☕️ The Largest Tech Fundraiser on Record, Runway's Gen-4 & The Fusing of xAI and X

OpenAI starts the week by making unprecedented fundraiser history, while Runway releases its long-awaited Gen-4, and Elon Musk brings X and xAI closer together than ever before - more in detail:

• OpenAI closes possibly the largest tech fundraiser on record, banking $40 billion

• Runway's latest media generation AI model claims to solve the problem of world and character consistency

• Elon Musk sells his social media company X to his own AI startup xAI for $33 billion to join them together

Join us at AI Tangle as we untangle this week's happenings in AI!

OpenAI announces the penning of a $40 billion fundraiser, the largest private fundraiser in tech history

With OpenAI's status as the poster child of AI, it should then be no surprise that OpenAI announced the closing of the largest private tech funding round on record, amounting to a staggering $40 billion in funding. Led by SoftBank with $30 billion and joined by Microsoft, Altimeter, Coatue, and Thrive, the fundraiser puts OpenAI at a $300 billion valuation - just behind companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX at $350 billion and TikTok's parent company ByteDance. OpenAI says it will use the extra cash to push AI research further and scale its compute infrastructure, and of the $40 billion raised, $18 billion is expected to go towards Project Stargate, according to an insider.

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Runway debuts Gen-4, its latest series of world-class AI models for media generation and world consistency

Known for its strides in bringing AI to creators in entertainment, Runway recently debuted its next state-of-the-art series of models, collectively named Gen-4. The family of models is purpose-built for media generation and excels in maintaining consistency of the world, characters, and objects across scenes without needing any fine-tuning or additional on the user's part, making it extremely user-friendly, as detailed in a blog post. Runway says that the model is rolling out to all paid plans and Enterprise customers, with plans to release its "References" feature shortly after.

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Elon Musk announces the sale of X (formerly Twitter) to his own AI startup, xAI, for $33 billion

Elon Musk has sold his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), to his 2023-launched AI startup xAI in a $33 billion all-stock deal, announced Musk himself in a post on X. Musk explained that the move will "unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X's massive reach," adding that the two company's futures are intertwined, though it's not clear whether anything will change for its users. The deal values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, the latter of which was bought by Elon for $44 billion in 2022.

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Chinese AI startup Zhipu launches a free AI agent comparable to DeepSeek and Manus

Chinese AI startup Zhipu AI has launched AutoGLM Rumination, a free AI agent that can perform deep research, web browsing, travel planning, and research report writing, all powered by its proprietary GLM series of models. The company claims that its GLM-Z1-Air reasoning model is a fierce competitor of DeepSeek's R1, matching in performance while running "up to eight times faster" and using just" one-thirtieth of the computing resources." Founded in 2019 as a spinoff from a Tsinghua University lab, Zhipu has recently secured millions in government-backed funding as it looks to become one of China's best in AI.

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Apple reportedly begins work on revamping its Health app as it looks to add an AI doctor

​According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is reportedly developing a new version of its Health app that will feature food tracking and a "personal AI coach" to provide case-by-case health advice based on data from users' medical devices. The report says that these features could potentially launch with iOS 19.4 in the spring or summer of 2026 under the tentative name Health+. The aforementioned health coach is currently being trained on data from staff physicians, with Apple looking to bring in extra doctors to record health-related videos.

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Google's AI-driven drug division spinoff Isomorphic Labs raises $600 million in funding

​Isomorphic Labs, Google's drug division spun out from its DeepMind AI research arm, has announced that it has raised $600 million in funding, led by Thrive Capital with additional backing from GV and Alphabet. Isomorphic builds on breakthroughs like AlphaFold, a protein research model that won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, to eventually reach a point where most drug discovery work is conducted via computers. The new funds are said to go towards expanding its research models and recruiting top talent to take aim at cancer treatments and immune disorders.

​ElevenLabs - Create some of the most realistic speech with ElevenLabs, an AI-powered audio platform pioneering in text-to-speech and AI-based voice generation in any style and any language.

​Concierge - Concierge connects to your favorite apps to allow you to talk and ask questions using natural language - ask questions how you feel comfortable and receive comprehensive, well-written answers.

​Waxwing - Waxwing uses real-time insights and AI-powered business profiling to turn business data into personalized, detailed, and proven marketing strategies.

​Transistor - Get the most out of your favorite podcasts with Transistor by automatically converting your audio into engaging, searchable, and accessible text.

How DeepSeek Erased $1 Trillion In A Single Day (8-min read)

In January, a small Chinese AI startup called DeepSeek shocked the Western world when it debuted DeepSeek R1, wiping $1 trillion from the stock market in tech selloffs. Now, nearly three months later, an article by Fortune digs into the aftermath of the AI landscape and how it all went down.