Next-Gen AI Toolkit: Google I/O’s Gemini 2.5, Copilot’s Bug-Fixer & NotebookLM Mobile
Artificial Intelligence news nº 70/2025
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News 🗞️📰
Google I/O 2025 unveils AI Mode, Gemini 2.5 and immersive AI tools: At Google I/O, CEO Sundar Pichai showcased AI Mode in Search powered by Gemini 2.5 (now sweeping benchmarks), launched Google Beam for 3D video calls, Gemini Live (Project Astra) for real-time camera and screen AI assistance, Agent Mode (Project Mariner) to automate web tasks, personalized Smart Replies in Gmail, and new generative media models—Imagen 4, Veo 3 and the Flow filmmaking tool—to bring research innovations into live products.
Duolingo CEO says AI can teach anything but schools will endure for childcare: CEO Luis von Ahn argues that AI’s precise, personalized instruction—honed through millions of learner interactions—will handle most teaching across subjects, while schools remain necessary as social and childcare environments.
GitHub’s new AI coding agent can fix bugs for you: GitHub Copilot now includes an autonomous “Fix It” feature that scans your repo, locates bugs, and proposes patches—reducing turnaround time for common code errors by up to 60% in early tests
Indeed CEO: AI will transform, not replace, jobs: Chris Hyams warns AI can handle many job tasks but won’t fully replace roles, predicts decades of change in the next few years, and unveiled Indeed’s “Pathfinder” AI agent to better match candidates.
Understand anything, anywhere with the new NotebookLM app: Mobile app for Android and iOS that lets you download and listen to AI-generated Audio Overviews offline, interactively ask questions, and share webpages, PDFs or videos directly into your NotebookLM workspace.
AMD and HUMAIN Form Strategic, $10 B Collaboration to Advance Global AI: AMD announced a multi-year deal to deploy up to 500 MW of AI infrastructure for UAE’s Humain, leveraging AMD ROCm software and next-gen EPYC processors.
Google AI Overviews boost impressions +49% while clicks drop –30%: BrightEdge reports that Google’s AI summaries have increased search impressions by 49% while reducing click-through rates by 30%, fueled by a 7× rise in long-tail queries and broad citation of lower-ranked results across key sectors.
Audible unveils plans to use AI voices to narrate audiobooks: Details Audible’s rollout of 100+ synthetic voices for automated, multilingual audiobook narration—offering self-serve and managed AI options for publishers.
TikTok’s newest AI filter turns your photos into videos: Shows how TikTok’s “AI Alive” effect uses generative models to breathe motion into still images, producing dynamic videos with just a tap.
EIB at work on AI, semiconductor investment plan to boost EU competitiveness: The European Investment Bank is devising a €70 billion fund by 2027 to strengthen Europe’s AI and chip ecosystem, aiming to rival U.S. and Chinese players
Funding 💼💸
Pathos AI Secures $365M Series D at $1.6B Valuation: Led by newly appointed CEO Iker Huerga, Pathos AI, a New York–based biotech startup co-founded by Tempus executives including Eric Lefkofsky, has raised $365 million in a Series D round at a $1.6 billion valuation to expand its AI-driven oncology drug development platform, integrating multimodal data and advanced AI to accelerate clinical success in cancer therapies.
Legal startup Harvey AI in talks to raise funding at $5 billion valuation: Harvey AI is in advanced talks to secure over $250 million at a $5 billion valuation, led by Kleiner Perkins and Coatue, marking a sharp rise from its $3 billion valuation earlier this year
TensorWave Secures $100M Series A Co-Led by Magnetar and AMD Ventures: Las Vegas–based TensorWave, led by CEO Darrick Horton, has raised $100 million in a Series A round co-led by Magnetar and AMD Ventures, with support from Maverick Silicon, Nexus Venture Partners, and Prosperity7, to scale its AMD-powered GPU clusters and democratize access to advanced AI computing infrastructure.
Granola Launches AI Workspace for Teams and Raises $43M Series B: London-based Granola, co-founded by Christopher Pedregal and Sam Stephenson, has secured $43 million in a Series B round led by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross of NFDG, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Spark Capital, to expand its AI-powered workspace that transforms meeting notes into actionable insights for teams.
