🕶️ AI billions, Musk’s fight & meme-making machines

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Seven bullets of updates

1. 📱 Trump admin in talks with four groups for a potential TikTok sale; bidders include Microsoft and Oracle.

2. 🦣 Colossal CEO touts "de-extinction" tech as a moral duty, aiming to revive species; valued at <$10.2B.

3. 🎨 Nitric lets you build a serverless meme generator using OpenAI's DALL-E models—get creative on autopilot!

4. 📈 Tammy Nam becomes CEO of AI-powered ad startup Creatopy, which boasts 400% revenue growth with major clients.

5. 🏡 Rocket acquires Redfin for $1.75B, merging tech to simplify home buying and expand its mortgage strategy.

6. 👾 Manus AI generates hype with 138K Discord members but struggles with basic tasks, falling short of its promises.

7. 🏠 Apple delays its smart home hub launch as new Siri features face setbacks; internal tests underway.

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Musk loses round one, but OpenAI’s for-profit fight isn’t settled

Elon Musk lost his bid to block OpenAI’s for-profit transition, but a federal judge’s ruling suggests the battle is far from over. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied Musk’s request for a preliminary injunction, citing insufficient evidence of breach of contract. However, she expressed concerns over OpenAI’s nonprofit roots funding a for-profit shift, stating that such a transition could cause "significant and irreparable harm". The ruling also acknowledged that OpenAI’s founders, including CEO Sam Altman, had made commitments not to enrich themselves through the company’s mission. The court has scheduled an expedited trial for fall 2025, giving Musk and his legal team a new opportunity to challenge the restructuring.

Regulatory scrutiny over OpenAI’s transition is intensifying, with attorneys general in California and Delaware already investigating. AI safety advocates argue that OpenAI’s shift could prioritize profits over ethical AI development, a concern echoed by at least one former employee. Meanwhile, OpenAI faces financial pressure—if it doesn’t complete its conversion by 2026, some of its raised capital could turn into debt. As the case moves toward trial, OpenAI, its investors, and regulators will be watching closely to see if the legal battle derails its ambitious restructuring plans. Read more.

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The REAL story of how Elon "stole" Tesla

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Fundraising is a marathon, not a sprint!

The Accelerate program helps startup founders and entrepreneurs prepare to pitch investors. Our team of business advisors provides monthly advice on your pitch deck and revenue forecasts as you prepare for fundraising.

Our pitch deck team fine-tunes your slides and messaging to refine your story, while our financial modeling experts structure your budget and organize your financial data for a solid fundraising strategy.

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These companies just raised money

1. 🏡 Rocket Companies acquires Redfin for $1.75B, expanding its real estate empire with a 63% share price premium.

2. 🛡️ Nirvana raises $80M at an $830M valuation to scale AI-powered insurance for the $900B U.S. trucking industry.

3. 🚀 AvatarOS raises $7M to craft personalized AI avatars, enhancing lifelike movements and unique traits.

4. 🔗 Coinvest Capital leads Lithuania’s defense VC, investing €6.8M+ since 2023 to drive security innovation.

5. 🔋 Daqus Energy unveils TAQ, a compound that could make EV batteries cheaper and lighter; secures $6M seed round.

6. 🧪 PhaseTree secures €3M to revolutionize material discovery with a "physics-first, AI-on-top" method; sector raised $260M last year.

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AI money machine: 2025 is off to a wild start

The U.S. AI industry saw an explosive 2024, with 49 startups securing $100M+ funding rounds, including seven that raised $1B or more. This momentum is carrying into 2025, with nearly 10 AI startups already surpassing the $100M mark and one securing a $3.5B mega-round. Leading the pack, Anthropic raised $3.5B in March at a $61.5B valuation, reinforcing investor enthusiasm for AI research and language models. Meanwhile, Together AI, Lambda, and Harvey also pulled in massive rounds, highlighting sustained capital inflow into AI infrastructure, generative AI, and legal tech.

Funding isn’t limited to a single AI sector—startups specializing in healthcare AI (Abridge, Hippocratic AI), legal tech (Eudia, Harvey), AI hardware (EnCharge AI), and synthetic voice (ElevenLabs) have all secured major rounds. Notably, Nvidia has played a recurring role across several of these deals, emphasizing the industry's reliance on AI compute power. With just three months into 2025, the pace suggests another record-breaking year for AI investments, as VCs continue betting big on foundational models, AI infrastructure, and industry-specific applications. Read more.

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Startup Events and Deadlines

1. Alchemist Accelerator | Deadline: March 21 | USA

2. Techstars Columbus | Deadline: April 1 | USA

3. Startup Grind Conference 2025 | April 19-30 | USA

4. Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator | Deadline: April 28 | USA

5. Startup Battlefield 200 | Deadline: June 9 | Global

6. Entrepreneur First London - Summer | Deadline: July 1 | UK

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