Facing intense competition, AI‑focused startups are adopting a dual‑valuation funding structure that lets lead investors buy shares at a lower price while other investors pay a higher, headline‑making price. The approach lets companies brand themselves as unicorns even though a sizable portion of equity was purchased at a lower valuation. Recent rounds at Aaru and Serval illustrate the tactic, which analysts say can attract talent and customers but also raises the risk of future down rounds and investor disappointment. Read more →

OpenAI announced that its ChatGPT chatbot has climbed to 900 million weekly active users, adding to a base of 50 million paying subscribers. The surge in user engagement coincided with a massive $110 billion private financing round, featuring major commitments from Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank. The new capital values the company at roughly $730 billion and underscores the rapid momentum of its subscription growth. OpenAI highlighted faster response times, higher reliability and stronger safety as the product scales, positioning ChatGPT as a leading tool for learning, writing, planning and building across a global audience. Read more →

OpenAI announced a $110 billion private funding round, the largest ever, with Amazon contributing $50 billion, and Nvidia and SoftBank each adding $30 billion. The round values the company at a $730 billion pre‑money valuation and includes extensive cloud‑computing partnerships, notably a new stateful runtime environment on Amazon’s Bedrock platform and massive compute commitments from both Amazon and Nvidia. Part of Amazon’s investment is contingent on OpenAI achieving artificial general intelligence or completing an IPO, underscoring the high stakes of the deal. Read more →

Anthropic announced a revision to its Responsible Scaling Policy, replacing hard safety tripwires with more flexible risk reports and safety roadmaps. The change follows reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth urged the company to grant the military unrestricted access to its Claude AI model, threatening penalties under the Defense Production Act. Anthropic’s leadership argued that strict halts on model training would no longer help anyone given the rapid pace of AI development. Critics warned the shift could erode safeguards and enable a gradual “frog‑boiling” of safety standards. Read more →

Harper, an AI-native commercial insurance brokerage founded by Dakotah Rice and Tushar Nair, announced a $46.8 million combined Series A and seed round. Launched in 2024 as part of Y Combinator's W'25 batch, the company uses artificial intelligence to automate underwriting, document collection, and pipeline management, allowing it to serve more than 5,000 small- and mid-sized businesses across 160 carriers. Investors include Y Combinator, Peak XV Partners, and Emergence Capital. The new capital will expand Harper’s engineering team and brand, positioning the firm to become a central risk and compliance partner for entrepreneurs in middle America. Read more →