Tech Explained: SignalPulse | Newsletters | The Tech Buzz in Simple Terms

Breaking News: Deel DOJ Spying Probe, OpenAI x Cerebras Deal, & OpenEvidence Hits a $12B valuation, Wikimedia AI deal, Moonshot AI + More.

Open Deals: Anthropic Round, World Labs ~$500M at $5B, SambaNova Seeks $500M, Recursive Seeks “hundreds of millions” at ~$4B, Applied Compute $70M at ~$1.3B.

Mega Rounds: Zipline $600M at $7.6B, Humans& $480M seed at $4.48B, & Upscale AI $200M Series A

Exit Watching: Google acqui-hires Hume AI, Harvey acquires Hexus, & BitGo pops 24.6% on NYSE IPO (at $2.59B).

The Funding Buzz: Standish Mgmt $700B AUM, Healthier Capital $220M Fund I, & SEMCAP $125M fund.

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Big tech moves, movers and trends to watch this week

Deel is under a criminal investigation by the DOJ for allegedly recruiting a spy within rival firm Rippling. Grand-jury subpoenas have been issued to collect info.

OpenAI & Cerebras teamed up to use Cerebras chips for Codex inference and a new voice mode, known as “Garlic.”

Moonshot AI, a Chinese AI lab, has been valued at $4.8B following a recent funding round, up from $4.3B. Backed by Alibaba.

Wikipedia entered paid agreements with major AI companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Perplexity for structured data access.

OpenEvidence was valued at $12B post-$250M Series D, co-led by Thrive and DST Global. The AI-powered medical consultation platform saw a six-fold usage spike, to 18M consultations in December.

Humans&, a human-centric AI startup founded by former researchers from Anthropic, xAI, and Google, raised $480M in a seed round at a valuation of $4.48B.

SpaceTech Investments — Global investment in space technology is forecast to grow in 2026, driven by $7.3B in U.S. funding and a potential SpaceX IPO.

Big tech moves, movers and trends to watch this week

Anthropic — Boasts a $9B revenue run rate, more than doubling in six months. Its funding round at $350B, is attracting Iconiq, Lightspeed, Menlo, and Sequoia.

World Labs Inc. — AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li-led startup is in talks to raise up to $500M, potentially reaching a $5B valuation.

SambaNova — SambaNova, a provider of AI cloud services, seeks to raise $500M after acquisition talks with Intel failed. Previously valued at $5B.

Recursive — AI researcher Richard Socher is in talks to raise hundreds of millions for this AI systems startup at ~$4B, with GV and Greycroft likely leading.

Applied Compute — AI startup founded by ex-OpenAI researchers to customize AI models, is negotiating a $70M raise at ~$1.3B. Backed by Kleiner Perkins.

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Companies that raised money in the past week and why they matter

Zipline — The drone delivery startup secured $600M at a $7.6B valuation from Fidelity and Baillie Gifford. 15% weekly growth in U.S. deliveries.

Humans& — The human-centric AI startup founded by ex Anthropic, Google, and xAI researchers, raised a $480M seed at $4.48B from the likes of Nvidia and Jeff Bezos,.

OpenEvidence — The AI-powered medical information platform raised a $250M Series D at a $12B valuation, co-led by Thrive Capital and DST. $100M+ ARR.

Noveon Magnetics — A U.S.-based rare earth magnet manufacturer raised a $215M Series C led by One Investment Mgmt. to meet demand in automotive and defense.

Upscale AI — The AI networking company raised a $200M Series A led by Tiger Global to enhance AI networking infrastructure by integrating GPUs, memory, storage, and networking.

Inferact — The open-source software vLLM startup raised a $150M seed at an $800M valuation led by a16z and Lightspeed, with Sequoia , Altimeter, Redpoint, and ZhenFund.

Neurophos — The Duke U.-based photonics startup raised $110M to develop optical processors enhancing AI efficiency.

Applecart — The marketing technology startup raised $100M led by Blackstone at $700M to provide software for identifying and engaging key stakeholders.

Ethernovia — The CA company raised a $90M Series B to advance its Ethernet-based processors for autonomous vehicles led by Maverick Silicon, backed by Porsche & Qualcomm.

Superstate — The onchain equity issuance startup raised $82.5M in Series B funding led by Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global. $1.2B in assets.

Emergent — The Indian AI “vibe-coding” startup raised a $70M Series B led by SoftBank and Khosla, tripling its valuation to $300M. $50M ARR & 5M+ users.

Cubby — The property management platform for self-storage raised a $63M Series A led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives to boost product development.

Ivo — Legal AI startup based in NY/Israel raised a $55M Series B led by Blackbird at $355M. Funds will enhance its platform and expand sales. Clients include Uber and Shopify.

Think Bioscience — The U.S. synthetic biology company raised $55M in an oversubscribed Series A round led by Regeneron Ventures to develop small molecule drugs.

Jetson — The all-electric heat pump systems startup raised a $50M Series A led by Eclipse to expand across the U.S. Jetson’s flagship product.

Juspay — The Bangalore-based payment processing company raised $50M in a Series D round from WestBridge Capital, valuing it at $1.2B.

Dominion Dynamics — The Canadian defense tech company raised a $21M CAD Seed led by Georgian to enhance NATO security via a sensor network and autonomous systems.

XBuild — The AI-powered estimating platform startup for residential construction has raised $19M & plans to expand to other trades. 15K projects to date.

Cambio — An AI-powered commercial real estate software startup, raised an $18M Series A to transform building data into investment decisions.

Statusphere — An AI marketing platform for enterprise retailers, raised an $18M Series A led by Volition to enhance social SEO and generative engine optimization.

Ditto — The platform for product text management raised a $12.2M Series A led by Craft Venturesto streamline text management across product development stages.

Artie — The provider of a real-time data streaming platform raised a $12M Series A led by Standard Capital‘s Dalton Caldwell, with YC. Clients include ClickUp, Substack.

Blockit — Kais Khimji, ex-Sequoia Capital partner, launched the agent-based AI calendar-scheduling startup with a $5M seed round from Sequoia. 200 companies use it.

Furl — Furl, a security remediation startup, secured a $10M Seed led by Ten Eleven Ventures. It autonomously executes security fixes, integrating with popular tools.

Mergers & Acquisitions and IPOs

Google DeepMind — Acquired the CEO and several engineers from Hume AI to boost voice features in Gemini. Hume specializes in emotion recognition.

Harvey — The legal AI leader acquired Hexus, an enterprise AI tools startup, to bolster its market presence. Includes Hexus’s founder and engineering team.

Farcaster — Merkle will refund $180M to investors after selling the decentralized social protocol Farcaster to Neynar. Farcaster will continue under Neynar’s management.

Yelp — Acquired Hatch, an AI-powered lead management platform, for ~$300M aiming to enhance Yelp’s AI offerings, aiding local businesses.

Serve Robotics — Acquiring Diligent Robotics, a hospital assistant robot company, for $29M as an entry into robotic healthcare delivery.

Open or upcoming IPOs to watch:

BitGo — The crypto custody firm hit a $2.59B valuation with a 24.6% stock increase during its NYSE IPO, raising $212.8M by selling 11.8M shares at $22.43 each.

Ethos Technologies — The insurance tech firm is launching an IPO valuing it at $1.26B. Backing from Sequoia and Accel, $278M in ARR and $46.6M in net income over 9 months.