E234: Anysphere $1B raise talks at $27B valuation amid AI coding boom; Deel $300M Series E at $17.3B valuation fuels $1.2B ARR growth; Oura $900M Series E doubles valuation to $11B on 5.5M ring sales; Zepto $450M raise hits $7B valuation in $42B Indian qu

0:00Aaron Dillon here, Managing Director of AG Dillon & Co. Here is the pre-IPO stock update for October 17, 2025. AnySphere, the startup behind the AI-powered code editor cursor, is in discussions to raise a billion dollars at a$27 billion valuation and is considering investment offers at a $30 billion valuation, marking a significant escalation in its funding ambitions amid the booming AI developer tools market. Founded in enhanced code toting efficiency, AnySphere has been a big deal of money. seen rapid adoption with its cursor platform, though its specific growth metrics like user numbers or revenue remain undisclosed.

0:41The round reflects investor enthusiasm for AI-assisted programming. AnySphere is a direct competitor to Microsoft's GitHub co-pilot. AnySphere has an $18.8 billion secondary market valuation that's up 81 % versus its March 2025 round. At this$27 billion valuation, if this round closes, this new round is 44 % above the current secondary market valuation. deal the global payroll and hr platform raised 300 million in a series e round co-led by rivet capital and adres and horowitz with participation from co2 and general catalyst achieving a 17.3 billion dollar valuation as it surpasses 1.2 billion in annual recurring revenue and records 100 million in revenue for september alone founded in six years founded six years ago with initial struggles to reach$10 ,000 in revenue.

1:35Deal pivoted from an escrow services for freelancers to a comprehensive HR solutions, including contracts, employer of record, payroll, and six new products in the last 18 months. Growing to 35 ,000 customers, over 1.5 million customer workers worldwide, while maintaining profitability for three years. The company scaled from 50 ,000 ARR in its Series A to$130 million ARR in contractor services and$300 million plus ARR in employer of record, emphasizing rapid response times, customer feedback via WhatsApp, and having development timelines to fuel growth faster than peers like Stripe and Salesforce.

2:17Deal had an $11.6 billion secondary market valuation. That's down 5.5 versus its February 2025 round. This new round is 49 % higher versus the secondary market valuation. Aura, the Finnish health tech company behind the Aura smart ring raised$900 million in a Series E round led by Fidelity with participation from Iconic, Whale Rock and Atreides elevating its valuation to$11 billion. That's more than double its$5.2 billion mark from a$200 million raise in December of 2024 as it sells over 5.5 million rings since its launch in 2015 with more than half and uh with more than half in the past year alone generating 500 million in revenue for 2024 which has doubled from the prior year and projecting a billion in 2025 aura commands over 80 percent of the smart ring market focusing on preventative health with features like sleep optimization stress management cycle tracking That's a 97 % accurate ovulation detection.

3:23Fertility insights, perimenopausal support, and new health panels for$99 blood tests at 2 ,000 Quest Diagnostic Labs, tracking up to 50 biomarkers, integrated with AI Advisor for personalized suggestions, targeting fast-growing demographics like women in their early 20s who are prioritizing mental health and corporate athletes. Aura operates at 4 ,000 retail stores with 1 ,000 API partners, achieving high 80s 12-month retention versus low 30s for other wearables. Aura competes with Whoop, UltraHuman, and Samsung. Zepto, the Indian quick commerce startup, raised$450 million in a funding round led by California Public Employees Retirement System, that's CalPERS, with participation from Aniver, Avra, Lightspeed, Gladebrook, the Stepstone Group, and Nexus Venture Partners, reaching a$7 billion post-money valuation amid a market projected to hit$42 billion by 2030 per Morgan Stanley, or$100 billion in a decade per Bernstein.

4:32Scaling from 500 ,000 daily orders five quarters ago to$1.7 million today, Zepto operates over 1 ,000 stores across 80 cities, planning to add hundreds more in the next 12 months with 20 % of order volume now from smaller cities and a rapid growing Zepto Cafe food delivery at$100 million run rate. Competing with Blinkit, Swiggy, Instamart, and e-commerce giants like Flipkart and Amazon, Zepto has acquired 10 million new monthly transacting users while turning stores profitable. With features like SuperSaver discounts and app simplification underway, positioning it for an IPO next year after raising$1.3 billion last year, including$350 million in November of 2024.

