Transcript
SPEAKER_1: Let's kick things off with the human cost of AI. AWS CEO Matt Garman says Amazon plans to hire eleven thousand software engineering interns in 2026, which is in line with recent years. He's pushing back on fears about AI eliminating jobs. SPEAKER_2: Right, and on that same theme, a Chinese court ruled that companies cannot terminate staff just to replace them with AI. So there's legal pushback happening alongside the corporate messaging. SPEAKER_1: And on the government side, the US Senate unanimously passed a rule barring senators from trading on prediction markets. That's a notable move. SPEAKER_2: It is. Now shifting to what I'd call the military AI translation layer, five companies just received classified military AI contracts. The Navy is using AI to find mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and Scout AI is training autonomous ATVs for combat. SPEAKER_1: That's a significant escalation. And the Five Eyes have weighed in on this space too, right? SPEAKER_2: They have. The Five Eyes say most organizations give AI more access than can be safely monitored. And the big question being raised is, when the same AI models powering consumer chatbots are deployed on classified military networks, who is auditing the boundary between commercial and combat use? SPEAKER_1: That's a really important question with no clear answer yet. Let's move into startup funding. There's a lot to cover. Starting with Avoca. SPEAKER_2: Avoca raised over one hundred twenty five million dollars across seed, Series A, and Series B, hitting a one billion dollar valuation. They build AI agents that handle inbound calls and dispatch for physical services businesses. SPEAKER_1: Then there's Linkerbot, which is a very different kind of company. SPEAKER_2: Very different. Linkerbot is China's dexterous robotic hands maker. They closed a Series B plus at a three billion dollar valuation and hold over eighty percent of the global market. They're now seeking six billion in their next round. SPEAKER_1: Music AI startup Suno is also in the mix this week. SPEAKER_2: Suno is sitting at roughly a two point five billion dollar valuation, with over two million paying users and three hundred million dollars in annualized revenue as of February. They're currently battling record labels and artists in court. SPEAKER_1: Fun raised seventy two million in a Series A co-led by Multicoin and SignalFire. What do they do? SPEAKER_2: Fun builds fiat and crypto payment rails powering platforms like Polymarket and Aave. Then Axoft raised fifty five million in a Series A for brain implants. They've already tested their device in a Shanghai patient and plan more China trials. SPEAKER_1: OpenLight raised fifty million in a Series A extension for custom application-specific photonic chips, bringing their total raised to eighty four million. And Actively? SPEAKER_2: Actively raised forty five million in a Series B at a two hundred fifty million dollar valuation. They build AI sales agents for account management, co-led by TCV and First Harmonic. SPEAKER_1: Sahi raised thirty three million in a Series B at a two hundred million dollar valuation. They're a Bengaluru-based stock trading platform led by Accel. SPEAKER_2: Casa raised twenty seven million, including twenty million in a Series A, for AI home maintenance. They use lidar scanners to catalog homes and manage proactive maintenance. And Pursuit raised twenty two million in seed funding. SPEAKER_1: What does Pursuit do? SPEAKER_2: Pursuit scans public data to help companies find and win government contracts. They're backed by Bill Gurley and Jack Altman. SPEAKER_1: Now let's talk investor news. Founders Fund had a massive raise. SPEAKER_2: Founders Fund raised six billion dollars for a later-stage fund, their largest haul ever. Four point five billion came from limited partners, with the rest coming from the partners themselves. SPEAKER_1: Coatue formed a joint venture called Next Frontier in 2025 to buy land for data centers. Their JV with neocloud Fluidstack has raised five point seven billion via junk bonds. SPEAKER_2: And Anthropic has two big moves. First, they're finalizing a one point five billion dollar JV with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Hellman and Friedman, and others to sell AI tools to PE-backed companies. SPEAKER_1: And the second Anthropic move? SPEAKER_2: They're in early talks to buy AI inference chips from UK-based Fractile when they become available in 2027. And KKR is launching an AI infrastructure company called Helix Digital Infrastructure, with over ten billion dollars, led by ex-AWS CEO Adam Selipsky. SPEAKER_1: Big moves on the IPO and M and A side too. Cerebras is seeking to raise four billion dollars at roughly a forty billion dollar valuation. SPEAKER_2: And GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen is making an unsolicited offer of roughly fifty six billion dollars for eBay. GameStop's market cap is around eleven billion versus eBay's roughly forty five billion. That's a bold move. SPEAKER_1: Nebius acquired Eigen AI, a chip inference optimizer, for roughly six hundred forty three million in stock and cash. And Palo Alto Networks acquired Portkey. SPEAKER_2: Portkey is an AI gateway tech for managing and securing AI agents, valued at one hundred twenty to one hundred forty million. Meta acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, and that team joins Meta Superintelligence Labs. SPEAKER_1: Amadeus acquired French biometrics company Idemia for one point two billion euros in cash. OPay, the SoftBank-backed Nigerian mobile payments company, is preparing a US IPO at a four billion dollar valuation. SPEAKER_2: MoonPay acquired Israeli security startup Sodot in an all-stock deal worth roughly one hundred million dollars. And DAZN, the London sports streamer, acquired ViewLift, streaming tech for over fifteen US pro sports teams, for roughly one hundred million. SPEAKER_1: Now for parting thoughts. The theme this week is scarcity creating leverage. Apple posted one hundred eleven billion in revenue but warned memory costs are climbing significantly higher. Samsung says the shortage worsens in 2027. Nintendo is down forty five percent on the same squeeze. SPEAKER_2: Then there's the OpenAI drama. Musk admitted on the stand that xAI partly distilled OpenAI tech, while simultaneously suing OpenAI. The judge banned existential risk arguments, and OpenAI's own employees are raising safety alarms. SPEAKER_1: On the chip race, Cerebras is going public at forty billion. Intel had its best month ever. Huawei AI chip revenue is up sixty percent. Everyone is racing to break Nvidia's grip on the AI chip supply chain. SPEAKER_2: And circling back to the military angle, the DOD gave classified AI access to five companies. The Navy is training AI to find mines. The Five Eyes say most organizations give AI more access than they can safely monitor. SPEAKER_1: So to wrap up this week's key takeaways: scarcity in chips, scarcity in trust, and scarcity in oversight, and the money keeps flowing regardless. That's the thread tying everything together in Weekly Download forty eight. We'll see you next time.