Plus: Apex Wants To Bring Henry Ford-Style Mass Production To Satellites |
Good morning,
An innovative San Francisco startup is hoping it has discovered a treatment to help man’s best friend live longer.Loyal, featured on Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups list, is developing an oral pill to delay canine aging, and its first treatment could reach the market by next year. The firm doesn’t have any revenue yet, but founder and CEO Celine Halioua is in conversations with the FDA and has cleared some initial roadblocks. The potential market is massive: Some 60 million households in the U.S. have nearly 90 million dogs, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, and one day Loyal’s technology could even be used for humans.
Let’s get into the headlines, |
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| For 11 years and counting, Forbes has partnered with TrueBridge Capital Partners to release its list of 25 venture-backed startups we think are most likely to reach a $1 billion valuation, and unsurprisingly in 2025, AI dominated. The list is one to watch: Of the 250 alumni we’ve selected over the years, 56% became unicorns, including DoorDash, Figma and Anduril. Just hours before a previous 90-day moratorium was set to expire, President Donald Trump extended the pause on higher tariffs on Chinese goods for another 90 days. The extension marks Trump’s latest reversal on trade and comes just days after pauses on most other countries were lifted, driving tariffs to an average of more than 18%, the highest level since 1934, according to the Yale Budget Lab. |
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 | | Apex CEO Ian Cinnamon. Ethan Pines for Forbes |
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| Startup Apex Technology’s new factory in Los Angeles is part of what CEO and cofounder Ian Cinnamon sees as the wave of the future for the satellite industry. Satellite manufacturing has long been a bespoke business, with each spacecraft customized for their mission, like taking pictures of the Earth or beaming down TV signals. Elevated costs and delays have come with the territory. With more and more small satellites being launched into low-Earth orbit, Apex is trying to convince constellation developers that it would be faster and more affordable to use a standardized spacecraft instead. Apex is offering three different types of “buses,” meaning the main body of the satellite, including power and control systems—customers just have to add their own sensors and other payloads. Satellite manufacturers booked $20 billion in revenue worldwide last year, according to the Satellite Industry Association. Apex hopes to contend for a big share of a growing pie as the U.S. military expands in space. Apex has a long way to go: The company only produced three satellites in 2024. It’s aiming for 10 this year. Still, strong sales boosted its revenue last year to $60 million, Forbes estimates, mostly from predelivery payments for its Aries bus, which can carry up to 330 pounds of payload, and Nova, which can hold twice as much. Cinnamon says that orders have topped $100 million from roughly a dozen customers, with defense accounting for about two-thirds. |
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| “Standardized satellites could drive down prices and the time it takes to put spacecraft in orbit,” says Forbes senior editor Jeremy Bogaisky. “That could lead to new uses—and help the U.S. in its competition with China for supremacy in space.” |
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| President Donald Trump eased investors’ fears as he announced gold imports would not be subject to tariffs, despite earlier information from Customs and Border Protection. U.S. gold futures briefly hit an all-time high Friday, as the commodity is typically seen as a safe haven, especially amid the tariff-induced market chaos. |
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| WEALTH + ENTREPRENEURSHIP |
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| Last month, the U.S. inked an unusual deal, purchasing a stake in rare earths miner MP Materials in an effort to reduce reliance on China, which dominates the global rare earths market. Since its agreement with the Department of Defense, MP Materials has seen shares surge 150%, making founder and CEO James Litinsky a billionaire, with an estimated $1.2 billion net worth. |
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The task of digitally simulating a living cell has proven difficult for researchers, but startup Tahoe Therapeutics got one step closer to that goal earlier this year, in what its CEO described as a “Mars landing moment for single-cell datasets.” This vast dataset from the firm, which said Monday it had raised $30 million in new venture funding, shows how different kinds of cancer cells responded to interactions with over 1,000 different molecules, and will be crucial for training AI models.
Elon Musk attacked Apple in a series of posts on X, alleging the iPhone-maker was refusing to highlight his social media platform and AI chatbot Grok on the App Store, and boosting his rival and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI’s products instead. Musk then noted his company, xAI, will take “immediate legal action,” without offering further details on when. |
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| President Donald Trump said Monday that the federal government would take control of Washington, D.C. police and deploy 800 National Guard troops, citing the need to combat crime in the capital city, which reached a 30-year low this year. The Home Rule Act gives the president authority to use the city’s police force “for federal purposes” in emergency situations, but only for 30 days, unless Congress approves an extension. And Trump’s moves could face legal pushback—a trial began Monday over the president’s decision to send troops to Los Angeles earlier this summer. A federal judge denied the government’s motion to unseal the records from a grand jury that indicted Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2020, despite the government claiming there was “abundant public interest” warranting their release. Grand jury records are typically kept under seal, and the judge said most of the information in the records was already public knowledge. |
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| Just days after its merger with Skydance, Paramount secured streaming and broadcast rights to the Ultimate Fighting Championship in a $7.7 billion deal. UFC CEO Dana White tells Forbes he had a preexisting relationship with Larry Ellison and David, one of many network executives who were looking to land the MMA behemoth, swooped in to land the deal. “These guys came in aggressive with an all-or-nothing approach and said, ‘We want the whole thing,’” White says. “The Ellisons are brilliant businessmen and have a whole game plan behind this thing. I can’t wait to be in business with them.” |
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| Tropical Storm Erin formed Monday and is expected to become the first major hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic season. The potential risks to the U.S. remain unclear: |
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Five | The number of named storms that have formed so far this hurricane season, though none have reached hurricane strength | |
| 13 to 18 | How many named storms the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects this season | |
| 50% | The chance for an an above-normal season, per NOAA |
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| If you work remotely, your contributions are more likely to fly under-the-radar, so it’s critical to be visible in the workplace. Be sure that you’re communicating clearly and often, sending regular updates on projects, and stay proactive in addressing problems that come up. Try to collaborate with other teams by joining cross-functional meetings or working groups—it can be a great way to get face time with departments outside your own, while also helping others know your value as an employee. |
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