WHAT’S INSIDE

Markets Watch — A hawkish Fed in focus as Powell faces calls to step down, Q3 earnings open with the bar sky-high, and record diesel drives home heating up 50%.

Top Signals — Trump's Super Intelligence Force, the FTC's sweeping probe of frontier labs, Google's frozen bug bounty, and Sanders' bill to ban Flock.

Big Movers — Broadcom's $42B loan to Anthropic, Nvidia nearing $6T, Apple locking down macOS, and Gemini 4 Argon's launch.

In the Money — 16 raises led by Instinct ($1B), FieldAI ($700M), and Island ($400M), spanning AI agents, robotics, proptech, and medical AI.

Exits & IPOs — AMD buys Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for $8.2B, Anthropic targets a November listing, and Oura's IPO runs 4x oversubscribed.

Funding Buzz — Jake Paul's Anti Fund , SMB Contrarians, and Trump Jr.'s 1789 Capital all chase new money.

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Markets Watch

Earnings Bar Is High — Q3 season opens with 86% of companies beating last quarter and profits up 52% yoy, but a near-record CAPE and decades-high yields leave stocks priced for perfection, watch: Delta, then Alphabet and Microsoft.

No Sell-Off Yet — The S&P 500 sits under 1% from a record even as the 10-year yield hits highest since 2002, with weak jobs report cooling bets on another Fed hike.

Powell Under Pressure — Adviser Kevin Hassett said Jerome Powell should "move on" from the Fed board after a watchdog flagged management failures on the $2.4B HQ renovation, finding no criminal wrongdoing.

Sticker Shock at Home — Heating oil could jump 50% this winter, adding about $900 to the average bill for 4.8M mostly Northeastern homes, as diesel tops a record $6.50 a gallon amid the Iran war and Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries.

TOP SIGNAL ALERTS

The hottest Signals & News To Watch This Week

Trump's SI Force — Trump stood up a Super Intelligence Force led by intel chief Jay Clayton, giving it 120 days to report on AI risks after an executive order rebranded the tech as "super intelligence."

FTC Comes Knocking — The FTC opened a sweeping probe of OpenAI, Anthropic, and other frontier labs, readying subpoena-style demands for documents and executive testimony on consumer risks.

AI Spam Breaks Bounties — Google froze its open-source bug bounty program after a flood of AI-generated reports, full of hallucinated functions and fake code paths, overwhelmed reviewers.

Sanders vs Flock — Bernie Sanders introduced the Ban Flock Act to block federal use of license plate readers; Flock runs 120K+ cameras logging 20B reads a month and is valued over $8B.

Big Movers

Big tech moves, movers and trends to watch this week

$42B Chip Loan — Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows Broadcom will lend it up to $42B to finance a $125.2B five-year compute lease, making Anthropic its largest chip-design customer next year.

Nvidia Eyes $6T — Nvidia touched an intraday record for the first time since May and closed just shy, its value nearing $6T after a 23% rebound from July's low and a record $150B buyback.

Apple Locks Down — Apple will tighten macOS "Full Disk Access," requiring very explicit consent, after warning that AI agents sharply raise the risk of apps reading files, mail, and messages.

AWS Opens Up — AWS will drop NDAs in data center talks with communities as backlash over power and water use grows, getting ahead of Microsoft and Google on transparency.

Gemini 4 Argon — Google launched frontier model Gemini 4 Argon with a 1M-token context window, priced at $2/M input and $10/M output tokens.

China Closes Ranks — DeepSeek teamed with Huawei to ship open-source tools for its Ascend chips, including a simpler rival to Nvidia's CUDA.

Tesla's $30B Line — Tesla secured $30B in new credit lines from Citibank and Wells Fargo to scale Cybercab, the Optimus robot, and Semi production.

Siri Gets a Home — Our feature on how Apple will reportedly unveil a smart home hub code-named J490 on Oct. 13, a face-recognizing countertop screen running the new Gemini-trained Siri, alongside a refreshed HomePod mini and Apple TV.

OPEN DEALS

Open Funding Rounds or VC Fund Raises to watch this week

Colossal's $26B Talk — De-extinction biotech Colossal is in talks for a TWG Global-led round at $25B-$26B, roughly double its last valuation.

OpenAI Waits — OpenAI postponed its IPO over safety concerns and is instead seeking $30B privately at a $1.4T valuation, with ARR hitting $40B in August, up 70%.

