Top News | OpenAI’s top product-and-business executive, Fidji Simo, is stepping down from her full-time role after an extended medical leave, leaving Sam Altman to fill a key position as the company prepares to go public and tries to catch Anthropic with enterprise customers. TechCrunch has more here. | The New York Times and The Daily News claim OpenAI hid evidence in their copyright case by saying it could not search training data or ChatGPT logs, even though an engineer allegedly testified that OpenAI had already searched for copyrighted journalism and built tools to track regurgitated outputs. TechCrunch has more here. | | |
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| By Tim Fernholz | Three years ago, Sequoia partner David Cahn was one of the first people to do the math and put a number on the implications of Silicon Valley’s titanic spend on AI infrastructure. | In 2023, he was reacting to Nvidia’s reported annual GPU revenue of $50 billion. Starting with that figure, and adding in the implied costs of operating the data centers and the margins for their operators, he deduced that $200 billion in revenue would be required to pay back the up-front investment. | He took it as a challenge, asking entrepreneurs to come up with AI products and services to make use of, and generate revenue from, all that infrastructure. Fast-forward to today, adding up three years of hyperscaling, and Cahn’s got a new number on AI infrastructure spending for 2026: $1.5 trillion. | All told, he calculates that the AI industry will have to earn $3 trillion to justify all those chips and other data center expenditures. And that’s probably an underestimate — the rising costs of memory and the increasing use of exotic or inference-specific chips will drive that number up. “Recently,” he writes, “the required revenue per GW of CapEx has sharply increased due to these bottleneck dynamics and rising costs of construction.” | On the other side of the ledger, Anthropic is thought to have hit $60 billion in ARR, while OpenAI reportedly earned $13 billion in 2025 (although in November 2025, it said it was at $20 billion ARR) and is presumably making more this year. But there’s clearly a large gap to be closed. | Someone minding that gap is Torsten Slok, the chief economist at Apollo, the giant asset manager. In a recent note, he points out that the hyperscalers — Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon — are all predicting massive accelerations in their free-cash flow in 2028. That is, they expect to see the payback from all those chips they bought. | | | Massive Fundings | Databento, a seven-year-old Salt Lake City startup that sells market data infrastructure to banks, hedge funds, AI labs, and other financial customers, raised a $97 million Series B round led by NEA, with DRW Venture Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and Tribe Capital also participating. The company has raised a total of roughly $127 million. Fortune has more here. | Gradium, a 10-month-old Paris startup that develops low-latency voice AI models for conversational agents, raised a $100 million seed round backed by Nvidia, FirstMark Capital, Eurazeo, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt, and Xavier Niel. TechCrunch has more here. | Kraken Technology, a six-year-old startup based in Fareham, UK, that develops uncrewed surface vessels and payload systems for maritime defense missions by NATO and allied military customers, raised a $175 million Series B round at a $1+ billion valuation. The deal was led by Digital Transformation Capital Partners, with support from British Business Bank, NATO Innovation Fund, Rheinmetall, Inocea Group, HICO, Thesiger Capital Group, BOKA Capital, Supernova Invest, and Hakluyt Capital. Ocean News & Technology has more here. | Leo Cancer Care, a 12-year-old company based in Crawley, UK, that develops upright cancer imaging and radiation treatment systems that let hospitals deliver proton and photon therapy with smaller treatment rooms, raised a $65 million Series D round led by Yu Galaxy, with Eventide Asset Management also engaging. Pulse 2.0 has more here. | Lyzr, a three-year-old New York startup that helps enterprises build AI agents inside their own infrastructure, says it is on track to raise $100 million at a roughly $500 million valuation after using one of its own AI agents to run investor outreach and help draft investment memos. Bloomberg has more here. | Mercor, a San Francisco startup that helps companies train AI models and agents by matching them with domain experts, is reportedly in early talks to raise funding at a $20 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg. The company last raised a $350 million Series C in October at a $10 billion valuation. TechCrunch has more here. | Ollama, a three-year-old Palo Alto startup that helps developers run open-weight AI models on personal computers and access larger hosted models when local hardware is not enough, raised a $65 million Series B round led by Theory Ventures, with Benchmark, Y Combinator, 8VC, Pace Capital, 49 Palms, and GTMFund also opting in. The company has raised a total of $88 million. TechCrunch has more here. | Oxylabs, an 11-year-old Vilnius company that provides proxy and web data infrastructure that helps companies and AI systems collect structured data from the open web at scale, raised a $130 million round at an approximate post-money valuation of $3.6 billion. Warburg Pincus provided the financing. More here. | TJM, a two-year-old startup based in Bear, DE, that deploys AI agents that automate prescription intake, refills, authorization support, data entry, and patient communication for pharmacies, raised a $75 million Series B round led by Elephant, with Arthur Ventures and Updata Partners also participating. The company has raised a total of $100 million. More here. | Vendelux, a five-year-old New York startup that helps marketing and sales teams choose B2B events, find target buyers, and measure event programs as revenue channels, raised a $50 million Series B round led by Tribeca Venture Partners, with S3, Pelion Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, FirstMark, and Cervin Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $71 million. More here. | Wonder, an eight-year-old New York startup that owns Grubhub and Blue Apron and operates food halls for takeout orders, is arranging hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding at a roughly $9 billion valuation, with founder and CEO Marc Lore potentially contributing up to $200 million, according to The Information. PYMNTS has more here. | | Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings | Axle Energy, a three-year-old London startup that connects home energy devices to electricity markets so utilities, fleet operators, and manufacturers can balance grid demand, raised a $24 million Series A round led by Energize Capital, with previous investors Accel, Picus Capital, and Eka Ventures also participating. UKTN has more here. | Bohr Energie, a six-year-old startup based in Toulouse, France, that develops software for renewable energy companies, raised an $11.4 million Series A round led by Suma Capital, with Irdi Capital Investissement, GSO Capital, and Crédit Agricole as well as previous investors Varsity, Founders Future, and AFI Ventures also anteing up. Renewables Now has more here. | Fuchs & Eule, a five-year-old Berlin startup that helps commercial landlords and asset managers identify cost-effective energy-efficiency retrofits and subsidies across building portfolios, raised an $11.4 million round led by GET Fund, with PI Impact and WaVe-X as well as previous investors SET Ventures, Picus Capital, and Realyze Ventures also pitching in. More here. | Hephae Energy Technology, a five-year-old startup based in Spring, TX, that builds high-temperature drilling systems that help geothermal operators drill precise wells into hotter, deeper rock with less downtime, raised a $17.8 million Series A round co-led by Susquehanna Sustainable Investments and Underground Ventures, with additional participation from alfa8, Baruch Future Ventures, Centaurus Capital LP, Elemental Impact, Exa Ventures, Future Ventures, Grantham Foundation for The Protection of the Environment, New System Ventures, and True North Institute as well as previous investor Nabors Industries. The company has raised a total of $24.7 million. More here. | QIZ Security, a one-year-old New York startup that helps organizations govern encryption across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid systems by finding cryptographic weaknesses and prioritizing fixes, raised a $17 million seed round co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Merlin Ventures, with Evolution Equity Partners, Qbeat Ventures, Singtel Innov8, and Qino Cyber Capital also taking part. SecurityWeek has |
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