Top News

Reddit just sued Anthropic for allegedly scraping its data over 100,000 times after promising to stop. "Anthropic is in fact intentionally trained on the personal data of Reddit users without ever requesting their consent," Reddit's complaint read, going on to state that Anthropic's actions run counter to how it "bills itself as the white knight of the AI industry." The Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch have more here and here.

OpenAI today rolled out meeting recordings, deep research integrations, and cloud connectors for its enterprise users, signaling that it’s not just catching up to tools like Zoom and Notion but positioning the company to take over everything from file storage to meeting notes to research workflows. TechCrunch has more here.

It’s Layoff “Season” at Phil Libin’s Airtime

By Sarah Perez

Airtime, the video startup from Evernote’s founder Phil Libin, has laid off dozens of employees, TechCrunch has learned, and Airtime confirmed.

According to the company, 25 people were let go from the 58-person team — a change Airtime described as “bigger than usual.”

While Airtime characterizes the departures as part of its typical seasonal approach to employment, sources inside the company said staff were surprised by the announcement. Many were under the impression the startup intended to raise funds this year and were previously told no cuts were planned, they said.

Formerly known as mmhmm, Airtime was launched in 2020 by Libin, whose Evernote, a note-taking startup, was valued at nearly a $1 billion at its height before being sidelined by newer competitors like Notion. (The company later sold to Bending Spoons in 2022 for a decidedly smaller figure.)

First launched amid the COVID pandemic, when all office work had suddenly shifted to video, Airtime today offers two key tools for online meetings. Its “Airtime Creator” lets users present a deck while appearing on screen at the same time, while its “Airtime Camera” allows users to create custom looks to stand out in meetings.

The startup introduced a “seasons”-focused employment structure in late 2022, following a layoff of around 10%-15% of the staff, which had capped the company’s headcount at 100 while it searched for product-market fit.

More here.

Massive Fundings

Boltech, a five-year-old Singapore startup that offers embedded insurance technology to help partners like telcos and retailers integrate and distribute insurance products digitally, raised a $147 million round at a $2.1 billion valuation. The deal was led by Dragon Fund, with Baillie Gifford, Generali, Sumitomo, and Iberis Capital also investing. TechCrunch has more here.

Cohere, a six-year-old Toronto startup building enterprise AI infrastructure, is in the market to raise over $500 million at a valuation between $5.5 billion and $6.5 billion. The Financial Times has the scoop here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Aibidia, a seven-year-old Helsinki startup that provides software to help multinational companies manage cross-border transfer pricing using structured data and automation, raised a $28 million Series B round led by Activant, with previous investors DN Capital, FPV, and Icebreaker.vc also taking stakes. More here.

Amber, an eight-year-old Melbourne company that helps Australian households lower electricity bills by using smart software to control when their home batteries charge and discharge based on real-time wholesale energy prices, raised a $29.6 million round led by ETF Partners, with previous investors Square Peg, Gentrack, Rubio Impact Ventures, and Breakthrough Victoria also taking part. Startup Daily has more here.

Baobob Insurance, a four-year-old Berlin startup that provides cybersecurity insurance products and services tailored for SMEs, raised a $13.7 million Series A round co-led by Viola Fintech and eCapital, with Augmentum Fintech and Project A Ventures also opting in. EU-Startups has more here.

Dataplor, a seven-year-old Los Angeles startup that helps enterprises access accurate location data on small and medium-size businesses in emerging markets, raised a $20.5 million Series B round led by F-Prime, with Spark Capital, FFVC, Acronym Venture Capital, Two Lanterns Venture Capital, APA Ventures, dara5, and Alumni Ventures also participating. More here.

Fabriq, a six-year-old Paris startup that provides collaborative software to help frontline manufacturing teams track performance, solve problems, and improve operations in real-time, raised a $25 million round. Expedition Growth Capital led the financing, with previous investor OSS Ventures also stepping up. Tech.eu has more here.

Jua, a three-year-old Zürich startup that develops a physics-informed AI platform for weather and climate forecasting, raised an $11 million Series A round co-led by Ananda Impact Ventures and Future Energy Ventures, with previous investors 468 Capital and Promus Ventures also stepping up. Silicon Canals has more here.

Mind, a two-year-old Seattle startup that provides AI-powered behavioral identity and security tools to detect and prevent account takeovers and insider threats, raised a $30 million Series A round co-led by Paladin Capital Group and Crosspoint Capital Partners, with Okta Ventures and YL Ventures also pitching in. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Obvio, a two-year-old startup based in San Carlos, CA that uses solar-powered AI cameras mounted at stop signs to detect and report dangerous driving violations like rolling stops and illegal turns, raised a $22 million Series A round led by Bain Capital Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Sema4.ai, a one-year-old Atlanta startup that helps enterprises create and run AI agentsinside Snowflake that automate tasks like forecasting and data analysis without needing to write code, raised a $25 million Series A extension round. Investors included Snowflake Ventures, Rocketship VC, MVP Ventures, and COX Enterprises as well as previous investors Mayfield, and Benchmark. More here.

