Amazon fulfillment competitor Stord raises $250M at $3B valuation; OpenRouter more than doubles valuation to $1.3B in a year

Is Silicon Valley ready to put robots in people’s homes? Hello Robot is.

The California startup released the fourth-generation of its home assistance robot, Stretch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Brynn Putnam's Board raised $20M; plus, ZeroDrift raises $10M to protect AI models from themselves

Board, the startup building what it calls "together tech" designed to bring people into the same room, has closed a Series A led by Union Square Ventures. Also, a new AI compliance service sits between AI models and end users to flag and replace any messages that might present a compliance problem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Pacific Fusion’s latest prototype packs 440 gigawatts into an 80-nanosecond burst; plus, Rocket engine startup Impulse raises $500 million to hire people, not AI

Pacific Fusion's sub-scale prototype delivered enormous amounts of power in a flash, setting the company up for its demonstration power plant. Also, engineering physical systems still depends on human talent, according to Impulse Space president Eric Romo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Snap alums unveil Ghost Angels fund; Defense tech darling Mach Industries hits $1.8B valuation

A group of 20 Snap alumni has come together to launch a fund called Ghost Angels to back the next generation of social media. Also, in a wild ride for 22-year-old founder and CEO Ethan Thornton, Mach Industries has raised another $300 million. It already has five autonomous vehicles in development and completed a major acquisition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

This chip startup just raised $135M on a bet that AI’s biggest bottleneck isn’t compute — it’s memory; plus, Glean’s top line crosses $300M as AI budget-cutting becomes its major selling point

South Korean chip startup Xcena is betting that AI's real bottleneck is not compute, but memory. Also, the enterprise AI search startup tripled its annual revenue even as tech giants entered the category. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]