🦄 July’s new unicorns: 13 companies join the billion-dollar club

Thirteen startups crossed the $1B valuation mark last month, with AI still leading the charge but strong showings from e-commerce, healthcare, and more.

🖱 AI — Lovable (Sweden, vibe-coding), Fal (AI media creation), Reka AI (multimodal AI)
🖱 E-commerce — Etraveli (Sweden, flight booking), Ninja (Saudi Arabia, grocery delivery in MENA)
🖱 Data analytics — Anaconda (Python data analysis & project management)
🖱 Energy — CATL Intelligent (China, AI-powered battery design)
🖱 VR/AR — Xpanceo (UAE, smart contact lenses)
🖱 Healthcare — Ambience Healthcare (medical documentation assistant)
🖱 HR — LumApps (France, mobile workforce management)
🖱 Entertainment — Substack (subscription newsletters)
🖱 Telecom — Airalo (Singapore, travel eSIMs)
🖱 Transport — Rivian (EVs)

There were also five notable exits: IPOs from Figma, Geek+, and Accelerant, plus acquisitions of Windsurf by Cognition and Iodine Software by Waystar.

The mix shows AI’s continued dominance, but also that billion-dollar status is still achievable in more traditional sectors if the execution and timing are right.

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📊 Crypto Venture Weekly: August 11–15, 2025

$1.26B raised across 20 projects this week, led by Bullish’s $1.1B IPO. Alongside fundraising, $1.77B in digital asset treasury allocations made headlines, and Offchain Labs picked up ZeroDev to bolster smart account infra.

Here’s what the top 9 are building 👇

🖱 Bullish ($1.1B IPO, BlackRock, ARK Invest)
Centralized institutional crypto exchange and parent of CoinDesk, going public at a $5.41B valuation.

🖱 1Kosmos ($57M, Forgepoint, Oquirrh, NextEra)
Distributed identity cloud service storing encrypted data on a private blockchain.

🖱 Shrapnel ($19.5M, Gala Games, Polychain)
Free-to-play FPS with digital ownership, aiming to merge Web3 and gaming culture.

🖱 Transak ($16M, IDG, Tether, 1kx)
Payments infrastructure provider powering stablecoin and crypto on/off ramps.

🖱 USDai ($13M, Framework, Big Brain, Arbitrum Foundation)
Stablecoin backed by AI hardware collateral, designed to generate yield.

🖱 Mesh ($10M, Coinbase Ventures, PayPal Ventures, Bybit)
Payment network linking exchanges, wallets, and PSPs for seamless stablecoin conversions.

🖱 Mecka ($8M, Neo, Framework, Mechanism)
Decentralized data layer for AI-driven robotics and automation.

🖱 Hyperbeat ($5.2M, Electric, ether.fi, Coinbase Ventures)
Yield infra built on Hyperliquid, tapping into the exchange’s growing ecosystem.

🖱 HoneyCoin ($4.9M, Flourish, Stellar, Visa)
Stablecoin payment rails for emerging markets, starting with Africa.

Investor focus this week was split between exchange infra, stablecoin rails, and the crossover between AI and crypto.

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🎂 Steve Wozniak at 75: choosing joy over empires

Unlike many of his peers, Woz never chased wealth, power, or corporate dominance. On his 75th birthday, he reminded fans of the philosophy he set as a teenager: “Life was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns.”

🖱 Gave away much of his Apple fortune, focusing instead on museums, arts, and education in San Jose
🖱 Designed the Apple II, a breakthrough that brought computing into homes and schools worldwide
🖱 Supported digital rights through the Electronic Frontier Foundation and children’s education projects
🖱 Remains active in tech forums and continues inventing, now working on space sustainability

Woz’s legacy isn’t just the machine that helped launch the PC era - it’s proof that true impact doesn’t require selling out.

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📈 Gemini files for IPO

The Winklevoss twins’ crypto exchange and custodian Gemini has filed to go public on Nasdaq under the ticker GEMI.

