Sheridan Tatsuno

Network VC today announced its investment in HABIT Robotics, a San Francisco‑area startup transforming neighborhood services through on‑demand robotic labor. This round will accelerate HABIT’s rollout of its first vertical: automated, premium-quality car detailing centers. Founded by Michael Trehan and Harish Palani—both UC Berkeley M.E.T. alumni—the team brings deep technical and financial expertise. Michael is a former Senior SWE at Radiant Nuclear (renowned for raising over $150M) and an ex–J.P. Morgan investment banker. Harish served as an AI/ML Research Scientist at Amazon and Twitch, where he led cutting-edge machine learning initiatives . HABIT has already secured $77M in letters of intent plus a binding $1.9M contract to launch its robotic auto-detailing service, targeting the $45B car-wash market . Their vision: bring the speed of automated systems together with the quality of human detailers, deployed via a network of local “robotic deployment centers” serving cars, restaurants, hotels, stores, and farms . Network VC’s investment will help expand HABIT’s deployment footprint and accelerate development of its robotic labor platform. For more about HABIT’s mission and services, visit habitrobotics.com. Alex Golod, Andrii Moroz , Maxim Strelchenko, Vitaly Gnatenko, Volodymyr Goshylyk, Ph.D. , Viktoriia Stepanenko

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For a few days, Paris has become the tech capital of the world, hosting Viva Technology, Europe’s biggest startup and tech event. One of the highlights of the day was the discussion among NVIDIA's founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, Mistral AI Cofounder and CEO Arthur Mensch, and Maurice Levy, Emeritus Chairman of Publicis and founder of VivaTech. French President Emmanuel Macron later joined the panel. The main message conveyed by the panellists is that every country should build its AI to avoid outsourcing its intelligence (data)—more sovereign AI infrastructure is needed. A few highlights of the discussion: - NVIDIA and Mistral AI announced a partnership to help Mistral expand into AI infrastructure services (launch of Mistral Compute) - Jensen Huang retraced his 30-year journey, building NVIDIA. Where does the success come from? He made many mistakes, but none were fatal. Persistence and staying in the game for long were a blessing. Most importantly, people around him continued to support him. He didn’t think of the destination, but more importantly, he learned to enjoy the journey and work hard every day to complete his tasks. Interesting fact: NVIDIA NV1 (the first graphic accelerator) was produced in Grenoble (France) and manufactured by SGS-Thomson Microelectronics. - Arthur Mensch: You don’t do business in Europe the same way you do in the US; you need to adapt to the reality of the 27 countries. Similarly, AI requires a model that can adapt to 24 languages. The largest French companies need to support Mistral AI, and he hopes that this will expand to many more European companies. Not only software but also hardware should be European. We need to build GPU clusters and have an independent platform that is separate from traditional cloud providers. Mistral is expanding from AI company to a cloud AI company. To echo the words from all the panellists, “YEAH TO EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS." You can read more about Mistral Compute here: https://lnkd.in/eu-zH5Yu #VivaTech #Venturecapital #LPinsights #innovation #Paris

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Very excited to share that Plural is leading a $60 million Series A in CoMind, the startup building breakthrough optical sensing technology to revolutionise brain monitoring and treatment. For decades, doctors treating critically ill patients have been forced to compromise when monitoring the brain. Today's approaches use risky, expensive, highly invasive procedures that require drilling a hole into a patient's skull, or rely on inaccurate non-invasive monitoring that can compromise treatment decisions. To take just one example of why this matters, in the US alone 3 million patients suffer traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) every year, but only 5% receive an intracranial pressure test, which requires drilling a hole in the skull and carries a 15% complication rate. The rest are treated with limited information, leading to worse data, worse outcomes and higher costs. London-based CoMind is changing that. Its optical neuromonitoring platform can non-invasively measure three core brain health indicators - cerebral blood flow, autoregulation and intracranial pressure - something that has never been done before. It’s a breakthrough that could help tens of millions of patients worldwide and redefine how we understand and treat the brain. The company is led by a true outlier of a young founder, James Dacombe. He started programming when he was 13 and founded CoMind when he was just 17. His work ethic and rapid learning rate have led him to build a working product and take it through two successful clinical research studies, with the help of a stellar leadership team of medical and industry veterans from the likes of Medtronic, Tufts Medical Center and UCL.  This is only the beginning. CoMind plans to expand its product portfolio to measure additional physiological parameters and develop CoVision, an AI platform that transforms sensor data into predictive insights, identifying complications early and personalising treatment. The company aims to gain regulatory approval within two years, unlocking access to the huge ICU market in the US. And while this first sensor can revolutionise TBI monitoring, a second device is already in development to measure more parameters and treat more brain conditions. This technology has the potential to dramatically improve how we monitor our brains, giving doctors better information and more choices for treating patients, while building out a whole new market by providing a far more affordable and safe alternative to existing solutions. Read more about why we invested in CoMind here: https://lnkd.in/e-NPgDVp And Tim Bradshaw’s write up in today’s Financial Times here: https://lnkd.in/eAynvqPF

