The Pentagon Used Claude to Catch Maduro

Happy Friday the 13th! Note: we’re not publishing on Monday in honor of President’s Day here in the U.S.

Have a great weekend, hopefully with your valentine ❤️…

Top News

The Pentagon used Anthropic’s Claude model via a contract with Palantir to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, even though the model’s guidelines bar using Claude for violence or surveillance. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Meta is planning to launch facial recognition on its smart glasses despite killing the feature in 2021 due in part to ethical concerns. “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” an internal memo obtained by The New York Times reads. More here.

The FTC has intensified an antitrust probe into Microsoft’s cloud and AI businesses, sending civil investigative demands to at least six rivals seeking details on its licensing practices and bundling of AI, security, and identity tools into Windows and Office. Bloomberg has more here.

Blockchain lending giant Figure confirmed a data breach after hackers used a social engineering attack against an employee, with the hacking group ShinyHunters publishing 2.5 gigabytes of stolen data that includes customers’ names, addresses, birth dates, and phone numbers. TechCrunch has more here.

A Stanford Grad Student Created an Algorithm to Help His Classmates Find Love; Now, Date Drop Is the Basis of His New Startup

By Amanda Silberling

As Valentine’s Day approaches at Stanford, some students may be gearing up for first dates — not with people they met on Tinder or Hinge, but with matches from a service called Date Drop, designed by Stanford graduate student Henry Weng. Date Drop pairs students with potential dates once per week based on their responses to a questionnaire.

A Stanford whiz kid is trying to disrupt an established industry from his Palo Alto dorm? Stop me if you’ve heard this one before! But young adults are deeply disillusioned with the frustrating, demoralizing state of online dating. Why not try something different?

Over 5,000 students at Stanford have given Date Drop a try since its launch in the fall. It has also rolled out at 10 more schools, including MIT, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania, and Weng says he wants to roll out Date Drop more broadly in some cities this summer.

“Our matches convert to actual dates at about 10x the rate of Tinder,” Weng told TechCrunch. “Instead of swiping, we get to know each person deeply and send them one compatible match per week.”

At first, Weng didn’t intend to turn Date Drop into the foundation of a startup. Then, a close friend of his met their partner via Date Drop. “That was when I got the sense that this was less of a project,” he said.

Now, Weng thinks of Date Drop as just the first service from his startup, The Relationship Company, which is a public benefit corporation — a type of company legally required to consider social impact alongside profits.

“This started as something I just wanted to exist on campus, and it became a company because people kept on asking for it in their schools and I needed resources to do that,” he said.

Massive Fundings

Grafana Labs, a 12-year-old New York company that sells an observability platform built on the open-source Grafana project, is reportedly raising a round at a $9 billion valuation. The deal is expected to be led by GIC, reports The Information, with CapitalG, Lightspeed, and Sequoia also participating. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Alva Energy, a two-year-old startup based in Cambridge, MA, that upgrades existing U.S. nuclear reactors to increase power output, raised a $33 million round led by Playground Global, with Segra Capital, NGP, Mercator Partners, Alumni Ventures, 8VC, and Logos as well as previous investors Gigascale Capital, Safar Partners, Collaborative Fund, and Activate Global also piling on. More here.

Anterior, a four-year-old New York startup that uses generative AI to automate prior authorizations, claims processing, and other health plan administrative tasks, raised a $40 million round. Investors included FPV and Kinnevik as well as previous investors NEA and Sequoia Capital. The company has raised a total of $64 million. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Electric Twin, a two-year-old London startup that models audience behavior using large language models and survey data, raised a $12.6 million round led by Atomico, with LocalGlobe, Mercuri, Samos Investments, Marc Andreessen, and Cal Henderson also participating. UKTN has more here.

Inference Research, a one-year-old Hong Kong startup that operates a quantitative trading franchise across digital assets and traditional markets, raised a $20 million seed round. Avenir Group was the deal lead. More here.

Smaller Fundings

Bearing, a recently founded startup based in Scottsdale, AZ, that provides physical security operations software built on ServiceNow, raised a $4.5 million seed round led by AZ-VC, with High Alpha, PHX Ventures, and Lightbank also taking part. More here.

Birch Hill Holdings, a one-year-old New York startup that provides digital asset infrastructure for onchain lending and tokenized asset markets, raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round co-led by ParaFi Capital and Castle Island Ventures, with Nascent, FalconX Ventures, Coin Operated Group, The Operating Group, JST Digital, and Flowdesk also piling on. FinTech Global has more here.

CryoBio, a one-year-old startup based in Ithaca, NY, that engineers microbes to produce antifreeze proteins for crop frost protection, raised a $1.3 million pre-seed round. Investors included Marble, AgVenture Alliance, New York Ventures, Launch NY, FuzeHub, Klessig Trust, and Jade Cove Partners. AgFunderNews has more here.

Iceberg Quantum, a two-year-old Sydney startup that provides fault-tolerant quantum computing architectures, raised a $6 million seed round led by LocalGlobe, with Blackbird and DCVC also pitching in. More here.

Maestro AI, a one-year-old startup based in Parkland, FL, that provides an AI platform to automate mortgage origination workflows, raised a $1.2 million pre-seed round led by New Stack Ventures, with Family VC, ZFO, and Roark’s Drift also contributing. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

PolyGone Systems, a five-year-old startup based in Kearney Point, NJ, that provides microplastic monitoring and water filtration systems, raised a $4 million seed round led by FYRFLY Venture Partners and including Tech Council Ventures, Golden Seeds, and Interstate Fusion Ventures. More here.

Rivage, a one-year-old Paris startup that provides payroll software for accounting firms, raised a $2.8 million pre-seed round led by Partech. Tech.eu has more here.

Going Public

Enterprise AI startup Cohere told investors it hit roughly $240 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025, posting over 50% quarterly growth and generating about 70% gross margins as it positions for a potential IPO. CNBC has more here.

SpaceX is weighing a dual-class share structure for a potential 2026 IPO, giving Elon Musk super-voting control even with a minority stake as the company expands beyond rockets into AI. Bloomberg has more here.

People

Chris Liddell, a former Microsoft and GM executive who helped lead GM’s $23 billion IPO and later served in the Trump administration, has joined Anthropic’s board as the AI company eyes a potential public listing. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Kevin Tu has been promoted to partner at DFJ Growth, where he has backed Anduril, Armis, Cohesity, DataRobot, Scale AI, and other AI infrastructure and enterprise startups since joining in 2017 after stints at J.P. Morgan, Summit Partners, and Amazon.