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  • a16z Adds $1.7B to AI Infrastructure • OpenAI Hits $20B Revenue • Playlist–EGYM $7.5B Mega-Merger • BlackRock–Microsoft AI Fund Reaches $12.5B • Talen Buys $3.45B of Power Assets

a16z Adds $1.7B to AI Infrastructure • OpenAI Hits $20B Revenue • Playlist–EGYM $7.5B Mega-Merger • BlackRock–Microsoft AI Fund Reaches $12.5B • Talen Buys $3.45B of Power Assets

Your dose of daily dealflow and essential VC & tech trends. The biggest moves in venture, all in one place. Celebrating startups, founders, and funders.

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Your dose of daily dealflow, essential VC & tech trends to know. The biggest moves in venture, all in one place. Celebrating startups, founders, and funders.

🎄 Traded VC Christmas Edition

🧑‍🍳 Let’s get right into it…

🤖 OpenAI said revenue hit $20B in 2025, up 233% YoY, while simultaneously acquiring healthcare data startup Torch for $100M, signaling a deeper move into regulated infrastructure.

🧠 Andreessen Horowitz added $1.7B to its AI infrastructure fund, doubling down on compute, power, and data centers as AI bottlenecks shift physical.

🏋️ Playlist Technologies agreed to merge with EGYM in a $7.5B deal, forming one of the largest global fitness technology platforms.

SoftBank and OpenAI committed $1B into SB Energy, reinforcing that energy access is now a strategic advantage in AI.

🧑‍🚀 Top Deals You Can’t Miss

1️⃣ Playlist Technologies $7.5B merger with EGYM, creating a global fitness tech powerhouse across software and hardware.

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2️⃣ SB Energy$1B strategic investment from SoftBank and OpenAI, highlighting the race to secure energy and infrastructure capacity for AI-scale compute.

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3️⃣ Deepgram $130M Series C at a $1.3B valuation, cementing its position as core voice AI infrastructure across enterprise and defense use cases.

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4️⃣ Rosberg Ventures$100M Fund III closed by F1 World Champion Nico Rosberg, expanding its fund-of-funds and direct venture strategy.

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🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

🌳 Series B+ & Growth

  • Mirador Therapeutics, a San Diego, CA-based clinical-stage precision medicine company, raised $250 million in Series B funding. Undisclosed investors led the round and were joined by institutional backers.

  • Parloa, a Berlin, Germany-based enterprise customer-service AI platform, raised $350 million in Series D funding. General Catalyst led the round.

  • ClickHouse, a San Francisco-based analytics database company, raised $400 million in Series D funding led by Dragoneer Investment Group.

  • Torq, a Tel Aviv-based AI security operations platform, raised $140 million in Series D funding at a $1.2B valuation. Merlin Ventures led the round.

  • Deepgram, a San Francisco-based voice AI infrastructure company, raised $130 million in Series C funding. AVP led the round.

🚀 Series A

  • Higgsfield, a San Francisco-based AI video creation platform, raised $80 million in a Series A extension.

  • Cytotheryx, a Rochester, MN-based preclinical cell therapy company, raised $60 million in Series A funding.

  • Depthfirst, a San Francisco-based AI security startup, raised $40 million in Series A funding led by Accel.

🌱 Seed & Early Rounds

  • Sandstone, a New York-based AI legal tech startup, raised $10 million in Seed funding led by Sequoia Capital.

  • Noise, a New York-based onchain attention marketplace, raised $7.1 million in Seed funding led by Paradigm.

  • The Prompting Company, a San Francisco-based generative engine optimization startup, raised $6.5 million in Seed funding led by Peak XV Partners.

🤝 Strategic, M&A & Undisclosed

  • OpenAI acquired Torch, a healthcare data infrastructure startup, for ~$100 million.

  • Amazon committed up to $50 billion toward AI and supercomputing infrastructure expansion.

  • Cerebras signed a multi-year compute deal worth over $10 billion with OpenAI.

  • Soho House secured ~$200 million to support its take-private transaction.

💸 VC Funds Raised & Raising

  • Rosberg Ventures, founded by F1 World Champion Nico Rosberg, closed Fund III at $100 million.

  • Sixth Street raised €3.75 billion for its third European direct lending fund.

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📚 Read of the Day

🏥 OpenAI Buys Torch, Signals a Serious Push Into Healthcare AI

OpenAI’s reported $100M acquisition of Torch marks its most concrete step yet into regulated healthcare infrastructure. Rather than staying at the application layer, OpenAI is buying the data plumbing needed to make AI viable inside clinical environments.

Torch’s interoperable health records technology is expected to power ChatGPT Health, giving OpenAI control over compliance, ingestion, and normalization of sensitive medical data.

Why it matters: this deal validates compliance-first health tech, signals a new competitive front against legacy EHR giants, and opens a massive opportunity for AI-native healthcare platforms.

📰 News You Don’t Want To Miss

🤖 OpenAI begins testing ads in ChatGPT’s free tier, marking a major monetization shift.

🧠 Sequoia backs Anthropic, breaking the long-standing VC taboo on funding rival AI labs.

Talen Energy buys $3.45B of gas plants as AI-driven power demand surges.

🏗️ BlackRock–Microsoft AI partnership raises $12.5B for data centers and energy assets.

🥽 Meta cuts 1,000 Reality Labs jobs, pivoting resources toward AI-powered glasses.

OVER AND OUT, BACK TO THE GRIND ⚙️

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