5:21for. CalShe, the prediction market platform, raised over$300 million at a$5 billion valuation that's 2.5x. It's$2 billion mark from three months ago, co-led by Sequoia Capital and Dresden Horowitz with participation from Paradigm Ventures, Capital G, and Coinbase Ventures, as it approaches a$50 billion in annualized trading volume, up from$300 million last year, allowing bets on future events and now accessible in 140 countries. Calci gained prominence with presidential election markets after suing the CFTC successfully last year to enable U.S. operations. The raise follows rival Polymarkets up to$2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange, who owns the New York Stock Exchange, at an$8 billion pre-money valuation, up from a billion in August.

6:11With Polymarket barred from U.S. residents since 2022, but reentering via acquisitions, both platforms surged in election-related trading last year. Mexico's Plata, a fintech specializing in digital banking and lending for underserved markets, raised$250 million in a Series C funding round at a$3.1 billion valuation led by General Atlantic and Oak HCFT. with participation from existing investors, Sequoia Capital and Kazik Ventures, building on prior rates, raises, excuse me, including a$150 million Series B in 2022 and a$1.5 billion valuation and a$50 million Series A in 2021. Founded in 2020, Plata has grown its active user base to over$5 million, achieving a 300 % year-over-year increase in loan originations to$1.2 billion in the last 12 months while generating approximately$200 million in annual revenue from products like personal loans, credit cards, and savings accounts.

7:12Holding about 15 % market share in Mexico's non-bank lending sector, the company plans to use the new capital to enhance technology infrastructure, expand geographic reach, and launch new offerings in insurance and investments, targeting a doubling of its user base to$10 million by 2026 and annual loan disbursements of$3 billion. ripple the blockchain and crypto firm acquired treasury management software provider g treasury for a billion dollars in cash marking its third major 2025 deal after buying prime broker hidden road for 1.25 billion in april and stablecoin platform rail for 200 million totaling 2.4 by billion in acquisitions to enhance enterprise treasury solutions with tokenized deposits stablecoins and instant global payments the move integrates g treasury's connections to Fortune 500 CFOs with Ripple's blockchain infrastructure to address outdated payment systems causing delays and high costs following similar treasury strategies by firms like Block, which hold 8 ,700 Bitcoin on its balance sheet.

8:20Black Forest Labs, the German AI image generator startup behind the acclaimed Flux.1 model surpassing mid-journey and stable diffusion and photorealism is an advanced talks for$200 million to$300 million funding round co-led by Salesforce Ventures and AMP. That's a new fund led by Andreessen Horowitz and Jay Mida at a$3.25 billion valuation, including the raise, though terms remain subject to finalization. The company has seen Flux.1 downloads exceed 5 million in its first month since the August 2025 launch, driving over 100 enterprise clients in advertising and e-commerce, where AI-generated visuals cut production costs by up to 70 % compared to traditional photography.

9:07Strategic partnerships with Meta for Lama model integrations and Mistral AI have accelerated growth, with plans to hire 50 additional engineers to enhance multilingual capabilities and video generation features, tapping into Europe's 10 billion euro sovereign AI ecosystem. them. Apple is nearing an acqui-hire deal for Prompt.ai. It's a 2023-founded computer vision startup with an 11-person team that has raised$5 million in seed funding led by AIX and Abstract Ventures, focusing on talent like CEO Titi Zhao, which is a UC Berkeley PhD, and President Trevor Darnell, which is a Berkeley AI research founder, to bolster its HomeKit smart home division, Prompt's Seymour app connects to home security cameras for detecting people, pets, or objects with alerts and text descriptions.

10:03Though the business model proved unviable, leading to app retirement and data deletion, investors will recover some funds, but not fully. Thinking Machine Labs, the AI research firm co-founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Mirati and Andrew Tullock, ex-OpenAI and Facebook AI Research, saw Tulloch depart from Meta for personal reasons after Meta's failed August 2025 attempt to acquire the lab, reportedly offering Tulloch a compensation package of up to$1.5 billion over at least six years, which was described at Meta as inaccurate. The move highlights Meta's aggressive recruitment of over 50 AI experts amid industry talent wars with thinking machines emphasizing open source fine-tuning via its Tinker API.