Founded in 2014, Gemini offers an exchange, USD-backed stablecoin, and a crypto rewards credit card.

🖱 2024 results: $142M revenue, $158.5M net loss
🖱 H1 2025: $67.9M revenue, $282.5M net loss
🖱 Joins Circle ($1.2B IPO in June) and Bullish ($1.1B IPO this month) in bringing major crypto firms to the market

With Trump’s administration easing regulations, the IPO window for crypto is reopening, but Gemini’s numbers show profitability will be the harder battle.

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🧪 US sees zero biopharma IPOs in Q2 — first since 2016

For the first time in nearly a decade, the US had no VC-backed biopharma IPOs in Q2 2025, according to PitchBook.

The freeze reflects weak post-IPO performance, a glut of biotech listings from 2020–21, and still-elevated interest rates.

🖱 Biopharma IPOs have underperformed for 18+ months, draining investor appetite
🖱 VC funding also fell — $5.4B across 198 deals, the lowest since 2020
🖱 Down rounds and valuation resets are becoming the norm in private markets
🖱 Regulatory noise around drug pricing adds to investor caution
🖱 Morningstar’s US Biotech index is down ~20% YoY, despite recent recovery

Investors expect a rebound by early 2026 as new AI-driven healthcare startups mature. But for now, liquidity is coming from M&A, not Wall Street.

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📊 Paradigm puts an AI agent in every spreadsheet cell

Paradigm, founded by Anna Monaco, reimagines spreadsheets as living systems where each cell can host an AI agent.

Users assign prompts to columns or cells, and 5,000+ agents fetch, analyze, and fill in data, effectively turning spreadsheets into automated workflows.

🖱 Works with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google Gemini models, with switching for cost vs. reasoning trade-offs
🖱 Early customers include EY, Etched, and Cognition
🖱 Raised $5M seed led by General Catalyst, $7M total funding to date
🖱 Competes with Quadratic and AI add-ons from Google and Microsoft
🖱 Monaco frames Paradigm not as an AI spreadsheet but as a workflow engine in spreadsheet form

The move shows how familiar tools like spreadsheets can morph into platforms for AI-driven work - hiding radical new workflows inside an interface everyone already knows.

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💻 Lambda secures $480M to scale affordable AI cloud

Lambda, the Nvidia-backed GPU cloud provider, has raised $480M at a $4B valuation to expand its infrastructure and software.

The San Jose–based company positions itself as a cost-efficient alternative to hyperscalers, offering H100 GPUs for just $1.89/hr.

🖱 Round co-led by Andra Capital and SGW, with Nvidia, ARK Invest, In-Q-Tel, and Andrej Karpathy participating
🖱 Funding follows a $320M round in 2024, plus a $500M GPU-backed loan to secure Nvidia’s next-gen H200 and Blackwell chips
🖱 Lambda Cloud already serves 5,000+ customers across healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and government
🖱 Products span on-prem hardware, GPU cloud, and Lambda Chat hosting open-source models like DeepSeek-R1
🖱 Competitive edge: low-cost GPU access + early pipeline to Nvidia’s newest chips

In a world where GPUs are the new oil, Lambda’s bet is clear - democratize access and cement itself as the developer-first AI cloud.

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👆 The most valuable private companies as of July 2025

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📈 Hong Kong IPOs bounce back

Financial Times reports that Hong Kong’s listing market is roaring again.

Just a year ago, offices were empty and deal flow was frozen - now companies are lining up for IPOs.

In the first half of 2025, the total raised has already surpassed the combined volumes of 2023 and 2024.

After a long drought, Hong Kong is back on the map for public offerings.

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💬 Larry Ellison on WhatsApp’s $19B deal

Back in 2014, Silicon Valley was stunned when Zuckerberg bought WhatsApp for $19B and its 450M users.

Oracle founder Larry Ellison said the shock faded once people realized the sheer value of owning that customer base.

