🤫 Creatopy names Tammy Nam as CEO to lead AI-Powered ad revolution

AI-driven ad startup Creatopy just made a big move: Tammy Nam is stepping in as CEO! With a background as COO & CMO at Picsart and CEO of Viki, she brings serious experience in scaling startups and leading marketing innovation.

➡️Why This Matters:

✅ Creatopy’s revenue from mid-market & enterprise clients grew 400% in a year!
✅ Big-name customers include AstraZeneca, NASCAR, and The Economist.
✅ The startup raised $10M in Series A from European VCs 3VC and Point Nine.

🤖AI That Empowers Marketers
Nam believes Creatopy’s strength isn’t just AI—it’s how AI enhances strategic thinking, not replaces it. By automating tedious tasks (ad variations, formats, languages), some clients boost productivity by 10x!

🔒Brand Safety First
Marketing managers can upload brand kits, ensuring every AI-generated ad stays on-brand and compliant.

With AI-driven marketing booming, will Creatopy become the next big player?🥇

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🔛 Flock Safety raises $275M at a $7.5B valuation!

AI-driven surveillance startup Flock Safety has secured $275 million in new funding, pushing its valuation to $7.5 billion. Known for its license plate recognition (ALPR) technology, the company has expanded into gunshot detection systems for schools and public safety drones with its recent Aerodome acquisition.

💰 With $300M in annual recurring revenue (70% YoY growth), Flock continues to attract major investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and Greenoaks, bringing its total funding to $950M.

🔴But not without controversy—organizations like the ACLU warn of mass surveillance risks, and privacy advocates in Norfolk, Virginia, are suing to block Flock’s deployment. The company also faces a wrongful termination lawsuit from a California mayor.

As AI-driven surveillance expands, the debate over security vs. privacy intensifies. Is this the future of public safety, or a step too far❕

💬 Share your thoughts below!👇

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🤫 Ex-Bolt CEO Launches Spangle AI to revolutionize E-Commerce

Maju Kuruvilla, former CEO of one-click checkout startup Bolt, is back with a new venture - Spangle AI. This Seattle-based startup is tackling a major problem in online shopping: the frustrating experience after clicking on an ad.

🛍 What Spangle AI Does:

⭐️Uses AI (ProductGPT) to create custom landing pages based on what users search or click on
⭐️Helps major retailers boost conversions by ensuring shoppers land on relevant products
⭐️Already seeing a 51% increase in conversions during early testing

💰Funding & Investors:
- Raised $6M seed round
- Backed by Madrona Ventures (Seattle) & Streamlined Ventures (Silicon Valley)

Spangle AI enters a competitive space, going up against players like Unbounce and Qeen AI, but with AI-driven personalization at its core, it’s aiming to redefine how shoppers interact with e-commerce.

🎙Kuruvilla, who left Bolt in 2023, says:“I just love e-commerce and solving hard problems.”

Will AI-powered shopping experiences be the next big thing?💡

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🤖 Lyft to Roll Out Autonomous Taxis in Atlanta and Dallas

Lyft will launch its autonomous taxi service in Atlanta this summer, using Toyota Sienna minivans powered by May Mobility’s MPDM software. The system predicts and simulates nearby movement to make safe driving decisions, even if a sensor fails.

In Dallas (2026), Lyft will partner with Marubeni and Intel’s Mobileye, using Mobileye’s Driver system built on EyeQ 6 chips. The company aims to deploy thousands of autonomous vehicles across multiple cities in the long term.

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🤖 Hypershell X Series: AI-Powered Hiking Exoskeleton

Hypershell unveils the X Series, an AI-powered exoskeleton that boosts leg power by 40% and cuts fatigue by 30%. The Carbon X model, winner of the CES 2025 Innovation Award, features an 800W motor and a 1.8kg lightweight design, built for extreme outdoor conditions. Available in Go X, Pro X, and Carbon X models, it enhances endurance for all adventurers.

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💵Index Ventures Launches €290M Seed Fund for Visionary Founders

Index Ventures has announced Index Origin II, a new €290 million seed fund, expanding its early-stage commitment by 50% compared to its first Origin fund. The fund aims to back bold, mission-driven founders tackling big questions with long-term conviction.

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💰Flexvelop Raises €44M to Scale SME Equipment Financing

German fintech Flexvelop has raised €44 million to expand its B2B equipment financing platform. The round includes €40M in credit lines and €4M in equity from InnoVentureFonds and Seventure Partners.

Flexvelop’s “Flexing” model blends renting, leasing, and loans for SMEs needing fast, capital-light access to gear like laptops or medical equipment. The company is rebranding as it moves from startup to scale-up, aiming to secure more retail and manufacturer partnerships and support larger project volumes.

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👎 FuriosaAI Rejects $800M Acquisition Offer from Meta

South Korean AI chip startup FuriosaAI has reportedly turned down an $800M acquisition offer from Meta, citing disagreements over business strategy and structure rather than price.

🔥 Founded in 2017, FuriosaAI develops AI chips like Warboy and Renegade (RNGD) to compete with Nvidia and AMD.

