How Did AI Deals Top **$400M** Before Lunch? 📈🤖💸

TL;DR

• Physical AI infra pulled in nine-figure rounds fast
• Multi-chip orchestration and space compute drew fresh capital
• AI ops in healthcare won targeted Series A funding
• Sovereigns doubled down on AI hubs and data corridors

HEADLINES

Hyundai Motor Group committed 9 trillion won to AI mobility hub 🚗🔗

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra debuted agentic AI, hit 350k peak viewers 📱🔗

Block slashed 40% staff in AI overhaul 📉🔗

Anthropic defied Pentagon push for unconditional AI use ⚔️🔗

Korean investors funneled US$661M into China AI, semis 💹🔗

FROM THE BIG PLAYERS

Wellington Management invested $60M in Encord 🤖🔗

Accel invested $100M in Basis 📊🔗

Health Velocity Capital invested $15M in Third Way Health 🏥🔗

Plural invested $10.25M in Callosum 🧠🔗

Headline Asia & Z Venture Capital invested $26M in RLWRLD 🤖🔗

RAISES

Gushwork AI raised $9M in a funding round led by Susquehanna Asia VC 🛠️🔗

Letter AI raised $40M in a Series B led by Battery Ventures ✉️🔗

Companion Labs raised $2.5M in a seed round led by Peak XV’s Surge 🎭🔗

Sophia Space raised $10M in a seed round for orbital AI data centers 🛰️🔗

Avalon GloboCare raised up to $9.75M via AI-focused private placement 💉🔗

NEW LAUNCHES

GAC Group unveiled GoMate Mini humanoid robot, spun out Huilun Technology 🦾🔗

Samsung launched Galaxy S26 Ultra with Now Nudge agentic AI 📲🔗

Letter AI unveiled Letter Compass revenue enablement solution 🧭🔗

vivo announced X300 Ultra flagship with AI camera stack 📸🔗

TRY THESE TOOLS

Basis runs AI agents for accountants 🧮🔗

Letter AI powers deal-specific sales enablement content 📧🔗

Gushwork AI offers AI co-pilots for SMB workflows 🧰🔗

Companion Labs builds vernacular AI storyworld companions 🎮🔗

ElevenLabs Enterprise Voice scales multilingual AI voice agents on Google Cloud 🗣️🔗

METRICS

CoreWeave reported 110% YoY revenue growth, $67B backlog 📊🔗

Korean retail investors bought US$507M Hong Kong, US$154M mainland AI, semi stocks 📈🔗

MiniMax AI drew US$21M net Korean inflows post-IPO 💸🔗

Block shares jumped 24% on AI-driven restructuring 📉🔗

Momentum Cyber framed a $119B cybersecurity AI investment “bet” 🛡️🔗

BENCHMARKS

Data & AI newsletter tallied Anthropic’s $30B round, ElevenLabs $500M 📘🔗

Transparency Coalition mapped U.S. state AI bills on chatbots, arbitration, deepfakes 📑🔗

ET AI Conclave convened 250+ founders, CXOs, policymakers on AI playbooks 🏟️🔗

Callosum Scaling Inference Lab benchmarked heterogeneous multi-chip AI cost-performance 📐🔗

INFRA & COSTS

ElevenLabs expanded onto larger Google Cloud NVIDIA Blackwell clusters 🖥️🔗

Callosum reported 4x cost cuts via multi-chip orchestration 💾🔗

CoreWeave scaled to 850MW active AI cloud power capacity ⚡🔗

Sophia Space targeted orbital data centers for AI workloads 🛰️🔗

Encord positioned universal data layer for physical AI pipelines 🧬🔗

VALUATIONS

Basis hit $1.15B valuation with AI accounting agents 🏷️🔗

ByteDance secondary deal implied US$550B valuation, up from US$330B 📈🔗

MiniMax AI drew largest Korean net buying among Hong Kong AI listings 💹🔗

World Labs, MatX, ElevenLabs anchored multi-billion AI infra valuation wave 🧮🔗

POLICY

Anthropic rejected unrestricted U.S. military use of its AI ⚖️🔗

Pentagon insisted Anthropic tools be available for “all lawful purposes” 🪖🔗

Transparency Coalition tracked chatbot safety, AI arbitration, deepfake bills across states 📜🔗

NSF launched CyberAI SFS solicitation for AI–cybersecurity talent pipeline 🎓🔗

India regulators, safety groups warned AI safety lags investment surge 🇮🇳🔗

SOVEREIGN

Hyundai Motor Group pledged 9 trillion won into Saemangeum AI–hydrogen complex 🏛️🔗

Hong Kong SAR government budget accelerated innovation, AI, semiconductor development incentives 💼🔗

ASEAN ministers endorsed cross-border cloud framework to boost AI, data hubs 🌏🔗

South Korean retail investors ramped holdings of Chinese AI, chip firms 💴🔗

SECTORS

Healthcare deployed AI front-office ops co-pilots 🩺🔗

Accounting deployed AI agents for end-to-end returns 📚🔗

Industrial robotics deployed factory-trained robotics foundation models 🏭🔗

Cybersecurity deployed agentic AI to re-architect threat response 🛡️🔗

Agriculture deployed AI models for crop planning decisions 🌾🔗

COMMUNITY MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

Rory Bernier highlighted Basis’s $100M AI accounting unicorn milestone 🌐🔗