News linked to both this project and an event.
According to Business Insider, Waymo founder Sebastian Thrun announced the founding of new robotics startup Dulo at the San Francisco robotics conference Actuate; the company is currently still in stealth mode. According to a webpage hosted by Stanford University, Dulo is dedicated to building a "foundation model for hardware design," with the goal of achieving "hyper-fast manufacturing." The team includes core talent from Waymo, Google Brain, and the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). Thrun did not disclose funding details, product details, or launch timeline. Notably, in the first quarter of 2026, financing in the physical AI sector reached a record $16.3 billion.
According to Bloomberg, former Alibaba flagship model chief architect Lin Junyang recently announced on the X platform the founding of a new company, focusing on developing AI agents for the digital and physical worlds. This comes less than half a year after his unexpected departure from Alibaba. The company has received investment support from Tencent Holdings and several top Chinese venture capital firms.
According to Yonhap News, Naver D2SF announced the completion of a follow-on investment in physical AI data startup NdotLight (엔닷라이트). This round of financing was led by the Korea Development Bank, with a total size of 15 billion Korean won. This is also Naver D2SF's third investment in the company following the Pre-A round in 2021 and the Series A round in 2022. NdotLight independently developed the 3D data generation solution TRINIX, which can automatically generate high-precision 3D data containing physical properties (mass, friction), joint structures, and collision range information, and is deeply integrated with NVIDIA's simulation platform Omniverse, achieving mass supply of large-scale high-quality 3D simulation datasets.
Odaily News: Presentation startup NextSlide announced its integration into OpenAI, with team members now involved in ChatGPT-related work. NextSlide founder Ahmed Beshry stated that the company's previously developed product can generate editable presentations from prompts, notes, documents, or research materials. Beshry noted that upon joining OpenAI, the team will continue developing AI products that help users create, communicate, and express their ideas.The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Beshry indicated that the acquisition actually took place earlier this year, with this announcement coming several months after the deal was completed. (TechCrunch)
According to Bloomberg, former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI fund Situational Awareness invested $400 million this week to back a private company, semiconductor manufacturing startup Source Foundry. It is reported that VC giant Sequoia Capital also supports the startup. As of now, representatives of Situational Awareness and Source Foundry have not responded to requests for comment, while Sequoia Capital declined to confirm the hedge fund's investment details. According to reports, Source Foundry is dedicated to developing a semiconductor manufacturing process that is simpler, lower-cost, and faster than existing methods, aiming to bridge the widening gap between artificial intelligence computing demand and chip manufacturing capacity expansion capabilities. Analysts believe that Leopold Aschenbrenner's large-scale investment reflects the market's continued strong demand for new chip manufacturing technologies, as artificial intelligence developers' demand for computing power continues to grow. However, this investment also reveals that Situational Awareness had already established highly concentrated risk exposure before its public technology holdings encountered severe volatility and the fund came under significant financial pressure.
According to The Information, OpenAI has acquired some patent assets from AI chip startup Rain AI, following negotiations between the two parties regarding the acquisition that ultimately failed to close. Rain AI is a startup focused on AI chip research and development, founded approximately 8 years ago, with investors including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The report states that due to the failure of the acquisition plan, Rain AI has nearly ceased operations recently, and most employees have left the company. This patent acquisition indicates that although some companies personally invested in by Altman may have business collaborations with OpenAI, this does not mean that all invested companies will receive direct support from OpenAI. Rain AI was previously dedicated to developing specialized chips for artificial intelligence computing, hoping to reduce AI model operating costs through customized hardware and enhance edge computing capabilities. As competition in AI infrastructure intensifies, chips, computing power, and energy have become core strategic resources for large AI companies. Industry insiders believe that OpenAI's acquisition of Rain AI's relevant patents may be aimed at absorbing its technical assets to strengthen its own positioning in the fields of AI hardware and computing infrastructure.