🖱 Traditional companies spend fortunes to acquire subscribers - WhatsApp gave Facebook direct access at scale

🖱 Ellison noted $1/year fees wouldn’t cut it, but the real play was monetizing users once inside the ecosystem

🖱 The deal was a bidding war - Zuckerberg outbid Google and paid up for a 21st-century distribution channel

Fast-forward to 2025: WhatsApp now has 3.1B MAUs. Looks like Zuckerberg’s “overpay” aged well.

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🦄 AI’s unicorn wave since ChatGPT

More than 100 AI startups have hit unicorn status since the launch of ChatGPT, a boom that has minted billionaires and reshaped private markets.

🖱 OpenAI and ByteDance lead at $300B valuations

🖱 Anthropic now sits at $62B, xAI at $75B

🖱 Scale AI ($30B), Anduril ($31B), CoreWeave ($19B), and Perplexity ($18B) among other big names

🖱 Canva ($32B) and Databricks ($62B) show how AI has supercharged adjacent categories

The AI cycle isn’t just about models, it’s fueling a new class of giant companies across infra, defense, and consumer tech.

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📊 VC money is now top-heavy

PitchBook shows how concentrated US venture has become. During COVID, investors spread capital across the long tail - top-10 deals took only a small share.

Now, with AI leading, nearly half of all VC dollars go to just 10 companies.

🖱 OpenAI alone represents ~20% of the 2025 market

🖱 Other giants include Scale AI, xAI, Anthropic

🖱 Billions are piling into a few AI leaders while the rest see shrinking access

The VC pie is getting smaller for everyone outside the top tier of AI.

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☀️ Meta signs $100M solar deal for AI data center

Meta will build a 100MW solar farm in South Carolina with Silicon Ranch to power its upcoming $800M AI data center.

Both projects are set to go live in 2027, with most equipment sourced from the U.S.

🖱 This marks Meta’s 18th deal with Silicon Ranch, totaling $2.5B+ in renewable investments

🖱 Meta has added over 2GW of solar capacity in 2025 alone

🖱 Recent projects include 650MW in Kansas/Texas with AES and nearly 800MW in Texas with Engie and Zelestra

For hyperscalers like Meta, solar isn’t just green - it’s cheap, fast to deploy, and critical for keeping AI data centers powered.

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🤖 Top 20 AI agent startups

Today’s leaders focus on fast ROI - writing code, handling customer support, and automating enterprise workflows.

The market is scaling faster than expected and new players are already rivaling Big Tech in efficiency.

🖱 AI agent market will more than double this year — from $5B to $13B
🖱 Anysphere (Cursor) leads with $500M ARR, 5x ahead of peers
🖱 Top startups match or exceed Microsoft’s $1.8M revenue per employee
🖱 42% of AI agent firms are already operating at commercial scale
🖱 Half of the top 20 by revenue were founded in just the past 3 years
🖱 Customer support agents generate a 127x revenue multiple vs. the average 52

AI agents aren’t just experiments anymore, they’re becoming real businesses at lightning speed.

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🤑 OpenAI hits first $1B month, but compute can’t keep up

OpenAI logged its first-ever $1 billion revenue month in July, driven by GPT-5 subscriptions, yet CFO Sarah Friar says the company’s biggest challenge is a shortage of computing power.

🖱 Demand for GPUs is “voracious,” forcing massive new builds like Stargate
🖱 Microsoft remains a core partner, alongside Oracle and CoreWeave
🖱 Annual recurring revenue has hit $10B, with 2025 revenue expected to triple to $12.7B
🖱 CEO Sam Altman says trillions will be spent on data centers to meet growth

The milestone shows how fast AI demand is scaling, but also how fragile the supply side remains.

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🧬 Biotech’s half-year of chaos

The first half of 2025 has been one of the toughest in a decade for biotech.

At least 14 companies have shut down, with job cuts hitting a four-year high.