Skyral, a two-year-old London company that creates strategic digital twins combining models of human behavior with real-time and forecasted infrastructure systems such as transportation, power, and telecom networks across entire cities and countries, raised a $20 million Series A round. NOIA Capital was the deal lead. Tech.eu has more here.

Smaller Fundings

Aeon, a two-year-old Zurich startup that offers AI-powered preventive health checkups using whole-body MRI scans, blood biomarkers, and genetic data to detect and predict over 500 conditions, raised a $9.4 million seed round led by Concentric, with Calm/Storm Ventures, GoHub, Kadmos, and EWOR also pitching in. Health Tech World has more here.

AIATELLA, a three-year-old Helsinki startup that develops AI tools to automate cardiovascular imaging analysis and enable early detection of heart disease, raised a $2.3 million seed round. Nordic Science Investments was the deal lead, with Specialist VC, Harjavalta Ventures, and Business Finland also writing checks. Tech Funding News has more here.

ArcheHealth, a three-year-old company in Birmingham, AL, that uses AI to help hospitals understand the true cost of care at the patient level, raised a seed round. Investors included LRVHealth, Martin Ventures, and Texas Health Resources. More here.

AUAR, a four-year-old company in London, develops robotic microfactories to automate timber housing construction, raised a $6.9 million round led by PlanetA, with Shadow Ventures, Common Magic, and Concrete VC also participating. UKTN has more here.

GridFree AI, a one-year-old Houston startup that uses AI to optimize and automate data center energy usage and performance for enterprise customers, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by Giant Ventures, with Amplo also participating. More here.

Kumulus Water, a four-year-old French startup that develops solar-powered atmospheric water generators to provide clean drinking water in off-grid and water-scarce areas, raised a $3.5 million seed round. Investors included Bpifrance, PlusVC, Khalys Venture, Flat6Labs, and Spadel. Wamda has more here.

Manex AI, a two-year-old Munich startup that develops AI tools to help manufacturers digitize operations and improve production planning, raised a $9.1 million seed round co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and BlueYard Capital, with Capmont Technology and the CDTM Venture Fund also participating. Tech Funding News has more here.

Thunder Code, a one-year-old Paris startup that provides a generative AI-powered software testing platform enabling development teams to automate quality assurance without writing code, raised a $9 million seed round. Investors included Silicon Badia, Janngo Capital, andTitan Seed Fund. TechCrunch has more here.

New Funds

Merlin Ventures, a three-year-old Israeli-US venture firm, just closed a $75 million fund to invest in growth-stage Israeli cybersecurity bets and brought on mentalist Lior Suchard as a partner. Globes has more here.

Going Public

Stablecoin issuer Circle just priced its upsized IPO at $31 a share, well above expectations, raising $1.05 billion and becoming the highest-profile pure crypto company to hit the public markets. CNBC has more here.

People

In a Bloomberg interview today, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pushed back against concerns that AI could eventually make half the company’s 180,000-person workforce redundant. Instead, Pichai stressed the company’s commitment to growth through at least next year. He also called looking too far into the future "pointless." TechCrunch has more here.

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski says human customer service agents are for VIPs. TechCrunch has more here.

Essential Reads

A fatal crash involving Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system has triggered a federal safety investigation just as the company gears up to launch robotaxis, raising fresh questions about Elon Musk’s anti-LIDAR approach and whether it’s ready for real-world conditions like sun glare. Bloomberg has more here.

A head-to-head comprehension challenge of the top AIs found that while they can bluff their way through legalese and literary criticism, only Claude avoided hallucinating, and even the best AIs barely managed a passing grade. The Washington Post has more here.

Thrive Capital and the investment firm Capital Group have in recent months sent teams to China to scope out the country's AI scene in the wake of DeepSeek’s sudden rise. Bloomberg has more here.

Detours

Clever cockatoos.

The bowling shot of the century.

Retail Therapy

A Thai villa featured in The White Lotus is now available as a rental and has everything you want (seven king suites, ocean views, pools, courts, and private hot tubs), minus the murder.

If you're looking for Nintendo's new Switch 2, be prepared to pay up: scalpers are already selling them at several hundred dollars over their $450 retail price.

Corrections

Yesterday, we incorrectly reported that Infleqtion, an eighteen-year-old Boulder company that develops quantum computing systems for use in national defense, secure communications, and advanced sensing, raised a $35 million Series C round. The correct amount is $100 million. Apologies for the mix-up.