According to TechCrunch, New York AI detection startup Pangram announced the completion of a $9 million funding round, led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Haystack, ScOp, Script Capital, and Cadenza. Pangram simultaneously released the new generation AI text detection model Pangram 4 and AI image detection model Pangram Image, with text detection accuracy exceeding 99%, capable of identifying AI-assisted writing, mixed human-AI content, and text generated by AI humanization programs; the image detection model is currently in the research preview stage, based on pixel-level distribution analysis, capable of identifying cross-model AI-generated images, and can detect AI images appearing within real photos.
according to sources familiar with the matter, AI robotics startup Genesis AI is in talks with investors for a new funding round, planning to raise approximately $500 million, corresponding to a pre-money valuation of around $3 billion. Existing investor Premji Invest is in discussions to lead the round, while HSG (formerly Sequoia China) and Northzone Ventures are also discussing additional investments.In June this year, Genesis AI launched an AI industrial robot named Eno. The company stated that Eno is capable of reasoning "beyond predefined tasks" and adapting based on different outcomes. (Bloomberg)
: AI reasoning cloud startup General Compute has obtained a $400 million loan from Upper90. This deal is the world’s first financing project to use dedicated inference chips as collateral. The company has built a proprietary AI reasoning cloud platform based on SambaNova’s self-developed ASIC chips, primarily targeting Agent-type AI computing workloads. Compared to traditional GPU clouds, it offers faster token processing speeds and lower operational latency. The hardware requires no water cooling and can be directly deployed in traditional data centers and idle cryptocurrency mining facilities.
MoonPay announced the acquisition of Y Combinator-backed crypto deposit startup Glide via an all-stock transaction, with the specific deal size undisclosed. Founded in 2023, Glide primarily provides crypto asset deposit solutions across tokens, wallets, exchanges, and bank cards, supporting over 100 tokens and 30 blockchain networks, with an annualized trading volume exceeding $100 million.
According to Bloomberg, humanoid robot startup Walden Robotics, spun off from Toyota's robot research lab, announced the completion of approximately $300 million in seed funding, reaching a valuation of $1.1 billion, and officially emerging from stealth mode. This round was co-led by Deviation Capital and Toyota Motor Corporation, with Toyota's strategic investment and early venture capital arm also participating. Nvidia, Boeing, AE Ventures, Samsung Ventures, and CoreWeave Ventures participated as investors. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Walden Robotics was founded in January this year. It independently develops hardware, software, and AI models, focusing on building general-purpose humanoid robots capable of continuous learning and evolution in real-world environments, currently primarily deployed in the manufacturing and logistics sectors. The company has launched multiple commercialization projects, including a pilot program at a Toyota factory in North America, where robots work alongside human teams to complete 8-hour shifts daily, handling repetitive tasks such as parts loading and unloading, machine cleaning, and equipment preparation. Morgan Stanley predicts that the global humanoid robot market size is expected to surpass $5 trillion by 2050.
According to CoinPost, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivered a video address at the opening ceremony of WebX 2026, reaffirming the government's policy to promote the social implementation of Web3. Prime Minister Takaichi introduced the "Startup Comprehensive Support Package" launched in May 2025, a plan further strengthened based on the "Five-Year Plan for Startup Cultivation," aiming to expand funding supply from the government and financial institutions to startups and accelerate their scaled development. Prime Minister Takaichi stated that WebX, as Asia's largest-scale Web3 summit gathering approximately 15,000 people globally, is an important platform for all parties to equally discuss the future of society and industry and promote business cooperation. She expects synergies between government policies and the WebX platform to drive the continuous development of Japan's innovation ecosystem.
Citadel Securities has filed a lawsuit in London, seeking over £6 million (approximately $7.9 million) from Leonard Lancia, its former European Head of Derivatives Systematic Market Making and co-founder of high-frequency crypto trading firm Portofino Technologies.Citadel Securities alleges that Leonard Lancia and his colleagues began planning their startup while still employed, and has won damages and legal cost support in related labor arbitration. Additionally, Citadel Securities filed a lawsuit against Portofino Technologies in the US in 2023, accusing it of stealing trade secrets. Leonard Lancia and Portofino Technologies have denied all allegations. The High Court in London rejected Leonard Lancia's request to lift the asset freezing order last Friday. (Bloomberg)
Odaily reports: Blockchain data infrastructure startup Cambrian has secured $6 million in seed funding, co-led by Franklin Templeton and Polychain Capital, with participation from Flow Traders, Selini Capital, Paper Ventures, Nomad Capital, and others.As previously reported by Odaily, Cambrian also received a $5.9 million pre-seed investment led by the a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator, bringing its total funding to $11.9 million.Founded in 2024, Cambrian currently offers APIs for institutions and AI agents, providing real-time and historical on-chain data covering yield, risk, lending rates, trading activity, liquidity positions, and market sentiment, helping users allocate capital on-chain. The company plans to expand its existing APIs into a verifiable blockchain data oracle network, serving institutional financial clients, AI agent builders, and protocols that require reliable data to control capital flows. Unlike traditional oracles that primarily provide price data, Cambrian aims to aggregate data from lending protocols, DEX liquidity, social sentiment, developer activity, and historical market data.According to Cambrian, its platform has processed millions of API calls, currently indexes approximately $4.5 billion in TVL across four major lending protocols, tracks 1,789 vaults managed by 895 curators, and monitors over 320,000 DEX liquidity pools on Base and Solana. The company also plans to expand trading data support by integrating Hyperliquid and richer perpetual contract data.
