Sasha Rogelberg / Fortune: Survey of 1,050 Australian teens: ~60% said they retained access to social media accounts after ban; two-thirds say platforms took no action to remove accounts — If teenagers have a will, they will find a way. … Evelyn, a 14-year-old in New South Wales, told The Washington Post in December 2025 …
Lily Mae Lazarus / Fortune: Omni, which is building a “semantic translation layer” for enterprise data, raised a $120M Series C led by Iconiq at a $1.5B valuation, up from $650M in 2025 — For years, companies have poured money into data warehouses, dashboards, and business intelligence tools …
Jack Kubinec / Fortune: Stripe and Paradigm-backed Tempo launches a “stablecoin advisory” for businesses and is working with DoorDash to let delivery workers get paid in stablecoins — Tempo, the new blockchain backed by payments company Stripe and VC firm Paradigm, has launched a “stablecoin advisory” …
Sharon Goldman / Fortune: Artemis, which aims to replace rule-based cybersecurity systems with an AI-driven centralized “brain”, emerges from stealth with a $70M Series A led by Felicis — Artemis, a new cybersecurity startup trying to help defenders fight AI-powered attacks with AI, emerged from stealth today …
Lily Mae Lazarus / Fortune: NY-based Blossom Health, which makes an “AI copilot” to augment psychiatrists' clinical decisions and automate office tasks, raised $20M in seed and Series A — Blossom Health has raised $20 million in seed and Series A funding to bring an AI “copilot” for psychiatry to patients nationwide, Fortune has exclusively learned.
Lily Mae Lazarus / Fortune: Deeptune, which builds high-fidelity reinforcement learning environments that simulate professional workflows for AI agents, raised a $43M Series A led by a16z — AI startup Deeptune has raised a $43 million Series A to build what it calls “training gyms” for AI agents, Fortune has learned exclusively.
Ben Weiss / Fortune: PayPal expands access to its PYUSD stablecoin from the US and UK to 70 countries in total, including new markets in Uganda, Colombia, Peru, and Malawi — PayPal is dramatically expanding the map of countries where users can send and receive its branded stablecoin.
Fortune: Docs: Binance investigators found accounts, including those of VIP Chinese traders and a suspected Iranian gold smuggler, helped move $1B to Iran-linked groups — In early 2025, an embattled Iranian regime was turning increasingly to crypto in order to thwart sanctions choking its economy.
Ben Weiss / Fortune: Crypto accounting startup Cryptio raised a $45M Series B led by BlackFin Capital Partners and Sentinel Global and reports having 450+ clients, including Circle — As large enterprises invest in blockchain technology, they quickly discover the need for accounting software that can help them track a growing hoard of digital assets.
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Translucent, a health care finance startup that helps hospitals improve cash management, raised a $27M Series A led by GV, after a $7M seed in August 2024 — Senior Finance Reporter And Author Of Term Sheet — Jack O'Hara has seen a hospital shut down. — It happens via blurry paperwork and running out of time.
Sharon Goldman / Fortune: Caitlin Kalinowski, OpenAI's head of hardware and robotics, resigns over concerns about domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons after OpenAI's DOD contract — Caitlin Kalinowski, who had been leading hardware and robotic engineering teams at OpenAI since November 2024, announced she has left the company.
Ben Weiss / Fortune: NYSE parent ICE invests in crypto exchange OKX at a $25B valuation, without specifying the size of investment, and will take a seat on the company's board — Last summer, Haider Rafique flew out to Atlanta to meet with the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
Ben Weiss / Fortune: Visa and Stripe's Bridge plan to expand their partnership to issue stablecoin-linked cards in 100+ countries; the cards are currently live in 18 countries — The world's biggest fintech and the world's largest payments network are expanding their stablecoin partnership.
Sharon Goldman / Fortune: Source: Sam Altman told employees the DOD is willing to let OpenAI build its own “safety stack” and won't force OpenAI to comply if its model refuses a task — Sam Altman told OpenAI employees at an all-hands meeting on Friday afternoon that a potential agreement is emerging …
Ben Weiss / Fortune: Bermuda-based crypto trading platform STS Digital, which caters to institutional investors, raised $30M led by CMT Digital, with Kraken and others participating — Even as retail traders flee the crypto markets amid plummeting prices, large financial institutions continue to lean into digital assets.
Jake Angelo / Fortune: A look at Anti Fund, a small VC firm cofounded by YouTuber Jake Paul that has gained access to hot rounds in startups like OpenAI, Anduril, Polymarket, and Ramp — Jake Paul crossed paths with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at President Donald Trump's second inauguration ceremony last year …
Leo Schwartz / Fortune: Bretton AI, formerly Greenlite, which uses GenAI to investigate suspicious transactions and verify internal risk policy compliance, raised a $75M Series B — Early in his career, Will Lawrence worked on the product team at Facebook focused on anti-money laundering.
