Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is shaking up the leadership of Siri, replacing Apple Intelligence head John Giannandrea with Mike Rockwell, who is credited with creating the Vision Pro. TechCrunch has more here. 

Speaking of Apple, blogger Benedict Evans points out that the Vision Pro is more of a concept than a real product, exactly the same criticism that Apple Intelligence has received. More here. 

Tesla is recalling almost all of its Cybertrucks because their panels could fall off while driving. Wired has more here.

Speaking of Tesla, the troubled carmaker has inexplicably misplaced $1.4 billion. Mashable has more here.

How Speedinvest Raised €350 million + & Optimized Portfolio Management with Affinity: Join us for an exclusive webinar with Lukas Huber from Speedinvest on March 20, where he’ll share how the firm has leveraged Affinity to streamline fundraising and portfolio workflows. Learn how they tracked LP engagement to raise their €350 million fund, and hear about their approach to managing portfolio relationships seamlessly with the key integrations that have enhanced efficiency across their tech stack. Learn more on Thursday, March 20.

By Charles Rollet & Kyle Wiggers

Nvidia took San Jose by storm this year, with a record-breaking 25,000 attendees flocking to the San Jose Convention Center and surrounding downtown buildings. Many workshops, talks, and panels were so packed that people had to lean against walls or sit on the floor — and suffer the wrath of organizers shouting commands to get them to line up properly.

Nvidia currently sits at the top of the AI world, with record-breaking financials, sky-high profit margins, and no serious competitors yet. But the coming months also hold unprecedented risk for the company as it faces U.S. tariffs, DeepSeek, and shifting priorities from top AI customers.

At GTC 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attempted to project confidence, unveiling powerful new chips, personal “supercomputers,” and, of course, really cute robots. It was an exhaustive sales pitch – one aimed at investors reeling from Nvidia’s nosediving stock.

“The more you buy, the more you save,” Huang said at one point during a keynote on Tuesday. “It’s even better than that. Now, the more you buy, the more you make.”

Inference boom

More than anything, Nvidia at this year’s GTC sought to assure attendees – and the rest of the world watching – that demand for its chips won’t slow down anytime soon.

More here.

Carbon Arc, a four-year-old New York startup whose real-time insights exchange transforms raw data from various industries into structured, model-ready intelligence for customers such as hedge funds and financial institutions, raised a $56 million round led by Liberty City Ventures, with K5 Global, Raptor Group, and Wasserman Media Group also stepping up. More here.

Evroc, a three-year-old Stockholm startup that is building an EU-based hyperscale cloud platform that will offer computation, storage, networking, application integration, and developer tools, raised a $54.9 million Series A round. Investors included Blisce, EQT Ventures, Norrsken VC, and Giant Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Perplexity, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that has built an AI-powered search engine and answer engine using natural language processing, is reportedly in the market to raise between $500 million and $1 billion at an $18 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg, which has more here. 

TON Foundation, a two-year-old non-profit organization that supports The Open Network (TON), a blockchain platform originally developed by Telegram and later taken over by an independent community, raised $400+ million through a token sale. Investors included Sequoia Capital, Ribbit, Benchmark, and Kingsway. The Block has more here.

Walrus Foundation, a startup that is is developing a high-speed decentralized storage protocol built on the Sui blockchain, raised $140 million in a token sale led by Standard Crypto, with support from Andreessen Horowitz, Electric Capital, Creditcoin, Lvna Capital, Protagonist, Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, Karatage, RW3 Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, and The Raptor Group also opting in. NFTgators has more here. 

Brain.space, a seven-year-old Tel Aviv startup that is developing a non-invasive brain-monitoring platform that collects and analyzes high-resolution neural data to quantify cognitive and emotional states in real-time, raised an $11 million Series A round led by Toyota Ventures, with Mangrove Capital Partners and The Group Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $14+ million. CTech has more here.

Buynomics, a seven-year-old Cologne startup that helps companies in consumer goods, retail, telecommunications, and software optimize their pricing, promotions, and product portfolios by simulating real customer purchasing behavior, raised a $30 million Series B round led by Forestay Capital, with Anais Ventures, and VI Partners as well as previous investors Insight Partners, Seedcamp, DvH Ventures, and Tomahawk Ventures also pitching in. PYMNTS has more here.

