👩‍⚕️ Teal Health becomes first to win FDA approval for at-home cervical cancer screening

In a historic move for women’s health, Teal Health has received FDA approval for the Teal Wand, the first-ever at-home cervical cancer screening device—allowing patients to self-collect samples and skip the doctor’s office.

💡 What’s new
• The Teal Wand enables patients to collect cervical samples at home and mail them to a lab
• Includes virtual provider access for result reviews and medical guidance
• Launches in California this June, with plans to expand

📈 Backed by leading investors
• $23M raised to date, including Serena Ventures, Chelsea Clinton, Forerunner, and Emerson Collective
• Aims to reduce the 1-in-4 women currently behind on screenings

This is more than convenience—it’s a step toward healthcare access and autonomy for millions.

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🔘 Whoop walks back upgrade policy after user backlash

Fitness tracker startup Whoop faced major criticism this week after introducing paid upgrade fees for its new 5.0 device — despite previously promising free upgrades.

💡 What happened
• Users were told to pay $49–$79 or extend their subscription by 12 months to get the new device
• This contradicted a long-standing policy promising free upgrades after six months
• Angry customers flooded Reddit and social media

📣 Company response
• Whoop now offers free upgrades to anyone with 12+ months left
• with less time can extend their plan to qualify
• The startup claimed the 6-month upgrade promise was “posted in error”

📈What it means
• The community is split — some call it a win, others see it as damage control
• Users with 11 months left are stuck paying or extending

When your whole brand is about premium service, don’t cut corners on loyalty.

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🧪 Elizabeth Holmes’ partner is pitching a new blood-testing startup

Billy Evans — partner of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes — is reportedly fundraising for a new company called Haemanthus, focused on “human health optimization” through blood, saliva, and urine analysis.

🧪 What they’re building
• A machine that uses lasers to detect infections and cancer
• Plans to start with pet diagnostics, then expand to human health
• Targeting over $50M in funding

❓ Why it’s raising eyebrows
• The concept closely mirrors Theranos — but with lasers
• Some investors, including Jim Breyer, have already passed

Theranos 2.0 or a clean slate? Investors aren’t so sure.

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🔺 Ex-Northvolt CEO returns with stealth AI manufacturing startup

Just two months after Northvolt collapsed under $5.8B in debt, former CEO Peter Carlsson is back — this time betting on AI to transform factory floors.

🧠 What they’re building
• New Sweden-based startup using machine learning to optimize manufacturing
• Targets predictive maintenance, real-time quality control, and leaner operations
• No name yet — still in stealth, with team scaling to ~20

💰 Who’s backing it
• VC funding secured from top firms in Europe and Silicon Valley
• Carlsson took a major stake himself
• His Tesla + Northvolt track record reportedly helped close the round

🔧 Why it matters
• Industrial AI is heating up — and legacy players like GE and Siemens are slow
• Carlsson is aiming for faster, more focused execution
• Could mark a redemption arc after Northvolt’s high-profile failure

Second acts in tech are rare — but Carlsson’s new play might just hit the timing right.

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💳 Ramp Faces Congressional Scrutiny Over $25M Federal Contract Bid

A high-profile investigation is underway into fintech startup Ramp’s pursuit of a $25 million U.S. government contract, raising concerns over fairness and political ties.

🔍 Suspicions of preferential treatment
• Rep. Gerald Connolly is probing Ramp’s involvement in a pilot for the federal SmartPay program.
• His concerns include Ramp’s lack of prior federal contracting experience and its ties to Trump-affiliated investors like Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and 8VC.
• Ramp allegedly engaged with payments industry entities before an official request for information was made public.

📊 A lucrative government target
• The SmartPay program processes over $40 billion in annual federal spending via 4.6M cards.
• Currently dominated by Citibank and US Bank, the program represents a $700 billion opportunity.
• Ramp says it entered the process after seeing a public post by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and was referred by a former customer.

🏛 Political backlash could reshape fintech bids
• Connolly is demanding a full list of Ramp’s interactions with GSA and has cited a GSA staffer calling Ramp the “favorite.”
• Ramp, recently valued at $13B, declined to comment on the investigation.