Jeremy Kahn / Fortune: London-based Lawhive, whose lawyers and AI tools help individuals and SMBs automate legal tasks, raised a $60M Series B, after a $40M Series A in December 2024 — Lawhive, a British startup that wants to use AI to transform the business model of law firms that perform routine legal work …
Leo Schwartz / Fortune: TRM Labs, which helps law enforcement and companies track crypto and blockchains, raised a $70M Series C led by Blockchain Capital at a $1B valuation — When TRM Labs cofounders Esteban Castaño and Rahul Raina moved to San Francisco in 2018 to create a startup, their mentors told …
Jeremy Kahn / Fortune: OpenAI's former Head of Policy Research Miles Brundage announces AVERI, a nonprofit aimed at advocating the idea of external audits for frontier AI models — Former OpenAI policy chief Miles Brundage, who has just founded a new nonprofit institute called AVERI that is advocating …
Ben Weiss / Fortune: Alpaca, which builds software to let companies offer stocks, ETFs, and other financial instruments, raised a $150M Series D led by Drive at a $1.15B valuation — Yoshi Yokokawa, cofounder of Alpaca.COURTESY OF ALPACA — Trading platforms like Coinbase and Robinhood are rushing to offer …
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Israeli data security startup Cyera raised a $400M Series F led by Blackstone Growth at a $9B valuation, up from $6B after raising $540M in June 2025 — Senior Finance Reporter And Author Of Term Sheet — Cyera cofounders Yotam Segev and Tamar Bar-Ilan.CYERA
Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez / Fortune: Cursor CEO Michael Truell warns that “vibe coding” advanced projects may create “shaky foundations” and eventually “things start to kind of crumble” — Michael Truell, cofounder and CEO of Cursor.STUART ISETT—FORTUNE — Cursor may utilize AI …
Jeremy Kahn / Fortune: Ankar, which develops LLM-powered AI tools to streamline the process of drafting patent applications for patent attorneys, raised a $20M Series A led by Atomico — The company, which just secured a $20 million Series A venture capital round, is using AI to streamline the process of obtaining …
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune: Binance names co-founder Yi He as co-CEO alongside Richard Teng, making her one of the few women leading a crypto company; she also has children with ex-CEO CZ — The world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange announced a significant leadership move on Wednesday, naming longtime executive …
Beatrice Nolan / Fortune: Gravis Robotics, which adds cameras, sensors, and AI to heavyweight construction machines so they can operate autonomously, raised $23M led by IQ and Zacua — Gravis Robotics, a Zurich-based startup that is turning heavyweight construction machines into autonomous robots …
Fortune: Tidalwave, whose AI agents automate mortgage docs checks and give real-time multilingual feedback to borrowers, raised a $22M Series A led by Permanent Capital — Diane Yu remembers getting her first mortgage vividly because it was terrifying. — “I was born in China, English is my second language …
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Tala Health, which plans to roll out AI agents to help clinicians improve patient care next year, raised a $100M seed led by Sofreh Capital — Ritankar Das, founder of Titan Holdings. — TITAN HOLDINGS — Ritankar Das wants the holding company to make its comeback.
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Neobank Mercury says it has hit $650M in annualized revenue, up from $500M by end of 2024, and has been GAAP profitable on net income and EBITDA for three years — Mercury's Immad Akhund. — MERCURY — The fintech roller coaster—after a few years of barrel rolls and corkscrews …
Nick Lichtenberg / Fortune: Harvard economist Jason Furman estimates that investments in data centers and information-processing software accounted for 92% of US GDP growth in H1 2025 — U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025 was almost entirely driven by investment in data centers and information processing technology …
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Supabase, an open-source rival to Google's Firebase, raised a $100M Series E led by Accel and Peak XV at a $5B valuation, bringing its total funding to $500M+ — The vibe coding movement, as Paul Copplestone figures it, started last December—and we're already a few eras in.
Jeremy Kahn / Fortune: Synthesized, which is developing AI tools to automate software testing, raised a $20M Series A led by Redalpine — Synthesized, a London- and New York-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to automate software testing, has raised $20 million in new venture capital funding …
Jeremy Kahn / Fortune: CuspAI, which develops AI foundation models for materials discovery, raised a $100M Series A led by NEA and Temasek, a source says at a ~$520M valuation — CuspAI, a startup developing AI models for chemistry that counts several AI luminaries among its scientific advisors, has raised $100 million in new venture capital funding.
