Thank you so much for your tips and story suggestions! We’re lucky to have such a well-connected group of readers. | Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday … | Top News | OpenAI is arranging a secondary sale that will enable former employees to sell about $6 billion of shares to SoftBank, Thrive Capital, and Dragoneer at a $500 billion valuation. Separately, SoftBank is leading a $40 billion investment in OpenAI that values the company at $300 billion. Bloomberg has the scoop here. | Anthropic just tightened its rules to explicitly ban using Claude for developing nuclear, chemical, biological, or radiological weapons while also cracking down on malware and cyber exploits, even as it eased up slightly on political content restrictions. The Verge has more here. | | | |
Your next fund shouldn’t mean twice the reporting burden. | More deals are great! More reporting, not so much. Don't get buried in files and spreadsheets. PortfolioIQ pulls and standardizes portfolio data automatically, keeping reporting accurate, fast, and built to scale with every new fund. | | How Your Solar Rooftop Became a National Security Issue |  | Image Credits: imaginima / Getty Images |
| By Connie Loizos | James Showalter describes a pretty specific if not entirely implausible nightmare scenario. Someone drives up to your house, cracks your Wi-Fi password, and then starts messing with the solar inverter mounted beside your garage — that gray box that converts the direct current from your rooftop panels into the alternating current that powers your home. | “You’ve got to have a solar stalker” for this scenario to play out, says Showalter, describing the kind of person who would need to physically show up in your driveway with both the technical know-how and the motivation to hack your home energy system. | Showalter, the CEO of EG4 Electronics, a company based in Sulphur Springs, Texas, doesn’t consider this sequence of events particularly likely. Still, it’s why his company last week found itself in the spotlight when U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA published an advisory detailing security vulnerabilities in EG4’s solar inverters. The flaws, CISA noted, could allow an attacker with access to the same network as an affected inverter and its serial number to intercept data, install malicious firmware, or seize control of the whole system. | For the roughly 55,000 customers who own EG4’s affected inverter model, the episode probably felt like an unsettling introduction to a device that they little understand. What they’re learning is that modern solar inverters aren’t simple power converters anymore. They now serve as the backbone of home energy installations, monitoring performance, communicating with utility companies, and, when there’s excess power, feeding it back into the grid. | Much of this has happened without people noticing. “Nobody knew what the hell a solar inverter was five years ago,” observes Justin Pascale, a principal consultant at Dragos, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in industrial systems. “Now we’re talking about it at the national and international level.” | | | Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings | Darwinbox, a 10-year-old company based in Hyderabad and San Francisco that sells cloud software for enterprises to manage HR tasks like recruiting, payroll, performance reviews, and employee engagement, raised a $40 million round led by Teachers’ Venture Growth. More here. | USD.AI, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that issues loans to AI companies using GPUs as collateral and runs a stablecoin system to fund them, raised a $13 million Series A round led by Framework Ventures, with Dragonfly and Arbitrum also stepping up. CoinDesk has more here. | XOPS, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that develops software that automates enterprise IT operations to prevent downtime and reduce the need for manual intervention, raised a $40 million round. Activant Capital and FPV Ventures were the co-leads. More here. | | Smaller Fundings | Better Medicine, a six-year-old Estonian startup that is developing AI software that helps radiologists detect and analyze kidney cancer in CT scans, raised a $1.2 million pre-seed round led by Soulmates Ventures, with Specialist VC and UT Ventures also taking part. ArcticStartup has more here. | OneCrew, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that makes software that helps paving contractors run their businesses by handling scheduling, estimating, invoicing, and crew coordination, raised a $7.5 million Series A round led by Stage 2 Capital, with Entourage and Bienville Capital also participating. More here. | VibeCode, a San Francisco startup founded this year that makes an iOS app that lets anyone create mobile apps by describing their idea in plain language, raised a $9.4 million round led by Seven Seven Six, with participation from Long Journey Ventures, Neo, First Harmonic, and Afore Capital. Business Insider has more here. | Waterly, a nine-year-old startup based in Crystal Lake, IL, whose software helps water and wastewater utilities digitize regulatory reporting, sampling, and asset data management, raised a $4 million Series A round led by Burnt Island Ventures, with additional participation from Emerald Technology Ventures. More here. | | |
HSBC Innovation Banking US | Discover founder-first banking for the future. HSBC Innovation Banking US is committed to helping leaders in the innovation economy get started on the future faster by providing access to an extensive global network, dedicated sector experts, and a robust suite of banking products and services. | | Exits | Ultrahuman, a five-year-old Bangalore startup that makes health-tracking smart rings, has acquired viO HealthTech, a 15-year-old UK company specializing in fertility monitoring, to launch advanced cycle and ovulation tracking features in its Ring AIR device. Terms were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here. | | Going Public | The Winklevoss twins are taking their crypto exchange Gemini public on Nasdaq, but the timing might raise some eyebrows: the company's losses have nearly doubled this year, hitting $282.5 million in just the first six months of 2025 compared to $158.5 million for all of 2024. It's another sign that crypto companies are rushing to go public while the regulatory winds are favorable under the Trump administration. TechCrunch has more here. | PayPay, Japan’s ubiquitous payment app owned by SoftBank that boasts 70 million users, has filed for a US listing that could value it north of $10 billion, a move that could give Masayoshi Son fresh ammo for his trillion-dollar AI spree. The Financial Times has more here. | Via, a 13-year-old New York company that provides software for cities, schools, and transit agencies to run flexible ride services that dispatch vehicles based on real-time rider requests, filed for a NYSE IPO. Reuters has more here. | | People | Over dinner in San Francisco, Sam Altman admitted that OpenAI bungled the GPT-5 rollout but boasted usage is still surging. He also laid out a wish list spanning brain-computer interfaces, social media ventures, and possibly buying Chrome. TechCrunch has more here. | | Essential Reads | SpaceX has pulled in billions from NASA and the Pentagon, yet thanks to $5.4 billion in accumulated losses and Trump-era tax changes, has likely avoided paying federal income taxes for years even as Starlink surges past six million subscribers and revenue hits record highs. The New York Times has more here. | Palantir alums have coalesced into a founder mafia, with dedicated VC backers and a tight alumni pipeline spinning up startups and producing headline wins like Anduril and Peregrine. The Wall Street Journal has more here. | | Detours | Melinda Farina, a former dental assistant turned “beauty broker,” has built a lucrative and polarizing business steering celebrities and socialites to surgeons in an era when Ozempic skin sag and TikTok face-lifts are fueling demand for nip-and-tuck procedures. | Fueled by RushTok, sorority recruitment has become a high-stakes, yearlong campaign that’s minting a cottage industry of rush consultants charging up to $6,000 to script videos, curate Instagram, and coach anxious teens as more Northeastern families head South to vie for coveted spots. | Tokyo’s quiet spaces. | | Brain Rot | | _francis.co1M followers |  |
|  | View more on Instagram |
|
|
| | Retail Therapy |  | Image Credits: Getty Images / Michael Steele |
| Oakley is reviving its cult-favorite Overthetop sunglasses in a collab with P_Andrade, dropping just 20 pairs worldwide and stoking the collectors’ market for one of its wildest Olympic-era designs. | | This $1.3 million, 800-hp Mercedes G-Wagen conversion from BRABUS is built to conquer new worlds. | | Tips (the |
|