Cognichip Raises $33M in Seed Funding: Redwood City–based Cognichip, led by CEO and founder Faraj Aalaei, has emerged from stealth with a $33 million seed round backed by Lux Capital, Mayfield, FPV Ventures, and Candou Ventures to commercialize its Artificial Chip Intelligence (ACI) platform, reimagining semiconductor design with physics-informed AI models.
Hedra Raises $32M to Build Generative Media Platform for Digital Characters: San Francisco–based Hedra, led by CEO Michael Lingelbach, has secured $32 million in a Series A round from Andreessen Horowitz’s Infrastructure fund, A16z Speedrun, Abstract, and Index Ventures to expand its Character-3 omnimodal AI models for high-quality video, audio, motion, and emotion in generative media.
Origin: $21M Series A Raised for Global Benefits Intelligence Platform: London and Canterbury–based Origin, co-founded and led by CEO Chris Bruce alongside Pete Craghill, has raised $21 million in a Series A round led by Felix Capital to expand Cuido, its AI-powered global benefits intelligence platform, empowering HR teams to streamline vendor management, control costs, and improve operational efficiency.
Openlayer Secures $14.5M Series A for AI Observatory Platform: San Francisco–based Openlayer, led by CEO and co-founder Gabriel Bayomi Tinoco Kalejaiye, has raised $14.5 million in a Series A round backed by Race Capital, NXTP, KPN Ventures, Mindset, Y Combinator, Quiet Capital, and Telefónica to develop its AI observability and governance platform for reliable enterprise AI systems.
GrowthX Secures $12M Series A to Scale AI-Powered Growth Services: San Francisco–based GrowthX AI, led by CEO and co-founder Marcel Santilli, has raised $12 million in a Series A round from Madrona Venture Group and angel investors to advance its “service-as-software” model, combining AI workflows with human expertise for content marketing and growth operations.
Layer Raises $6.5M in Seed Financing to Power AI Tools for Game Developers: San Francisco–based Layer AI, founded by Riccardo Zacconi’s investment vehicle and Arcadia, closed a $6.5 million seed round to build its AI gateway platform that streamlines game development workflows with automated asset creation and production tools.
Verdi Secures $4.7M Seed Round to Advance AgTech Irrigation AI: Vancouver–based Verdi, co-founded by Roman Kozak and Matthew Fortuna, has raised $4.7 million in a seed round to expand its AI-driven irrigation management solutions, optimizing water usage and yields across vineyards, orchards, and farms.
Akeno Raises €4.5M in Seed Round to Scale AI Production Planning: Hamburg–based akeno, founded by Arman Kayhan and Mert Menekşe, has secured €4.5 million in seed funding led by Superangel to build its AI-driven production planning and optimization platform, enhancing manufacturing efficiency and reducing downtime.
Theo Ai Raises $4.2M in Seed Funding: Palo Alto–based Theo Ai, financed by NextView Ventures, Collide Capital, nvp capital, Ripple Ventures, Beat Ventures, Four Acres Capital, and angel backers, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding to develop its AI-driven litigation prediction platform, delivering data-driven insights for legal teams.
Kovr.ai Emerges From Stealth with $3.6M to Reinvent Cyber Compliance Automation: Reston, VA–based Kovr.ai, led by its founding team, has raised $3.6 million in a seed round to automate cyber compliance and security workflows using AI, enabling organizations in highly regulated industries to navigate complex regulatory frameworks with ease.
M&A 💰
Rocktop Technologies acquires Incenter Capital Advisors to expand MSR market reach: Rocktop Technologies LLC has acquired Incenter Capital Advisors, uniting its AI-enabled data and document infrastructure with Incenter’s decades-long mortgage-servicing rights advisory expertise to deepen data-driven capital markets capabilities and enhance transparency, execution and performance in MSR and whole-loan trades.
Founder Dan Vahdat’s Huma acquires Aluna to bolster remote respiratory health monitoring: Huma Therapeutics has acquired San Francisco-based Aluna (Knox Medical Diagnostics), integrating its FDA-cleared spirometers and AI-powered remote patient monitoring platform into the Huma Cloud; the deal—announced alongside a growth partnership with Eckuity Capital—positions Huma to serve over 500,000 contracted lives across asthma, COPD, sleep apnea and related conditions.
