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The Last Round Before the Next Last Round
OpenAI is in early talks to raise at least 30 billion dollars at a pre-money valuation of around 1.4 trillion dollars, according to Bloomberg. The discussions were reported on 29 September and the terms could change. The round is described as a bridge, providing capital in place of an initial public offering. Sam Altman had said earlier in September that the company would not go public in 2026, citing concerns related to AI safety. Six months...
The Industry Nobody Wanted to Work In
EliseAI announced on 29 September that it had raised 350 million dollars at a 4 billion dollar valuation, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners, with Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan joining alongside Sapphire Ventures and Navitas Capital. It is the fourth time a16z and Bessemer have backed the company since 2023, and roughly thirteen months since a 250 million dollar Series E valued it at 2.2 billion. The underlying numbers...
Nine People and a Very Short Customer List
Halluminate, a San Francisco startup with nine employees, raised 30 million dollars in a Series A led by Oak HC/FT, taking total funding to 38.5 million. The company was founded in 2024 by Jerry Wu and Wyatt Marshall, who met studying computer science at Cornell, and went through Y Combinator's Summer 2025 batch. What it builds is training environments: realistic simulated workspaces in which AI models can practise complex financial work before...
Fifty Doors and Nowhere to Put the Weight
Chip City began in Astoria, Queens in July 2017, out of a competition between two childhood friends, Peter Phillips and Teddy Gailas, over who could make the better cookie. It sold thick, fresh-baked cookies on a rotating menu, built a genuinely loyal following, and attracted serious money. Danny Meyer's Enlightened Hospitality Investments put in 10 million dollars in 2022 and a further 7.5 million in a Series B in May 2024, taking the total to...
The Science Worked, the Window Did Not Open
Adecto has shut down. Chief executive Nora Mineva said the biotech had fought hard to keep going, and the company named a risk-averse funding environment as the reason it could not. Adecto was built on a specific piece of research: the finding that the transmembrane protein ADAM8 drives both primary tumour growth and its spread, and the design of an antibody approach to inactivate the two extracellular domains responsible. Mineva co-founded the...