🧑‍🚀 Top 3 Deals You Can’t Miss

1️⃣ CrowdStrike – $290M acquisition of Onum, adding AI-driven real-time threat detection to its cybersecurity arsenal.

2️⃣ Bytedance – Internal valuation reset to $330B, keeping IPO speculation alive as revenues accelerate.

3️⃣ Canada Goose – Received $1.4B take-private bids, with Bain circling to take the luxury outerwear brand private.

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

🌳 Series B+ & Growth

• Vercel (San Francisco, CA) – $250M round at $9B valuation led by Accel; scaling Next.js + front-end cloud platform.

• Framer (Amsterdam, NL) – $100M Series D at $2B valuation; scaling no-code website design.

• Reprieve Cardiovascular (Milford, MA) – $61M Series B; intelligent decongestion therapy for acute heart failure.

• Rain (NYC, NY) – $58M Series B; stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure.

🚀 Series A

• InstaLILY (New York, NY) – $25M Series A; building AI teammates for ops-heavy industries.

• Aurelian (Seattle, WA) – $14M Series A; automates non-emergency 911 calls.

• BIGC (Seoul, South Korea) – $14M Series A; entertainment-tech innovator.

• Axenya (São Paulo, Brazil) – $12M Series A; orchestrating corporate healthcare.

• Sola Insurance (Atlanta, GA) – $8M Series A; insurtech for property insurance.

• Heave (Tampa, FL) – $7M Series A; construction marketplace for mechanics.

🌱 Seed & Early Rounds

• Maisa (Valencia, Spain / San Francisco, CA) – $25M Seed; enterprise “digital workers.”

• Central (San Francisco, CA) – $8.6M Seed; YC-backed, automating startup payroll inside Slack.

• Matey (Austin, TX / New York, NY) – $7.5M Seed; AI for criminal defense + finance.

• AiGent (Boston, MA) – $6M Seed; AI + distributed generation for grid reliability.

• Artificial Societies (London, UK) – $5.35M Seed; simulating human societies with AI.

• Mantic (London, UK) – $4M Pre-Seed led by Episode 1; building AI to predict global events.

• Guild (Austin, TX) – $2M Pre-token round; creator ownership platform.

• Ordinal (Bentonville, AR) – $1M Seed; AI research assistant for local governments.

🤝 Strategic, M&A & PE

• HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (Ulsan, South Korea) – $5.5B all-stock acquisition of HD Hyundai Mipo; consolidating shipbuilding.

• Sompo (Tokyo, Japan) – $3.5B acquisition of Aspen Insurance at 36% premium; expanding global P&C insurance.

• Canada Goose (Toronto, Canada) – Received $1.4B take-private bids; luxury outerwear brand backed by Bain Capital.

• Harvest Midstream (Houston, TX) – $1B acquisition of MPLX natural gas assets; expanding midstream infra.

• CrowdStrike (Sunnyvale, CA) – $290M acquisition of Onum; enhancing AI-driven real-time cybersecurity.

• Gusto (San Francisco, CA) – Acquiring Guideline (Burlingame, CA); expanding into SMB retirement plans.

• mPulse (Los Angeles, CA) – Acquired Clarity Software Solutions; strengthening health communications platform.

• MedaSync (Cleveland, OH) – Strategic investment from Omega Healthcare; AI reimbursement optimization.

• FinChain (Hong Kong) – Multi-million raise backed by Fosun; incubating Web3 brands.

📈 IPOs / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Bytedance (Beijing, China) – Valuation reset to $330B; IPO watch continues.

💸 VC Funds Raised & Raising

• 71/70 Angels (Columbus, OH) – Closed Fund I at $4M; enterprise software + advanced tech.

• BlankPage Capital (London, UK) – Raising inaugural venture fund.

• Portfolia (San Mateo, CA) – Launched Women’s Health Fund IV for accredited + family offices.

Founders: Want to be featured on @tradedvc? → traded.co/submit/vc

📚 Read of the Day

🗣️ Google Translate Takes On Duolingo

Google expands its Translate app into interactive language learning.

What Happened: Google unveiled new AI-driven tools in Translate designed to compete directly with Duolingo. The update introduces guided lessons, quizzes, and practice sessions, all powered by Google’s large language models.

The Product Pitch

Translate isn’t just about word-to-word conversion anymore — it’s being repositioned as a full-scale language learning platform with personalized, gamified lessons.

How It Works

Google’s in-house AI advances drive adaptive feedback, real-time pronunciation checks, and lesson recommendations, making Translate a more formidable rival to specialized apps.

Why It Matters

This move puts Google head-to-head with Duolingo, one of the most popular consumer edtech apps. For founders and investors, it shows how quickly incumbents can layer AI into existing products to encroach on startup territory.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here

📰 News You Don’t Want To Miss

📊 Google and Grok are catching up to ChatGPT, says a16z’s latest AI report

🧪 Researchers exit Meta’s superintelligence lab for OpenAI

🗣️ Google Translate takes on Duolingo with new language learning tools

💻 Vercel triples valuation to $9B with Accel investment

🚀 SpaceX notches major wins during tenth Starship test

⚖️ OpenAI adds new safeguards to ChatGPT after lawsuit tied to teen suicide