🖱 Trump administration slashed grants, replaced agency heads, and cut thousands of staff
🖱 Plans for tariffs on drugs and strict price controls rattled the sector
🖱 April’s broader tariff proposal sent markets plunging, leaving biotech in “complete standstill”
🖱 IPO window closed, private capital scarce, startups cutting aggressively

Still, some investors see “a new normal.” Private biotech is adapting to multiple scenarios, and the feared fallout has been softer for certain players.

But the fundamentals haven’t changed, a long bear market, tight capital, and intensifying competition for niche therapies.

For biotech, recovery looks more like survival mode than revival.

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📊 PitchBook on valuations: AI vs. everyone else

PitchBook’s Q2 report shows an upbeat picture- startup valuations are climbing again.

But one chart stands out: the median AI startup isn’t valued that much higher than a non-AI peer at the same stage.

🖱 AI does get funded more easily, but the valuation gap itself is modest
🖱 The real edge for AI founders isn’t price — it’s access to capital

So the hype is real, but it’s not just multiples - it’s the smoother path to raising a round.

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❕ India bans real-money gaming

India’s parliament has passed a bill banning all real-money games - whether skill or chance based - in a move that threatens a $23B industry employing over 200,000 people.

🖱 Bill blocks transactions for real-money games and ads
🖱 Offenders risk 3 years jail or ₹10M ($115K) fine
🖱 Celebrities promoting such games also face penalties
🖱 Industry warns of 400+ companies shutting down
🖱 Stakeholders argue offshore gambling apps, not local startups, drive the harm

Supporters say it protects society from addiction, but critics warn it will kill regulated firms while fueling illegal offshore betting. The bill still needs upper house and presidential approval.

A $23B sector could vanish overnight, or just move underground.

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🦄 In venture, it’s not just about finding unicorns - it’s about growing them

Capital alone rarely makes the difference. The biggest returns go to investors who help their portfolio companies scale when it matters most.

🖱 Shopify — early investors built out the developer partner network that became the core of its ecosystem.

🖱 Tesla — backers who supported Musk through the Model 3 production crisis earned far more than passive funds.

🖱 Stripe — YC investors funneled their startup network as first customers, giving Stripe instant scale.

The lesson: venture isn’t a lottery ticket, it’s active work to turn early bets into enduring giants.

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🧠 Microsoft AI chief: “Models don’t have consciousness”

Mustafa Suleyman, head of Microsoft AI, criticized the growing field of “AI welfare,” which explores the idea of models having consciousness and rights.

He argues such debates distract from real issues - addiction to chatbots, breakdowns, and unhealthy emotional bonds with digital agents.

🖱 Suleyman: today’s models have no consciousness, but they can convincingly simulate emotions
🖱 Anthropic, OpenAI, and DeepMind continue to study the topic
🖱 Anthropic even launched an “AI welfare” program, adding features like Claude ending chats with abusive users

The divide is clear: while some labs explore AI sentience as a safety frontier, Microsoft is pushing back - insisting the focus should stay on human wellbeing.

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💥 The AI bubble: why ARR alone doesn’t tell the story

ARR has become the go-to flex metric in tech.

Startups like Lovable brag about hitting $100m ARR in just months, breaking every old SaaS benchmark. But behind the headlines, the cracks are showing - and investors are starting to worry.

🖱 The math is misleading.
Many “$100m ARR” claims are just one hot week of revenue multiplied by 52. That doesn’t mean it’s sustainable.

🖱 Churn is the silent killer
Users jump in fast, but drop out just as quickly. One AI app went from $30m MRR to almost zero in a month.

🖱 Margins are razor-thin
AI startups often pay other AI companies for compute and models, leaving little room for profit. Switching to more advanced “agentic” models only increases costs.

🖱 It looks like grocery delivery all over again
Huge customer acquisition, fast growth, but no clear path to profitability.

The real question: can these AI darlings turn explosive ARR into durable, high-margin businesses? Growth is easy. Retention and profitability are the real test.

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