According to a local media report, FuriosaAI, an eight-year-old South Korean startup that develops specialized computer chips designed to speed up AI-related tasks, especially tasks involving deep learning and machine learning models, has rejected an $800 million bid by Meta to buy the company. TechCrunch has more here.

Would people pay nearly $14 a month to use Instagram on their phones without ads? According to the WSJ, that's what Meta Platforms wants to charge Europeans for monthly subscriptions if they don’t agree to let the company use their digital activity to target ads. More here.

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By Dominic-Madori Davis & Marina Temkin

Last year, AI-powered sales automation startup 11x appeared to be on an explosive growth trajectory.

However, nearly two dozen sources – including investors, current and former employees – tell TechCrunch that the company has experienced financial struggles, largely of its own making.

Numerous people in the U.S. and U.K. told TechCrunch that the situation has become so tenuous that 11x’s lead Series B investor, Andreessen Horowitz, may even be considering legal action. However, a spokesperson for Andreessen Horowitz emphatically denied such rumblings, telling TechCrunch that a16z is not suing.

11x offers an AI bot for outbound cold sales duties, including identifying prospects, crafting custom messages, and scheduling sales calls. It’s one of a number of AI startups in the hot area known as AI sales development representatives, or AI SDRs.

Founded in 2022 by Hasan Sukkar, 11x said it approached $10 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) just two years after launch. It moved from London to Silicon Valley last July and announced a $24 million Series A led by Benchmark in September. TechCrunch broke the news of a $50 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz later that month. (Benchmark declined to comment.)

Three current and former 11x workers told TechCrunch that most of its early customers took advantage of “break clauses” in their sales contracts to discontinue using the product. Customers faced issues such as the emailing product not working as expected or hallucinations, according to sources. 

More here.

The Bot Co., a one-year-old San Francisco startup co-founded by former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt that aims to develop affordable robots to handle household chores, raised a $150 million round at a $2 billion valuation, according to Reuters. Greenoaks was the deal lead. TechCrunch has more here.

Cardiac Dimensions, a twenty-four-year-old company based in Kirkland, WA, that has developed a minimally invasive device designed to treat functional mitral regurgitation in heart failure patients, raised a $53 million Series A round led by Ally Bridge Group, with additional participation from Claret Capital Partners as well as previous investors Hostplus, M.H. Carnegie, Horizon 3 Healthcare, and Lumira Ventures. The company has raised a total of $200+ million. GeekWire has more here.

n8n, a six-year-old Berlin startup that offers a workflow automation platform that enables users to connect various applications and APIs to automate tasks and business processes without requiring extensive coding knowledge, has raised a $60 million round at a valuation of approximately $270 million, according to TechCrunch. The lead is Highland Europe, with HV Capital as well as previous investors Sequoia, Felicis, and Harpoon also pitching in. TechCrunch has more here.

Arcade, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that operates an AI-powered platform that enables users to design custom products such as jewelry and home goods, raised a $25 million Series A round led by Canaan Partners, with Forerunner Ventures also joining in. The company has raised a total of $42 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Browser Use, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that builds tools that help AI agents understand and interact with websites more easily by converting visual web content into a text-based format, raised a $17 million seed round led by Felicis, with A Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, and Paul Graham also contributing. TechCrunch has more here.

Rain, a four-year-old New York startup that enables businesses to issue both physical and virtual payment cards linked directly to digital wallets, facilitating transactions settled in stablecoins across multiple blockchain networks, raised a $24.5 million round led by Norwest Venture Partners, with Galaxy Ventures, Goldcrest, Thayer, and Hard Yaka as well as previous investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coinbase Ventures, Vinyl Capital, Canonical Crypto, and Latitude Capital also participating. CoinMarketCap has more here.

RockFi, a two-year-old Paris startup that offers private wealth management services by combining human expertise with comprehensive, real-time asset reporting and detailed analyses, raised a $19.4 million Series A round led by Partech and including previous investor Varsity. PYMNTS has more here.

AtmoCooling, a three-year-old Seattle startup that develops large-scale evaporative cooling systems that use seawater to lower temperatures in hot, arid regions, raised a $2.6 million pre-seed round. Nucleus Capital and Revent Ventures were the co-leads, with Marble, Unruly, Founders Factory Blue Action, SwiftScale, Bronco Ventures, and Hub71 also piling on. More here.

Camber, a San Francisco startup whose platform enables researchers, scientists, and educators to run high-performance computing tasks such as simulations, big data processing, and AI model training using scalable CPU and GPU resources, raised a $4 million round. Base10 Partners led the transaction. More here.

Enza, a three-year-old Abu Dhabi startup that provides infrastructure for banks and fintechs, offering local payment services including cards, digital wallets, and real-time payments, raised a $6 million seed round. Algebra Ventures and Quona Capital were the co-leads. TechCrunch has more here.

Affinity spoke to Lauren MacDonald, Principal at Sozo Ventures, about the firm’s successful CRM implementation. The outcome? This comprehensive yet simple-to-follow checklist, covering every step from pre-implementation planning to ways you can maximize CRM adoption and business impact. With MacDonald’s best practices spread throughout the checklist, this is your essential companion to launching a new CRM in your firm. Download the checklist now.

Founders Future, a seven-year-old venture firm based in Paris with $324 million under management, will soon be in the market to raise as much as $250 million for its next fund. By 2030, it hopes to have $1 billion under management and expand to the U.S. TechCrunch has more here. 

23andMe filed for bankruptcy last night, and CEO Anne Wojcicki resigned. If you used the company's services, your data may be at risk. TechCrunch has more here. 

eToro, an 18-year-old Tel Aviv company that allows users to trade a wide range of assets including stocks, ETFs, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and currencies, has filed to go public. CNBC has more here. 

Haofei Wang, who has been regarded as X's de facto head of engineering, has suddenly left the company, reports The Verge, which has more here. 

OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap is taking on more responsibility for “business and day-to-day operations,” as co-founder and CEO Sam Altman spends more time on research and products. CNBC has more here. 

Former Meta VP of Engineering Roi Tiger is reportedly in the process of closing a $55 million Series A round for a new stealth cybersecurity startup from many of the same investors who backed Wiz. Business Insider has more here. 

NPR does a deep dive into the Internet Archive, a 29-year-old nonprofit that uploads approximately 100 terabytes of web data every day to its servers. More here.

With the new Trump administration, companies like Meta, OpenAI, and Google have become increasingly emboldened in lobbying for lax AI rules, says The New York Times, which has more here. 

DudewithSign nails it once again.

The Office, Severance-style.

How to make your own fossils. 

The co-founder of Kayak and his wife are selling their 10,200-square-foot Fisher Island penthouse for $85 million, more than double what they paid for it just four years earlier.