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Coatue's New Venture: AI Data Centers Near Power Sources
Coatue, one of the biggest names in venture capital, has a new venture that is reportedly buying land near large power sources.
Musely Raises $360M in Non-Dilutive Funding for AI Marketing
The DTC skin, hair, and menopause care brand will use the non-dilutive capital to super-charge customer acquisition.
Replit CEO on Cursor Deal, Apple Rivalry, and Future Plans
At TechCrunch's sold-out StrictlyVC event in San Francisco on Thursday night, we covered a lot of ground in a short time, beginning with the question everyone in the industry is asking right now: in a world where rival Cursor is reportedly in talks to be acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion, is Replit also bound to sell?
Meta Acquires Assured Robot Intelligence for AI Advancements
Meta bought humanoid startup Assured Robot Intelligence to beef up its AI models for robots, the company said.
Skio's $105M Exit: AI Fintech Success Story
Subscription billing fintech Skio sold to its competitor Recharge in what was a healthy exit, according to its founder and former CEO.
AI Blunder: Company Loses Premium Domain in Interview Fiasco
Been in this space a long time and just watched one of the dumbest self-inflicted losses I’ve seen in years. Was interviewing with a company (\~$300M+ revenue and 1 single owner..............). During research, noticed they didn’t own their exact-match domain-just a pile of second-tier alternatives. Found owner (no comment) Rare case: real info. Called the owner (older guy, not a flipper). Good conversation. He initially said it wasn’t for sale, but after talking, he opened up and said, “make me an offer.” Price? Completely reasonable for the asset. What do they do? They send a junior HR person asking me to hand over the contact info. No strategy. No discretion. No understanding of how these deals actually work. I declined and set up an anonymous contact to test them. They haven't yet, but I'm fully expecting a lawyer to. During an interview, it was the first question they asked. Not letting someone inexperienced spook the seller or turn it into a legal posturing situation over what is, frankly, a cheap acquisition for them. Interesting outcome. They'll never get the name now (no comment). They lost a premium domain because they treated it like a routine admin task (or worse.....c&d?) instead of what it is-a negotiation. Big takeaway (again, for the hundredth time): Most companies-even big ones-have zero idea how to acquire domains properly. And yeah, lesson on my end too: don’t offer to “help for free,” and don’t assume competence or ethics just because there’s revenue or a "good guy" founder. Curious how many of you have seen deals die like this for completely avoidable reasons.
AI Tool Locus: Autonomous Business Operations
This sub has seen enough "AI can now do X" posts to have a finely tuned radar for what's real and what's a demo that falls apart the moment someone actually uses it. So I'll skip the hype and just tell you what we built and where the edges are. The core problem we were solving wasn't any individual capability. Generating copy is solved. Building websites is solved. Running ads is mostly solved. The unsolved problem was coherent autonomous decision making across all of those systems simultaneously without a human acting as the integration layer between them. That's what we spent most of our time on. Locus Founder takes someone from idea to fully operational business without them touching a single tool. The system scopes the business, builds the infrastructure, sources products, writes conversion optimized copy, and then runs paid acquisition across Google, Facebook and Instagram autonomously. Continuously. Not as a one time setup but as an ongoing operation that monitors performance and adjusts without being told to. The honest version of where AI actually performs well in this system and where it doesn't: It's genuinely good at the build layer. Storefront generation, copy, pricing structure, initial ad creative, coherent and fast in a way that would have been impossible two years ago. The operations layer is more complicated. Autonomous ad optimization works well within normal parameters. The judgment calls that fall outside those parameters, unusual market conditions, supplier issues, platform policy edge cases, are still the places where the system makes decisions a human would immediately recognize as wrong. That gap between capability and judgment is the most interesting unsolved problem in what we're building and probably in the agent space generally right now. We got into YCombinator this year. Opening 100 free beta spots this week before public launch. Free to use, you keep everything you make. For people in this sub specifically, less interested in the "wow AI can do that" reaction and more interested in people who want to actually stress test where the judgment breaks down. Beta form: [https://forms.gle/nW7CGN1PNBHgqrBb8](https://forms.gle/nW7CGN1PNBHgqrBb8) Where do you think autonomous business judgment actually gets solved and what does that look like?
Scholly Founder Sues Sallie Mae Over Termination, Data Claims
Chris Gray is suing his startup’s acquirer, Sallie Mae, for wrongful termination and alleging it's selling student data through a subsidiary. Sallie Mae denies the allegations and vows to fight.
Letterboxd Seeks New Owner: Potential Buyers Emerge
Potential buyers of Letterboxd include Versant, the parent company of CNBC and MS NOW, and Hollywood media company The Ankler, according to Semafor.
China Blocks Meta's $2B Manus AI Deal After Probe
China has ordered Meta to unwind its multibillion-dollar Manus acquisition, dealing a potential setback to Zuckerberg’s push into AI agents.
Cohere Acquires Aleph Alpha for European AI Sovereignty
Canadian AI startup Cohere is taking over Germany-based Aleph Alpha with support from Lidl’s owner, Schwarz Group. With the blessing of their governments, the companies intend to offer a sovereign alternative to enterprises in an AI landscape dominated by American players.