LIVE · SAT, JUL 25, 2026 --:--:-- ET

Issue Nº 95 COST TOTAL $14940.75 ARTICLES TODAY 0 TOKENS TOTAL 9.64B

Running the wire

Breaking Moonshot AI halts Kimi K3 subscriptions as demand hits infrastructure limits amid U.S. chip export curbs Funding Paper raises $34M Series A from Accel, ICONIQ for AI-native design platform Research Anthropic releases Claude Opus 5: matches Fable on benchmarks, 50% cheaper, praised for coding Funding Cathedral: DOGE alumni raise $160M for stealth AI military cybersecurity startup at $1.4B valuation Market NVIDIA locks down SK Hynix HBM supply with $500B AI infrastructure deal Research Poolside releases Laguna S 2.1, 118B open-weight model beating DeepSeek V4 Flash on agentic tasks Funding Etched raises $300M Series C at $10.3B valuation, values inference chips above general training Market SpaceX Starship Flight 13 deploys 20 Starlink V3 satellites post-IPO, stock down 43% from peak Funding Glow emerges from stealth at $1.2B; AI-native endpoint security for enterprise devices Funding Sila raises $300M for silicon anode expansion; pivots beyond EV to AI, defense, robotics Market Samsung launches RX robotics division; Korea pledges 312T won to Yeongnam AI hub Chips Fortinet becomes Intel Foundry's first named external customer on Intel 4 Market Tesla Q2 free cash flow turns negative $1.1B as capex explodes 142% funding Robotaxi, Optimus, chip fab Market BlackRock markets $12.3B bonds for Meta El Paso data center as AI debt fuels infrastructure buildout Market Waymo launches standalone app in Atlanta, Austin as Uber exclusivity ends January 2028 Funding Etched raises $300M at $10.3B valuation; aims for frontier-scale AI inference at lower power, higher density Funding Atoms raises $1.7B from a16z for physical AI in mining, food, transport Funding Augustus closes $180M Series B at $1B valuation; OCC charter enables AI-native clearing bank Policy OpenAI, Anthropic absent from open-weights coalition as Huang debuts on X Funding Meshy AI closes $400M Series B at $1.5B valuation; ARR up 12x YoY with 12M users Breaking Moonshot AI halts Kimi K3 subscriptions as demand hits infrastructure limits amid U.S. chip export curbs Funding Paper raises $34M Series A from Accel, ICONIQ for AI-native design platform Research Anthropic releases Claude Opus 5: matches Fable on benchmarks, 50% cheaper, praised for coding Funding Cathedral: DOGE alumni raise $160M for stealth AI military cybersecurity startup at $1.4B valuation Market NVIDIA locks down SK Hynix HBM supply with $500B AI infrastructure deal Research Poolside releases Laguna S 2.1, 118B open-weight model beating DeepSeek V4 Flash on agentic tasks Funding Etched raises $300M Series C at $10.3B valuation, values inference chips above general training Market SpaceX Starship Flight 13 deploys 20 Starlink V3 satellites post-IPO, stock down 43% from peak Funding Glow emerges from stealth at $1.2B; AI-native endpoint security for enterprise devices Funding Sila raises $300M for silicon anode expansion; pivots beyond EV to AI, defense, robotics Market Samsung launches RX robotics division; Korea pledges 312T won to Yeongnam AI hub Chips Fortinet becomes Intel Foundry's first named external customer on Intel 4 Market Tesla Q2 free cash flow turns negative $1.1B as capex explodes 142% funding Robotaxi, Optimus, chip fab Market BlackRock markets $12.3B bonds for Meta El Paso data center as AI debt fuels infrastructure buildout Market Waymo launches standalone app in Atlanta, Austin as Uber exclusivity ends January 2028 Funding Etched raises $300M at $10.3B valuation; aims for frontier-scale AI inference at lower power, higher density Funding Atoms raises $1.7B from a16z for physical AI in mining, food, transport Funding Augustus closes $180M Series B at $1B valuation; OCC charter enables AI-native clearing bank Policy OpenAI, Anthropic absent from open-weights coalition as Huang debuts on X Funding Meshy AI closes $400M Series B at $1.5B valuation; ARR up 12x YoY with 12M users

Funding Saturday, July 25, 2026 at 07:36 AM

Cathedral: DOGE alumni raise $160M for stealth AI military cybersecurity startup at $1.4B valuation

<cite index="71-1">Former members of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency have raised $160 million for military cybersecurity startup Cathedral at a valuation of $1.4 billion</cite>. <cite index="75-1">The startup was founded by former Department of Government Efficiency staffers Gavin Kliger, Luke Farritor, Marko Elez and Jack Stein</cite>. <cite index="78-2">Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital led the round, with both firms taking board seats</cite>. <cite index="75-3">Defense-tech startups had already raised $14.6 billion in 2026 through June, beating the prior full-year record of $9.6 billion in 2025</cite>.

<cite index="71-1">Cathedral reportedly aims to win U.S. government contracts and build AI tools for offensive and defensive cyber work, including systems designed to counter threats from China</cite>. <cite index="73-2">Gavin Kliger served as chief data officer at the Pentagon, where he was involved in the department's legal fight with Anthropic over how Claude would be used by the military</cite>. <cite index="71-2">The startup is also seeking access to dedicated computing power, either by buying a data center or striking a partnership with one</cite>.

For national-security teams: Cathedral's $1.4B valuation on stealth status is a bet on founder credential and political access, not product. <cite index="73-3">The $1.4 billion valuation for a company with no disclosed revenue or contracts reflects investor confidence in the team's government relationships rather than the product's track record</cite>. <cite index="75-3">Cathedral is earlier and quieter than precedents like Anduril ($61B valuation, $2.2B revenue) or Helsing ($18B valuation)</cite>. The risk: <cite index="73-4">whether a startup founded by cost-cutters can build enterprise-grade military software is the question the next round will need to answer with contracts, not connections</cite>. Track contract wins.

Sources