The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

• Source: UK robotics startup Humanoid raised $150M in the first tranche of a Series A at a $1.2B pre-money valuation and seeks another $80M-$100M by September (Rocket Drew/The Information) [56d]
• Source: PayPal's board sees Stripe and PE firm Advent International's $53B takeover bid as undervaluing the company and facing regulatory and financing hurdles (Reuters) [56d]
• A New York State school district is piloting a humanoid robot teacher by the company Realbotix to help students with summer school classes (Chase DiBenedetto/Mashable) [57d]
• US Homeland Security says it seized 30k+ SIM cards in June and July in a nationwide operation it claims dismantled infrastructure used in telephone fraud (Lorelei Smillie/Bloomberg) [57d]
• Netflix says roughly 300 titles used generative AI this year, mostly in post-production, "to deliver higher quality output more quickly and at a lower cost" (Emma Roth/The Verge) [57d]
• An NYT reporter finds AI-generated, unauthorized biographies of herself and other journalists on Amazon, where AI-made books with elusive "authors" proliferate (Kashmir Hill/New York Times) [57d]
• Netflix reports Q2 revenue up 13% YoY to $12.56B, vs. $12.59B est., and says it will give fewer engagement updates starting in 2027; NFLX drops 7%+ after hours (Lillian Rizzo/CNBC) [57d]
• Kimi-K3 is now #1 on the Frontend Code Arena benchmark, surpassing Claude Fable 5; the model scored 88.3 on Terminal Bench 2.1, only below GPT-5.6 Sol's 88.8 (Michael Nuñez/VentureBeat) [57d]
• DoorDash launches a limited beta of DoorDash CLI, which lets users place orders via an AI agent, available by waitlist to macOS developers in the US and Canada (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch) [57d]
• Google updates its AI video editor Vids with Gemini Omni and a feature that lets users create custom digital avatars using a selfie and voice recording (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch) [57d]
• Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3, a 2.8T-parameter AI model that it says rivals Opus 4.8 and GPT 5.5, and plans to release model weights by July 27 (Kimi) [57d]
• After reports of GPT-5.6 deleting files, OpenAI says the issue most often occurs in full-access mode without sandboxing and it is working to mitigate the risk (Tibo/@thsottiaux) [57d]
• Crypto.com raised $400M from Citadel Securities in its first institutional funding round, valuing the Singapore-based crypto exchange at $20B (CoinDesk) [57d]
• Sources: Google is months behind schedule on delivering Gemini 3.5 Pro because the company has been trying to improve its capabilities, particularly in coding (Bloomberg) [57d]
• Beehiiv launches Community, which lets subscribers chat with each other, adds programmatic ads and an AI tool that helps creators manage their audiences (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch) [57d]
• Meta's Oversight Board says top AI models may be restricting free expression in its first evaluation of LLMs, as it seeks to expand its influence beyond Meta (Karissa Bell/Engadget) [57d]
• Google says users in the US can now link to and interact with some apps in AI Mode, including Instacart, Canva, and YouTube Music (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch) [57d]
• Roblox unveils Build, which lets users create basic games through text prompts directly within its mobile app, powered by Roblox's models and open-source models (Jay Peters/The Verge) [57d]
• Fora, which connects travel agents with travelers and offers agents AI tools, raised a $60M Series D at a $1B valuation led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures (Dominic-Madori Davis/TechCrunch) [57d]
• Google renames NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook and rolls out an update giving every notebook a secure cloud computer, letting it write and execute code natively (Josh Woodward/Google) [57d]
• San Diego-based Self Inspection, which uses AI to assess body damage on a car with as little tech as a smartphone camera, raised $10M led by Sheryl Sandberg (Sean O'Kane/TechCrunch) [57d]
• Filing: a Chinese company says a fund in which its unit invested paid ~$420M for an indirect 0.8265% stake in DeepSeek, implying DeepSeek is valued at ~$52B (Eduardo Baptista/Reuters) [57d]
• Visa launches the Visa Stablecoin Platform, an internal system for its network of about 15,000 financial institutions and 200M+ merchants to use stablecoins (Camila Grigera Naón/Fortune) [57d]
• OnePlus confirms it will no longer operate in North America or Europe but will continue in China, while Realme, another Oppo sub-brand, will exit China (CNET) [57d]
• China, Russia, Brazil, and 26 other countries sign an agreement to establish the World AI Cooperation Organization in Shanghai (Reuters) [57d]
• A hacker claims to have accessed Suno user info and source code, showing how it scraped music; Suno says no sensitive info was compromised in a November hack (Jason Koebler/404 Media) [57d]
• Runta, which provides isolated sandboxes and guardrails for AI agents to prevent operational risks, raised a $20M seed led by a16z at a $100M+ valuation (Stephanie Palazzolo/The Information) [57d]
• Sources: Moonshot plans to launch Kimi K3, China's largest model to date with 2T-3T parameters, in the coming days; it's expected to outperform Claude Opus 4.8 (Financial Times) [57d]
• Sources: Apple is prepping an iPad overhaul, including an iPad mini with an OLED screen by October and refreshed versions of entry-level iPad and Airs in 2027 (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) [57d]
• Sable, which is building an AI agent named Aiden that lives on a company's website to run live product demos and more, raised $45M from Sequoia and 8VC (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune) [57d]
• Grubhub parent Wonder raised a $650M+ Series D at a $9B valuation, bringing its total raised to $3B+ since its founding in 2018, and plans to go public in 2027 (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune) [57d]
• 1Password launches a new Claude integration for Mac that lets Anthropic's AI agent sign in to websites without seeing the user's password or 2FA code (Zac Hall/9to5Mac) [57d]
• Fireworks, which helps developers access AI chips and open-source models, raised $1.5B at a $17.5B valuation and says it has exceeded $1B in annualized revenue (Jordan Novet/CNBC) [57d]
• TMTG plans to launch Truth API on August 1 to provide real-time data from top Truth Social accounts to financial news organizations and trading firms (Sara Fischer/Axios) [57d]
• Bunkerhill Health, which uses AI agents for hospital tasks like managing wait times, raised a $25M Series B led by Khosla, bringing its total funding to $55M (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune) [57d]
• Sources detail how xAI has been slowed down by internal chaos as Musk pushed for Grok to match Claude, amid signs it is turning a corner under Michael Nicolls (Carmen Arroyo/Bloomberg) [57d]
• London-based Applied Computing, which is developing AI models for energy operations, raised $20M led by KBR, with participation from Databricks Ventures (Tamara Djurickovic/Tech.eu) [57d]
• Munich-based Microagi, which collects factory and household data to train humanoid robots, raised $55M led by Hummingbird in Germany's largest ever seed round (Éanna Kelly/Sifted) [57d]
• Ocado stock drops 14%, hitting a 13-year low, after it failed to show tangible progress in talks to secure new US partners for its warehouse automation tech (Sarah Young/Reuters) [57d]
• The EU issues two decisions under the DMA, requiring Google to provide rival AI assistants and search engines comparable access to Android and some Search data (Robert Hart/The Verge) [57d]
• Two Scattered Spider members who pleaded guilty in the UK to an August 2024 cyberattack on Transport for London are jailed for five and a half years (Joe Tidy/BBC) [57d]