TECH IN THE NEWS

SEC Reined In — SEC staff have reportedly been told to seek permission from leadership before formally starting any further probes, Reuters reported.

Inflation Rises — US Core PCE inflation rose 2.8% year-over-year and 0.2% month-over-month in December, which is still still above the Federal Reserve's 2% target.

Trump Tariffs — President Trump will implement 25% tariffs on Canada/Mexico imports and 10% on Chinese imports he states to to address immigration, fentanyl concerns. Canada announced retaliatory 25% tariffs.

Trump-Nvidia Meeting — President Trump met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to discuss AI chip exports to China and DeepSeek's impact on US tech leadership.

Paragon Spyware — Meta's WhatsApp identified Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions targeting users including journalists, Meta has issued a cease-and-desist letter.

FreeAI — OpenAI launched the free, o3-mini LLM to compete with DeepSeek and partnered with US National Labs on nuclear weapons security. Altman admits the company has been ‘on wrong side of history’ in regard to open-source AI.

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DEALS WE’RE WATCHING
Closed Deals:

MASSIVE DEALS

Alice & Bob — A Paris-based quantum computing startup raised a $104M Series B to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer with "cat qubits", targeting useful computing applications by 2030.

TravelPerk — The Barcelona business travel platform raised a $200M Series E at $2.7B led by Atomico, at ~2x its previous $1.4B valuation. It also acquired expense mgmt platform Yokoy and plans to further expand to the US.

Mercor — The San Francisco-based expert-AI model development platform raised $75M at a $2B valuation with investors including Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Anthology Fund.

Veir — The Woburn-based superconducting power lines startup raised a $75M Series B led by Munich Re Ventures, with Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund participating.

Onebrief — The Hawaii-based military planning software startup raised $50M Series C co-led by General Catalyst and Insight Partners, total raised is $103M.

LARGE DEALS

Motif — The San Francisco-based 3D architecture platform raised $46M in seed and Series A rounds led by CapitalG and Redpoint Ventures.

SafelyYou — The San Francisco-based AI fall detection company raised $43M Series C led by Touring Capital, total raised $100M+.

UVeye — The NJ-based AI vehicle inspection company raised $41M led by Woven Capital, plus $150M debt from Trinity Capital.

Closinglock — The Austin-based fintech and real estate fraud prevention platform raised a $34M Series B led by Sageview. It has protected 1M+ home sales worth $500B+.

Hone Health — The New York-based preventive care telemedicine clinic raised $33M Series A from investors including Tribe Capital and PIF.

SMALLER DEALS

Conifers.ai — The Tel Aviv/Dallas-based Agentic AI-powered SecOps investigation platform raised $25M co-led by Tom Findling, Alon Yotvat, and Mark Kurman.

Manas AI — The New York-based AI drug discovery startup co-founded by Reid Hoffman raised $24.6M co-led by Hoffman and General Catalyst.

Origami Agents — The San Francisco-based AI-powered sales lead generation startup raised a $2M seed from angel investors.

Spaceium — The San Francisco-based space refueling startup raised a $6.3M seed led by Initialized Capital, with YC and multiple others.

Coval — The YC grad and San Fran-based AI agent testing platform raised a $3.3M seed led by MaC Venture Capital, with General Catalyst and YC.

Foyer — The New York-based first-time homebuyer savings startup raised a $6.2M seed co-led by Alpaca VC and Hometeam Ventures.

Savant Labs — The San Mateo-based AI data management platform raised an $18.5M Series A led by Dell Capital, total raised is $29.5M.

Companies to Watch:

[Open Deal] Retro Biosciences — The San Francisco aging-focused biotech startup is raising a $1B Series A after announcing an OpenAI partnership for drug development. It received a previous $180M seed from Sam Altman, who will re-up.

Palona AI — Ex-Google and Meta leader-founded startup offering personalized AI sales agents for non-tech businesses, featuring high emotional intelligence and brand customization. Early adopters include Wyze and Pizza My Heart.

ServiceNow — Reported 22% growth with $10.98B ARR, driven by AI expansion. SAP also sees 10% revenue growth from AI cloud services.

NANO Nuclear — The SMR nuclear startup’s valuation surged from $150M to $1.6B following successful funding rounds. It is developing the ZEUS and ODIN portable nuclear reactors with future plans for space-based applications.

DEALS WE’RE WATCHING
The Funding Buzz 

8VC — Palantir founder Joe Lonsdale's Austin-based firm aims to raise $1B for its sixth fund, ~14% larger than its previous fund

Conviction Partners — The AI-focused firm led by Sarah Guo (ex-Greylock) closed a $230M second fund (2x its debut fund), and announced ex-Sequoia partner Mike Vernal as a new partner.

Valor Equity — Valor Equity filed paperwork indicating plans to raise $40M for its Valor Seed 1.0, to be a vehicle for private equity investments.

LA VC Fund — Los Angeles-based VC firms have banded together to raise a tech community fund, which currently sits a little over half a million, to help those affected by the recent wildfires.

Exit Watch:

Redpanda — Snowflake is reportedly in talks to acquire the streaming data analytics platform that competes with Confluent for ~$1B to enhance its data processing capabilities.

Maze Therapeutics — The SF-based chronic kidney disease biotech startup ($500M raised from Frazier Life Sciences, Deep Track Capital) priced its IPO but saw only a 1% rise on debut.

Vulcan Cyber — Security exposure management firm Tenable acquires the Israeli security weakness detection startup for $150M ($55M previously raised).