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Predoc, which uses AI to automate medical records management, raised $30M seed and Series A led by Base10 Partners, with participation from Northzone and others — The Predoc founding team. — PREDOC — Chart chasing sounds like a terrible game. — “The fax machine still exists …
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Baseten, which helps companies launch open-source or custom AI models, raised a $150M Series D led by Bond at a $2.15B valuation, up from $825M in February — The Baseten founding team. — BASETEN — In some sense, Baseten started with building blocks—literally.
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: An interview with CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz on the company's M&A strategy as it acquires Madrid-based data observability startup Onum for about $290M — George Kurtz, cofounder and CEO of CrowdStrike — COURTESY OF CROWDSTRIKE — Cybersecurity is more than just software …
Ben Weiss / Fortune: M0, which develops stablecoin infrastructure to boost interoperability and liquidity, raised a $40M Series B led by Polychain and Ribbit Capital — M0 cofounders Gregory Di Prisco (left) and Luca Prosperi. — COURTESY OF MO — Another stablecoin startup has raised serious cash.
Sheryl Estrada / Fortune: An MIT report finds that 95% of GenAI pilots at companies have little to no financial impact, due to the “learning gap” for both the tools and the companies — Good morning. Companies are betting on AI—yet nearly all enterprise pilots are stuck at the starting line.
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: PitchBook: 15.9% of VC-backed deals in 2025 so far have been down rounds, a 10-year high, with AI and ML startups accounting for 29.3% of the down rounds — Chime executives, along with family, celebrating the company's IPO at the Nasdaq. — The soaring valuations of the early 2020s are, finally, coming back to earth.
Fortune: Sources: Stripe appoints Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang to serve as CEO of its planned Layer 1 blockchain Tempo; a source says Huang will remain at Paradigm — Matt Huang (left) and Glara Ahn at a 2024 gala in Hollywood, Los Angeles. — As Stripe pushes further into crypto …
Fortune: Sources: Trump's World Liberty Financial is seeking to raise $1.5B to launch a publicly traded crypto treasury company that would hold its WLFI token and cash — Eric Trump (left) and Donald Trump Jr. on stage in May at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas.
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: The Marin Community Foundation sold 13.4M+ Figma shares for $440M+ in the IPO; source: the foundation had received the shares from Figma co-founder Evan Wallace — As Figma went public this week to much fanfare—and an almost instantaneous 250% stock pop—quite a few folks from Silicon Valley made money.
Ben Weiss / Fortune: Subzero Labs, which is building Rialo, a blockchain designed for non-crypto developers to build “real-world” apps, raised a $20M seed led by Pantera Capital — Even as crypto finds growing traction on Wall Street and among retail investors, few people regard the blockchain technology …
Sharon Goldman / Fortune: Jeff Dean, who co-founded Google Brain and leads Google's AI research, has emerged as a prolific angel investor, backing 37 AI startups over the past two years — Good morning, AI reporter Sharon Goldman in for Allie Garfinkle, who is taking a well-deserved vacation!
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: The exclusivity period for OpenAI's $3B offer to acquire coding startup Windsurf, entered into in May, has expired — The exclusivity period on OpenAI's $3 billion offer to acquire coding startup Windsurf has expired, an OpenAI spokesperson told Fortune. — The expiration of the exclusivity …
Leo Schwartz / Fortune: Agora, which offers a white-labeling service to let other companies launch their own, self-branded versions of its stablecoin, AUSD, raised a $50M Series A — Agora cofounders Joe McGrady, Nick Van Eck, and Drake Evans — COURTESY OF AGORA — On Thursday, Agora became the latest stablecoin company …
Jordan Blum / Fortune: How Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill, which was approved by Congress, could cost the US the AI race by handicapping efforts to meet data center power demands — America is facing an energy imperative: Grow power from all sources or face potential failure. — That's failure in the race …
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Synthesia says it has over 65K customers and serves more than 70% of the Fortune 100, with its AI avatars mainly used for training and internal communications — Constructing an avatar of myself is even weirder than I expected. — It's a choreographed experience that made me feel …
Beatrice Nolan / Fortune: London-based Metaview, which builds AI tools to automate hiring, like via interview notetaking and job description generation, raised a $35M Series B led by GV — Recruiting, which is heavy on admin, is ripe for disruption when it comes to developing AI tools.
Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Observability and site reliability startup Traversal emerges from stealth with $48M in seed and Series A funding led by Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins — Left to right: Traversal's Raaz Dwivedi, Anish Agarwal, Ahmed Lone, and Raj Agrawal. — Traversal — They met at 10 p.m. each weeknight, after class at Columbia University.