Riding an AI rally, Robinhood preps second retail venture IPO; plus, Korea’s biggest manufacturers back Config, the TSMC of robot data

World model maker Odyssey nabs $1.45B valuation backed by Amazon and other big names; plus, General Intuition in talks to raise $300M at around $2B valuation

World models are the next big thing in AI beyond LLMs and, with this round, Odyssey has cemented itself as one of the startups to watch. Also, General Intuition is in talks to raise around $300 million at a roughly $2 billion valuation from backers including Jeff Bezos. The startup trains AI agents on spatial-temporal reasoning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

SpaceX alum nabs $22M to turn rocket engines into geothermal power plants

Critical Energy is turning rocket engines into geothermal power plants, and it wants to build 300 GW per year by 2045. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Startup Foundation Alloy developed a new alloying technique; plus, Probably raises $9M to build a more reliable kind of AI

Instead of heating metals, Foundation Alloy beats them into submission. The startup has raised $22 million to scale up production of its alloys. Also, the company Probably wants to prevent hallucinations and factual errors from reaching users, and achieve accuracy on par with deterministic systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Jeff Bezos’s Prometheus raises $12B to build an ‘artificial general engineer’ for the physical world; plus, Theker building a factory robot that doesn’t specialize in anything

The new round values the physical AI startup that aims to automate heavy engineering and drug design at $41 billion. Also, unlike humanoid robots designed around a fixed form — think Boston Dynamics — Theker's machines are built to be reconfigured. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Endurance Energy raises $54M to harness a massive untapped energy source; Jedify raises $24M to help companies arm AI agents with context on their businessplus,

SpaceX alumni Andrew Redd is betting the ocean has vast amounts of untapped geothermal energy. Also, the funding round was led by Norwest, with participation from S Capital VC, Cerca Partners, and Oceans Ventures. Snowflake Ventures also participated as a strategic investor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]