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Google x Meta's $10B Cloud Deal, Anthropic Seeks $10B Raise, China Makes a Space Station AI Chatbot + Labubu Closes in on $1B

Google x Meta's $10B Cloud Deal, Anthropic Seeks $10B Raise, China Makes a Space Station AI Chatbot + Labubu Closes in on $1B

Anthropic’s soon-to-be $10B mega-raise, Ontic’s $230M Series C, and Blue Owl’s $1.5B GP stakes sale — plus fresh bets on Wukong, DeepSeek, and Waymo mark today’s VC and tech moves:

Traded: Venture Capital
August 22, 2025

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.

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🧑‍🍳 Let’s get right into it…

🌩 Meta taps Google Cloud in $10B deal — a rare alliance between rivals to power AI workloads at scale.

🤖 Anthropic closes in on $10B raise at $170B valuation — cementing its status as OpenAI’s top challenger.

🚀 China launches Wukong, the first space station AI chatbot — signaling Beijing’s push to showcase AI leadership beyond Earth.

🔍 DeepSeek unveils new foundation model in stealth — intensifying the global race to build OpenAI competitors.

🚗 Waymo wins approval to test driverless cars in New York City — bringing autonomous vehicles to the nation’s most complex streets.

⚡ Meta’s $10B data center tied to new gas plants — critics question the environmental cost of AI infrastructure.

🧸 Viral toy Labubu projected to hit $1B in sales this year — proving cult collectibles can scale into blockbuster brands.

🛰 Anduril & Blue Origin partner with Pentagon — developing systems to return heavy cargo safely from orbit.

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

🌱Seed & Early Rounds

Definite (Wilmington, DE) – $10M Seed led by Costanoa Ventures with Acrew and angels, building an AI-native analytics setup platform.
Agenda Hero (San Francisco, CA) – $6.5M Seed led by Upfront Ventures with Precursor and K9 Ventures, building AI scheduling & Magic Chat for calendars.
Embargo (London, UK) – $3.5M angel round (Paul Statham, Christo Georgiev, Hampton Finance) for its AI-driven hospitality CRM & loyalty platform.
AlphaGo (São Paulo, Brazil) – $2M pre-seed led by Black Mamba Holding to build its AI-driven marketing SaaS.
RedMimicry (Berlin, Germany) – Seed (undisclosed, “million-dollar”) led by High-Tech Gründerfonds, with Capital Square and Munich angels, for cyber-attack simulation.
Grid Aero (San Leandro, CA) – $6M Seed for cargo drones.
Cascala Health (Boston, MA) – $8.6M Seed co-led by Flare and Eniac, for AI-driven post-hospital care transitions.
CVector Energy (Providence, RI) – $1.5M Pre-Seed for industrial AI data backbone.
Legion (New York, NY) – $5M Seed co-led by VanEck and Brevan Howard Digital, with Kraken, Crypto.com, and Coinbase Ventures for regulated ICO marketplace.

🚀 Series A

Wisdom (New York, NY) – $21M Series A led by Permanent Capital, with Aquiline and Juxtapose, for AI-driven dental revenue cycle management.
Verdata (Atlanta, GA) – $8M Series A led by Continental Investors with 1st & Main, Front Porch, Overline, for B2B commercial risk analytics.
Method AI (Boston, MA) – $20M Series A for AI-guided oncology surgical navigation.
Molecular You (Vancouver, Canada) – $5M Series A for molecular medicine & preventive health.
Qunova Computing (Daejeon, South Korea) – $10M Series A for quantum-enabled industrial software.

