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Elon Musk's tunneling venture The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D funding round led by the United Arab Emirates, valuing the company at $23 billion. As part of the deal, the company plans to build more than 150 kilometers of tunnels in the UAE. Other investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Human Capital, Vy Capital and Valor Equity Partners.
The Exploration Company, led by CEO Hèlene Huby, closed a $450 million Series C funding round, the largest such raise by any European space firm and reportedly the biggest ever for a female-led company in Europe. Huby was also named an envoy at France's International Space Summit, appearing alongside astronaut Thomas Pesquet as a prominent voice in European space policy.
AI coding startup Cognition has closed a Series E funding round of $2 billion, valuing the company at $48 billion. The round includes backing from investors such as Peter Thiel, underscoring strong investor confidence in AI-driven software development tools.
Stoke Space announced a $1 billion Series E funding round co-led by Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital, bringing its total funding to $2.3 billion. CEO Andy Lapsa said the money will accelerate development of a bigger 'Block 2' version of its Nova rocket capable of lifting 15 metric tons to low-Earth orbit while remaining fully reusable, even as the original Nova vehicle nears its debut launch next year.
French AI startup Mistral AI has closed a funding round of $3.48 billion, drawing from both existing backers like Samsung and ASML Holding and new investors. The round pushes the company's valuation above $24 billion, cementing its status as Europe's leading AI challenger to US and Chinese rivals.
Mistral has closed a €3 billion Series D funding round at a post-money valuation exceeding €21 billion, marking the largest equity raise ever by a European tech company just three years after its founding. Samsung Electronics led the round, with EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund and existing backer PSG Equity co-leading. The company now operates in 20 countries and serves over 125 enterprises, including Airbus, ASML and HSBC.
Responding to Ming Li's proposal to separate academic 'titles' from resource allocation in Chinese universities, a Nature correspondence argues the reform is unlikely to succeed. The author agrees that suppressed performance indicators tend to resurface under different labels, but contends university administrators benefit from the current metric-based system and thus have little incentive to change it.
Google is backing a new initiative in parts of the Bay Area that subsidizes homeowners installing heat pumps, with incentives reaching as much as $10,000 per household. The program frames residential energy upgrades as part of broader grid infrastructure rather than isolated consumer purchases.
Elon Musk's tunneling venture, The Boring Company, is reportedly requiring investors in its latest funding round to actively help with recruiting staff and securing new business, rather than simply providing capital. This condition marks an unusual departure from typical startup fundraising norms, where investors' roles are generally limited to financial backing and occasional advisory support.
A former startup CEO who has raised tens of millions in VC funding argues that traditional venture capital, once about backing founders to build companies, has been co-opted by a small group of extremely wealthy investors. He says this cohort now operates with little accountability to markets, regulators, or voters, using the VC label to pursue a broader ideological agenda rather than genuine innovation.
A stopgap government funding bill passed by the House and expected to be signed by President Trump includes language, inserted by Senators Patty Murray and Susan Collins, that bars the Office of Management and Budget from enacting a rule letting political appointees decide which research grants get funded or canceled. The freeze only lasts until the funding measure expires on December 11, but it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support—90-6 in the Senate and 370-48 in the House.
Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow is raising as much as $27 million from existing investors in a convertible-note bridge round that carries a pay-to-play clause penalizing backers who don't participate. The financing is meant to bridge the checkout company toward a future Series E2 round, after its valuation collapsed from $11 billion in 2022 to roughly $300 million. Breslow says Bolt is nearing profitability but declined to disclose how much cash remains.