Top News
The U.S. markets tumbled once again today owing to President Trump's tariff war and his threats to unseat Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Barron's has more here.
The U.S. Justice Department argued today in the remedies phase of US v. Google that a federal judge should break up Google in order to eliminate its monopoly of the internet search market. Specifically, the Justice Department wants Google to sell its Chrome browser, among other measures. NPR has more here.
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From Harmonic:
Meet Scout — the AI agent made for VCs. Your alpha now speaks English.
Columbia Student Suspended Over Interview Cheating Tool Raises $5.3M to "Cheat On Everything"
By Charles Rollet
On Sunday, 21-year-old Chungin “Roy” Lee announced he’s raised $5.3 million in seed funding from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures for his startup, Cluely, that offers an AI tool to “cheat on everything.”
The startup was born after Lee posted in a viral X thread that he was suspended by Columbia University after he and his co-founder developed a tool to cheat on job interviews for software engineers.
That tool, originally called Interview Coder, is now part of their San Francisco-based startup Cluely. It offers its users the chance to “cheat” on things like exams, sales calls, and job interviews thanks to a hidden in-browser window that can’t be viewed by the interviewer or test giver.
Cluely has published a manifesto comparing itself to inventions like the calculator and spellcheck, which were originally derided as “cheating.”
Cluely also published a slickly produced, but polarizing, launch video of Lee using a hidden AI assistant to (unsuccessfully) lie to a woman about his age, and even his knowledge of art, on a date at a fancy restaurant:
Massive Fundings
Ola Krutrim, a one-year-old Bengaluru startup founded by by Ola and Ola Electric founder Bhavish Aggarwal that is developing foundational AI models for Indic languages as well as designing an indigenous GPU chip to support India-based data centers and computing needs, is reportedly in the market to raise a round of up to $300 million, down from its previous $500 million goal. Mint has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Brandlight, a Tel Aviv startup founded this year that uses artificial intelligence to help brands optimize their visibility in a world in which consumers are increasingly using AI platforms to search for goods, raised a $5.75 million seed round co-led by Cardumen Capital and G20 Ventures. CTech has more here.
NiaHealth, a startup based in Edmonton, Canada, that offers subscription plans for at-home biomarker testing combined with AI-driven insights and one-on-one clinical consultations to help individuals detect and prevent chronic diseases, raised a $1.8 million pre-seed round led by Version One Ventures, with additional participation from Garage Capital and Union Capital. BetaKit has more here.
PhotoPharmics, a fourteen-year-old Salt Lake City company that is developing light-based therapies for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease, raised a $6 million Series B extension round. Kickstart Fund led the transaction. More here.
ROH, a two-year-old New York startup that helps hotels automate and streamline their payment workflows for contracts, invoices, and bookings, raised a $9.2 million round co-led by Highgate Technology Ventures and Acrew Capital. More here.
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Seurat wants to rewrite the rules of metal manufacturing. Seurat is taking aim at the $3T metal parts market with its proprietary Area Printing® tech—designed to deliver the scale, cost, and speed traditional 3D printing never could. Born from American innovation, the startup says it’s finally bringing additive manufacturing into competition with casting and forging. Investors looking for a bet on the future of U.S.-led advanced manufacturing will want to read more here.
New Funds
TBD VC, a venture firm based in Tel Aviv and New York, has raised a second $35 million fund to invest in seed and pre-seed deep tech deals in areas such as enterprise AI and cybersecurity. VentureBeat has more here.
Exits
Has tariff turmoil killed the tech M&A market's comeback? TechCrunch has more here.
Going Public
Flipkart, a 17-year-old Indian e-commerce company that sells products like electronics, fashion, and groceries through its online platform, is moving its headquarters from Singapore to India as it prepares to go public on Indian stock exchanges. TechCrunch has more here.
People
An EV startup backed by Jeff Bezos is using guerilla marketing techniques to tease out the idea that its truck can change its appearance like a vehicle straight out of the Transformer movies. TechCrunch has more here.
Erik Torenberg, a podcaster who interviews VCs about their approach to investing, has joined Andreessen Horowitz as a general partner, and the firm has also acquired his podcast. TechCrunch has more here.
Essential Reads
The U.S. government is increasingly challenging the immigration status of international students, leading a machine learning professor at Caltech to say that the administration's policies are "harming the talent pipeline." TechCrunch has more here.
Polite user requests and responses on ChatGPT may be costing OpenAI tens of millions of dollars. TechCrunch has more here.
Circle and Coinbase Global are just two of the crypto companies that are thinking about taking advantage of the Trump administration's pro-crypto stance by applying for bank charters or licenses. The Wall Street Journal has more here.
Detours
This weekend, humanoid robots raced against real humans in a half-marathon in Beijing. The humans won ... for now.
Retail Therapy
A chess set engineered by Rolls Royce.