NEWS

The Roundup: AI's Trillion-Dollar Reshuffle

A weekly roundup of interesting news and developments for founders, investors, and venture capitalists.

The AI IPO Wave: A $2.9 Trillion Market Test

We are on the verge of witnessing three of the largest IPOs in history. SpaceX is targeting a $1.5 trillion valuation, OpenAI is aiming for $1 trillion, and Anthropic is valued at $380 billion 1. Combined, these three companies represent a staggering $2.9 trillion in potential market capitalization. An analysis by Tom Tunguz at Theory Ventures highlights the unprecedented scale of these offerings. A typical 15% float for these companies would demand approximately $432 billion from public markets, a figure that nearly equals the entire IPO proceeds of the last decade ($469 billion) in a single quarter 1.

This immense capital requirement suggests that these companies will likely debut with much smaller floats, potentially in the 3-8% range. While this would make the initial offerings more manageable, it would also initially disqualify them from inclusion in major indices like the S&P 500, setting the stage for significant market volatility upon their eventual inclusion 1. This wave of IPOs will not just be a measure of these individual companies, but a significant stress test for the entire public market.

The AI Hardware Race

OpenAI's Hardware Ambitions: OpenAI is reportedly moving beyond software with the development of an AI-powered smart speaker, smart glasses, and a smart lamp. Following its acquisition of Jony Ive’s design firm, io Products, for a reported $6.5 billion, OpenAI is building a 200-plus-person hardware team 2. The smart speaker, which could ship as early as 2027 for $200-$300, is said to feature a camera and facial recognition capabilities, signaling a direct challenge to Amazon and Google in the smart home space 2 3.

Freeform's AI-Native Manufacturing: Freeform, a startup founded by ex-SpaceX engineers, just raised a $67 million Series B to scale its AI-native platform for 3D printing mission-critical metal components. The round saw participation from Founders Fund, Threshold Ventures, and NVIDIA’s NVentures 4. The company's "Skyfall" platform, described as a "Physical AI engine," uses hundreds of lasers to melt metal powders, aiming to increase their production capacity by 25x in the first half of 2026 4 5.

Major Funding and Market Moves

OpenAI's Massive Funding Round: OpenAI is reportedly close to finalizing a funding round of over $100 billion, which could push its valuation past $850 billion on a $730 billion pre-money valuation. The round is expected to be led by a consortium of tech giants including Amazon, SoftBank, Nvidia, and Microsoft 6 7. This deal underscores the immense capital required to stay at the frontier of AI development.

Cerebras Files for IPO: AI chipmaker Cerebras, a key competitor to Nvidia, has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO that could happen as early as April 2026. This move comes after the company withdrew a previous IPO attempt last year and recently secured a multi-year deal with OpenAI 8.

IQM's Quantum Leap to Public Markets: Finnish quantum computing firm IQM is set to go public via a SPAC at a $1.8 billion valuation. The company, which builds full-stack on-premises quantum computers, reported $35 million in 2025 revenue and over $100 million in bookings, making it one of the first European quantum companies to hit the public markets 9 10.

AI in the Enterprise

Agility's Humanoid Robots Deployed at Toyota: Agility Robotics has commercially deployed seven of its Digit humanoid robots at a Toyota RAV4 plant in Canada. The deal, structured as a Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) agreement, follows a successful year-long pilot and marks one of the first commercial-scale humanoid robot rollouts in North American automotive manufacturing 11 12.

Anthropic Targets Code Security: Anthropic has launched Claude Code Security, a new feature that scans codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggests patches. The announcement triggered a selloff in cybersecurity stocks, highlighting the potential for AI to disrupt the security landscape 13 14.

Waymo's World Model: Waymo has introduced its World Model, a new simulation technology built on Google DeepMind's Genie 3. It generates hyper-realistic, interactive 3D environments, allowing Waymo to test its autonomous driving systems in rare and extreme scenarios without real-world data collection, accelerating development and safety validation 15 16.

Venture and Startup Spotlight

Phoenix Tailings ($30.2M Series B): This Massachusetts-based startup processes rare earth elements from mining waste. The new funding, which values the company at $360 million, will help scale up a domestic supply chain for these critical materials 17 18.
Emerald AI ($25M Seed): Backed by Nvidia, this startup offers AI software that manages data center energy use in real-time to balance grid demand. The round was led by Energy Impact Partners 19 20.
Unicity Labs ($3M Seed): This Swiss startup is building a peer-to-peer cryptographic infrastructure for autonomous AI agents to transact without intermediaries. The round was led by Blockchange Ventures 21 22.
VCs Hedge Their Bets: In a notable shift, at least a dozen major VC firms, including Founders Fund and Sequoia Capital, have now invested in both OpenAI and its direct rival, Anthropic, signaling that investors see the AI market as large enough for multiple winners 23.

Conference Note

Kinetic by Hardware FYI: For those interested in the hardware ecosystem, the inaugural Kinetic conference is happening May 12-13 in San Francisco. I noticed they've extended their early bird pricing; tickets are currently $399, which is a $400 discount 24.