July 18th Newsletter

Global markets are on edge as Trump announces 30% tariffs on the EU and Mexico starting August 1, threatening over $1T in trade and straining global supply chains as talks stall and retaliation looms. Jobless claims hit a 3-month low at 221,000, signaling labor market stability despite slow rehiring and delaying Fed rate-cut prospects. U.S. inflation rose to 2.7% in June as tariffs took effect, with core inflation at 2.9%.  Google is offering steep cloud discounts to the US government under pressure from the administration, following Oracle’s 75% deal and prompting Amazon and Microsoft to weigh responses that could impact over $20B in federal contracts. Bitcoin surged past $120,000 as Crypto Week begins, fueled by $2.7B in ETF inflows, institutional demand, and rising legislative support. US e-commerce jumped 30.3% to $24.1B during Amazon’s extended Prime Day, driven by generative AI traffic growth, stronger influencer marketing, and demand for appliances and electronics. Crypto excitement continues as Pump fun raised $600M in 12 minutes, part of a 1.32B token launch on Solana with trading set to begin within 72 hours. 

Top 5 AI Highlights

[1] 🤖 Google will pay $2.4 billion to license Windsurf’s AI-coding technology and hire its chief executive and key staff after Windsurf’s talks with OpenAI collapsed, underscoring how prized top AI talent has become. Shortly after, Cognition stepped in to acquire the rest of Windsurf, safeguarding employee equity and demonstrating the fast-moving, opportunistic nature of AI deal-making. Adding to the momentum, Goldman Sachs announced plans to deploy hundreds of Cognition’s Devin AI engineers to automate routine coding, an initiative expected to boost productivity up to 4x. More from Reuters, X and CNBC.

[2] 🕵️ OpenAI on Thursday announced ChatGPT Agent, a consolidated assistant that combines Operator’s web-browsing capability with Deep Research’s analytical functions. The tool runs in a self-contained virtual environment featuring a browser, terminal and API access. OpenAI says the system matches or exceeds human performance on complex professional tasks about half the time. Pro subscribers receive 400 messages per month, while Plus and Team plans start with 40, with higher-usage tiers available. A couple of weeks ago, OpenAI spotlighted GenSpark’s Super Agent, which hit $36M ARR in just 45 days with a 20-person team. Read more on OpenAI and OpenAI.

[3] 🚀 SpaceX will invest $2 billion in Elon Musk’s xAI as part of a $5 billion funding round, further intertwining the billionaire’s companies and valuing the company at $113 billion, a direct challenge to OpenAI after Grok’s recent controversy. Tesla shareholders are set to vote on additional financing for xAI, even as some question Musk’s already stretched bandwidth. The initiative advances his ambition of seamless control across AI, infrastructure and hardware, including plans to embed Grok as a native, voice‑driven assistant in Tesla vehicles. More from Fox News, CNN, and Tesla.

[4] 🔥Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled “Prometheus,” a multi‑gigawatt AI supercluster debuting in 2026, the first Manhattan‑scale campus in a hundreds‑of‑billions AGI build‑out, lifting shares 1.1%. Inside the new Superintelligence Lab, Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang has discussed abandoning the open‑source Behemoth for a proprietary model, a sharp pivot addressing performance gaps and intensifying rivalry. Meanwhile, Scale AI, 49% owned by Meta, is laying off 200 staff (14%) and 500 contractors; interim CEO Jason Droege revealed plans to redirect resources toward higher‑margin code, language, audio, and government AI key projects worldwide. More from BBG, NY Times, and BBG.