🌳 Series B+ & Growth

Anthropic (San Francisco, CA) – ~$10B raise (in progress) at a $170B valuation, with ICONIQ, TPG, Lightspeed, Spark, Menlo Ventures, QIA, GIC, and more backing its frontier AI systems.
Ontic (Austin, TX) – $230M Series C led by KKR, with JMI Equity, Silverton, Ridge, and Ten Eleven, to scale its AI-powered security intelligence SaaS platform.
Stark (Berlin, Germany) – $62M led by Sequoia, with 8VC, Thiel Capital, NATO Innovation Fund, In-Q-Tel, Project A, and Döpfner Capital, for AI-powered battlefield drones. Valued at $500M.
NGU Sports Lighting (Tampa, FL) – $60M growth investment from Lieef to expand LED lighting solutions for sports & recreation venues.
Wellth (New York, NY) – $36M Series C led by Mercato Partners with FCA Venture, Comcast Ventures, SignalFire, NY Life, and CD-Venture, for its digital health motivation platform.
AgendaPro (Santiago, Chile) – $35M growth led by Riverwood Capital, with Kayyak Ventures, to expand its appointment-based SaaS platform across LatAm.
Zed Industries (San Francisco, CA) – $32M Series B led by Sequoia to supercharge dev collaboration with AI co-pilots.
Loft Dynamics (Zurich, Switzerland) – $24M Series B led by Friedkin, with Alaska Airlines, Sky Dayton, Craft Ventures, and UP.Partners, to expand VR flight training simulators.
General Fusion (Vancouver, Canada) – $22M round (“pay-to-play”) from existing investors including Chrysalix, Gaingels, Presight, Segra, and Thistledown, to advance magnetized target fusion tech.
EdgeCortix (Tokyo, Japan) – ~$100M cumulative Series B (equity + non-dilutive awards) with Yanmar, NTT Finance, Pacific Bays, SiC Power, SBI, Aero X, Global Hands-On, building energy-efficient AI semiconductors.
CompanyCam (Lincoln, NE) – Series C (undisclosed) led by B Capital with Insight, JMI, Blueprint, Nelnet, Invest Nebraska, WndrCo, and Decades Holdings, for contractor productivity SaaS.

🤝 Strategic & Undisclosed

Vector (San Francisco, CA) – secured credit facilities from CIBC Innovation Banking to expand workflow automation in logistics.
Relcu (Saratoga, CA) – undisclosed growth round from Menlo Ventures, Detroit VC, Clocktower, MUFG, Commerce Ventures, and Valley Ventures, for AI-driven CRM for financial services.
Domino Data Lab (San Francisco, CA) – Investment from UBS for an enterprise AI platform.
AuraChat.ai (Los Angeles, CA) – Investment from Uplist Ventures for sales & marketing automation.

💸 VC Funds Raised & Raising

Blue Owl Capital is seeking to raise $1.5B in a sale of minority GP stakes in private market managers HPS, Clearlake Capital, and Golub Capital.
Hamilton Lane anchored GI Partners' continuation fund for data center solutions firm Flexential.
Curate Capital (Houston, TX) – Raising $50M second fund (female-led CPG).
AYMO Ventures (Zagreb, Croatia) – Raised €52M across two funds.
Clean Growth Fund (London, UK) – First close of £49M for Fund II (climate tech).
Cybernetix Ventures (Boston, MA) – Raising up to $100M for Fund II (robotics & industrial AI).
Vanara Capital (San Francisco, CA) – Launched to provide flexible growth capital.
Haven Capital Partners (NYC) – Closed $375M Fund I for flexible capital to lower middle market.

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📚 Read of the Day

Anthropic Eyes $10B Raise, Soaring to $170B Valuation 🚀🤖

OpenAI’s fiercest rival doubles its fundraising target as investors pile into Constitutional AI.

Anthropic, the AI startup behind the Claude model, is reportedly closing in on a fundraising round that could reach $10 billion, doubling its original $5B target. The raise, led by Iconiq Capital with participation from TPG, Lightspeed, Spark, Menlo, and sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, would push the company’s valuation to $170B—up from $61.5B earlier this year.

The Product Pitch
Anthropic sets itself apart with “Constitutional AI,” a training framework that embeds written principles into its models to keep them helpful, harmless, and honest. Its flagship model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, can process up to 200,000 tokens (~350 pages) and handle both text and image inputs, giving it a competitive edge in long-context reasoning.

The Backstory
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI execs and siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, Anthropic spun out amid concerns about AI safety and governance. Since then, it’s raced ahead as OpenAI’s fiercest rival, attracting top-tier venture firms and sovereign funds eager to fuel the “AI arms race.”

Why It Matters
This round would cement Anthropic as one of the most valuable private AI companies, behind only OpenAI (valued at ~$500B). With xAI already pulling in $2B and OpenAI dominating the spotlight, Anthropic’s war chest signals that AI infrastructure and model development remain the hottest capital magnets in tech. The raise also underscores how investor appetite in AI continues to smash past historic IPO valuations.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here