FUNDRAISING ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Emergent raises $130M Series C at $1.5B valuation as its no-code AI platform crosses 200K customers and $100M ARR
• Walden Robotics exits stealth with $300M raise and Toyota partnership to deploy physical AI in manufacturing

GUEST INTERVIEWS

• Saagar Enjeti on prediction markets, data center NIMBYism, AI jobs, and the US housing crisis
• George Kailas launches Aethon Fund, an AI-powered hedge fund launching in August
• Former Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin joins Red Cell Partners as partner and chairman

NEWS

• Stripe makes $53B offer to acquire PayPal in landmark fintech deal
• OpenAI's first consumer hardware device will be a screenless AI companion speaker designed by Jony Ive
• Thinking Machines Lab launches Inkling, an open-weight multimodal reasoning model