Cohere acquires Cognosys to integrate smart-table AI platform: Enterprise AI firm Cohere has acquired Vancouver-based Cognosys (formerly Ottogrid), founded by Omar and Nihit Desai Malkawi, to fold its AI-powered smart-table market-research platform into Cohere’s North suite, enhancing interactive data-analysis and workflow automation for enterprise customers.
Salesforce acquires Convergence.ai to accelerate AI agent development: Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Convergence.ai, the AI-agent specialist whose technology autonomously navigates dynamic web-based workflows and multi-step processes, to power next-generation AI agents across its platform; terms were not disclosed.
Scrypted acquires Chibi Clash to advance AI agent-powered gaming: Scrypted Inc. has acquired Chibi Clash, the gaming ecosystem behind Kingdoms and Survivor, combining its game-engine and Web3 technology with Scrypted’s Autonomous Virtual Beings framework to unlock compelling AI-driven player experiences.
QuickStart acquires IMPACT Professional Training to strengthen cybersecurity workforce education: QuickStart Inc. has acquired Tennessee-based IMPACT Professional Training, expanding its B2B cybersecurity education offerings and regional presence to close the skills gap through innovative workforce development solutions.
Databricks acquires Neon for $1 billion to bring serverless Postgres to its Lakehouse platform: Databricks has agreed to acquire Neon, the developer-first serverless PostgreSQL database startup, for $1 billion—integrating its separated storage and compute architecture into the Lakehouse to accelerate low-latency transactions and AI-native data applications.
Virtana acquires Zenoss to deliver the industry’s deepest unified observability platform: Virtana has acquired Austin-based Zenoss, the real-time IT service monitoring and AI-powered event-intelligence pioneer, to bridge service visibility with infrastructure control and enhance its hybrid-environment observability capabilities; terms were not disclosed.
MTX Group acquires Stralto to expand its GovTech presence: MTX Group has acquired New York-based Stralto—founded in 2018 and a Microsoft Gold partner specializing in Power Platform and Azure solutions for state and local agencies—to strengthen its public-sector offerings in cloud, AI-driven document automation and grant management.
Together AI acquires Refuel.ai to unlock data for production-grade AI applications: Together AI has acquired Refuel.ai—founded by Rishabh Bhargava and Nihit Desai at Stanford in 2021—to integrate its Refuel LLM-2 models and Refuel Cloud platform into the AI Acceleration Cloud, enabling developers to clean, structure and deploy data at scale for production-level quality and speed.
Interesting Reads 💡🤔
Is AI-focused AEO the new SEO?: Analyzes “Answer Engine Optimization” as conversational AI replaces keyword search—highlighting strategies to craft concise, direct answers for chat-based discovery.
Who wants to be a chief AI officer? A new career path emerges: Summarizes an AWS-commissioned survey on the rise of Chief AI Officer roles, as enterprises appoint C-suite leaders to steer AI strategy and governance.
Vibe Code Pro-Level UX/UI designs with this simple 2-step AI prompt system: Outlines a two-step framework—generate a style guide, then issue feature-specific prompts—to produce polished app interfaces without formal design expertise.
In Graphic Detail: How creators are using generative AI to shape video and design: Presents case studies of artists and filmmakers embedding generative models into their workflows to accelerate storytelling and visual production.
How AI is transforming 6 major industries: Summarizes McKinsey’s Global AI Survey, detailing generative AI adoption across marketing, sales, finance, life sciences, and more.
40 of the best AI courses you can take online for free: A curated roundup of top-rated, no-cost AI training programs—from intro to advanced—across leading platforms.
Voice AI agents explained: A 2025 playbook for businesses: Details the rise of full-stack voice assistants—context-aware, low-latency AI agents poised to replace legacy IVR systems.
Midjourney 7 Consistency Tips and Tricks for Stunning AI Visuals: Seven actionable strategies—Omni Reference, prompt refinement, parameter tweaks—to maintain style and detail across Midjourney 7 outputs.
Generative AI for Beginners: An 18-episode Microsoft video series introducing foundational generative AI concepts through live demos and real-world scenarios.
