Julia Hornstein

Benchmark, a venture firm historically focused on early-stage investments, has raised two new funds totaling $1.975 billion to expand its investment strategy. The firm will deploy a $1.25 billion fund for later-stage startups and a $750 million fund for early-stage companies, marking a significant departure from its traditional early-stage-only model. This shift reflects changing dynamics in venture capital and Benchmark's effort to support portfolio companies through later growth phases.

Base Power, a three-year-old home-battery startup, is raising funds at a $12 billion valuation, with venture firm Ribbit Capital leading the round. The funding reflects investor appetite for energy storage solutions as residential battery adoption accelerates. Ribbit, founded by Venezuelan entrepreneur Micky Malka, has backed Base Power since its last funding round and is known for early bets on fintech companies like Robinhood and Coinbase.

Oura and Blockchain.com have filed to go public, joining a wave of companies including OpenAI preparing IPOs in the wake of SpaceX's anticipated mega-offering. Recent IPO history suggests AI-focused startups will fare better than non-AI companies in the current market environment. The timing reflects broader investor appetite for AI-adjacent businesses despite broader IPO market volatility.

Oura Health, the health-tracking ring maker, filed confidential IPO paperwork with the SEC on Thursday. The company has not yet disclosed share count or pricing details. The filing marks a significant step toward public markets for the wearable health technology sector.

Dan Levine, a partner at Accel known for backing Scale AI and Vercel, is stepping back from the venture capital firm and will no longer make new investments. The firm disclosed the change to limited partners in recent weeks. Levine's departure marks a notable shift in Accel's AI investing strategy and signals potential changes in how the firm allocates capital to early-stage AI companies.

Core Automation, a six-week-old AI model startup founded by ex-OpenAI researcher Jerry Tworek, is raising $300 million to $500 million at a $4 billion valuation, just weeks after closing a $100 million Series A at $1 billion. The rapid back-to-back funding reflects growing venture capital appetite for AI model developers building on Nvidia chips, fueled partly by Nvidia's own strategic investments in the space. The company joins a cohort of newly formed AI labs attempting to compete directly with established players like Anthropic and OpenAI.

Cisco announced plans to acquire Astrix, an Israeli cybersecurity startup focused on agent security. The Information previously reported the deal was valued between $250 million and $350 million, though Cisco has not disclosed an official price. The acquisition signals Cisco's push into AI-driven security tools as enterprises increasingly deploy autonomous agents in production environments.

Founders Fund is investing approximately $624 million into Anduril's latest funding round, bringing its total stake in the defense-focused AI startup to at least $2.6 billion. The round, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital, values Anduril at $60 billion and totals roughly $4 billion. Founders Fund general partner Trae Stephens co-founded Anduril in 2017 and the firm has participated in all previous funding rounds, making this one of the largest individual checks in the current raise.

Two new startups are joining a wave of world model ventures that have attracted billions in investor funding over the past year. Dream Labs, founded this month by Joel Jang, a former Nvidia research scientist who worked on Project Groot, is seeking tens of millions in initial funding. One World AI, founded by NYU professor and Google DeepMind researcher Sherry Yang, is targeting $100 million. Both startups are capitalizing on investor appetite for foundation models that simulate physics and object interaction, capabilities seen as foundational for robotics development.