🔥 The company is now raising $48M to continue chip development and plans to launch RNGD later this year with backing from LG AI Research and Aramco.

🔥 Meta has been seeking alternatives to Nvidia as it scales its AI infrastructure, with up to $65B planned AI investment in 2025.

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🤖 Ex-Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt’s Robotics Startup Raises $150M

The Bot Company, founded by former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, has raised another $150M, this time in a round led by Greenoaks, according to Reuters.

Co-founded with Paril Jain (ex-Tesla AI lead) and Luke Holoubek (ex-Cruise), the startup is building a household robotics platform. This brings total funding to $300M, less than a year after Vogt stepped down from Cruise following a high-profile incident involving an autonomous vehicle.

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💜 Aardvark: The AI Model Aiming to Revolutionize Global Weather Forecasting

The Turing Institute has unveiled Aardvark, a new AI weather prediction system that replaces the entire traditional forecasting pipeline. Unlike current models, Aardvark can be trained and run on a desktop computer, making it thousands of times faster and significantly more accessible.

Key highlights:

⚪️Replaces all three steps of traditional weather forecasting with a single AI model
⚪️ Processes data from satellites, weather stations, and balloons to generate 10-day global forecasts
⚪️ Already matches the accuracy of the US Global Forecast System (GFS) while using only 10% of the data
⚪️ Offers major benefits for developing countries, where supercomputers and infrastructure are limited
⚪️ Challenges include handling extreme weather events and climate shifts, but early signs are promising

Aardvark could be a major leap forward in democratizing weather forecasting, cutting costs, reducing emissions, and improving global climate resilience.

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💵 NATO Innovation Fund Co-Leads €25M Round in Graphene Photonics Startup Camgraphic

UK-based Camgraphic, a startup developing graphene-based photonic chips, has raised €25M in Series A co-led by the NATO Innovation Fund, Sony Innovation Fund, CDP Venture Capital, and Join Capital.

🔜 Camgraphic’s chips use light and electrical signals for faster, cheaper, and more energy-efficient data transmission than silicon, with applications in AI, HPC, 5G/6G, and radar.

🔜 Funds will support R&D in Pisa and launch a pilot manufacturing line in Milan.

🔜 The startup, currently 17 people, plans to double in size over the next year and begin scaling for commercialization in the coming years.

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💼 French VC Daphni Raises $215M to Back Science-Driven Startups

Paris-based Daphni has secured €200M for its third fund, Daphni Blue, with a target of €250M by year-end. The firm plans to invest in 40 European startups, with a strong focus on deep science and fundamental research.

🧪 Daphni aims to back innovation rooted in physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics, beyond mainstream AI hype.

🛸 The investment team now includes PhD talent, reflecting a shift toward supporting scientist-founders.

🗣️ “Raising is not an end in itself… exits are,” says founding partner Pierre-Eric Leibovici, underlining Daphni’s performance-driven strategy.

Can Europe's deep science startups finally compete with U.S. tech dominance?

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🧠 Infinitum Reinvents Cooling Motors

Infinitum, ranked among Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025, has redesigned industrial fan motors for AI data centers, making them lighter, quieter, and up to 20% more energy efficient.

🔥 Its Aircore EC motor uses a copper-saving printed circuit board stator, eliminating heavy iron and reducing material waste.

🔥 A modular design allows for easy repairs, while right-sizing optimizes power use for specific needs.

🔥 Backed by a $34M U.S. Energy Department grant, Infinitum will open a Texas factory this year, aiming to produce 200,000 motors annually.

As AI workloads soar, innovations like Infinitum’s motors show how rethinking core infrastructure can unlock major energy and sustainability gains.

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🌎 Earth AI Finds Critical Minerals in Overlooked Australian Sites

Earth AI, an AI-driven mining startup, has discovered promising deposits of copper, cobalt, gold, silver, tin, and molybdenum in underexplored regions of Australia, using algorithms trained on decades of public geological data.

🛸 Founded by Roman Teslyuk, the company combines AI prediction models with in-house drilling tech to validate overlooked sites.

🔘 Earth AI’s approach bypasses industry conservatism by proving its own finds - unlike most software-only exploration startups.

💰 Backed by Y Combinator and a recent $20M Series B, the company’s discoveries point to a technological shift in mineral exploration, accelerating timelines in a historically slow-moving sector.

Could AI-driven exploration unlock the next major wave of critical minerals - and who will control access to it?

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💰 Nuclear Startup Terrestrial Energy Goes Public via SPAC, Raises $280M

Terrestrial Energy, a North Carolina-based nuclear startup, has gone public through a SPAC merger, securing $280M to develop its Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) technology.

👾 IMSRs use molten salt as both coolant and fuel carrier, offering a compact, efficient approach to nuclear energy.

✨ The core is replaced every 7 years, addressing legacy issues like corrosion in older designs.

✅ Terrestrial joins peers like Oklo amid growing interest in nuclear-powered data centers and industrial heat solutions.

