Joyce Shen’s picks: musings and readings in AI/ML, April 6, 2026
📌 Musings and Readings
“China Moves to Regulate Digital Humans, Bans Addictive Services for Children” (Link)
“America’s Largest Hospital System Ready to Start Replacing Radiologists With AI, Its CEO Says” (Link)
“A deep learning approach to assess transendothelial cell trafficking performance” (Paper)
“Anthropic’s $400M acquisition of Coefficient Bio signals a deeper push into drug discovery” (Link)
“SpaceX, Amazon, and Google want data centers in orbit — four engineering barriers stand in the way” (Link)
“Evaluating alignment of behavioral dispositions in LLMs” (Google)
👏 Deals
Stratum Biosciences, a NYC-based biotech company leveraging AI and skin datasets to discover and commercialize novel dermatology ingredients, has raised $2m in seed funding.
Deccan AI, a CA-based infrastructure startup that looks to deliver expert-curated data, evaluation, and post-training services to enable enterprises and AI labs to build more accurate, production-ready models, has raised $25m in funding.
Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based startup focused on model and AI agents development, has received a strategic investment from Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.
OpenBox AI, a CA-based startup providing a governance and trust layer for AI agents, has raised $5m in seed funding.
Deeplify, a Germany–based AI startup delivering AI-powered testing software to automate inspections and enhance infrastructure safety and efficiency, has raised €2m in pre-seed funding.
Huskeys, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity startup providing edge security solutions, has raised $8m in seed funding.
Rowan, a Chicago-based company providing a tech-enabled platform to modernize small business succession, has raised $3.3m in seed funding.
Cara, a NYC-based provider building an AI platform that automates routine workflows and customer service tasks for insurance agencies, has raised $8m in seed funding.
Whirl AI, a CA-based company building an AI agent platform that enables enterprises to autonomously understand, operate, and optimize complex internal systems, has raised $8.9m in seed funding.
Variance, a CA-based company building an enterprise AI platform that deploys autonomous agents to detect, investigate, and mitigate risk across large-scale data systems, has raised $21.5m in series A funding.
Verse8, a CA-based company developing a gaming platform that turns text prompts into playable multiplayer games, has raised $5m in seed funding.
ThinkLabs AI, a NYC-based company building real-time digital twins of power grids to enable utilities to simulate, optimize, and autonomously operate infrastructure, has raised $28m in series A funding.
Nexus, a Brussels, Belgium-based company offering an enterprise platform that enables teams to deploy autonomous AI agents to execute complex workflows across systems, has raised $4.3m in seed funding.
Gander Robotics, a Cambridge, MA-based startup building AI-powered autonomous maritime robots, especially rescue devices, has raised $1.1m in pre-seed funding.
Numos, a CA-based startup building automation for accounting and finance workflows, has raised $4.25m in seed funding.
AccuQuant, a UK-based fintech company using AI-driven quantitative models to automate cryptocurrency trading and optimize investment decisions, has secured $20m in funding.
