June 6th Newsletter

Author

Da Yu
June 06, 2025

As of close on June 5, 2025

U.S. Job Openings rose to 7.39 million in April, with hiring at a yearly high, but layoffs also increased, signaling a robust yet cautious labor market amid new tariff uncertainties. US trade deficit narrowed 55.5% in April to $61.6B, the biggest drop on record, driven by a 16.3% plunge in imports and modest export growth, signaling potential Q2 GDP boost. Circle IPO on Thursday soared to 168% above its IPO price of $31 and ended the day at $83.23 per share. Tesla’s shares fell 14% today, erasing 152 billion after threats of pulling government contracts for Elon Musk’s companies. On the tech side, Meta plans to fully automate ad creation by 2026 using AI, enabling brands to generate, personalize, and target ads from scratch. Furthermore, Meta’s 20-year nuclear power deal with Constellation Energy supports its growing AI energy needs, mirroring Microsoft’s agreement with the same provider to revive the Three Mile Island, as both tech giants secure clean power for data-heavy operations. Lastly, Hims & Hers acquires ZAVA, accelerating its global expansion and unlocking personalized digital healthcare for millions across the UK, Germany, France, and Ireland, reinforcing its global telehealth leadership.

Top 5 AI Highlights

[1] 🏬CoreWeave inked two 15-year leases with Applied Digital, supplying 250MW for AI/HPC use at Ellendale, North Dakota, projecting $7B in total revenue over the contract period. The first 100MW data center is expected to be ready by Q4 2025, with the second 150MW facility coming online by mid-2026. Expansion options could boost capacity to 400MW by 2027, while Applied Digital's stock surged 42-48% on the announcement. The deal comes as CoreWeave seeks to raise debt financing to fund its aggressive expansion, and separately, the Ellendale site has been sitting idle for over a year, as reported by The Information. Read more about the deal at GNW and Business Insider.

[2] 📈 Amazon is in advanced talks to adopt AI coding assistant Cursor company-wide, marking a strategic shift amid surging employee demand, despite having in-house tools like Q and Cedric. The move reflects growing pressure from developers who prefer Cursor's capabilities over Amazon's internal offerings. Security vetting is currently underway as Amazon evaluates potential enterprise deployment across its massive workforce, signaling how external AI tools are challenging Big Tech's internal development strategies and forcing tech giants to acknowledge superior third-party solutions. More from Business Insider.

[3] ⛵ Windsurf, recently acquired by OpenAI, faces reduced access to Claude AI models from Anthropic, creating short-term disruptions for users relying on the coding assistant. The limitation comes as Anthropic tightens API access policies, potentially forcing Windsurf to pivot to alternative models during the transition. The move highlights rising competition and supply chain tensions in the booming AI coding tools market, where model access can make or break startup prospects and acquisition strategies. See more details at TechCrunch and an X post from Winfsurf’s CEO below.

Source: X

[4] 🧾 Elon Musk's xAI plans a $300M tender offer valuing the firm at $113B, enabling employee share sales as the AI startup continues its rapid ascent. The secondary transaction allows early employees and investors to cash out portions of their holdings while xAI prepares for a larger funding round. The move comes amid delays in xAI's expansion plans and Musk's shifting business focus across his various ventures. More from TechCrunch.

[5] ⚖️ Reddit filed a lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic, accusing the Claude chatbot developer of unlawfully training its models on Reddit users' personal data without a license. Reddit claims Anthropic accessed its servers over 100,000 times after promising to stop scraping and ignored robots.txt files that signal automated systems not to crawl. The suit marks Big Tech's first direct AI training lawsuit, as Reddit cites ignored warnings, privacy breaches, and loss of user value while competitors like OpenAI and Google pay licensing fees, establishing a critical precedent for data rights in the AI era. Read more at Reuters.

Founder’s Corner

VC Investment Trends over the past 13 months

Source: X

What We Read This Week

  • Canadian AI startup Cohere seeks over $500M in funding, targeting a $5.5–$6.5B valuation to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic, focusing on enterprise AI solutions and open-source multilingual models. (FT)

  • Google’s Veo 3 AI tool can generate highly realistic deepfake videos depicting riots, election fraud, and conflict, raising alarm over its misuse potential and the broader erosion of online trust. (Time)

  • Tesla reapplies for “Tesla Robotaxi” trademarks after earlier rejections of “Robotaxi” and “Cybercab,” aiming to cover its autonomous ride-hailing service, app, and vehicles ahead of Austin testing. (TechCrunch) 

