Top News | The FTC and more than 20 states plan to sue Amazon, alleging it secretly manipulated its ad auctions to raise prices for merchants and reap tens of billions of dollars over seven years; Amazon’s ad business generated $68 billion in 2025. TechCrunch has more here. | OpenAI’s roughly 200-day-old advertising business has already reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate as the company expands ChatGPT ads beyond the U.S. and touts a more diversified business model ahead of an expected IPO. CNBC has more here. | | |
"When we do our annual meetings with PortCos, we're just collating data. The decks are in some folder, there's an email in a partner’s inbox, there's a financial model somewhere. It's a lot of work to get the full story." - VP Ops, $200M+ AUM VC | Get your story together with PortfolioIQ. | | Ryan Breslow Is Raising Up to $27M in Pay-to-Play Bridge Funding to Save Bolt |  | Image Credits: Taylor Hill / Getty Images |
| By Marina Temkin | Ryan Breslow, the controversial entrepreneur who returned as CEO of Bolt last year after years of legal battles and clashes with investors, refuses to give up on the checkout processing startup he co-founded in 2014. | The company, which hit an $11 billion valuation in early 2022 before plummeting 97% to $300 million, is now raising a bridge round of up to $27 million, Breslow told TechCrunch. Bridge rounds are short-term financings meant to tide a company over until its next major fundraise. | The capital is being raised from existing investors and structured as a convertible note, meaning it will turn into equity at a discount once Bolt closes a future funding round. It also includes a punitive “pay-to-play” provision, meaning backers who don’t participate will lose a large portion of their equity in the company. | Although Breslow didn’t frame it as such, the new financing may be the company’s last shot at survival. “This financing allows us to capitalize on our recent operational milestones, clear legacy obligations, and ensure a seamless transition as we progress toward the closing of our full Series E2 round,” according to a company press release. Breslow did not respond to requests for comment on what constitutes those legacy obligations. | Startups generally raise bridge financings in two situations: when they are performing well and need six to 12 months to hit their next milestone, or when they are running low on cash and need time to restructure or reach profitability. | Breslow declined to disclose how much cash Bolt has left, though he claimed the company is nearing profitability and returning to growth after years of shrinking revenue. | | | Massive Fundings | Ausperbio, a seven-year-old San Francisco startup that develops oligonucleotide therapies that suppress hepatitis B virus activity and aim to reduce patients’ reliance on long-term antiviral treatment, raised a $120 million Series C round led by an unnamed strategic investor, with RA Capital Management as well as previous investors HanKang Capital, Sherpa Capital, InnoPinnacle Fund, Qiming Venture Partners, YuanBio Venture Capital, and CDH Investments also participating. The company has raised a total of $360 million since 2024. More here. | Polymarket, the six-year-old New York prediction-markets platform that lets users bet on outcomes in areas such as sports and elections, is reportedly raising a $1 billion round led by 1789 Capital at a $21 billion post-money valuation. Bloomberg has more here. | | Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings | Agentrys, a startup founded this year based in San Jose, CA, that helps chipmakers build AI agents to automate chip-design workflows across verification and physical design, raised $24.5 million, including a $19.1 million seed round led by Etna Labs and a $5.4 million pre-seed round led by MediaTek. More here. | EIT Pharma, a two-year-old startup based in Kirkland, WA, that develops infectious disease therapies, including an oral chronic hepatitis D drug candidate under FDA review, raised a $35 million Series A round led by Propel Bio Partners, with Good Ventures and Arrowtown also anteing up. More here. | Reframe Systems, a four-year-old Boston startup that uses robotics, software, and microfactories to build site-customized homes faster and cheaper than traditional construction, raised a $40 million round led by Energy Impact Partners, with Counterpart Ventures, E12 Ventures, Global Brain, Thin Line Capital, Up Partners, and LACI Impact Fund as well as previous investors Eclipse, VoLo Earth, Cubit Capital, RA Capital Management, MassMutual Catalyst, and Nor’easter also participating. More here. | | Smaller Fundings | Blue Voice, a three-year-old Boston startup that gives police officers instant legal and policy