Tech markets are hot

Top hits

• The US sues Apple, accusing it of having an illegal monopoly over the smartphone market.

• Reddit IPOs at $34 per share, valuing the social media company at $6.5B. This comes after almost 2 decades since its founding in 2005.

• Microsoft pays Inflection AI $650M in licensing deal while poaching its top talents, including its co-founders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan. Suleyman will lead its newly created consumer AI unit called Microsoft AI.

• Popular anonymous jobs review site Glassdoor revealed real names of users on their profiles without their consent.

• Donald Trump’s social media company Truth Social has been approved to go public through a SPAC.

Other news

• New AI startup Calmara suggests it can detect STIs if you snap a photo of your genitals.

• Instagram Threads is adding live scores for sports games, starting with the NBA.

• Solana is experiencing a surge in meme coin trading, which has led to increased activity but also exposes issues with the network’s transaction processing capabilities.

• Nvidia announces big things for the next generation of AI at its highly-anticipated GTC conference.

• Temu and Shein are gaining fast on Amazon.

• Astera Labs IPOs at $36 per share with a valuation of $5.5B. Its shares pop 72% on its first day.

• Fortnite maker Epic Games plans to launch online stores for both iOS and Android. This comes at a time when Apple rescinded its decision to block Epic Games from having a developer account on its platform amid pressure from EU regulators.

• GPT-5 might arrive this summer as a “materially better” update to ChatGPT.

• Elon Musk’s Neuralink releases a video of the first human Neuralink patient controlling a computer with his thoughts.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, the education technology company and publisher of books including the Merriam-Webster dictionary is seeking a $1B valuation in its IPO.

• Apple and Google are in talks to bring Google’s Gemini (Generative AI model) into its future iPhones.

Deal flow

• Amazon delivery rival Pandion raises $41.5M in a Series B round to expand its e-commerce logistics operations. It helps retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue compete with Amazon’s speedy delivery.

• Foundry raises an $80M Seed and Series A round to build a new breed of public cloud for AI/ML workloads.

• Coast raises $92M and partners with Visa to expand its financial tools and software for modern business fleets. It aims to be the Brex and Ramp for ‘real-world’ industries.

• AI startup Cohere is in advanced talks to raise $500M at a $5B valuation. It’s a competitor to OpenAI, Inflection, and Anthropic.

• Loyal raises a $45M Series B round to continue the development of its first FDA-approved dog lifespan extension drug for veterinary use.

• The Browser Company raises $50M at a $550M valuation to build the next internet browser. This brings its total fundraising to $128M.

• Tech-focused PE firm Francisco Partners will acquire Jama Software for $1.2B. Jama Software is an industry-leading requirements management and traceability solution provider.

• Monaire raises a $3.5M seed round. It’s a Boston, MA-based startup that uses AI to curb waste and emissions from small commercial buildings.

• Personal finance app Copilot raises a $6M Series A round. This comes as Intuit winds down its own budgeting app Mint.

• Mallard Bay raises a $4.6M Series A round to bring its SaaS-enabled marketplace for hunting and fishing to the masses.

• Amber, a startup helping EV owners navigate the warranty process, raises a $3.2M seed round.

• Ultrahuman, the smart ring maker, raises a $35M Series B round to accelerate growth and research in the health monitoring space, competing with Oura.

• Blue Laser Fusion, an inertial fusion company, raises a $37.5M seed round.

• ‘Fast fine’ food delivery startup Wonder raises a whopping $700M round led by GV, Accel, and BCV. This brings the startup’s (founded by Marc Lore) total funding to $1.5B.

• Coterie secures $27M for its insurance tech MGA that simplifies small business insurance.

• Hippocratic AI raises $53M at a $500M valuation to build a safety-focused LLM for healthcare.

• Boeing is exploring the sale of at least two of its defense businesses.

• FlexPoint raises $35M in debt & equity to grow its payments automation business.

Interesting gems

• The Browser Company is releasing a 5 episode series documenting the journey of its next phase of growth.

• Don Lemon interviews Elon Musk on his podcast with topics ranging from the political consequences of immigration to the benefits and harms of content moderation. It was supposed to be released on X until Musk canceled the show shortly after it was recorded.

• Design site aggregator Muzli releases web design trends for 2024. This includes trends like 3D interaction, AI-driven personalization, and big typography.

• Microsoft Design releases a blog post about the science and hidden power of good typography.

• This cute Lego feng shui fortune cat can wave its hands to give you good luck.

That’s it for this week. Let me know what you think!

🌜 Loryn from Dark Mode Digest