  • Ford's May U.S. sales rose 16.3% year-over-year, led by hybrids (+29%) and combustion vehicles (+17.2%), despite a 25% EV drop. (CNBC)

  • GM CEO Mary Barra reaffirms all-EV commitment despite policy shifts and delays, citing consumer readiness, infrastructure gaps, and subsidized Chinese competition as key hurdles. (WSJ)

  • Deel’s amended countersuit claims a Rippling employee impersonated a client for six months to steal product data, escalating the fierce corporate espionage battle between the rival HR tech firms. (TechCrunch)

  • GlobalFoundries will invest $16B to expand US chip production, targeting unmet demand and AI-driven growth, with $13B for NY and VT plants and $3B for R&D into advanced packaging. (Bloomberg)

AI M&A and Fundraising news (May 31 — June 5)

  • Abridge AI: AI for medical conversation transcription, raised $300M

  • Aeon: AI-powered preventive health checkups startup, raised a $9.4M Seed

  • AIATELLA: AI for cardiovascular imaging analysis, raised a $2.3M Seed

  • Amperos Health: AI billing automation for healthcare, raised a $4.80M Seed

  • Anysphere: AI-powered developer tool platform, raised $900M

  • ArcheHealth: AI for hospital cost-of-care analysis, raised Seed

  • Archil: Local file systems for AI workloads, raised a $6.70M Seed

  • Augmentus: No-code industrial robotics platform, raised a $8.00M Series B

  • Boden AI: AI-powered data annotation platform, raised a $13.84M Series A

  • Ciroos.AI: AI site reliability engineering automation, raised $21M

  • Cohere: Enterprise AI infrastructure provider, seeks to raise over $500M

  • Console (San Francisco): AI to free IT teams from mundane tasks, raised a $6.20M Seed

  • Deep Sentinel: AI home security with live guards, raised a $15.00M Series B

  • Deepdots: AI for customer feedback analysis, raised a $6.20M Seed

  • Fisent Technologies: GenAI process automation tools, raised a $2.00M Seed

  • Freeplay: Platform to build and monitor AI tools, raised a $5.6M Seed

  • GC AI: Legal AI contract automation startup, raised a $10M Series A

  • GridFree AI: AI for optimizing data center energy use, raised a $3.5M Seed

  • Hampton Innovations: AI-powered energy-efficient hardware, raised a $1.50M Seed

  • Homi AI: Personalized learning with AI, raised a $7.00M Seed

  • Ivy Interactive: Conversational AI for CX, raised a $1.03M Seed

  • Jua: Weather and climate AI modeling, raised a $11.00M Series A

  • LawZero: AI nonprofit for safer AI development, raised $30M

  • Literal Labs: AI-powered NLP tooling, raised a $6.15M Seed

  • Manex AI: ERP and automation with AI, raised a $9.02M Seed

  • MDSIM: Medical AI simulation software, raised a $2.59M Seed

  • Medsi AI: AI diagnostics and monitoring, raised a $3.00M Series 1

  • MIND: Mental health AI platform, raised a $30.00M Series A

  • Mind Security: AI for data loss prevention automation, raised a $30M Series A

  • Moments Lab: AI for analyzing broadcast and social content, raised $24M

  • Monarch Learning Labs: AI for personalized edtech, raised a Seed

  • NavLive: AI scanner for real-time building surveys, raised a $4.4M Seed

  • Netic: AI-driven network optimization, raised a $20.00M Series A

  • Obvio: AI-powered clinical trial tools, raised a $22.00M Series A

  • Outcomes4Me: AI to help cancer patients manage treatment, raised $21M

  • Prepared: AI tools for 911 emergency call centers, raised a $80M Series C

  • Replace: AI to locate optimal renewable sites, raised a $1.6M Seed

  • Reserv: AI energy optimization platform, raised a $25.00M Series B

  • Rime: Voice-based AI for customer service, raised a $5.5M Seed

  • Sema4.ai: Enterprise AI agents inside Snowflake, raised a $25M Series A

  • Snorkel AI: AI model infrastructure platform, raised a $100M Series D

  • ThreatSpike: AI cybersecurity threat platform, raised a $14.00M Series A

  • Thunder Code: AI software acceleration tools, raised a $9.00M Seed

  • Treefera: AI forestry and climate tools, raised a $30.00M Series B

  • Veris.AI: AI agents for enterprise tasks, raised a $8.50M Seed

  • Wordsmith AI: Legal AI agents for workflow automation, raised a $25M Series A

  • Yoshua Bengio / LawZero: Nonprofit for safer AI, raised $30M