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| Top Stories | NVIDIA confirmed that it will acquire AI software repository Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, bringing the model-sharing hub under the world’s dominant AI chipmaker. — Engadget Meta released Muse Spark 1.3 with claimed improvements in coding and agentic tasks, as it races to keep pace with a week of major model launches from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. — Axios Amazon’s Zoox expanded its robotaxi service to the Las Vegas airport, targeting a critical ride-hailing destination. — TechCrunch TrendForce forecasts Apple’s memory costs for a 256GB iPhone 18 Pro will quadruple year over year in Q3. Apple reportedly won’t pass the full price increase on to customers. — 9to5Mac
| Top Funding Announcements | PlusAI — The autonomous trucking company, which runs Texas freight routes with Ryder, plans to go public through a SPAC merger at an $800M pre-money valuation to expand commercial operations. — Reuters Fluidstack — The AI cloud provider reportedly raised $1.5B led by Jane Street at an $18B-plus valuation to expand infrastructure powered partly by Google’s AI chips. — Forbes Guardio — The consumer cybersecurity startup raised $40M at a $1.1B valuation to expand its subscription service protecting email and other digital accounts, with Wiz founder Assaf Rappaport participating. — Bloomberg ByteDance — The TikTok developer secured a $29.6B loan, Asia’s second-largest dollar-denominated borrowing this year. Lenders and planned use of proceeds were not disclosed. — Bloomberg HiddenLayer — The AI security company raised $100M to expand tools that monitor enterprise AI agents and the add-ons they use. — TechCrunch
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| | This Week in Startups |  | VC experts on why Physical AI funding is heating up | E2333 |
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| Timestamps: 0:00 Why making it to Fund IV is when it gets real 8:55 Pentagon rolls out ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government 10:20 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST 11:24 Paige on defense tech and three years at Northrop Grumman 13:11 Katelin: The bottleneck used to be winning the contract, now it's surviving one 15:44 Autonomous weapons, robot dogs, and the Boston Dynamics conversation in Paris 18:38 Lightfield - Name one person who's ever enjoyed updating a CRM. Exactly. Lightfield's AI agent does it for you — it even prospects and books your meetings. Used by thousands of startups. Free at https://lightfield.app 21:34 EU designates ChatGPT a "very large online search engine" under the DSA 24:25 Katelin's contrarian take: Europe is undercapitalized 29:27 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist 30:38 Starcloud raises $250M at a $2.3B valuation 52:37 Competing with Elon: the single point of failure for the whole space economy 57:20 Physical AI raised ~$47B in the first half of 2026 1:03:13 Jason's Zipline regret and the death of "hardware is hard" 1:06:38 Is "unc" a compliment? A Gen X / millennial / Gen Z / Gen Alpha 1:09:10 Anthropic reverses its data retention policy after enterprise pushback 1:11:49 Katelin on data custody: "That's not a procurement question" 1:15:02 Back to on-prem: Go.AI, the Go1, and vertical LLMs1
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| TWiST Partner Offers | Sentry: Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST Lightfield: Name one person who's ever enjoyed updating a CRM. Exactly. Lightfield's AI agent does it for you — it even prospects and books your meetings. Used by thousands of startups. Free at lightfield.app. Odoo: The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started for today at Odoo.com/twist
| Today’s Fascinating Fact from Harmonic | Zoox was founded in 2014 in Foster City, California, by Australian artist and designer Tim Kentley-Klay and Stanford computer scientist Jesse Levinson. The name comes from Zooxanthellae, a marine organism that relies on renewable energy and lives in symbiotic harmony with its underwater ecosystem. While most AV startups were bolting their sensors and cameras on to existing cars, Zoox designed and manufactured a purpose-built robotaxi from scratch, with its lack of steering column and trademark carriage-style seating so riders face one another. Pre-acquisition, the company raised around $990 million, but was nonetheless burning cash fast. In June 2020, Amazon stepped in and picked up the brand for $1.2-$1.3 billion. | Try it yourself at harmonic.ai | Subscribe to Us On Your Favorite Podcast Platforms | | | SF Live-Work Space Now Available | Need a flexible living and working environment in San Francisco? This thoughtfully designed loft-style residence at 787 Bryant St., the heart of the vibrant SOMA district and the city’s creative hub, is now available for rent or purchase. Check the listing for more details. | The TWiST500 newsletter is the new, updated, and improved TWiST Ticker. | | | |
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