Techmeme: Sources: AI startup Project Prometheus raised $6.2B, including from Jeff Bezos, who is its co-CEO, his first operational role since leaving Amazon in July 2021 (Cade Metz/New York Times)

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November 17, 2025, 12:55 PM

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Cade Metz / New York Times:

Sources: AI startup Project Prometheus raised $6.2B, including from Jeff Bezos, who is its co-CEO, his first operational role since leaving Amazon in July 2021 — Called Project Prometheus, the company is focusing on artificial intelligence for the engineering and manufacturing of computers, automobiles and spacecraft.

Joe Wertz / Bloomberg:

Google DeepMind releases WeatherNext 2, a weather model that it says offers faster, more accurate two-week forecasts and includes more tools for energy traders — Google DeepMind has released a new artificial intelligence weather model that it says is faster and more accurate than anything it's built …

More: The Keyword, How-To Geek, 9to5Google, WinBuzzer, and Yahoo Finance

X: @google, @peterwbattaglia, @stocksavvyshay, @osanseviero, @googledeepmind, @andrewcurran_, @googledeepmind, and @googledeepmind

Forums: Hacker News, r/singularity, and r/Bard

New York Times:

Investigation: $28B+ in crypto tied to illicit activity flowed into crypto exchanges like Binance over the past two years, as President Trump embraced crypto — President Trump has started his own cryptocurrency business and vowed to make the United States the world's “crypto capital.”

More: Wired, Forbes, ICIJ, New York Times, ICIJ, ICIJ, Protos, New York Times, ICIJ, ICIJ, CoinDesk, ICIJ, ICIJ, and Tech in Asia

LinkedIn: Richard H.P. Sia. Bluesky: @bhgreeley, @spencerwoodman, @metacurity.com, @metacurity.com, and @carlquintanilla. Mastodon: @SeanCasten@mastodon.social. Forums: r/CryptoCurrency

Emily Mason / Bloomberg:

Ramp says it is now valued at $32B following a $300M raise led by Lightspeed and an employee tender offer, up from a $22.5B valuation in July — Corporate spending management platform Ramp reached a $32 billion valuation after a $300 million primary financing round and an employee tender offer.

More: Ramp. X: @lisabethhan, @andrewbenson, @turkishtea__, @eglyman, @packym, and @nickabouzeid

Bloomberg:

US filing: Peter Thiel's Thiel Macro sold 537,742 Nvidia shares, worth ~$100M as of September 30, during Q3, amid rising concerns about an AI investment bubble — Peter Thiel's hedge fund Thiel Macro LLC sold off its holdings in Nvidia Corp. during the third quarter, marking another retreat …

Laith Al-Khalaf / Financial Times:

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski says he is “nervous about the size of these investments in these data centers”; he owns stakes in OpenAI, Perplexity, and xAI — OpenAI backer Sebastian Siemiatkowski says tech industry is committing too much money to huge computing infrastructure

X: @quinnypig

Ben Bergman / Business Insider:

In an informal survey of 300+ Cerebral Valley AI Conference attendees asking which $1B+ valuation startup to short, most voted Perplexity, followed by OpenAI — - An audience at a top AI conference in San Francisco was asked what startup they would short. — Perplexity, an AI search …

More: The Verge, Analytics India Magazine, Moneycontrol, and Livemint

X: @steadycompound, @zephyr_z9, @salmanso_, and @luke_metro. Bluesky: @edzitron.com. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to

Alex Konrad / Upstarts Media:

Span, which aims to help companies measure the value of AI-assisted coding, raised $25M in seed and Series A rounds from Alt Capital, Craft Ventures, and others — In April, J Zac Stein took his cofounder Henry Liu out to dinner to pitch him on a new product: a model for detecting when code was generated by AI.

More: FinSMEs and Span

X: @alexrkonrad and @alexrkonrad

Kieran Smith / Financial Times:

Sources: UK companies tell the UK that a planned ban on paying ransoms to ransomware gangs is unlikely to stop attacks and could result in services collapsing — Companies and security groups warn government's proposed measure is unlikely to stop hacking attacks

LinkedIn: Greg Palmer. Mastodon: @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social. Forums: Slashdot

M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:

The FT's Tim Cook retirement story could be a “trial balloon” from people close to him, if Cook decides to leave after Apple's “blockbuster” Q1 earnings report — Might Tim Cook retire as CEO of Apple in early 2026? There are signs... Two weeks ago, Tim Cook turned 65.

More: MacRumors, Proactive, Inc.com, Tom's Guide, Implicator.ai, 9to5Mac, Gizmodo, PCMag, Dataconomy, TechCrunch, The Information, Pixel Envy, Cult of Mac, and Daring Fireball

X: @markgurman, @spyglass_feed, @sirgoofy28, and @michaelbatnick

Bloomberg:

Meta says its 2Africa subsea internet cable project remains incomplete in the southern Red Sea due to security risks; Google's Blue-Raman cable is also delayed — Multiple subsea internet cables slated to run through the Red Sea are yet to complete as planned, as political tensions …

More: Benzinga, Engadget, and Ukrainian National News

Zoë Schiffer / Wired:

Q&A with OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo on joining OpenAI, ChatGPT users' mental health, profitability, data center deals, her chronic illness, and more — As OpenAI expands in every direction, the new CEO of Applications is on a mission to make ChatGPT indispensable and lucrative.