With surging energy demands from AI and electrification, modular nuclear tech like IMSR is gaining traction - SPACs may remain a popular route for funding next-gen energy startups.

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💥 Krisp Launches AI Accent Conversion, Plans Mobile Apps as Growth Continues

Krisp, the Armenia-based audio startup known for its AI noise cancellation, has launched a new feature to convert Indian English accents to American during live calls - aimed at improving clarity in global communication.

🗣️ The AI model adjusts phonemes without changing the speaker’s voice, and showed early results like a 26% sales conversion boost in enterprise tests.

💰 Initially built for voice isolation, Krisp has since raised $14M, grown to 1,200+ enterprise clients, and is now expanding into accent AI, call analytics, and mobile apps.

⚙️ To support growth, it’s also built its own AI training data center using Nvidia A100s — citing cloud costs as too high.

Will AI-driven accent conversion improve inclusivity - or raise new ethical concerns around identity and voice?

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💵 GetReal Raises $18M to Fight Deepfakes with Scalable AI Forensics

GetReal, a cyber-forensics startup co-founded by deepfake pioneer Hany Farid, has raised $17.5M Series A to expand its AI-powered platform that detects fake audio, video, and images. Backers include Forgepoint, Ballistic Ventures, and In-Q-Tel, with clients like Visa and John Deere already onboard.

🛡 The platform includes tools to screen, analyze, and respond to synthetic media threats - especially those targeting executives and national security.

🛸 Built as a “Hany-as-a-service,” GetReal transforms decades of academic expertise into scalable detection software.

💼 The startup is already seeing strong demand from heavily regulated industries and government agencies concerned with high-risk impersonation attacks.

GetReal is one of the first to operationalize deepfake detection at scale, meeting a critical security need as AI-generated media becomes a top global risk.

As AI-generated threats spread, should deepfake detection tools become a mandatory layer in enterprise and government security stacks?

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💦 Marvel Fusion Raises €50M Series B Extension as Fusion Tech Heats Up

Marvel Fusion, a nuclear energy startup based in Germany, has raised a €50M Series B extension, bringing its total funding to €385M and making it Europe’s best-funded fusion company.

🧪 The company is developing inertial confinement fusion, using lasers to trigger hydrogen implosions - an alternative to magnetic confinement used by competitors.

🙏 The new capital will support the shift from R&D to industrial deployment, with a prototype planned by 2032 and a commercial fusion plant by 2036.

As Europe races to catch up with U.S. fusion funding, Marvel’s novel approach and major backers position it as a leading contender in clean energy innovation.

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💵 Manna Raises $30M to Scale Drone Delivery to 1.5M Orders a Year

Irish drone startup Manna has secured $30 million to expand its autonomous delivery service across Europe, aiming for 1.5 million deliveries annually — a scale unmatched in the industry.

🚁 The company operates in Dublin suburbs and Finland, using drones that lower orders directly into backyards in under 3 minutes.

🔋 With hot-swappable battery modules and autonomous flight, Manna claims 8 deliveries/hour per drone - vs. 1.4/hour for rivals like Amazon, Alphabet’s Wing, and Zipline.

👍 Its ultra-lean operating model drives costs down to $4 per delivery, with a goal of hitting $1 at scale.

🫱 New partnerships with Wolt, Just Eat, and more top food delivery apps position Manna for rapid adoption through existing platforms.

While others chase scale with capital, Manna is quietly building a profitable, high-frequency delivery system that could dominate Europe's drone logistics race.

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📈 HoneyBook Hits $140M ARR, Adds AI as Valuation Pressure Eases

HoneyBook, the business management platform for freelancers and solopreneurs, revealed it has reached $140M in ARR, offering rare transparency from a ZIRP-era unicorn still holding a $2.4B valuation.

💼 Serving independent professionals with tools like CRM, billing, payments, and now AI-powered pricing guidance, HoneyBook says its proprietary data makes it uniquely positioned to support small business growth.

🛸 The newly launched AI features aim to boost user revenue by recommending pricing and strategy - thereby increasing transaction volume and platform take-rate.

Will AI-powered platforms like HoneyBook redefine productivity for solopreneurs - or is this too niche to scale further?

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⭕️ Willow Acquires Elvie's Assets as UK Women's Health Pioneer Moves into Administration

Willow, the San Francisco startup known for its wearable breast pumps, has acquired Elvie, a UK-based women's health company, as Elvie enters administration. The deal highlights a significant consolidation in the femtech sector amid ongoing market challenges.

💼 Willow has secured Elvie’s assets after months of negotiations, as Elvie faced financial struggles.

💰 Elvie, which raised over $186 million with a valuation of $241 million, will transfer its products and some of its team to Willow.

✨ Willow aims to expand its platform and strengthen its position in the women's health tech space, where profitability and scaling remain challenging.

⏫ The women's health market, valued at $60 billion, continues to face headwinds, including increased competition from cheaper products and limited exit opportunities for femtech companies.

Willow’s acquisition of Elvie marks a strategic move to consolidate and strengthen its presence in the femtech industry amid financial challenges and limited growth opportunities.

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