👋🏻 Happy Sunday.
Snap launched its first consumer AR glasses a few weeks ago.
And Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said: “The combination of software and hardware is much harder to copy than just a feature in an app.”
Last week, Meta launched a cheaper version of its AI glasses in partnership with EssilorLuxottica.
Somehow, that probably sounded less like an opinion and more like a challenge to Zuck.
Let’s unpack the rest of last week’s news:
⚙️ Startup & Tech
Apple raised prices across its Mac and iPad lineups due to a global memory shortage driven by AI data center demand, while leaving iPhone prices unchanged for now.
Google launched a dedicated Google Finance app for Android, bringing real-time market data, watchlists, a live financial news feed, and an AI-powered “Key Moments” feature that explains stock movements.
Meta launched a new line of smart glasses under its own brand, starting at $299, making them $80 cheaper than its Ray-Ban Meta models.
Image source: Vanity Fair OpenAI released its GPT-5.6 model lineup, comprising Sol, Terra, and Luna, in a limited preview restricted to a small group of government-approved partners at the Trump administration’s request.
Anthropic launched Claude Tag in research preview for Claude Enterprise and Team customers, an always-on AI agent embedded in Slack that builds persistent context from channel conversations and can proactively assign tasks, follow up on stalled threads, and access connected data sources with permission.
Polymarket confirmed that hackers stole approximately $3 million in cryptocurrency from more than 11 users after a breach at a third-party vendor allowed malicious code to be injected into its website.
💼 Business
The Trump administration’s Department of Commerce denied Polestar authorization to sell new vehicles in the US under its Connected Vehicle Rule, which restricts cars with Chinese software or hardware.
SpaceX signed a $6.3 billion compute deal with open-source AI startup Reflection AI, which will pay $150 million per month starting July 1 for access to Nvidia GB300 chips at the Colossus 2 data center in Memphis.
Image source: WSJ Tesla settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a 71-year-old pedestrian struck by a Tesla Model Y operating in FSD mode in 2023, the first known pedestrian fatality linked to the technology.
General Atlantic appointed Novak Djokovic as a global strategic advisor, with the $126 billion private equity firm planning to use his network to expand into the health, wellness, and sports sectors.
💸 Deals
Seed and Early Rounds
Techdollar raised $3 million in pre-seed funding, led by No Limit Holdings and Reforge VC, with angel support from Michael Egorov and SVB Bank, to build private credit and liquidity tools for founders and investors holding illiquid frontier-tech equity.
Fika Jobs raised $4 million in pre-seed funding led by Luminar Ventures to build a video-first hiring platform where candidates complete a 10-minute AI interview powered by Gemini.
HaloBraid raised $7 million in seed funding led by Seven Seven Six to build a robotic braiding assistant for professional stylists.
Ornn raised $33 million in a Series Seed led by a16z crypto to build financial infrastructure for the compute economy, including the OCPI price index, GPU compute futures contracts, hedging tools, and a capacity aggregation platform that treats AI compute as a standardized commodity.
Series A
Probook raised $40 million, including a $34 million Series A led by a16z with Sequoia participation, to build an AI operating system for HVAC, plumbing, and electrical home services businesses.
Coval raised $28 million in a Series A led by Norwest Venture Partners, with Base10 Partners, Twilio Ventures, and Y Combinator participating, to build simulation and evaluation tools that help enterprises reliably test and deploy voice AI agents.
Netris raised $15 million in a Series A led by a16z to provide hardware-accelerated network automation software for AI neoclouds, automating GPU cluster setup, configuration, and multi-tenancy across more than 35 live deployments.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Adobe agreed to acquire Topaz Labs, a 20-year-old Emmy-winning image and video enhancement company behind the Astra upscaling and Wonder retouching models.
Superhuman acquired GPTZero, the Princeton-founded AI detection startup with 19 million users and $30 million in ARR. Terms were not disclosed.
💼 Events
AI Engineer World's Fair returns to Moscone West in San Francisco, June 29–July 2, drawing engineers, founders, and technical leaders across 29 tracks and 300 speakers covering agents, evals, inference, robotics, and world models. Get tickets here.
GITEX AI Europe heads to Messe Berlin on June 30–July 1 for its second year, bringing together 40,000+ attendees, 2,500+ exhibitors, and 500+ speakers from 100 countries across AI, cybersecurity, cloud, fintech, and digital sovereignty. More information here.
Until next week, Ciao 🫡