Is the federal fintech door opening—or just opening controversy?

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🧪Classiq Wants to Be the Microsoft of Quantum Computing

Israeli startup Classiq has raised $110 million in Series C funding — the largest ever for a quantum software company — to solidify its role as the foundational software layer for the quantum era.

🔬 Quantum platform that writes itself
• Classiq’s platform automatically generates quantum circuits from high-level specs, compressing them by up to 97%.
• It enables developers to build applications across any quantum hardware, without needing deep quantum expertise.
• Used by top firms like BMW, Deloitte, Rolls-Royce, Citi, and dozens of global universities.

📊 Scientific depth and rapid growth
• Tripled both revenues and customer base yearly, serving enterprises and academia worldwide.
• Filed over 60 patents with a 100% acceptance rate in quantum modeling and compilation.
• Led by a seasoned team spanning quantum physics, chip design, and software engineering.

🚀 Funding to fuel global scale
• $110M round led by Entrée Capital, with backers like HSBC, Samsung Next, Norwest, Wing, Team8, and QBeat.
• Total funding now at $173M, aimed at global expansion and building out enterprise go-to-market and R&D.
• Fully integrated with leading clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP) and nearly all major quantum hardware platforms.

Classiq isn't building niche tools—it’s positioning itself as the universal operating system for quantum applications.

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🧬 TILT Biotherapeutics advances immune-enhanced virus therapy for ovarian cancer

Finnish biotech TILT is developing a next-gen oncolytic virus that boosts T-cell response in solid tumours — aiming to solve one of cancer immunotherapy’s toughest problems.

🧪 Rethinking treatment for solid tumours
• TILT’s lead candidate TILT-123 uses a chimeric adenovirus armed with TNF and IL-2 to trigger a strong local immune response.
• Converts “cold” tumours into “hot” ones, enhancing the effect of T-cell therapies and checkpoint inhibitors.
• Targets hard-to-treat cases like platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and melanoma.

📊 New funding to scale clinical trials
• Raised $25.6M Series B from the EIC Fund, Lifeline Ventures, TESI, and others.
• Funds will support Phase 2 trials in the U.S., plus additional Phase 1b studies and clinical site expansion.
• Recent Phase 1a trial showed 64% disease control and strong safety in ovarian cancer patients.

🫱 A platform built on deep clinical roots
• Founded by oncologist Akseli Hemminki, who’s treated nearly 300 patients with experimental virus therapies.
• Partners include Merck & Co. and Merck KGaA, testing TILT-123 with KEYTRUDA® in combination trials.
• Data published in Nature Communications and presented at AACR highlights the approach’s potential.

TILT’s science isn’t just promising — it’s already in patients, with global partners and a pipeline ready to expand.

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🧬 Quidditas builds precise gene replacement tech for next-gen therapies

Belgian biotech startup Quidditas is pushing genome editing beyond CRISPR with a platform that enables full gene or exon replacement at any site in the genome — opening doors to treat rare and complex diseases.

🔍A novel solution to CRISPR’s limits
• Their GREAT technology allows precise recombination of DNA/RNA of any length, anywhere in the genome.
• Enables full excision and replacement of gene sequences, overcoming constraints in size, control, and standardisation.
• Built for gene therapy, protein bioproduction, and regenerative medicine.

📊 Backed by biotech investors and public funding
• Supported by iXLife Capital, Key Ventures, and business angels.
• Received a €1.72M innovation grant from Wallonia’s Win4Company program.
• Funds will expand R&D and explore broader biomedical use cases.

🧪Led by scientists with global research pedigree
• Founded in 2022 by François Cherbonneau and Aurore Prunevieille, alumni of Harvard and Saint-Louis Hospital.
• The team blends expertise in molecular genetics, immunology, and biotherapy.
• Their goal: “cure from the beginning” with scalable, precise tools for real-world genetic medicine.

With its platform built from scratch — not patched onto CRISPR — Quidditas could redefine what’s possible in genome editing.

