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Mistral AI raises 3 billion euros in Europe's largest-ever tech funding round despite lagging behind rivals
Mistral AI closed a €3 billion Series D led by Samsung Electronics, valuing the lab at over €21 billion.
Mistral AI raised €3 billion in what it calls the largest equity round ever by a European tech company, lifting its valuation past €21 billion after ASML valued it near €12 billion in September 2025. Samsung Electronics leads the round with EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund and PSG Equity as co-leads; new investors include Advent, BlackRock-managed funds, and Luxembourg. The company also took an $830 million loan in March to fund its own data centers and serves 125+ enterprise customers including Airbus, ASML, and HSBC. Mistral Medium 3.5 trails open rivals like Qwen and Kimi and doesn't compete with top closed US models.
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Anthropic CEOs wife once asked Epstein to fund porn venture – now steers Claude
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's wife Cami Clark once pitched Jeffrey Epstein to fund her porn startup and now informally advises the AI lab.
A Wall Street Journal report, republished by the New York Post, details the previously low-profile past of Cami Clark, wife of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Before marrying Amodei in 2022, Clark co-founded a 'luxury porn' startup called Eddice and in 2012 unsuccessfully pitched Jeffrey Epstein for investment, who declined with 'Can't do sex TV.' Clark previously dated Google co-founder Eric Schmidt for about three years and later introduced him to Amodei; Schmidt became one of Anthropic's key early investors in 2021. Though Clark holds no official role at Anthropic, she reportedly acts as Amodei's strategic adviser and networker as the company moves toward a public listing that could top $2 trillion this fall.
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Massachusetts hits data centers with new clean power rules
Massachusetts executive order requires data centers over 25 MW to supply 100% clean power, fund nearby generation, or pay a ratepayer protection fund.
Governor Maura Healey's executive order requires developers building data centers larger than 25 megawatts of peak demand to bring their own power that meets 100% of the state's clean energy standard, fund new generation nearby, or pay into a ratepayer protection fund. Massachusetts is the third state in three months to restrict data center development, following Texas utility audits (ERCOT) and New York's pause on 50 MW-plus projects. The state is also pausing applications for a data center sales tax exemption and directing communities to avoid non-disclosure agreements. Pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future, funded by Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Greg Brockman, is running ads ahead of midterms as industry pushes back.
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In most cities, nobody owns the whole network
Former Waco CIO argues cellular-connected water controllers sit outside scanned networks, and accountability plus operating-budget funding—not technology—block segmentation.
Writing as Waco, Texas's former CIO, the author describes July water-sector intrusions that CISA linked to over 100 compromised systems, typically controllers on public cellular links absent from asset lists. The FBI and EPA reported incidents at utilities in at least seven states since July 27, and a Clayton County, Georgia pump station failure triggered a boil-water advisory. He argues accountability and funding—using mechanisms like the Texas Water Development Board's new cybersecurity scoring criteria—are the binding constraints, citing Waco's 43-day segmentation of five treatment plants with operating funds.
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The Money Mule Solution: What Every Scam Has in Common
CYBERA's money mule intelligence, now in Recorded Future's Payment Fraud Intelligence, targets the shared exit point of $450B-$1T annual scam losses.
Scams, especially authorized push payment fraud, do not require a breach; Global Anti-Scam Alliance estimated ~$450B in 2025 losses while CYBERA co-founder Claudio Staub puts the real figure near $1 trillion when underreporting is counted. Every scam needs a mule account to receive funds, so CYBERA uses agentic personas to engage active scammers and extract verified mule account details before payments occur, now available as an add-on to Recorded Future's Payment Fraud Intelligence. CYBERA collected over 16,000 confirmed mule accounts across 72 countries in H2 2025, finding 28% remained active 30 days or more after identification, including one account in 25 engagements. In Europe 51% of mule accounts sat at neobanks and fintechs, while outside Europe 69% were at major banks; regulatory pressure like the UK's APP reimbursement mandate is raising the stakes for institutions.