guidance based on department rules, local ordinances, and state laws, raised a $6 million seed round co-led by SignalFire and Las Olas VC. TechCrunch has more here. | S-Transistors, a startup based in Espoo, Finland, that develops superconducting transistor circuits that quantum computer builders use to route and control signals inside cryogenic systems, raised a $3 million pre-seed round led by Lifeline Ventures. EU-Startups has more here. | TrustedRouter, a Miami startup founded this year that lets users access more than 600 AI models from 81+ providers through a single API and route queries by need and cost, raised a $1.25 million seed round. Investors include Sam Lessin of Slow Ventures, early Zoom and Canva investor Bill Tai, 23andMe co-founder Linda Avey, and former Stripe data leader George Xing. Axios has more here. | | New Funds | Andreessen Horowitz has raised additional capital for its fifth growth fund, bringing its total to $8.5 billion as the firm doubles down on later-stage companies across AI, defense, robotics, healthcare, infrastructure, and other major technology shifts. TechCrunch has more here. | | Going Public | Enflame, an eight-year-old Shanghai AI chipmaker backed by Tencent, expects to raise about $908 million in an IPO on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s tech-focused STAR Market to fund its next-generation AI processors as China pushes to reduce its reliance on Nvidia. Reuters has more here. | Shein raised $1.7 billion in its Hong Kong IPO at a $26 billion valuation, down sharply from nearly $100 billion in 2022, as investors weigh slowing growth, tariff pressure, and intensifying competition from Temu. Bloomberg has more here. | SB Energy issued OpenAI warrants worth an estimated $5.5 billion to secure it as a data-center tenant, deepening the financial ties among OpenAI, SoftBank, and Nvidia as SB Energy prepares for an IPO that could raise $5 billion to $7 billion. The Wall Street Journal has more here. | | People | Kalshi issued its first-ever lifetime ban to former Rep. George Santos and fined him $71,356 after the CFTC alleged he made more than $17,000 betting on whether he would attend Trump’s State of the Union while posting misleading statements that influenced the market. TechCrunch has more here. | Bank of England head Andrew Bailey warned G20 finance officials that frontier AI could destabilize the global financial system by accelerating cyberattacks and amplifying market shocks, especially as high valuations and leverage leave markets vulnerable to a sharp correction. The Guardian has more here. | President Trump is doubling down on support for AI data centers despite growing bipartisan backlash, warning that communities rejecting them will end up “backwards and poor” as concerns over power, water, and noise become a midterm-election issue. Politico has more here. | | Post-Its | | | Essential Reads | Remarks from the IMF and estimates from ING and other economists suggest that the AI investment boom is helping keep the global economy afloat despite trade wars, Middle East conflict, and high borrowing costs, with ING estimating AI-related spending accounts for roughly a third of recent U.S. growth. The Wall Street Journal has more here. | MapQuest has surged to No. 1 on Canada’s App Store and No. 4 in the U.S. after refusing to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America,” with hundreds of thousands of downloads and roughly a 50× jump in map usage since Thursday. TechCrunch has more here. | Together AI, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that serves open-source AI models to businesses, struck a deal with Saudi Arabia’s Humain for 120,000 chips and 250 megawatts of data-center capacity as local opposition constrains new data-center development in the U.S. The New York Times has more here. | According to The Information, OpenAI has begun letting some large customers pay only when its AI successfully completes a task, joining startups such as Sierra and Fin in experimenting with outcome-based pricing as software vendors rethink fixed subscriptions and usage fees. The Decoder has more here. | Employers are adopting increasingly elaborate tactics to catch AI-assisted cheating and fake job candidates, including asking applicants to pan their cameras around the room, wave a hand in front of their face, share screens, and submit to IP-address checks. The Wall Street Journal has more here. | | Detours | Celebrities are fueling demand for $2,500 full-body MRI scans after cases like Busy Philipps’s brain tumor diagnosis, but doctors warn healthy people may face false positives, unnecessary procedures, and overdiagnosis without clear evidence the scans prolong life. | The top |
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