🕶️ $800M? No thanks

Eight bullets of updates

1. 🎥 OpenAI’s Sora shows bias in early tests, defaulting to white characters and clichés—raising red flags about representation in AI video.

2. 🚘 Cadillac goes full luxury EV with Optiq and Escalade IQ—think massive screens, voice control, and price tags to match.

3. 🎓 Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings donates $20M to Bowdoin College to boost AI education at small liberal arts schools.

4. 💻 Software engineers are all-in on AI copilots, using tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT for everything from bug fixes to boilerplate code.

5. 🌍 These 50+ tech startups are actively sponsoring H-1B visas, offering a lifeline for immigrant workers amid Big Tech cutbacks.

6. 📈 Stocks bounce back as Wall Street shrugs off Trump’s tariff talk—Tesla leads the rebound after a rough few days.

7. 🛡️ Defense startup Anduril eyes UK for new weapons factory, expanding its international footprint amid rising global demand.

8. 🐦 Barack Obama joins Bluesky, giving the decentralized Twitter rival a major boost in visibility—and credibility.

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 🧬 23andMe is out of DNA

Remember when spitting in a tube felt like a futuristic health upgrade? Fast forward to 2025: 23andMe is bleeding cash, losing partners, and facing class-action lawsuits after a massive data breach exposed info from nearly 7 million users. Now it’s warning investors that it might not survive the year.

The company once promised a revolution in personalized medicine. Instead, it’s become a cautionary tale in consumer genomics. Revenues are down 33% YoY. Its valuation plummeted from $6B to under $200M. And the pivot to drug development? Burning money fast.

But the real plot twist? Your DNA is still out there.

Even if 23andMe disappears, the data it collected likely won’t. The company has sold genetic insights to pharma giants like GSK, and the recent breach included ancestry, health, and even raw genetic files. Unlike a password, you can’t just change your genome.

This isn’t just a 23andMe problem — it’s a wake-up call for the entire direct-to-consumer health tech space. When your business model relies on monetizing people’s literal code, losing their trust is game over.

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What Comes After TikTok? (Hint: Nothing)

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The Smart Home disruptor with 200% growth…

No, it’s not Ring or Nest—meet RYSE, the company redefining smart shade automation, and you can invest before its next major growth phase.

With $10M+ in revenue and distribution in 127 Best Buy locations, RYSE is rapidly emerging as a top acquisition target in the booming smart home industry, projected to grow 23% annually.

Its patented retrofit technology allows users to automate their window shades in minutes, controlled via smartphone or voice. With 200% year-over-year growth, demand is skyrocketing.

Now, RYSE’s public offering is live at just $1.90/share.

Find Out More

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These companies just raised money

1. 💼 LatAm VC firms Nazca and Bridge merge to form a $400M fund, signaling a new phase of consolidation in the region’s startup scene.

2. 🤖 Ex-Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt raises $150M for his robotics startup, The Bot Company, aiming to bring helpful household bots to life.

3. 🔧 Workflow automation startup n8n raises $60M to expand its AI-powered, “fair-code” platform for building custom automations.

4. 🌐 Browser Use raises $17M to help AI agents surf the web more effectively, turning messy websites into machine-readable terrain.

5. 📺 Former TV execs raise $6M for Enza, a new streaming platform betting on short-form, serialized content for modern viewers.

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💸 Google just bought a startup for $32B. Yes, B.

The biggest acquisition of a VC-backed startup. Ever.

Alphabet is reportedly acquiring Israeli cybersecurity unicorn Wiz for $32 billion — a mind-bending price tag that smashes previous M&A records and signals that Big Tech is back in shopping mode.

The context? M&A is heating up like it’s 2021 again. So far this year, there have been 11 startup exits worth over $1B, totaling $54.5B — more than double what we saw at this point last year. And while IPOs are still trickling in slowly, this kind of acquisition frenzy shows that the startup exit window isn’t totally shut — it’s just pivoted to corporate buyers.

For Google, buying Wiz isn’t just about cloud security dominance. It’s also a flex. With antitrust heat cooling down under the new administration, Alphabet and other giants are seizing the chance to grow faster through acquisitions — while they still can.

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Startup Events and Deadlines

1. FounderConnect: Startup Resources & Networking Expo | Today! | Boston

2. Crash Course in Financial Modeling  | March 27 | Online

3. YC Rejection Party | March 29 | Gurugram

4. Techstars Columbus | Deadline: April 1 | USA

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

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

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

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

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