ElevenLabs Raises $500M at $11B Valuation, Positron Takes on Nvidia with $230M, and Kimi K2.5 Shines
This Week in AI Newsletter: 2/04/2026
ElevenLabs raised $500 million in Series D funding at an $11 billion valuation, tripling its worth. The voice-cloning AI startup is backed by Sequoia and continues to dominate the AI voice and conversational tech space. More here.
Positron raised $230 million in Series B funding at a $1 billion valuation to take on Nvidia's AI chips. The startup's Atlas chip claims to match H100 GPU performance at less than a third of the power, backed by Qatar Investment Authority and Jump Trading. More here.
Moonshot AI's Kimi K2.5 hit #7 on the LM Arena code leaderboard (#1 among open-source models) and #6 on the vision leaderboard, beating GPT-5.2 and Claude 4.5 Opus on multiple benchmarks. More here.
AI is transforming elite sports training. Olympic snowboarder used AI analysis to perfect signature tricks, showing how machine learning is changing athletic performance at the highest levels. More here.
Lotus Health raised $35 million Series A from CRV and Kleiner Perkins for its AI doctor that sees patients for free. The platform combines AI diagnosis with board-certified physician oversight, operating in all 50 states 24/7. More here.
Software stocks suffered a second day of selling as Anthropic's Claude Cowork legal plugin continues to spook investors. JPMorgan says software makers are being "sentenced before trial," with Thomson Reuters down 16%. More here.
French prosecutors raided X's Paris headquarters over allegations including deepfakes via Grok and Holocaust denial. Elon Musk has been summoned for questioning. More here.
Loop AI raised $14 million Series A for AI-powered back-office automation for restaurants and retail. More here.