Trump Floats "Partnership" with Major AI Companies

Happy National Donut Day! And Happy Ferris Bueller Day, which is also a thing, as it should be.

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President Trump said today that he may meet with major AI companies next week to discuss a federal “partnership” that could give Americans a financial stake in the industry’s upside, a profit-sharing idea floated by OpenAI and others as AI companies race toward trillion-dollar IPOs and policymakers worry about labor-market disruption. Politico has more here.

JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, and other big U.S. banks are planning a tokenized deposit network for 2027, a bid to let traditional bank deposits move instantly on blockchain rails while countering the growing threat from stablecoins and crypto firms. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

SpaceX has lined up another major compute customer ahead of its IPO, with Google agreeing to pay $920 million a month for access to roughly 110,000 Nvidia GPUs and related infrastructure even though Google is already one of the world’s largest owners of AI compute. TechCrunch has more here.

Bitcoin fell below $60,000 for the first time since October 2024, capping a 16% weekly drop as Strategy’s small bitcoin sale, record ETF outflows, stronger-than-expected jobs data, and a rotation into AI and memory-chip stocks pressured crypto and called into question bitcoin’s “digital gold” and high-beta tech-stock narratives. CNBC has more here.

The Token Bill Comes Due: Inside the Industry Scramble to Manage AI’s Runaway Costs

Image Credits: Getty Images

By Rebecca Bellan

Across the industry, companies are starting to balk at the price of AI. Uber blew through its entire 2026 AI coding budget by April. Microsoft revoked its developers’ Claude Code licenses months after enabling them. A Priceline employee told TechCrunch that a routine Cursor contract renewal came back 4-5x more expensive.

Even though per-token prices have fallen, the push for more AI adoption and increasingly autonomous agents have driven token consumption higher and higher. Companies that gorged themselves in early 2025 on all-you-can-eat subscriptions are now scrambling to understand where their money is going, pull back spending, and figure out whether they can salvage some ROI from the wreckage of their budgets.

Meanwhile, a market is forming to meet them there. Startups, established vendors, and a new standards body are all racing to give companies the tools and language to track what they spend.

“Six months ago, I would have a conversation with a customer and it would be all about ‘What can it do? Is it good enough?’” Alexander Embiricos, OpenAI’s head of enterprise, told TechCrunch at an event in New York City this week. “Our conversations are never about that now. Now the conversations are about, ‘hey, we’re spending so much. What visibility do you have? What auditability do you have? What token controls do you have? What is the efficiency of your models?’”

It’s against this backdrop that the Linux Foundation this week unveiled plans for the Tokenomics Foundation, a new standards body that aims to instill the same cost discipline around AI tokens that FinOps did for cloud spend.

“In April and May, I started hearing from companies: ‘Oh my god, we are 3x over our entire 2026 token budget and it’s only April,’” J.R. Storment, executive director of the FinOps Foundation, a project under the Linux Foundation, told TechCrunch. “We started hearing existential crises, and the whole conversation shifted from tokenmaxxing and ‘go fast’ to ‘we need guardrails, how do we control this?’”

Massive Fundings

Allen Control Systems, a four-year-old Austin startup that develops autonomous weapon stations for shooting down drones and supporting other battlefield systems, raised a $200 million Series B round at a $2.2 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Smash Capital, with previous investors Craft Ventures, Rally Ventures, and Inspired Capital also participating. Axios has more here.

CereVasc, a 12-year-old company based in Charlestown, MA, that develops an implantable endovascular device that drains excess cerebrospinal fluid from the brain into the venous system to treat normal pressure hydrocephalus as an alternative to surgical shunts, raised an $85 million Series C round led by Piper Sandler Merchant Banking, with JJDC, Medtronic, Bain Capital Life Sciences, and Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds also participating. Medical Device Network has more here.

