Spanish satellite startup Sateliot wants €150 million to beam 5G directly to smartphones from orbit
THE SO WHAT
Sateliot chasing €150 million to deploy 16 more LEO satellites for direct-to-phone 5G is part of the race to treat space as another cell tower layer. IoT and rural operators should be planning for hybrid terrestrial-orbital connectivity models rather than assuming ground-only networks.
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Startups & VentureData infrastructure startup Cribl acquires CardinalOps, which offers AI-powered threat detection tools and had raised $40M, sources say for around $100M
Telemetry plus AI-native detection in a ~$100M deal is another step toward observability and security converging into a single data plane. If you’re running separate stacks for logs and threat detection, expect vendor pressure—and pricing leverage—to move you toward unified pipelines.
Startups & VentureSources: China's National AI Industry Investment Fund gained voting rights in DeepSeek by joining its $7.4B round; other investors like Tencent and JD got none
A $7.4B round where the state fund gets voting rights and major corporates do not underlines how national AI champions are becoming quasi-public infrastructure. If you depend on Chinese foundation models, model governance and export posture will be set as much in Beijing as in the boardroom.
Startups & VentureThira, an AI startup founded by Apptio co-founders to develop AI agents that handle back-office tasks such as IT support, raised a $21M seed led by Madrona
Experienced SaaS founders raising $21M at seed for back-office AI agents is a bet that ‘tickets and workflows’ is the next system of record to be rebuilt. CIOs should start mapping which IT and finance workflows are structurally ticket-based—those are first in line for agent displacement of legacy SaaS.
Startups & VentureNeil Rimer thinks the AI money is coming back out
When a top-tier VC says AI wealth will be redistributed ‘voluntarily or involuntarily,’ he’s flagging pressure for higher taxes, regulation, and LP expectations on liquidity. Founders should assume the next phase of AI capital comes with more strings attached—governance, pricing scrutiny, and public optics all tighten.