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Funding grants for new research into AI and teen development
OpenAI launched a $5 million grant program funding independent research on generative AI's effects on teen development, well-being, and safety.
OpenAI opened applications for a $5 million grant program supporting independent research into how generative AI affects teen development, well-being, and safety. The program was announced via the OpenAI newsroom on 2026-09-08.
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We have a year to fix security everywhere
Blog post warns that cheap open-weight GLM 5.3-flash, once abliterated, could enable mass AI-driven vulnerability exploitation, urging industry-wide patching now.
An essay argues that Z.ai's open-weight GLM 5.3-flash—runnable locally on roughly $6k consumer hardware at 20-45 tokens/second—combined with 'abliterated' variants from groups like DeAlignAI that score 0% on HarmBench-320 puts dangerous hacking capability in nearly anyone's hands. GLM 5.3 scores 84.5% on CyberGym and 54.4% on ExploitBench, versus GPT-6 Astra's 100% and GPT-5.6 Sol's 78.5%, and the author cites evidence of frontier models exploiting real-world infrastructure. The author calls for using LLMs (Project Glasswing, Daybreak) to find and fix vulnerabilities industry-wide before adversaries weaponize cheap open models.
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2026 Cyber Insurance Trends Report: What's Changed and What You Need to Know
Huntress survey: CIRCIA reporting mandates now live, BEC claims exceed ransomware, exfiltration-heavy attacks cost twice as much, premiums rising.
Huntress's 2026 cyber insurance trends report, based on its own survey, finds 79% of respondents carry cyber insurance while 58% report shrinking coverage over five years. New CIRCIA federal reporting mandates and EU NIS2 requirements are reshaping policies, business email compromise now drives more claims than ransomware, and data exfiltration has replaced encryption as the dominant ransomware tactic at roughly twice the cost. After three years of declining premiums, rates are climbing again, and most businesses now refuse to pay ransoms.
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What 50 open source projects taught us about security in the AI era
GitHub's Secure Open Source Fund Session 4 improved security across 50 open source projects using AI-assisted workflows, tooling, and funding.
GitHub reported outcomes from Session 4 of its Secure Open Source Fund, which covered 50 open source projects. Participating maintainers combined AI-assisted workflows, GitHub security tools, expert guidance, and direct funding to improve project security. The post frames lessons about securing open source maintenance in the AI era; no specific vulnerabilities or incidents are named in the announcement.
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AI research startup Listen Labs scrubbed a $1.5B funding round for Salesforce talks
Listen Labs abandoned a signed $125M Series C term sheet at a $1.5B valuation amid acquisition talks with Salesforce at roughly $2 billion.
Listen Labs, a three-year-old voice AI market research startup with about $30 million in annualized revenue, signed a term sheet for a $125 million Series C led by Menlo Ventures at a $1.5 billion valuation but walked away before closing. The financing likely collapsed due to acquisition talks with Salesforce at around $2 billion, though no deal is finalized. Competitor Simile recently closed a $200 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation, resetting benchmarks for the sector. Listen Labs' customers include Microsoft, Canva, Anthropic, and Sweetgreen.
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Israel Is Running a Synthetic Think Tank to Influence AI Search Results
Israel funds the Hanover Institute, an AI-generated think tank by ad firm Piro, publishing 100+ articles to influence LLM chatbot answers about Israel.
The Hanover Institute for Public Policy, run by American ad firm Piro Inc and paid for by Israel through HAVAS Media and the state ad agency LaPam, has published more than 100 articles in under a month. The AI detection tool Pangram found tested articles entirely AI-written except their bibliographies, and the site includes an llms.txt file to make it easier for LLMs to scrape. FARA filings show a $900,000 project invoice plus a $100,000 payment, and Piro advertises an 'AI Story Optimization' service for shaping chatbot answers.
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Cognition hits $48B valuation, signaling investors believe AI coding is far from a winner-take-all market
Cognition, maker of Devin, raised $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation led by a16z, Accel, and Founders Fund, with revenue at $900M annualized.