Cape, a three-year-old mobile carrier based in Washington, DC, that offers nationwide 4G and 5G coverage with unlimited talk and text and emphasizes user privacy by not collecting or selling personal data, raised a $30 million Series B extension round. Investors included A*, Costanoa, Point72, and XYZ Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Coreshell, an eight-year-old startup based in San Leandro, CA, that develops advanced battery technology using domestically sourced metallurgical silicon to create high-performance anodes, raised a $24 million Series A2 round led by Ferroglobe, with additional participation from Asymmetry Ventures, Estrada Ventures, Foothill Ventures, Helios Climate Ventures, Lane Ventures, Translink Investment, Trousdale Ventures, and Zeon Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Crossmint, a three-year-old New York startup that claims to enable businesses to integrate blockchain features such as wallets, tokenization, and payments into their applications with minimal coding, raised a $23.6 million round led by Ribbit Capital, with Franklin Templeton, Nyca, First Round, and Lightspeed Faction also chipping in. PYMNTS has more here.

Jutro Medical, a five-year-old Warsaw startup that provides virtual medical consultations, e-prescriptions, medical referrals, and access to lab results via telemedicine services and physical clinics, raised a $13 million Series A round co-led by KayaVC and RIO ASI, with previous investor Inovo VC also opting in. EU-Startups has more here.

Novatron Fusion, a six-year-old Stockholm startup that is developing a fusion reactor that relies on stable plasma confinement to achieve sustained fusion reactions, raised $10.9 million Series A1 round led by St1, with TomEnterprise, Unit E Limited, and Axon Partners as well as previous investors Climentum Capital, Santander InnoEnergy Fund, Granitor, and Industrifonden also piling on. More here.

Rerun, a three-year-old Stockholm startup that has built an open-source platform that provides log handling and visualization tools for spatial and embodied AI applications, including robotics, autonomous vehicles, drones, and spatial computing devices, raised a $17 million seed round led by Point Nine, with Sunflower Capital as well as previous investors Costanoa Ventures and Seedcamp also ponying up. The company has raised a total of $20.2 million. TechCrunch has more here. 

Theion, a five-year-old Berlin startup that develops advanced lithium-sulfur batteries that it says offer three times the energy density of traditional lithium-ion batteries at one-third the cost, raised a $16.3 million Series A round led by Team Global, with Geschwister Oetker Beteiligungen and Enpal also taking part. Reuters has more here.

BlueShift, a one-year-old Boston startup that is developing electrochemical technology that extracts critical minerals and rare earth elements from industrial waste and seawater, raised a $2.1 million pre-seed round. ConocoPhillips, Ridgeline, and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center invested in the deal. Carbon Herald has more here.

Capalo AI, a three-year-old Finnish startup that uses AI to provide automated trading across various energy markets, raised a $4.1 million seed round co-led by VentureFriends and PROfounders and including previous investors Inventure and Innovestor. ArcticStartup has more here.

ClearGrid, a two-year-old Dubai startup whose AI-driven platform is designed to automate debt collection processes for banks, fintechs, and lenders, raised a $6.5 million seed round co-led by Raed Ventures and Nuwa Capital, with Beco Capital, Waed Ventures, KBW Ventures, and Sharaka also contributing. The company has raised a total of $10 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Kaiko Systems, a four-year-old Berlin startup that helps shipping companies streamline safety inspections, optimize maintenance, and ensure compliance with industry standards, raised a $6.5 million Series A round co-led by Hi inov and Flashpoint Venture Growth, with previous investor Motion Ventures also participating. More here.

Kosli, a six-year-old Oslo startup that offers an automated governance platform that provides real-time visibility and control over software delivery processes, raised a $10 million Series A round co-led by Deutsche Bank Corporate Venture Capital and Heavybit, with Defined Capital and Transpose Platform also joining in. Tech.eu has more here.

Manifest, a two-year-old New York startup that provides a blockchain-based platform that lets global investors buy tokenized shares of U.S. private equity real estate, raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round co-led by VanEck Ventures and Lattice Fund, with Compound and SALT also pitching in. More here.

Olio Labs, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that develops combination therapeutics using artificial intelligence and machine learning, raised a $4.5 million round co-led by Boom Capital and Overwater Ventures, with Pioneer Fund, SciFounders, Scrum Ventures, Y Combinator, and ZAKA also chiming in. More here.