10:52beta pricing from$10 ,000 monthly with 95 % success in defeating large language model non-determinism. Thinking Machines has a$12 billion secondary market valuation from its primary round in July of 2025. OpenAI partnered with Broadcom to deploy 10 gigawatts of custom AI accelerators, that's their XPUs, co-designed over 18 months starting in late 2026 through 2029 integrating ethernet networking memory and compute for inference workloads estimated cost to open ai is 350 to 500 billion this adds to open ai's 33 gigawatts of recent commitments including nvidia's 10 gigawatts that's a hundred million dollar investment amd's six gigawatts which is tens of billions and oracle's unconfirmed 300 billion dollar cloud deal expanding from current two gigawatts to meet surging demand for models like ChatGPT, Sora, and Research, potentially lowering costs by 18 % and enabling faster, cheaper AI.

11:57Broadcam shares rose 9.8 % post-announcement. They're up 50 % year-to-date with market cap over$1.5 trillion. OpenAI is a $573 billion secondary market valuation. That's up 14.6 % versus its August 2025 round. OpenAI integrated Walmart into ChatGPT with instant checkout, enabling 270 million weekly customers across 10 ,750 stores in 19 countries and e-commerce sites to shop via agentic commerce for meal planning, restocking, or product discovery. with Walmart handling fulfillment. Walmart generated$681 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue. Building on OpenAI September 2025, Etsy and Shopify integrations, the deal advances proactive AI with personalized multimedia interactions, complementing Walmart's Sparky tool and AI efficiencies like reducing fashion production by 18 weeks and customer care resolution by 40 % for its 2.1 million associates.

13:06Revolut, the UK-based fintech with over 65 million worldwide customers, including 12 million in the UK, faces delays in securing a full UK banking license due to Bank of England's concerns over risk management amid rapid expansion to 30-plus new markets by 2030, requiring commitments to scale controls internationally during the 12-month mobilization phase, capping deposits at£50 ,000. pounds, reporting$1 billion in net profit and$4 billion in revenue. That's up 72 % in 2024. Revolut's wealth division surged 298 % to$647 million with licenses in EU, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, US, India, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, and Africa, and the UAE in principal payments.

13:54Revolut has a$75 billion secondary market valuation from its primary round in August of 2024. SpaceX, the space payload delivery and satellite internet company, concluded the V2 era of its Starship program with the 11th test flight this week from Starbase, Texas, achieving all objectives, including a super heavy booster soft splashdown in the Gulf of America with an upper stage deployment of eight mock Starlink satellites with data gathered from new heat shield tiles. transitioning the to the enhanced v3 prototype with structural upgrades and raptor engine improvements starship targets the 2027 artemis 3 moon mission under nasa's four billion dollar contract spacex has also completed 120 falcon 9 launches in 2025 the company is targeting 15.5 billion in 2025 revenue spacex is a 418.9 billion dollar secondary market valuation That's up 4.7 % versus this July 2025 round.

15:01Andrel Industries, the AI defense technology company co-founded by Palmer Luckey, which was the Oculus creator, unveiled the Eagle Eye mixed reality helmet family, including helmet, visor and glasses variances, integrating lattice software for live video feeds, threat alerts via rear and side sensors and teammate tracking to provide superhuman perception. Marking Lucky's return to his XR roots via a May 2025 partnership with Meta for military devices, securing a$159 million U.S. Army award in September of 2025, the largest of the kind, for prototyping soldier-born mission command systems. Andrew took over Army's$22 billion integrated visual augmentation system contract from Microsoft in February of 2025 after years of issues.

15:54expanding suppliers in the military XR market. Andrel has a$53.5 billion secondary market valuation. That's up 75.3 % versus its February 2025 round. Anthropic, the AI large language model company, announced a strategic partnership with IBM this week to integrate its Claude large language model family into IBM's integrated development environment for select customers, co-creating a guide for building, deploying, and maintaining enterprise-grade AI agents with security and governance. This follows Anthropik's September 2024 Claude Enterprise launch and an October 2025 deal

16:39for Deloitte's nearly 500 ,000 global workforce, the largest enterprise rollout yet. Anthropic has a$211.3 billion secondary market valuation. That's up 15.5 % versus its August 2025 round. Okay, that's it for me this week. Thanks, and see you all next week.