Securing Amazon Bedrock Agents: A Guide to Safeguarding Against Indirect Prompt Injections: AWS’s best practices for hardening Bedrock-based agent workflows against sophisticated injection attacks.
OpenAI’s Agents SDK lets you easily build AI voice assistants—here’s how: Developer guide for integrating text-to-speech and voice control into custom apps using OpenAI’s Agents SDK.
The death of spreadsheets: 6 reasons why AI will soon be the dominant business reporting tool: Argues that AI analytics platforms offer automation, real-time insights, and accuracy that spreadsheets cannot match.
AI and programming: The beginning of a new era: An O’Reilly report on how AI tools are reshaping software development workflows, from code generation to debugging.
Introducing OpenAI-powered AI agents, researchers and analysts, designed to function as digital colleagues, available via Microsoft’s agent store: Announces Microsoft’s new marketplace for specialized AI assistants—agents, researchers, and analysts—that plug into enterprise workflows.
Let OpenAI’s ChatGPT automate your complex workflows with ease: Tutorial on wiring ChatGPT into Zapier, Make, and other automation platforms to orchestrate multi-step business processes.
Startups / Tools 🧰🛠️
Distro: An AI co-host that converts your conversations into ready-to-publish social media posts, quotes, and draft content in your own voice to help you engage your audience with minimal effort.
Finseo.ai: Monitors your brand’s presence across AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, delivering daily visibility reports and competitor benchmarking.
CreativAI: Speeds up content creation by generating polished articles, blog posts, and marketing copy up to ten times faster than traditional methods.
Merative: Provides AI-powered analytics and technology solutions tailored for healthcare organizations to improve decision-making and operational efficiency.
Visionstory: Transforms slide decks into dynamic, AI-narrated video stories—complete with lifelike voiceovers and smooth visual transitions—in seconds.
Circleback: Automatically captures meeting transcripts, extracts action items, and highlights key insights to keep teams aligned without manual note-taking.
Trolly AI: Uses AI to draft SEO-optimized articles and blog posts quickly, cutting down writing time by half while maintaining high quality.
Kombai: Interprets plain-language descriptions of user interfaces to generate working UI code, simulating a human developer’s workflow.
Rork: Lets you describe native mobile app features in everyday language and delivers functional app builds swiftly, accelerating mobile development cycles.
Bolto: Automates hiring workflows by sourcing, interviewing, and managing remote engineering talent through AI-driven processes.
Flowise: Offers a visual interface to design, test, and deploy AI agents and language-model workflows without any coding.
CrystalSound: Enhances real-time communications with advanced noise cancellation and voice modulation for clearer, professional-quality audio.
CodeRabbit: Integrates into VS Code to provide instant AI-powered code reviews on every commit, catching bugs and suggesting improvements before pull requests.
Generated Assets: Transforms your investment ideas into custom indices by using AI to screen and assemble portfolios based on your criteria.
Gadget: Combines development, debugging, and deployment into one AI-enhanced IDE, helping you build scalable applications faster.
FirstQuadrant: Empowers B2B sales teams with AI-driven workflow tools and insights to streamline processes and increase deal closure rates.
Tate-A-Tate: A no-code platform that lets you build, publish, and monetize custom AI agents for various business and personal applications.
Frase: Automates content research, outline generation, and writing, tailoring articles to rank well in search engines with minimal manual effort.
Pickaxe: Enables you to create and embed GPT-4–powered web apps in minutes without writing any code.
Syft AI: Delivers concise, personalized news digests drawn from credible sources, tailored to your topics of interest and language preferences.
Ellipsis: Assists developers by scanning code for bugs and offering AI-driven fixes to enhance code quality and productivity.
NTV Highlights 🪩🎉
Google Cloud Summit Madrid 2025
NextTier Ventures is excited to announce that we will be participating in the Google Cloud Summit Madrid 2025 Google Cloud. The Summit will take place on May 22 at IFEMA, Pavilion 12 in Madrid, Spain.We are actively looking for AI startups
At Next Tier Ventures, we are actively looking for the next generation of AI startup founders ready to scale and create meaningful impact. Our investments range between $500K and $2M, accompanied by strategic support to help founders achieve their vision.
If you’re building cutting-edge B2B AI solutions let’s connect 👉
http://apply.nexttier.vc
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