IN THE MONEY

Companies that raised money in the past week and why they matter

Massive Deals

Instinct's Viral $1B — Viral task-automation agent Instinct raised a $1B Series C at a $10B valuation from Sequoia, Benchmark, and Coatue, quadrupling from $2.5B a month earlier.

Robot Brain — FieldAI, building a general-purpose brain for robots from humanoids to drones, is raising $700M at a $10B valuation on a signed term sheet, five times its worth a year ago.

Browser Lockbox — Enterprise browser security firm Island raised a $400M Series F at a $6.4B valuation led by Evolution Equity, pushing total funding past $1B.

Housing's AI Bet — EliseAI, which automates housing and healthcare operations, raised $350M at a $4B valuation from a16z and Bessemer, doubling in a year.

Voice Doubles Up — ElevenLabs ran a $300M employee tender at a $22B valuation, double February's $11B, led by Wellington and T. Rowe Price.

Offensive Security Scales — AI cybersecurity platform Armadin raised a $255.5M Series B to scale autonomous offensive security assessments for enterprises.

Pharma in Orbit — In-space drug maker Varda Space raised a $251M Series D at a reported $1.6B valuation co-led by Lux and Natural Capital, lifting total funding to $598M.

Medical AI's $15B — Miami medical-AI firm OpenEvidence raised $250M at a $15B valuation led by a16z and hospital systems, with plans to move into cancer drug development.

Brain Interface Bet — Precision Neuroscience raised a $250M Series D led by Pershing Square for its brain-computer interface, bringing total funding to $430M.

Pharmacy Benefits Reboot — NYC pharmacy benefit manager Rightway raised a $155M Series E led by Francisco Partners, serving 45 Fortune 500 clients on an aligned-incentive model.

Databases for Agents — Supabase raised $150M led by GIC and acquired Turso, as 70% of its new databases are now spun up by AI agents.

Optics That Don't Blink — CScale exited stealth with a $145M Series C for gigawatt-scale AI optical interconnect, drawing Nvidia and Intel Capital as first strategic backers; total funding hit $188M.

Buy Before You Sell — Austin proptech Homeward raised a $120M Series D led by Saluda Grade plus a $330M debt facility, expanding bridge financing as high rates keep homeowners stuck between buying and selling.

Dojo Alumni's Chip — DensityAI, founded by ex-Tesla Dojo leaders, raised hundreds of millions at a $10B valuation led by a16z, with AWS as a client.

Large Deals

Light Between Chips — Volantis raised $88M co-led by Lachy Groom and Abstract Ventures for optical interconnects that use laser light to link AI processors with memory chips.

EXIT WATCHING

Mergers & Acquisitions and IPOs

AMD Grabs World Labs — AMD is acquiring spatial-AI startup World Labs, founded by Fei-Fei Li, for $8.2B, with Li joining as chief scientist to push physical-reality AI.

Salesforce Buys Listen — Salesforce signed a deal to buy AI customer-research startup Listen Labs, whose agents design and run studies, for undisclosed terms after it raised $100M total.

IPO Watch

Open or upcoming IPOs to watch:

(IPO UPCOMING) Anthropic's November — Anthropic could start formal IPO marketing the week of Nov. 9, aiming to begin trading before Thanksgiving.

(IPO UPCOMING) Neocloud Warchest — British AI data center operator Nscale raised $3.36B in convertibles from Third Point and Nvidia ahead of an upcoming US IPO targeting a $35B valuation on $103B of contracts.

Oura's Oversubscribed Ring — Finland's Oura has a $2.2B IPO running 4x oversubscribed, pricing 50M shares at $40-44 for a $14.1B valuation at the top.

THE FUNDING BUZZ

VC & PE Activity To Watch

Open Deals

Jake Paul's Sequel — Anti Fund, co-founded by Jake Paul and Geoffrey Woo, is targeting $400M for its second fund, a big jump from $30M, with a portfolio spanning OpenAI, Anduril, and Cognition.

SMB Contrarians — Contrarian Thinking Capital, co-led by Codie Sanchez, is raising $50M for a second fund backing tech for small businesses.

1789 Capital — 1789 Capital, the venture firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, is raising a $3B second growth fund — already securing $2B from existing backers.

Successful Closes

Ex-Googlers Debut — BAG Ventures, founded by former Google execs Bonita Stewart and Jackson Georges Jr., closed an $11.3M debut fund for early AI startups, with Google among 150+ LPs.

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FOR INVESTORS
Open Deals
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