Joyce Shen’s picks: musings and readings in AI/ML, June 23, 2025

📌 Musings and Readings

Waymo brings its cars to NYC for testing, applies for autonomous driving permit (Link)

Midjourney launches an AI video generator (Link)

Apple executives held internal talks about buying Perplexity, Bloomberg News reports (Link)

SoftBank reportedly looking to launch a trillion-dollar AI and robotics industrial complex (Link)

Databricks CEO keynote highlights company is going after the data and AI governance space (Link)

Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Multi-Satellite Earth Observation: A Realistic Case Study (Paper)

FedNano: Toward Lightweight Federated Tuning for Pretrained Multimodal Large Language Models (Paper)

👏 Deals

Diskover, a NV-based company providing a solution that indexes and analyzes unstructured data across cloud and on-prem environments, has raised $7.5m in seed financing.

Ubyx, a NYC-based company providing a stablecoin clearing network that allows banks and fintechs to seamlessly redeem and settle stablecoins across issuers and blockchains into fiat, bridging digital assets with traditional finance, has raised $10m in seed financing.

Quilt Health, a MA-based company providing a digital platform that bridges care, research, and community to improve treatment and clinical trial access for complex conditions, starting with sickle cell disease, has raised $6m in seed financing.

Extend, a NYC-based company developing an AI-powered document processing platform that converts unstructured files like PDFs and images into structured data for finance, healthcare, and enterprise workflows, has raised $17m in series A in financing.

Hoppr, a IL-based company enabling healthcare developers to build and deploy medical-grade imaging foundation models using curated data and compliance tools, has raised $31m in series A in financing.

Athena, a CA-based company developing a generative engine optimization (GEO) platform that enables brands to monitor, analyze, and enhance their visibility in AI-driven search engines using actionable insights and competitor benchmarking, has raised $2.2m in seed financing.

RevelAi Health, a NC-based company developing an AI-powered care orchestration platform for musculoskeletal health that automates patient engagement, triage, and documentation, has raised $3.1m in seed financing.

Tensec, a CA-based company helping SMBs and trade-focused firms accelerate real-time, cross-border payments and FX services, has raised $12m in seed financing.

Sunrise Robotics, a Slovenia-based robotics company focusing on industrial robotics and AI models, has raised $8.5 million in seed funding.

Alta, a CA-based company developing an AI-powered personal stylist app that helps users manage their wardrobe, get daily outfit and packing suggestions, and discover personalized shopping recommendations through a visual, mobile-first experience, has raised $11m in seed financing.

YieldClub, a Washington DC-based startup providing a mobile savings app that converts fiat into stablecoins and deploys them into DeFi protocols, has raised $2.5m in pre-seed financing.

Stackup, a CA-based company developing an AI-enhanced, non-custodial smart wallet solution that empowers businesses to automate and manage crypto finances, has raised $4.2m in seed financing.

GDI, a Rochester-based battery startup looking to solve the slow-charging problem for electric vehicles, raised $11m in financing.

Nabla Technologies, Paris and NY-based clinical AI automation company with solutions such as clinical scribe, dictation, and clinical workflows, has raised another $70m in financing.