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Meta Revamps Superintelligence Lab, SoftBank Throws $2B at Intel, & Databricks Targets $100B+ Valuation

Meta Revamps Superintelligence Lab, SoftBank Throws $2B at Intel, & Databricks Targets $100B+ Valuation

Eight Sleep Raises $100M, The Better Meat Co’s $31M Series A, Medallion’s $43M growth round, and Beyond Appliances’ $4M funding — today’s other standout moves:

Traded: Venture Capital
August 19, 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 revamps AI org into “Superintelligence Labs” — Under new chief AI officer Alexandr Wang, Meta reorganized its AI division into four units, including TBD Labs to spearhead foundation models like Llama.

💰 SoftBank throws $2B at Intel — Masayoshi Son’s firm scooped up a ~2% stake, sending Intel shares up 5% while the U.S. weighs converting CHIPS Act grants into a 10% federal stake.

🛠 Databricks targets $100B+ valuation in Series K — The data & AI leader signed a term sheet for its next mega-round, focused on bolstering AI products like Agent Bricks, its new Lakebase database, and international expansion.

🛌 Eight Sleep raises $100M Series D — This NY-based “sleep-fitness” startup drew fresh capital to advance its AI-powered Pod mattresses and Sleep Agent, pushing toward unicorn status with celebrity and VC backing.

🥩 The Better Meat Co raises $31M Series A — The food-tech company is scaling production of its Rhiza mycoprotein to compete with beef prices and expand applications across alt-meat and dairy.

🪙 Medallion raises $43M in growth round — The financial software firm secured $43 million in growth funding, with Acrew Capital leading the investment.

🍳 Beyond Appliances nets $4M round — India’s kitchen appliance startup raised $4M led by Fireside Ventures to accelerate expansion in a competitive segment.

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

🌱Seed & Early Rounds

Create (San Francisco, CA) – $8.5M raise led by Bessemer & Shopify founder Tobi Lütke, backing AI agentic systems.
Paradigm (San Francisco, CA) – $5M Seed led by General Catalyst for its AI-powered spreadsheet platform.
WALLROUND (Berlin, Germany) – €4.2M Seed led by Revent with GGF & Vonovia, building tech-enabled energy renovation franchises.
Waterly (Crystal Lake, IL) – $4M Series A led by Burnt Island Ventures with Emerald, modernizing watertech infrastructure.
Innerworks (London, UK) – €3.7M Seed led by AlbionVC with DCG, Founders Capital & others, developing Synthetic Threat Intelligence to fight AI-powered fraud.
Professional.me (Abu Dhabi, UAE) – $3.1M Seed led by Raha Beach Ventures, providing an AI-powered recruitment platform.
Riva Money (London, UK) – $3M Pre-Seed led by Project A with angels from Revolut, Ebury, Monzo & JPMorgan, for blockchain-powered global payments.

🚀 Series A

Citizen Health (San Francisco, CA) – $30M Series A led by 8VC with Transformation Capital & Headline, building a patient-powered rare disease care platform.
Sola (New York, NY) – $17.5M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz with Conviction & Y Combinator, powering an AI co-pilot for Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
Evulpo (Zurich, Switzerland) – €9.3M Series A from Serpentine Ventures, Swiss family offices & angel investors, for its AI-powered digital learning platform.
TeamLinkt (Saskatoon, Canada) – $6M Series A led by Growth Street Partners, building sports management software for teams, leagues, and schools.

🌳 Series B+ & Growth

KindlyMD (Salt Lake City, UT) – $200M Convertible Note managed by YA II PN & Yorkville Advisors to expand its Bitcoin treasury strategy.
Medallion (San Francisco, CA) – $43M new funding led by Acrew Capital with Sequoia, GV, Spark, NFDG & more, enhancing AI-powered provider network infrastructure.
SpinLaunch (Long Beach, CA) – $30M round led by ATW Partners, with Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, developing space launch tech.
Topline Pro (New York, NY) – $27M Series B led by Northzone (Molly Alter) with Tactile, Industry, Forerunner, Bonfire, TMV, Flybridge, BBG—AI engine for home services businesses.
(Stockholm, Sweden) – $26B multi-year funding deal with Nelnet to scale its U.S. "Pay in 4" product, under a forward flow agreement with Nelnet assuming credit risk.
Tote.ai (Redwood City, CA) – $22.6M led by Cota Capital with Storm Ventures & Cervin Ventures for AI-native POS systems for fuel & convenience stores.
Polestar Analytics (New York, NY) – $12.5M Growth Capital from family offices & institutional investors to expand its AI-driven data analytics platform.

🤝 Strategic & Undisclosed

Archax (London, UK) – Undisclosed investment from Stellar Development Foundation to advance tokenization of real-world assets.
Space Kinetic Corp. (El Segundo, CA) – Undisclosed funding from CerraCap Ventures to develop space superiority & missile defense technology.
Courserev.ai (Warner Robins, GA) – Undisclosed strategic investment from The Walden Golf Group to enhance AI for the golf industry.
Hypeo Ai (Casablanca, Morocco) – Undisclosed funding from Renew Capital to scale its AI-powered influencer marketing & coaching platform.

💸 VC Funds Raised & Raising

BlackRock is readying a venture secondaries fund to expand its presence in the fast-growing private markets secondary space.

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📚 Read of the Day

Meta Restructures AI Org into “Meta Superintelligence Labs” 🤖 🏢

Meta is overhauling its AI division once again, announcing a new structure under Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL).

The reorg breaks the company’s AI efforts into four distinct groups—research, product integration, infrastructure, and a new unit called TBD Labs, led by incoming chief AI officer Alexandr Wang, founder of Scale AI.

The Big Bet on TBD Labs
TBD Labs will serve as the hub for foundation models, including Meta’s Llama series, which saw its latest release in April. Wang, who joined Meta in June, is taking direct control of this flagship group as Meta doubles down on catching up with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind.

Zuckerberg’s Hand in the Game
Mark Zuckerberg has been personally involved in recruitment for MSL, underscoring how high the stakes are. Sources say the revamp is meant to accelerate Meta’s push toward superintelligence while streamlining how AI research turns into products.

Why It Matters
Meta has poured billions into AI but has lagged rivals in perception and breakthroughs. By elevating Wang and consolidating under MSL, the company is signaling that AI is central to its future—not just for products like Instagram and Threads, but for competing at the frontier of foundation models.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here