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🔎 Saildrone to launch AI maritime security hub in Europe

Saildrone is building a network of autonomous, AI-powered ocean drones to monitor Europe’s critical underwater infrastructure — and it’s starting with a new HQ in Denmark.

🔍 Persistent surveillance for undersea assets
• Saildrone’s wind- and solar-powered USVs patrol for 12+ months without refuelling.
• Designed to monitor pipelines, cables, and borders — even in GPS-denied environments.
• Uses multi-sensor navigation and proprietary AI to track threats and detect sabotage in real time.

📊 New funding to expand in Europe
• Raised $60M, led by Denmark’s EIFO, bringing total to $325M.
• Will open European HQ in Copenhagen, with first four USVs launching in Baltic waters by June.
• Plans to scale to 50+ units by 2026 across NATO for missions including anti-sub warfare and drone defense.

⚙️ Cost-efficient alternative to naval patrols
• Cuts operational costs by up to 96% compared to manned vessels.
• Already deployed in the Arctic, North Sea, and Southern Ocean.
• Backed by EU and NATO frameworks for subsea cable security and maritime AI systems.

From undersea sabotage to border enforcement, Saildrone is becoming the eyes and ears of Europe’s next-gen maritime defense.

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🛡 Helsing unveils AI mini-sub Lura to protect Europe’s underwater infrastructure

European defence startup Helsing has launched Lura — an AI-powered system inside a fleet of autonomous mini-subs designed to track, detect, and deter threats to cables, pipelines, and coastal waters in real time.

🔍 AI below the surface
• Lura is a large acoustic model, trained on decades of subsurface sound data to identify vessels with passive sonar.
• Integrated into the SG-1 Fathom — a 1.95m, 60kg autonomous sub powered by buoyancy engines instead of propellers.
• Capable of stealth surveillance 10x quieter and 40x faster than humans, operating in GPS-denied zones.

📊 A scalable European security network
• Fleets of SG-1s can form a constellation of subs, each surfacing briefly to transmit data by satellite.
• One operator can oversee hundreds of vehicles, slashing costs vs manned patrols by up to 96%.
• Initial funding includes €209M Series B and €450M strategic round — valuation now ~€5B.

🫱 Expanding defence partnerships
• Collaborates with Airbus, Saab, Rheinmetall, and Mistral AI.
• Lura’s tech complements EU/NATO defence plans, including the EU’s €800B “ReArm Europe” initiative.
• Aims to deploy SG-1 fleets for live operations across EU waters starting 2025.

With Lura and the SG-1, Helsing isn’t just protecting Europe’s coasts — it’s building an underwater AI network to reshape maritime defence from the deep up.

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🚀 Space Forge unveils UK’s largest Series A in space tech to scale in-orbit manufacturing

Cardiff-based Space Forge has raised £22.6M to accelerate space-based manufacturing — using the unique environment of orbit to create supermaterials for chips, clean energy, and defence.

⚙️ Manufacturing beyond Earth
• Space Forge’s reusable ForgeStar® satellites are designed for industrial-scale production in space.
• They harness microgravity, vacuum, and extreme temperatures to make materials not possible on Earth.
• Applications include semiconductors, quantum tech, and energy storage, with emissions cuts of up to 75%.

📊 Record-breaking funding with strategic weight
• Raised £22.6M Series A — largest in UK spacetech at this stage.
• Led by NATO Innovation Fund, joined by World Fund, NSSIF, and British Business Bank.
• Funding supports ForgeStar®-2 development and a 2025 launch of ForgeStar®-1 demonstration mission.

🌎 A transatlantic deeptech platform
• Partnerships with Sierra Space and Northrop Grumman show growing defence demand.
• Operates in Wales and Florida, aligning with NATO’s dual-use innovation agenda.
• Backed by UK Space Agency and part of the national semiconductor and industrial strategy.

Space Forge isn’t just innovating — it’s building a bridge between climate tech, industrial sovereignty, and space-enabled manufacturing. The next frontier of materials may be orbit.

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🧠 TensorWave secures £100M to scale AMD-powered AI compute infrastructure

As GPU shortages throttle AI growth, TensorWave is betting on AMD’s Instinct chips to unlock next-gen model training with massive, high-bandwidth clusters.