Cognition raised $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation, four months after a $26 billion round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, and Avenir. Its annualized run-rate revenue grew from $492 million to $900 million since May, with projected $4-5 billion by end of 2026, while compute costs could push 2026 burn to $800 million. The startup, founded by Scott Wu, counts Mercedes-Benz, NASA, Goldman Sachs, and Citi as customers and is training its own model to cut reliance on OpenAI and Anthropic.
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Cylake Raises $245 Million Ahead of Cybersecurity Platform Beta
Cylake, an AI-native sovereign security startup founded by Palo Alto Networks' Nir Zuk, raised $245 million, taking total funding to $290 million.
Security startup Cylake raised $245 million via a convertible note with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Picture Capital, and Redpoint Ventures, six months after a $45 million Greylock-led seed. Founded by Nir Zuk, Wilson Xu, and Ehud Shamir, the 40-plus-employee company is building an on-premises/private-cloud AI-native security platform for governments and highly regulated enterprises. A beta is expected by the end of 2026 with general availability in 2027.
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Mistral raises €3B as sovereign AI becomes big business
Mistral AI raised a €3B Series D at a €21B+ valuation, led by Samsung Electronics, to scale European compute capacity and sovereign AI services.
French AI lab Mistral AI raised €3 billion (~$3.58B) at a post-money valuation above €21 billion, which it calls the largest equity round ever completed by a European technology company. Samsung Electronics led the round, with EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund and PSG Equity as co-leads; a16z, Nvidia, Salesforce Ventures, Advent, BlackRock, and Luxembourg also participated. The company plans to build 1 GW of European compute capacity by 2030, offer region-selectable query processing, and host third-party open-weight models as part of a sovereign AI strategy. Mistral operates in 20 countries and targets governments and enterprises seeking control over AI models and data residency.
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Mistral raises €3B
Mistral raised a Samsung-led €3B Series D at a €21B+ valuation — the largest European tech equity round — to scale compute and frontier AI research.
Mistral announced a €3 billion Series D at a post-money valuation above €21 billion, the largest equity round ever by a European technology company. Samsung Electronics led the round, with co-leads Scaleup Europe Fund (managed by EQT) and PSG Equity; new investors include Advent, BlackRock, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The company operates across 20 countries, serves 125+ enterprises including Airbus, ASML, and HSBC, and says funds will expand frontier research, compute capacity, and international growth.
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Srsly Risky Biz: Trump's Private Hacker Memo Is the Right Idea
A Trump presidential memo directs DHS to authorize vetted private-sector hackers to conduct cyber operations against foreign cybercriminal groups (CE-TCOs).
A presidential memorandum directs the Department of Homeland Security to establish a program authorizing private companies to conduct cyber surveillance and cyber effects operations against Cyber-Enabled Transnational Crime Organisations (CE-TCOs). Participating companies must pass vetting, obtain government approval before operations, and post a USD $1 million bond. The accompanying fact sheet cites more than USD $20.8 billion in US losses to cyber-enabled crime in 2025. Critics worry about accidental escalation if operations touch foreign government systems.
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Exclusive: Paying for frontier AI models buys 4-month head start at 5x the cost
Mozilla report finds the capability gap between best open-weights (largely Chinese) and closed frontier AI models narrowed to 4.4 months at ~5x lower cost.
Mozilla's State of Open Source AI report (September 15) says the gap between closed frontier models and best open-weights models has closed to 4.4 months. Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 scores three points behind Anthropic's Fable 5 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at 30% of the cost, and Z.ai's GLM 5.2 scored within a point of Claude Opus 4.7 on Terminal-Bench 2.1. Eight of the top 10 OpenRouter models by August 2026 token volume provide open weights, though a Linux Foundation paper found open models earned only 4% of revenue. The report recommends open models as the default for routine workloads, reserving closed models for 8-12 hour expert tasks.
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