Venture

Venture

Nvidia has committed at least $6.5 billion to photonics companies since the beginning of March, making it the largest single investor in the technology that many in the industry believe will replace copper wiring as the backbone of AI data centres. The spending spree reflects a calculation that copper, the standard medium for moving data between chips, is approaching its physical limits just as AI training clusters are demanding exponentially more bandwidth.

The pitch for Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF ( NYSEARCA:VTI | VTI Price Prediction) has always been embarrassingly simple: own every public US stock that matters, charge almost nothing, and wait. That is it. The fund holds no tactical tilts, factor overlays, or managers trying to time the rotation out of tech. Which is why it is mildly funny that VTI has edged past SPDR S&P 500 ETF ( NYSEARCA:SPY) so far in 2026, with VTI up about 10.2% year to date against SPY's 10.1%. A rounding error, sure. But for a fund whose entire identity is doing less, even a hair of outperformance against the most famous index ETF on earth feels like vindication for the laziest strategy on Wall Street.

The AI startup raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation, eclipsing its rival OpenAI in the race to own the technology of the century. Its value is roughly the GDP of Switzerland, more than the combined market cap of every U.S. airline, or more than the entire U.S. defense budget.

Shares of AST SpaceMobile ( NASDAQ:ASTS) are up 8% in midday trading on May 27, changing hands near $129. The satellite direct-to-cell name is leading a space-sector sympathy rally tied to SpaceX IPO buzz. The move extends an already torrid run. ASTS stock is up 78% year to date (YTD), making it the headline mover in a basket where Rocket Lab ( NASDAQ:RKLB | RKLB Price Prediction) and Virgin Galactic ( NYSE:SPCE) are riding the same halo trade.

Thea Energy has raised an oversubscribed $100 million Series B led by U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, the fusion startup told TechCrunch. The sum places the company among the better funded fusion startups, giving it an improved chance at achieving a commercial reactor. The new funding will help Thea expand manufacturing for its uniquely designed smaller magnets and begin construction of Eos, its "power plant relevant" demonstration device, starting next year. Thea previously closed a $20 million Series A in early 2024. The new round brings total private investment to $130 million, the startup told TechCrunch.

“There isn't a whole lot of difference, in my opinion, in managing a portfolio that has, say, $2 million versus a portfolio that's $3 or $5 or even $10 million.” If Grossman is correct, a wealthy investor paying a percentage of assets funds work that does not exist. The stakes are concrete. A 1% AUM fee on a $5 million portfolio is $50,000 a year. On a $10 million portfolio it is $100,000 a year. A flat-fee advisor typically charges between $8,000 and $15,000 annually. The difference is real money that either stays in the account or leaves.

Avrea emerged from stealth on Tuesday with $4.7m in pre-seed funding led by Earlybird, pitching itself as a faster, AI-aware alternative to GitHub Actions for engineering teams that have started generating code faster than their build systems can ship it. The company was founded by Hannu Valtonen, a co-founder of the Finnish cloud database firm Aiven (which reached a $3bn valuation in its 2022 Series D), and Juha Valvanne, a co-founder of the Helsinki commerce-personalisation platform Nosto.

Quanscient pitches its platform as code-driven, cloud-scalable, and built to generate the volume of multiphysics data that machine-learning models will need to learn from. The Series A is earmarked for international expansion and for what the company describes as the market's first platform to unify simulation, quantum algorithms and AI integration. The funding lands at a moment when hardware engineering is, as Quanscient's own 2025 study argues, stuck.

Ken had just graduated high school. Henry Rudzewick, a New York City firefighter, was determined to see him get a job. "You're not going to be hanging around the house all the time," Ken, who is 88, recalled his father saying. Henry called his friend, Franklin Frontera, president of the depositor-owned Maspeth Federal Savings. Ken started as a teller the next day. "I had my shirt and tie on, and I walked to the bank," he told American Banker. "I lived four blocks away."

Lucra announced last month that it raised a $20 million Series B, led by the ARK fund, with participation from several other VCs. Robbins attracted ARK even though the fund had previously gotten badly burned on a similar eSports company: Skillz, a skill-based gaming platform in which the fund invested heavily before divesting at a loss. On top of that, Dylan landed this big fish as an investor even though his company is not in the one area that all VCs are currently chasing: AI.

His name is Antonio Gracias, a handsome private equity investor from Detroit. The two met through the Silicon Valley web at the turn of the century, and soon Gracias-at 55, just one year older than Musk-lent Musk $1 million in his early days at Tesla, when the company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. The two have been best friends ever since. Gracias was a groomsman at Kimbal Musk's wedding, the families have vacationed together, spent the holidays together, and even traveled to David Copperfield's private island in the Bahamas.