According to Tech Funding News, AMD CEO Lisa Su announced at London Tech Week that the company will invest up to £2 billion in UK AI infrastructure over the next five years, covering national supercomputing infrastructure development and university research collaborations. Meanwhile, AMD is partnering with Oriole Networks—a startup spun out from University College London (UCL)—to deploy the world’s first large-scale, all-photonic network AI system under the UK government’s £50 million ARIA Inference Scaling Lab initiative. This system integrates Oriole’s PRISM photonic networking platform with AMD Instinct GPUs and EPYC CPUs; by completely eliminating electronic switches from the network core, it reduces core network energy consumption by 81% and cuts GPU idle time from 60% to under 1%.
Helion, a nuclear fusion energy startup backed by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, has announced the completion of a $465 million funding round, led by Thrive Capital. The post-investment valuation has reached $15.5 billion, nearly three times its previous valuation of $543 million. It is reported that the company is dedicated to developing nuclear fusion technology to power data centers and other customers. However, it has yet to prove the feasibility of its technology in actual electricity production. Investors remain highly confident in its potential, and this round of funding will be used to accelerate technology development and commercial advancement. (The Information)
Odaily Startup Incubator Y Combinator will hold its first-ever interview session specifically for fintech and crypto startups in New York City, aiming to support more companies in this sector. The interviews will be held offline on May 21st. Selected startups will join the Summer 2026 batch and receive a standard investment of $500,000. Chosen projects can opt to receive funding in the form of USDC stablecoins. To date, Y Combinator has invested in over 150 crypto and fintech companies, including Coinbase, OpenSea, and Kalshi.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Parallel Web Systems—an AI startup founded by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal—has raised $100 million in its Series B funding round, led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, and Khosla Ventures. The company’s valuation has risen to $2 billion, bringing its total funding to $230 million. Parallel focuses on building web search infrastructure for AI agents, supporting in-depth research use cases such as investment research, insurance claims processing, and government contract analysis. Over 100,000 developers are already using its platform, with customers including legal AI company Harvey. Proceeds from this round will be used to expand the sales team and strengthen R&D efforts.
According to Sarah Wolf’s own post on X, her nearly five-year tenure at Coinbase is coming to an end. She joined Coinbase in 2023 as its first Builder Marketer and co-founded Base with Jesse Pollak, driving its growth into a leading global blockchain ecosystem with a builder community spanning over 52 countries. During her time at Coinbase, she led several landmark initiatives, including Onchain Summer—a collaboration with Adidas and Coca-Cola—integrating USDC payments into Shopify, and launching BaseCamp, the flagship builder summit. After leaving Coinbase, Sarah Wolf will join Anthropic as Head of Startup Marketing, focusing on supporting the startup ecosystem building around Claude. She has invited founders and builders currently developing with Claude to reach out to her.
On-chain lending platform Votre has raised $3.75 million in seed funding, led by a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator, with participation from MaC Venture Capital, Druid Ventures, and angel investors from Goldman Sachs, Harvard University, and OrangeDAO. Founded in 2025, Votre operates a non-custodial crypto lending platform on Coinbase’s Base Layer 2 network, enabling users to borrow USD—settled the same day—using Bitcoin as collateral, with loan sizes ranging from approximately $25,000 to $5 million. The funds will be used to scale technical infrastructure, increase platform capacity, enhance liquidity management tools, and strengthen risk and compliance systems.