[5] 🤝Amazon’s $8 billion Investment in Anthropic is giving AWS a lift: Morgan Stanley projects an extra $1.28 billion in cloud revenue this year, climbing to $5.6 billion by 2027. Anthropic is also said to be raising new capital at a valuation above $100 billion, roughly 25 times its revenue. Revenue from the Claude Code product has soared 5.5x as Anthropic introduced its analytics dashboard. More from Business Insider, BBG, and VentureBeat

Founder’s Corner

Funds raised by GenAI in H1 2025 have already surpassed Full Year 2024

What We Read This Week

• Meta and its top executives, including Zuckerberg, settled an $8B shareholder lawsuit over repeated Facebook privacy violations. Trial halted early; settlement details undisclosed. The FTC had fined Facebook $5B in 2019. (Reuters)

• Google plans to merge Android and ChromeOS into a single platform, aiming to boost tablet and laptop competitiveness against iPadOS. This long-rumored move now has near-official confirmation. (TheVerge)

• Uber partners with Lucid and Nuro in a $300M deal to deploy 20,000 robotaxis by 2031. Lucid provides EVs, while Nuro supplies autonomous technology; the launch is set to begin in a major U.S. city next year. (CNBC)

• Kraft Heinz may spin off its grocery unit, potentially worth $20B, to boost shareholder value amid weak demand and inflation. Shares rose 2.5% following the announcement of the strategic shift. (YF)

AI M&A and Fundraising news (July 11 — July 17)

• Aepha: AI tools automating pharmacy administrative tasks, raised a $4M Seed

• Bedrock Research: AI-powered remote-sensing and geospatial intelligence platform, raised a $1.75M Seed

• Bidbus: AI car-selling platform collecting dealership offers, raised a $3.3M Seed

• Callidus Legal AI: AI tool for analyzing legal documents and drafting motions, raised $10M

• Cogent Security: AI software automating software vulnerability detection, raised a $11M Seed

• Covenant: AI-powered platform for trust and estate management, raised a $4M Seed

• Coverflow: AI-driven platform automating insurance broker workflows, raised a $4.8M Seed

• Datavations: AI retail analytics for home improvement manufacturers, raised a $17M Series A

• Decile Group: AI tools helping VC fund managers operate and raise capital, raised a $14M Seed

• Duranta: AI platform for landscapers to measure, design, and manage properties, raised a $7M Seed

• Heka Global: AI detecting digital fraud for financial institutions, raised a $14M Series A

• Helios: AI policy and compliance software for monitoring and drafting legislation, raised $4M

• IntuigenceAI: AI-powered digital workers for industrial engineering tasks, raised a $10M Seed

• Litewave AI: Privacy-first AI analytics platform for regulated industries, raised a $1.05M Seed

• Monumental Labs: AI robotics startup carving stone for architecture, raised $8M

• Moonvalley: AI video tool for cinematic filmmaking using licensed data, raised $84M

• MOTOR Ai: AI software for autonomous vehicles with interpretable decisions, raised a $20M Seed

• Murphy: AI voice agents and messaging for debt collection, raised $15M

• OpenEvidence: AI-powered medical search engine for doctors, raised a $210M Series B

• Parspec: AI tool automating construction supply chain procurement, raised a $20M Series A

• ProductNow: AI-native OS automating product team workflows, raised a $6M Seed

• RealSense: AI computer vision for robotics and biometrics, raised a $50M Series A

• SuperAnnotate: AI platform for annotating and managing ML training datasets, raised a $13.5M Series B

• Tala Health: AI-driven virtual healthcare platform for on-demand diagnosis, raised a $100M Series A

• Tandem Health: AI medical note-taking device and software for doctors, raised a $50M Series A

• Tavrn: AI automating legal workflows for injury law firms, raised a $15M Series A

• Trusty Estate: AI-powered estate-planning and asset tracking platform, raised a $1M Seed

• Unify: AI sales automation platform for email and LinkedIn outreach, raised a $40M Series B

• Vellum: Enterprise dev tools for building and testing AI apps, raised a $20M Series A

• Vultron: AI platform for automating government contracting processes, raised a $17M Series A

• XTEND: AI-powered autonomous robotics for defense and emergency use, raised a $30M Series B extension