Ona Therapeutics, a seven-year-old Barcelona startup that develops antibody-drug conjugates that target tumor-specific antigens to deliver cancer therapies for treatment-resistant breast, colorectal, and other aggressive cancers, raised an $86.6 million Series B round co-led by Columbus Venture Partners and Mérieux Equity Partners, with COFIDES and Korys as well as previous investors Alta Life Sciences, Asabys Partners, Bpifrance, CDTI through SICC Innvierte, FundPlus NV, and Ysios Capital also pitching in. More here.

Revolut, an 11-year-old London company whose super-app lets users spend, send, and save money globally, is reportedly weighing a secondary share sale at a $115 billion valuation, a deal that would give early investors and employees liquidity after the digital bank received a UK banking license and applied for a U.S. charter. Bloomberg has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

GR3N, a 13-year-old Swiss company that develops microwave-based processes to break down PET plastics and polyester waste into reusable chemical components for manufacturing new plastic and textile materials, raised a $17.9 million Series B round led by 360 Capital, with VP Textile also taking part. The company has raised a total of approximately $27.7 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Innefu Labs, a 16-year-old New Delhi startup that develops AI software for defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and revenue-intelligence operations, raised a $30 million Series B round from Panthera Growth Partners. The Economic Times has more here.

Opal Security, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that automates identity access governance across human, service, and AI agent accounts by evaluating access requests, enforcing policies, managing reviews, and revoking permissions for enterprises, raised a $23 million round co-led by Greylock and Battery Ventures, with Cambium Capital also stepping up. The company has raised a total of $59 million. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Smaller Fundings

Intellectible, a three-year-old Austin startup that automates revenue workflows for service providers, including proposals, pricing, estimates, and other sales processes, raised a $3 million seed round led by Bread & Butter Ventures, with Victorum Capital, Grey Ventures, Circadian Ventures, Allied VC, and High Street Equity Partners also contributing. Austin Business Journal has more here.

Kalogon, a seven-year-old startup based in Melbourne, FL, that develops adaptive seating systems with sensors and adjustable surfaces to manage pressure, circulation, and posture for wheelchair users and others who sit for long periods, raised a $5.75 million round led by Enable Ventures, with Florida Opportunity Fund and Castellan Group as well as previous investors DeepWork Capital, Sawmill Angels, and Black Opal also participating. More here.

Paypercut, a one-year-old startup based in Sofia, Bulgaria, that enables online merchants to accept card, local payment methods, and buy now pay later options across Central and Eastern Europe through a single integration, raised a $5.8 million seed round co-led by Concentric, Passion Capital, and Araya Ventures, with SMOK Ventures, Portfolio Ventures, BrightCap Ventures, BlackWood, SABAH.fund, MFG Invest, and Main Set also piling on. The company has raised a total of $8.1 million. More here.

Red Metals, a startup founded this year based in Charleston, SC, that develops integrated copper refining and manufacturing operations that convert scrap feedstocks into finished copper products, raised a $10 million seed round led by Gigascale Capital, with Future Ventures, MCJ, and JB Straubel also investing. More here.

Scispot, a five-year-old Canadian startup that connects lab instruments, samples, and data systems to automate experiment planning, execution, documentation, inventory tracking, and reporting for biotech and pharmaceutical labs while maintaining traceability and audit controls, raised an $8 million Series A round led by Avenue Growth Partners and including previous investor Breakwater Ventures. The company has raised a total of approximately $10 million. BetaKit has more here.

Willow, a one-year-old Israeli startup that manages identity and access controls for enterprise AI agents, assigning identities, governing connections to internal systems, monitoring usage, and enforcing permissions across tools and models, raised a $7 million seed round. Hetz Ventures was the deal lead. SecurityWeek has more here.

Going Public

SpaceX is preparing to reserve as much as 25% of its $75 billion IPO for retail investors, an unusually large allocation for a megacap listing that reflects Elon Musk’s preference for individual shareholders and has sparked concern that retail buyers could help support a lofty valuation while institutions and insiders look for liquidity. The Financial Times has more here.

People

Founders including Mark Pincus, Travis Kalanick, and Matthew Prince are sharing VC horror stories on X, with Prince alleging that Vinod Khosla once suggested he push out his co