More: Livemint and Business Insider

X: @fidjissimo. Forums: r/OpenAI and r/technology

Bloomberg:

Sources: Amazon is seeking to raise about $12B through a bond sale, its first such deal in US dollars since 2022, to help fund acquisitions, capex, and more — Amazon.com. Inc. is seeking to raise about $12 billion through a bond sale — its first such deal in US dollars in about three years …

More: Australian Financial Review, Reuters, Proactive, Financial Times, ZeroHedge News, Sherwood News, and Wall Street Journal

Stephen Nellis / Reuters:

Celero, which is developing a chip to enable long-distance connections between AI data centers, raised $140M, including a $100M Series B led by CapitalG — Celero Communications, a U.S. startup founded by networking industry veterans, on Monday said it has raised $140 million to build a chip …

More: Celero and Breaking Defense

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From Mediagazer

Edward Helmore / The Guardian:

AG Todd Blanche defends the White House ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, saying access is “a privilege” and Trump is “sick and tired” of inaccurate reporting

Gene Maddaus / Variety:

Paramount and 12 state AGs defend their antitrust settlement after a judge held off on approving the settlement citing concerns raised by Senator Cory Booker

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

The BBC plans to cut ~90 jobs from BBC Local, aiming to save ~£9.1M, as part of a plan to eliminate ~250 full-time jobs in its Nations division by 2027/28

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More News

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:

Coding assistant startup Sourcegraph says ads in its free tier are generating $5M to $10M in annualized revenue; the ad-supported tier was launched in October

X: @eric_seufert

Pete Danko / Portland Business Journal:

Vancouver-based PowerLattice, which makes a power supply chiplet to reduce compute power needs by 50%+, raised a $25M Series A, taking its total funding to $31M

More: GeekWire, TechCrunch, FinSMEs, Oregonian, and Portland startups …

Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:

Sources: the European Commission wants to decide if AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud should face new restrictions under the DMA, after several major cloud outages

More: Bloomberg Law and Motley Fool

Brock E.W. Turner / Axios:

Voize, an ambient AI voice startup targeting skilled nursing facilities, raised a $50M Series A led by Balderton Capital and aims to sign US clients in Q1 2026

More: Implicator.ai and Silicon Canals

Anna Heim / TechCrunch:

Copenhagen-based Flatpay, which facilitates card payments for SMBs, raised €145M at a €1.5B valuation and says it “crossed €100M of ARR in October”

More: Cautious Optimism, Tech.eu, Silicon Canals, and Tech Funding News

Tech Policy Press:

Freedom on the Net 2025 report: for the 15th consecutive year, global internet freedom is in decline; of the 72 countries assessed, Kenya fell the most

More: Semafor, Freedom House, Help Net Security, and Freedom House

X: @freedomhouse. Bluesky: @justinhendrix. Forums: Slashdot

Brandon Vigliarolo / The Register:

Chinese toymaker FoloToy suspends sales of its GPT-4o-powered teddy bear, after researchers found the toy gave kids harmful responses, like about fire and kinks

More: Futurism, Futurism, U.S. PIRG Education Fund, Mashable, WinBuzzer, GameRevolution, and Newsweek

X: @ichbingisele. Bluesky: @ketanjoshi.co, @cuthrell.com, @chrisbaraniuk.com, @janerosenzweig, @kathyhirshpasek, and @lukeoneil47

Earlier Picks

Anika Collier Navaroli / Tech Policy Press:

An interview with Chris Gilliard on his new book Luxury Surveillance, how smart wearables could normalize pervasive surveillance, X's political shift, and more

LinkedIn: Jay Cuthrell. Bluesky: @justinhendrix and @hypervisible.blacksky.app

Bloomberg:

Chinese chipmaker Cambricon's revenue surged 500%+ over the past year and its stock is up 765%+ over two years, as China pushes domestic chips amid US sanctions

Min-Jeong Lee / Bloomberg:

Tokyo-based Turing, which is developing an AI model for self-driving vehicles, raised a ~$99M Series A, sources say at a ~$388M valuation, nearly 4x from 2024

More: Nikkei Asia, The Information, Pulse 2.0, Turing Inc., and Automotive World

Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal:

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sundar Pichai have each discussed building lunar and orbital AI data centers to leverage constant solar power and bypass regulations

X: @stocksavvyshay, @philipjohnst0n, @timkhiggins, and @npunwani. LinkedIn: Philip Johnston

Bluesky: @jessefelder and @metacurity.com. Forums: Slashdot

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:

Empower: US BNPL use has grown to 91.5M users, with 25% financing groceries, as default rates accelerate and most loans aren't reported, creating “phantom debt”

X: @simonkhalaf and @mlstotts

Bluesky: @davidgerard.co.uk, @prietschka, and @techcrunch.com. Forums: r/technology

Nikkei Asia:

Tokyo-based Sakana AI raised a ~$135M Series B from MUFG, Khosla, Macquarie, NEA, Lux, and others at a ~$2.6B valuation, becoming Japan's most valuable unicorn

More: Sakana AI, Global Corporate Venturing, eWeek, TechCrunch, and Analytics India Magazine

X: @wolfejosh, @leeminjeong83, @keytryer, and @dannycrichton