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Exciting to see startups aiming to use AI to discover chemicals, materials, drugs, etc. Semi companies have taken notice: AMD is investing in and Cadence is acquiring them. Semi/EDA companies have broken out by becoming critical path, whether it’s through critical software, packaging, IP, design kits from foundries, or user communities. Aside from just making it easy to make new materials, these “AI for making X” companies also need to articulate a vision as to how they can establish monopolistic positions in their industries.

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AI isn't just powering software. BrightAI just raised $51 million to automate inspection and other hardware-based AI capabilities. As Alexa von Tobel, co-founder of Inspired Capital put it: “So many people are so focused on the future of digital AI, but we’re excited about this new layer of AI: the physical world AI.” We are in the early innings of a series of AI-fueled innovations! https://lnkd.in/enhmafvH

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Is your AI startup's first $10M ARR really just a tech echo chamber? Our latest analysis reveals that for Bay Area founders, 60-65% of early revenue comes from fellow tech companies—not the broader U.S. market in states like Ohio or Florida—based on data from CB Insights, PitchBook, and McKinsey. We've unpacked global variations, counterexamples like Veracyte and Kabbage, and actionable strategies to break free—check out the full breakdown in my new post! What’s your take on diversifying beyond the Valley bubble? Share your experiences or tips in the comments! https://lnkd.in/gCKTVyT4 #AIStartups #TechRevenue #Entrepreneurship #VentureCapital

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Voice AI has come a long way, and it is finally starting to sound natural enough for real conversations at scale. This week, Claremont Colleges founder Lily Clifford shares how she left Stanford’s PhD program to start Rime Labs and build speech models that can handle millions of real-world calls every day. She talks about what it takes to personalize voice at scale and the starting point for building voice AI that actually works. It’s a Claremont Colleges world out there. 👇 https://lnkd.in/gKGZjEzB

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This week, Anthropic launched Claude for Life Sciences, its first real push to make AI part of how science gets done. Why this matters 👇 - Scientists spend hours each week buried in docs and data. Claude aims to give them that time back by summarizing literature, drafting protocols, and analyzing data. And with prebuilt connectors to Benchling, BioRender, and PubMed, it fits well into existing workflows. - Some researchers have been eager to use AI but hesitant to apply it without clear benchmarks. Claude’s most capable model, Sonnet 4.5, shows strong performance in lab protocol and bioinformatics tasks, making AI adoption in the field more credible and comfortable. - Anthropic also introduced Agent Skills, instructions that dictate how Claude tackles specific tasks. The first skill they’ve built performs single-cell RNA sequencing quality control using scverse best practices, a sign they’re prioritizing technical rigor. It's a strong step forward, but the rollout points to where pharma still is on the AI adoption curve. Instead of the self serve model offered to consumers, Anthropic is partnering with consulting firms like Deloitte, Accenture and KPMG to bring Claude to enterprise pharma. I can't help but wonder, if the goal is to meet scientists where they are, why would it take a consulting team to get started? 🤔 WDYT? Image Credit: Anthropic Agent Skills, announcement link in comments

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Generative AI’s greatest potential lies in the physical world, where the ability to simulate, design, and iterate faster can reshape trillion-dollar sectors. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce that N47 is leading Luminary Cloud’s $72M Series B. The Luminary team is pioneering the Physics AI Model Factory, underpinned by a GPU-native physics simulation platform. This technology is designed from the ground up to unleash the performance of modern GPUs and generate the high-value datasets that power next-generation AI. Now, engineers can run hundreds of design iterations overnight instead of waiting days. AI models trained on physics-grounded data can suggest new aerodynamic designs or optimize energy systems in ways previously impossible, and companies across industries can accelerate their innovation cycles while reducing cost. With co-founders Juan Alonso and Pete Schlampp, Luminary has the technical depth and operational experience to define the new era of Physics AI. We’re proud to partner with them as they create the future of simulation and redefine what’s possible in the built world. Learn more about Luminary Cloud’s vision here: https://lnkd.in/gbjeWrvy 

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