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Cohere hits $7B valuation a month after its last raise, partners with AMD; plus, Waymo is getting into the corporate travel business Sep 24, 2025

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On Wednesday, Enterprise AI model-maker Cohere said it raised an additional $100 million in an extension to a round announced in August, bumping its valuation to $7 billion. The company said at the time that the August round was an oversubscribed $500 million round at a $6.8 billion valuation.

Also, Waymo’s ever-expanding robotaxi aspirations have spread to the corporate world.

The Alphabet-owned self-driving vehicle unit has launched “Waymo for Business,” a new service designed for companies to set up accounts so their employees can access robotaxis in cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco.

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Telo raises $20 million to build tiny electric trucks for cities; also, Sila opens U.S. factory to make silicon anodes for energy dense EV batteries Sep 24, 2025

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The US loves trucks. So is the key to making them love electric trucks… a very small one? That’s the bet that California-based startup Telo has been making since its inception in 2022. The company has designed a bite-sized truck called the MT1 with an admittedly not-so-small starting price of around $41,000.

Also, Sila, the battery materials startup, started operations Tuesday at its facility in Moses Lake, Washington, a milestone that could pave the way for longer range, faster charging EVs. The factory, which will initially be capable of making enough battery materials for 20,000 to 50,000 EVs, is the first large-scale silicon anode factory in the West, and future expansion could fulfill demand for as many as 2.5 million vehicles.

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Tim Chen has quietly become of one the most sought-after solo investors; and AI company Superpanel raises $5.3M seed to automate legal intake Sep 23, 2025

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Tim Chen, solo VC at his firm Essence VC, said he just closed his fourth fund, a fresh $41 million, without even trying. Limited partner investors were so eager to invest, they preempted it, he told TechCrunch. He didn’t even have time to generate a pitch deck.

Also, For Julien Emery, the problem has always been personal.

He’s the CEO and co-founder of Superpanel, a platform that helps law firms seamlessly onboard new clients.

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Bluesky says it’s getting more aggressive about moderation and enforcement, also, Oura ring maker raising $875M Series E Sep 22, 2025

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In a new blog post, the company said it received comments from more than 14,000 community members and that it “especially heard from community members who shared concerns about how the guidelines could impact creative expression and traditionally marginalized voices.” The company said, “after considering this feedback, and in a return to our experimental roots, we are going to bring a greater focus to encouraging constructive dialogue and enforcing our rules against harassment and toxic content. For starters, we are going to increase our enforcement efforts.”

Also, Oura Health Oy, the maker of the Oura health and fitness ring, is raising $875 million in a new Series E financing round valuing it around $10.9 billion, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

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Nvidia eyes $500M investment into self-driving tech startup Wayve, also, UK fintech Tide becomes a TPG-backed unicorn Sep 22, 2025

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang descended on the United Kingdom this week, armed with a pledge to invest $2.6 billion to supercharge the country’s AI startup ecosystem. Wayve, the U.K.-based self-driving tech startup, could be one of those to receive funds from Nvidia’s AI investment commitment.

Also, U.K.-based fintech Tide has entered the unicorn club with a fresh funding of $120 million led by TPG, as the startup now serves over 1.6 million micro and small enterprises globally — with more than half of them based in India, the company’s largest and fastest-growing market.

The new round — a mix of primary and secondary investment, though the startup declined to confirm the exact split — values the eight-year-old startup at $1.5 billion.

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Indian fintech Jar turns profitable by enabling millions to save in gold Sep 19, 2025

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Jar, an Indian fintech startup that allows users to invest in gold, has turned profitable by helping millions of first-time savers use its app to build digital gold holdings.

While many consumer fintechs focus on affluent urban users or credit products, Jar has gained traction by offering a culturally familiar asset — gold — as a low-barrier entry point to saving.

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How AI startups are fueling Google’s booming cloud business, also, Numeral raises $35M to automate sales tax with AI Sep 19, 2025

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On Thursday, Google Cloud announced it added fast-rising AI coding startups Lovable and Windsurf to its roster of customers. Both companies have chosen Google Cloud as their primary cloud computing provider, the latest sign of Google’s rising prominence against larger rivals AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Also, Sam Ross, the co-founder and CEO of Numeral, came up with the idea for his sales tax compliance startup while traveling the world after having worked as a product manager at Airbnb.

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Airbuds is the music social network Apple and Spotify wish they had built Sep 18, 2025

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Airbuds, a music social app aimed at Gen Z, raises $5M as the app reaches 5 million monthly users.

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Google Ventures doubles down on dev tool startup Blacksmith just 4 months after its seed round; also, Icarus raises $6.1M to take on space’s “warehouse work” with embodied-AI robots Sep 17, 2025

Show notes

As speed becomes the defining currency in an AI-driven software world, Blacksmith has raised another round led by Google Ventures — just four months after its initial seed round — to accelerate how code gets shipped.

Icarus Robotics cofounders Ethan Barajas and Jamie Palmer spent hours interviewing astronauts about what it was like working in space as they homed in on their startup idea. Their big takeaway: the work was often more cargo logistics than cutting-edge science.

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Same-day delivery comes to space, as Impulse promises satellite transport in hours, not months, and more Sep 17, 2025

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Amazon made same-day delivery the benchmark on Earth. Impulse Space is pitching a similar concept for satellites bound for geostationary orbit about 22,000 miles above Earth, compressing what is typically a months-long transit into a matter of hours.

Also, CodeRabbit is helping companies like Chegg, Groupon, and Mercury, along with over 8,000 other businesses, save time on the famously frustrating task of code review, which has become even more time-consuming with the rise of AI-generated code.

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