⚙️ High-performance AI from the ground up
• Deployed 8,192 AMD MI325X GPUs — one of the world’s largest AMD-powered AI clusters.
• Each GPU packs 256GB HBM3E memory, 6TB/s bandwidth — outperforming NVIDIA H100 in key benchmarks.
• Targets memory-heavy models like Llama-3.1 70B and Mixtral 8x7B with up to 40% better inference speed.

📊 Backed by AMD, built for scale
• Raised £100M Series A led by Magnetar and AMD Ventures, joined by Maverick Silicon, Prosperity7, and others.
• Revenue run-rate expected to hit $100M+ in 2025 — a 20x jump from last year.
• Focus on capital-efficient scaling vs. debt-heavy rivals like CoreWeave and Lambda Labs.

🧬 Founders with deep HPC roots
• Built by Horton, Tomasik, and Tatarchuk — engineers frustrated by GPU scarcity for frontier AI.
• AMD-exclusive architecture aims to offer reliable, high-bandwidth compute as a differentiated layer.
• Strategic vision: not just more compute, but an entirely new class of AI infrastructure.

As the battle for AI compute intensifies, TensorWave is quietly building the AMD-powered backend for the next wave of models — faster, cheaper, and outside the NVIDIA-dominated path.

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🧬 The new Finland? Portugal rises as a health tech innovation hub

With a global mindset, strong early-stage activity, and rising international visibility, Portugal is fast becoming one of Europe’s most promising frontiers for health tech and deep tech startups.

👩‍⚕️ Health tech’s growing share
• Health tech now makes up 8.45% of Portugal’s 4,719 startups, with rising focus on AI diagnostics, digital therapeutics, and telemedicine.
• Notable deals include Sword Health’s €29.2M round and €51M in biopharma capital from Biovance.
• Supported by initiatives like DigiHealthPT and HealthTech Lisboa for testing and clinical validation.

⭕️ From funding crunch to early-stage strength
• After peaking at €1.5B in 2021, total startup investment fell to €205M in 2023, but rebounded to €463M in 2024.
• Seed and Series A deals remain robust, while late-stage activity lags.
• Ecosystem relies on public testing programs, business angels, and EU-aligned incentives (CP) to fill VC gaps.

🌎 Global ambition and regional diversity
• Startup hubs are expanding beyond Lisbon and Porto to Madeira and Coimbra, tapping local strengths and better quality of life.
• Portugal now hosts eight unicorns and 300+ international startups through Unicorn Factory Lisboa.
• Key factors: low living costs, tech-savvy workforce, and strategic policy (14% stock option tax).

💃 Diversity in progress
• Women founded ~22% of startups and make up 51% of Portugal’s scientific community.
• Yet only 15–20% of founders are women, prompting active efforts from Startup Portugal and ecosystem leaders.
• Founders and investors alike see slow but visible improvement in inclusion.

Portugal’s health tech momentum mirrors early-stage Finland — with decentralised innovation, strong science roots, and cross-sector collaboration. If sustained, it could become Europe’s next deep tech success story.

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🏥 Sprinter Health brings preventive care home with $55M Series B

Sprinter Health is scaling its at-home clinical services across the U.S., using logistics tech to make human-delivered healthcare efficient, accessible, and profitable.

🧪Closing the gap telehealth can’t
• Offers at-home blood draws, diabetes eye exams, cancer screenings, and more.
• Targets underserved patients who’ve disengaged from the traditional healthcare system.
• Services are free to patients via Medicare, Medicaid, and insurer partners.

📊 Growth backed by top-tier investors
• Raised $55M Series B led by General Catalyst, joined by a16z, GV, Accel, and UC Regents.
• Operates in 18 states, up from 5 last year, with 6x revenue growth in 12 months.
• Total funding now $125M.

⚡️ Powered by logistics, not just clinicians
• Custom route optimizer boosts patient visits per staff to 12 per day.
• Uses a gig-style model of phlebotomists cross-trained as assistants, akin to Instacart or DoorDash.
• Tight unit economics aim to avoid the fate of past failed home-care startups.

