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Quick Hits

Age gauge: Instagram AI spots minors.

AI oasis: Saudis unveil $100B fund.

Apple appeal: Co. woos Indonesia.

Bot support: Xbox gets chatbot.

Continental boost: $250M for African tech.

Crypto lift: Election spikes Bitcoin.

Drone zone: AMZ delivers Phoenix.

Electric evolution: Mining goes EV.

Game fame: Steam unleashes recording.

Glass act: Apple eyes smart specs.

Higher value: Perplexity hits $9B.

Joining forces: Lyft eyes robotaxis.

Military mindset: Meta enables AI for defense.

Movie magic: Disney leans into AI/AR.

New domains: OpenAI buys chat.com.

No spoilers: AI generates Prime recaps.

Price hike: Claude gets more expensive.

‘Relentless onslaught’: Mozilla cuts 30%.

Space stick: Japan launches wooden satellite.

Trending Startups

Amazon defends RTO

Amazon's CEO defended the company's return-to-office mandate amid employee dissatisfaction and concerns about job security.

AI optimizes flying

Alaska-based Odysee uses predictive AI to optimize flight schedules for Alaska Airlines. “It’s just much better than a human being can do on their own,” an exec says.

Perplexity offers bots to NYT

Perplexity's CEO offered to supplement New York Times coverage with AI bots during a labor strike.

Cheap spills: Robotic arm costs $120

UC Berkeley and a German university collaborated to build a $120 robot arm that uses generative AI to clean up spills.

OpenAI builds a robot

San Francisco’s Physical Intelligence raised $400M from Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, and others to bring general-purpose AI into the physical world for companies like DeepMind and X.

Teaching robots LLM

MIT introduced a new LLM training approach for robots.

Recently Funded

Asia

• India-based Edtech Innovartan Learning Solutions Raises $600k

• Australia's Earthodic Raises $6M for Bio-Packaging

• India's Hala Mobility Raises $6.1M for EV-as-a-Service

• India's CynLr Raises $10M for Manufacturing Automation

Europe

• UK's Radical Forge Secures $3.2M for Game Development

• London’s Research Grid Raises $6.5M to Automate Clinical Trials

• London's Miros Raises $6.5M for Visual Search

• Germany's Dash0 Secures $9.5M for Data Observability

U.S.

• Las Vegas-based MagicDoor Raises $2M for Property Management

• San Francisco-based Advex Secures $3.5M for AI Vision in Manufacturing

• Los Angeles-based Troveo Secures $4.5M for AI Monetization

• San Francisco’s Endeavor Secures $7M for AI Manufacturing Solutions

Europe

• Belgium's Wobby Secures $1.2M for Information Platform

• France-based Fungiball Secures $2.4M for Fantasy Sports

• London's Auquan Raises $4.5M Seed for AI Financial Services

• Portugal's Infraspeak Secures $19.5M to Enhance Facilities Management

Weekly Pulse

Startup We Love: Sagetop

Why we love it: Meet next-gen startups sans spam.

This Bay Area startup is reinventing software discovery so that startup teams can shop tech on their terms—and without all the spam. They’re backed by VCs with a history of success and growing their small team.

Post of the Week

Podcast of the Week

Rebecca Carr: Navigating Challenges in Modern Hiring (The POZCAST: Decoding Success with Adam Posner)

Transforming HR into a Strategic Powerhouse with Andrew Bartlow (HR Superstars)

How to Grow from Idea to IPO with Eliot Horowitz of MongoDB & Viam (For Starters with Alexa von Tobel)

Startups Hiring Now

Veo: Next generation of mobility | 22 open roles

Genius Sports: Innovative sports data technology | 67 open roles

Calm: Making the world happier and healthier through the superpower of Calm | 7 open roles

Help us spread the word: we'll pay you $200 for every friend you get hired through Wellfound!