Former OpenAI and DeepMind researchers raise whopping $300M seed to automate science
Periodic Labs has raised from a tech industry’s who’s who, including Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, Elad Gil, Jeff Dean, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos.
Whoop opens blood-testing service to what it says is a 350,000-person waitlist
Whoop Advanced Labs marries subscription blood tests with its fitness device monitoring for tech-powered wellness advice.
Paid, the AI agent ‘results-based billing’ startup from Manny Medina, raises huge $21M seed
Paid offers an interesting contribution to the AI agentic world: a platform for so-called “results-based” billing.
Lootlock protects kids from overspending on gaming and will be presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025
The gaming industry notoriously targets kids for in-app purchases. Lootlock gives parents granular control over kids game spending.
Checkout.com’s new $12B valuation is a glass half-full situation
Checkout.com is boosting its valuation as part of an employee stock buy-back program, and now says it’s profitable.
Cohere hits $7B valuation a month after its last raise, partners with AMD
A fresh $100 million and an interesting partnership with AMD has slightly bumped Cohere’s valuation up.
Tim Chen has quietly become of one the most sought-after solo investors
Tim Chen, solo VC at his firm Essence VC, just closed his fourth fund, a fresh $41 million, without even trying.
OpenAI’s research on AI models deliberately lying is wild
AI models don’t just hallucinate. They also “scheme,” meaning deliberately lie or hide their true intensions.
Nvidia AI chip challenger Groq raises even more than expected, hits $6.9B valuation
The fresh raise comes in above the rumored numbers when word leaked in July that it was raising.
Jack Altman raised a new $275M early-stage fund in a mere week
Altman’s first fund, raised in early 2024, was $150 million. So this is a big step up, too.