Sprinter’s bet: tech-enabled humans, not just apps, will be the future of preventative care.

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🏠 Algoma wants to be the AI brain behind every real estate deal

Harvard-founded Algoma just raised $2.3M to turn slow, manual pre-construction workflows into fast, AI-powered decisions for small and mid-sized developers.

🧠 Making feasibility studies instant
• Algoma’s platform automates zoning, capacity, market analysis, design massing, and pro formas.
• Compresses weeks of consulting work into minutes, helping developers act before deals slip away.
• Built for urban infill, mixed-use, and affordable housing projects, not just institutional players.

📊 New funding and strong traction
• Raised $2.3M seed led by Zacua Ventures, with backing from SOSV, Iron Prairie, DOMiNO, and others.
• Customers like Advenir and ACE Real Estate say it cuts project timelines by 90%.
• Funds will go toward product expansion and engineering hires.

🌎 A vision for sustainable, scalable development
• Already piloted a mass timber multi-family project in Georgia, showcasing its sustainability focus.
• Long-term plan: a fully integrated web platform for real estate workflows, expanding across asset classes and geographies.

Algoma isn’t just digitising real estate—it’s rebuilding its foundation with AI, speed, and smarter urban planning.

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⚛️ The Nuclear Company Aims to Power the Future with Existing Reactor Designs

The Nuclear Company is taking an old approach to building new nuclear reactors. Rather than gin up a new design or try to mass manufacture smaller reactors, it wants to develop a series of reactors using existing designs.

⚙️ Leveraging Proven Technology for Rapid Deployment

• The Nuclear Company was established in 2023.
• Founded by Jonathan Webb, Kiran Bhatraju, and Patrick Maloney.
• Focuses on a pragmatic approach to nuclear energy.
• Plans to build large-scale nuclear reactors using existing, licensed designs.
• Targets sites with existing permits or licenses to expedite development.
• Aims to reduce regulatory hurdles in the nuclear energy sector.

📍 Strategic Site Selection for Maximum Impact

• The Nuclear Company has found fewer than a dozen viable sites with existing approvals.
• These sites can support reactors exceeding 1 gigawatt each.
• The company aims to develop a total of 6 gigawatts in its initial fleet.
• This approach accelerates deployment and meets the increasing demand for reliable, large-scale power sources.

⚡️ Addressing the Surge in Energy Demand

• U.S. electricity demand is expected to rise by nearly 16% by 2029.
• The growth is primarily due to the expansion of data centers.
• There is an urgent requirement for stable and substantial power generation.
• The company’s approach provides a reliable energy source to support the expanding digital infrastructure.

⚡️ Positioned Amidst a Competitive Energy Landscape

• Tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are investing in small modular reactors and renewable energy.
• The Nuclear Company targets large-scale, proven nuclear technology.
• By avoiding new reactor designs and leveraging existing regulatory approvals, they aim to expedite power capacity delivery.
• The goal is to provide significant power capacity more quickly than competitors.

Is this the pragmatic path to meeting our future energy needs, or will innovation in new technologies outpace established methods?

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🎬 Moonvalley wants to bring ethical AI to the heart of video creation

San Francisco-based Moonvalley has quietly raised $53M to build high-quality, copyright-safe AI video tools aimed at creators, not just coders.

🎨 Giving creators fine-grained control
• Its flagship model, Marey, generates HD video with customizable camera movement and character motion.
• Built with animation studio Asteria to ensure outputs meet professional storytelling standards.
• Designed for narrative use, not just quick clips or experiments.

🛡️ Training on licensed content, not scraped data
• Models are trained exclusively on licensed media to avoid IP violations.
• This positions Moonvalley as a safer alternative to competitors like OpenAI, Runway, and Luma.
• Ethics-first stance helps appeal to studios, agencies, and media platforms.

🚀 A big bet in a crowded, fast-moving space
• Quietly raised $53M from 14 unnamed investors, following a prior $70M seed round led by General Catalyst, Bessemer, and Khosla.
• Total funding now exceeds $120M, giving it serious firepower.
• Differentiation will hinge on output quality and safety, not just speed.