PeopleIX, a three-year-old Cologne startup that consolidates fragmented HR data into a unified system in order to supply real-time workforce insights without requiring data science expertise, raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round. Earlybird-X was the deal lead, with neoteq ventures and TS Ventures also joining in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Peregrine Exploration, a two-year-old New York startup whose Level stablecoin is designed to permit users outside the U.S. to hold a stable digital currency backed by crypto and earn passive income from DeFi lending, raised a $2.6 million round led by previous investor Dragonfly, with prior backer Polychain Capital as well as Flowdesk also investing. The company has raised a total of $6+ million. More here.

Pluralis Research, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that is developing a decentralized AI platform designed to enable collaborative training of large-scale AI models by pooling computational resources from multiple participants, raised a $7.6 million seed round co-led by CoinFund and Union Square Ventures, with Topology, Variant, Eden Block, and Bodhi Ventures also writing checks. Fortune has more here.

Silicon Data, a two-year-old New York startup that provides information about GPU pricing, carbon footprint estimation, and performance benchmarking, raised a $4.7 million seed round co-led by DRW and Jump Trading Group. More here.

Tera AI, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that has developed a software-only spatial reasoning system that enables robots to navigate their surroundings using only onboard cameras, raised a $7.8 million seed round. Felicis, Inovia, Caltech + Wilson Hill, and Naval Ravikant invested in the deal. More here.

Yeet, a recently founded crypto startup that operates a cryptocurrency-focused online casino and sportsbook, raised a $7.8 million led by Dragonfly, with Primitive Ventures and Mirana Ventures also anteing up. More here.

What does the future hold for early-stage investing? Vanessa Larco, a former Partner at NEA, will share her perspective with Affinity on April 3. As she launches a new fund, Larco is rethinking how investors assess the deals in their pipeline—combining first principles with new technologies. Learn how her due diligence process has evolved, its impact on the new fund, and recommendations to strengthen your firm’s diligence. Register now for April 3.

Long Journey Ventures, a six-year-old San Francisco venture firm formed by Cyan Bannister, Arielle Zuckerberg, and Lee Jacobs, raised $181.818 million for its latest fund. The group invests in early-stage startup in sectors like artificial intelligence and bioscience and has $450 million under management. Bloomberg has more here. 

Kraken, a fourteen-year-old San Francisco company that operates a crypto exchange, has acquired NinjaTrader, a 22-year-old Chicago company that provides tools for futures, forex, and stock trading, for $1.5 billion. The Wall Street Journal has more here. 

SoftBank is acquiring Ampere Computing, an eight-year-old startup based in Santa Clara, CA, that designs and manufactures ARM-based processors for cloud computing and data centers, for $6.5 billion. CNBC has more here. 

Munich Re, a German insurance company, is buying Next Insurance, a nine-year-old Palo Alto startup that caters to SMBs, for $2.6 billion. Next's investors include Group 11, Allstate, Allianz X, Battery Ventures, Capital G, Redpoint Ventures, Nationwide, Amex Ventures, Ribbit Capital. TechCrunch has more here. 

Microsoft, which accounted for 62% of CoreWeave's revenue in the company's S-1, passed on a $12 billion option to purchase more data center capacity from CoreWeave. Although OpenAI subsequently picked up the option, Microsoft's move has the specter that big tech companies are starting to downsize their data center spend. Semafor has more here. 

The New York Times profiles Steve Davis, a key Elon Musk lieutenant and the de facto leader of DOGE. More here. 

In an interview with Stratechery, Sam Altman discusses OpenAI's shift toward consumer technology, its partnership with Microsoft, potential advertising models, and the balance between being open and maintaining a competitive edge. More here. 

The Information is reporting that Apple is losing over $1 billion per year on AppleTV+. PYMNTS has more here. 

Insight Partners stands to rake in approximately $2.7 billion from its bet on Wiz, a 15.5X return on its investment. Bloomberg has more here. 

Meanwhile, Index Ventures will make $4 billion off of its $245 million Wiz investment. The Wall Street Journal has more here. 

A man whose life was saved by AI.

"Granny Guns," a grandmother gone viral.

Faux AI art.

A Scottish distillery is providing purchasers of a 51-year-old single malt whiskey a hammer that they can use to smash open a container holding the booze.

Dive watches to fit any budget. 

An 1,800 horsepower (!), $4.1 million (!) Bugatti Tourbillon.