How Will A $150M Inference Bet Reshape AI? 🧠⚙️💸

TL;DR

• Inferact’s $150M seed cements inference as capital magnet
• South Korea’s AI Basic Act becomes first full-spectrum regime
• Mistral targets over $1.2B in 2026 revenue
• VoiceRun, Sparkli, Ivo show AI vertical funding resilience

HEADLINES

Inferact lands $150M seed to scale vLLM 🚀🔗

Mistral AI projects $1.2B revenue, equal chip spend 📈🔗

Spotify launches AI-driven Prompted Playlist feature 🎧🔗

South Korea enforces first broad AI Basic Act ⚖️🔗

VoiceRun raises $5.5M for voice agent platform 📞🔗

Intel can’t meet AI server-chip demand 🖥️🔗

FROM THE BIG PLAYERS

Andreessen Horowitz invested $150M in Inferact 🤖🔗

Blackbird invested $55M in Ivo 📜🔗

Flybridge Capital Partners invested $5.5M in VoiceRun 🗣️🔗

RAISES

Inferact raised $150M in a seed round led by/from Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed ⚙️🔗

Ivo raised $55M in a Series B led by/from Blackbird 📑🔗

VoiceRun raised $5.5M in a seed round led by/from Flybridge Capital Partners 📣🔗

Sparkli raised $5M in a pre-seed round led by/from Founderful and angels 🎓🔗

NEW LAUNCHES

Spotify launched Prompted Playlist AI-curated music tool 🎶🔗

Sparkli unveiled multimodal AI-native learning engine for children 🧩🔗

Government of Telangana launched Aikam autonomous state AI platform 🏛️🔗

L’Oréal announced global tech hub to boost AI capabilities 💄🔗

TRY THESE TOOLS

Spotify Prompted Playlist conversationally builds personalized playlists 🎧🔗

Sparkli multimodal AI learning journeys for kids 🧠🔗

VoiceRun code-first platform to deploy enterprise voice agents 📱🔗

METRICS

Mistral AI targeting $1.2B in 2026 revenue 📊🔗

World Economic Forum finds 52% expect AI-related US stocks to fall 📉🔗

EY-Parthenon estimates AI can lift labour productivity 1.5–3% 📈🔗

WEF Cybersecurity Survey shows 87% see AI cyberthreats as fastest-growing risk 🛡️🔗

BENCHMARKS

WEF Experts report generative AI already saves 1.6% work hours ⏱️🔗

WEF Chief Economists’ Outlook highlights AI deployment as one of three defining 2026 macro trends 📘🔗

WEF Business Briefing argues leading firms reinvest AI gains into skills and data infrastructure 📙🔗

INFRA & COSTS

Intel says AI server CPU demand exceeds its capacity 🏭🔗

Mistral AI expects chip and infra spend near €1B 💽🔗

India’s AI-way panel stresses data-centre backbone as AI “infrastructure spine” 🔌🔗

AI Business notes merged AI startups planning first full‑stack AI cloud ☁️🔗

VALUATIONS

Inferact priced seed round at $800M valuation 🏷️🔗

Mistral AI holds €11.7B valuation post €1.7B raise 💶🔗

Sparkli positions to disrupt part of $7T education market 🎓🔗

WEF Economists say AI‑linked asset prices are key 2026 risk 📉🔗

POLICY

South Korea activates AI Basic Act with deepfake labeling mandate ⚖️🔗

South Korean ICT Ministry caps AI violations at 30M won fines 📜🔗

Singapore Government unveils first Model AI Governance Framework for agentic AI 🧩🔗

WEF Cyber Centre warns AI is supercharging global cyber arms race 🌐🔗

SOVEREIGN

Kerala State targets $14B MoUs focused on AI and renewables 🏛️🔗

Government of Telangana launches Aikam to coordinate state AI investments 🤝🔗

Chinese Delegation showcases green and AI tech as strategic export focus 🇨🇳🔗

India Delegation positions AI infra as backbone of national growth 📡🔗

SECTORS

Healthcare deployed ML and GenAI to predict sinus surgery outcomes 🩺🔗

Legal Services deployed AI to automate contract review workflows ⚖️🔗

Education deployed multimodal AI expeditions for primary students 🏫🔗

Consumer Beauty deployed AI at Hyderabad tech hub for personalization 💅🔗

Public Sector deployed unified AI platform for government services 🏢🔗

COMMUNITY MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

Joseph Spisak championed vLLM team’s launch of Inferact 🎉🔗