Can Moonvalley’s trust-first model become the industry default, or will speed and virality keep leading the pack?

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📊 Julius wants to make AI-powered data science easy for everyone

Rahul Sonwalkar, the Harvard engineer behind the viral “Rahul Ligma” prank, is now leading Julius, an AI startup that’s simplifying complex data analysis for non-technical users.

🛸 Simplifying data science with natural language
• Julius lets users analyze, visualize, and model large datasets using plain English prompts.
• Designed to make predictive modeling and data exploration accessible without coding.
• Adopted by Harvard Business School for its “Data Science and AI for Leaders” course after outperforming tools like ChatGPT.

📈 Seed funding fuels rapid growth
• Raised an undisclosed seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners’ Talia Goldberg.
• Team of 12 focused on product expansion and user growth.
• Over 2 million users have signed up, signaling strong market demand.

🌎 Bridging the gap between data and decision-making
• Targets business leaders and professionals who need fast, reliable insights without deep technical skills.
• Aims to democratize data science across industries with a user-first approach.

Julius isn’t just building AI tools, it’s making data science a language everyone can speak.

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🤖 Firecrawl is hiring AI agents and their human creators for $1M

Y Combinator-backed Firecrawl is offering $1 million to hire three AI agents and their developers, aiming to integrate AI into its core operations.

🧠 Automating key roles with AI
• Firecrawl has posted three job listings exclusively for AI agents:
• A content creator to autonomously produce SEO-optimized blog posts and tutorials, analyze engagement metrics, and refine content strategy.
• A customer support engineer to handle support tickets, respond within two minutes, and escalate issues when necessary.
• A junior developer to prioritize GitHub issues, write documentation, and code in TypeScript and Go.
• Each role offers a salary of $5,000 per month.
• The initiative follows a previous attempt in February 2025 to hire an AI agent, which did not yield a suitable candidate.

💰 Budgeting for AI and human collaboration
• The $1 million budget is allocated for both AI agents and the human developers behind them.
• Firecrawl is open to hiring these developers either full-time or as contractors, depending on the scope of their contributions.
• The company has received approximately 50 applications within a week of posting the new job listings.

🌐 Enhancing web crawling with ethical AI
• Firecrawl offers a web crawling tool designed to scrape data from websites for large language models (LLMs), emphasizing ethical practices by honoring robots.txt settings and limiting scraping frequency.
• The tool is popular among enterprises seeking to gather data for internal LLM use, aiming to balance data acquisition with respect for website policies.

Firecrawl’s approach reflects a growing trend of integrating AI agents into business operations, highlighting both the potential and challenges of such innovations.

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🧠 Cohere acquires Ottogrid to enhance enterprise AI research tools

AI startup Cohere has acquired Ottogrid, a Vancouver-based platform that develops enterprise tools for automating certain kinds of high-level market research.

🔍 Automating market research workflows
• Ottogrid’s platform offers a native table interface with AI-powered document analysis capabilities, enabling users to extract data from websites and save it directly to spreadsheets or automatically enrich sales lead lists.
• The platform was rebranded in October 2024 with a major redesign, introducing new integrations, tools, and APIs.
• Ottogrid will sunset its standalone product, providing customers with ample notice and a reasonable transition period.

💼 Integration into Cohere’s North platform
• Post-acquisition, Ottogrid’s technology will be integrated into Cohere’s recently launched ChatGPT-style application, North, designed to assist knowledge workers with tasks such as summarizing documents.
• Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez stated that the integration aims to bring enterprises a new way to tackle research with smart tables, enhancing day-to-day productivity.

📈 Strategic move amid revenue challenges
• Cohere’s acquisition of Ottogrid comes as the company experiences corporate turbulence, having missed its 2023 revenue target by 85%.
• The company reported an annualized revenue of $100 million, following a strategic shift focusing on private AI deployments for sectors like healthcare, government, and finance.

Cohere’s acquisition of Ottogrid underscores its commitment to enhancing enterprise AI tools, aiming to streamline market research processes and bolster productivity through advanced automation.

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