choose sites for renewable energy projects, raised a $3.9 million round led by AENU, with additional support from Y Combinator, Kima Ventures, Raise Phiture, Better Angle, and Collab Fund also digging in. EU-Startups has more here.

Poke, a two-year-old Palo Alto startup that offers an AI agent that completes tasks across apps through text messaging, raised a $10 million round co-led by Spark Capital and General Catalyst. The company has raised a total of $25 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Pomo, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that tracks marketing performance, competitor activity, and trends to suggest and launch ad campaigns, raised a $4.5 million seed round led by Kindred Ventures, with Databricks, Seven Stars, SV Angel, and 645 Ventures also investing. Business Insider has more here.

Taurus, a recently founded San Francisco startup that uses AI agents to launch and operate consumer brands across product, marketing, customer support, and supply chain, raised a $4.3 million seed round led by General Catalyst, with angels like Gokul Rajaram also investing. More here.

Treon, a nine-year-old Finnish startup that monitors industrial equipment and predicts failures using sensor data and cloud analytics, raised an $8 million Series A extension led by ACME Capital. ArcticStartup has more here.

New Funds

Collide Capital, a five-year-old New York VC firm that backs early-stage startups in fintech, supply chain, and the future of work, has raised a $95 million second fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Going Public

SpaceX’s bankers are exploring ways to stagger insider selling after its expected record IPO, requiring early investors to gradually sell shares over several months instead of all at once to avoid a sharp post-listing drop. Semafor has more here.

People

Mortality entrepreneur Bryan Johnson tweeted last night that he “just had sex with [his girlfriend] Kate,” to which one wag responded, “He’s done it, he’s reversed aging! He’s 15 years old!”