Musk lost. Anthropic bought OpenAI's dev tools. And a chip company almost died burning $200M.

Good morning, crowd!

Let me tell you what happened

Yesterday, and trust me, you're going to want to sit down for this.

The intel:

Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI crashed and burned in less than 2 hours of jury deliberation. Anthropic acquired the dev tools startup that OpenAI, Google, and Cloudflare all use. A GoodRx founder just raised $9M to build an AI notetaker for patients. And Cerebras—the AI chip company that almost went bankrupt burning $200M trying to solve one impossible problem—just IPO'd at a $60 billion valuation.

This is peak private markets. Billion-dollar courtroom battles. Strategic M&A that cuts off rivals. Health-tech plays that actually make sense. And hardware bets that almost killed everyone involved before making VCs obscenely rich.

Tuesday's breakdown: when AI gets messy, expensive, and wildly profitable all at once. ☕

Jose, Alberto, and the Founderscrowd team.

🎁 Before you keep reading, we've got you covered. Check this out.

Last week Viktor wrote a brief, built a landing page, and opened a pull request.

Last week, wrote a campaign brief, built a landing page, opened a pull request, generated a board-ready PDF from live Stripe data, and sent a follow-up email to a churned customer. All from Slack. Same colleague that also pulls your reports and monitors your dashboards. 5,700+ teams. 3,000+ integrations.

⚖️ MUSK LOSES TO ALTMAN

What happened:

Elon Musk sued OpenAI. A jury threw it out yesterday. Less than 2 hours of deliberation.

The claim:

Musk said OpenAI violated its founding mission as a nonprofit. He wanted Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman removed.

The verdict:

Statute of limitations. Musk waited too long to sue. Case dismissed. Not liable on any count.

Why this matters:

• Sam Altman walks away clean. No damages. No liability. OpenAI can focus on scaling without this hanging over them.

• Musk vs. Altman rivalry is official. This wasn't just Twitter beef. It was a 3-week trial with testimony from both founders plus Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

• Timing matters. SpaceX's $2 trillion IPO prospectus drops this week. Musk didn't need a courtroom loss overshadowing that.

Bottom line:

The biggest AI lawsuit of the past two years ended with a whimper. Altman won. Musk lost. OpenAI—valued at $852B with $20B in annual revenue—heads toward its own $1T IPO later this year.

🛠️ ANTHROPIC'S RUTHLESS M&A PLAY

What happened:

Anthropic acquired Stainless for more than $300 million. Then announced they're shutting it down for everyone except Anthropic.

What is Stainless:

Dev tools startup. Founded 2022. Backed by Sequoia and a16z.

Automates SDK creation (the code libraries developers need to connect to APIs). Every major AI lab uses it: OpenAI, Google, Cloudflare, Meta, Anthropic.

The ruthless part:

Anthropic bought the infrastructure supplier that all its competitors use. Then killed it.

Anthropic told TechCrunch: "We will wind down all hosted Stainless products."

Translation:

• OpenAI can't use it anymore

• Google can't use it anymore

• Cloudflare can't use it anymore

• Only Anthropic can use it

Why this is genius:

• Cuts off rivals. OpenAI and Google now have to rebuild this infrastructure themselves or find a replacement.

• AI agents need SDKs. If you're building AI that connects to external software (which everyone is), you need SDK tools. Anthropic just monopolized the best ones.

• Strategic weapon. This isn't an acquisition for growth. It's an acquisition to hurt competitors.

Bottom line:

Anthropic paid $300M+ to cut off OpenAI and Google from critical infrastructure. That's not M&A. That's warfare.

🏥 KIN HEALTH: AI NOTETAKER FOR PATIENTS

What happened:

Kin Health raised a $9 million seed round led by Maveron.

What they do:

AI notetaker for your doctor visits. Record the appointment. Get an AI summary. Track next steps.

Think Otter.ai, but for healthcare.

Who built it:

• Arpan and Amit Parikh (physicians)

• Kyle Alwyn (previously built HeyDoctor, sold to GoodRx)

• Doug Hirsch and Trevor Bezdek (GoodRx co-founders) are executive chairmen

How it works:

1. Record doctor visit

2. App transcribes conversation

3. AI generates summary with action items

4. Share with family if you want

Why this matters:

• The market is huge. AI notetakers generated $600M+ in revenue last year. Doctors already use Heidi Health and Freed. Now patients get their own.

• The GoodRx playbook works. Free product. Monetize via referrals (specialists, labs). GoodRx went from free tool to $3.8B company using this exact model.

• Solves a real problem. Patients forget 40-80% of what doctors tell them. This fixes that.

The concerns:

Privacy (not HIPAA-certified but follows same standards). Accuracy (AI can hallucinate). Accents (AI struggles with regional dialects).

Bottom line:

$600M market. GoodRx founders. Free product. Referral revenue. This is the rare health-tech startup that actually makes sense.

💎 WHAT PREMIUM MEMBERS GOT THIS WEEK

Deep dive: Modeling Anduril's IPO valuation.

We built a bottoms-up model using:

• Revenue growth ($2.2B → $5B+ by 2027)

• Margin expansion (software scales to 60%+ gross margins)

• Public comps (Palantir, RTX, Lockheed)

• Pentagon budget allocation (drones getting 5% of $850B budget)

Our model: Anduril IPOs at $80-120B in 2027.

At $120B, early investors (who got in at $300M seed valuation) make 400x.

Next week: The geopolitics of oil. Why Hormuz staying closed past June means $200 oil, global recession, and a massive energy infrastructure buildout (which creates $100B+ in venture opportunities).

$100/month. Lock in before price increases to $220/month in June.

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🔥 CEREBRAS: FROM $8M/MONTH BURN TO $60B IPO

The story:

Cerebras IPO'd last week at $60 billion. Stock popped 68% on day one.

But here's what nobody told you: In 2019, they almost went bankrupt.

The problem:

They spent 3 years and $200 million trying to build a wafer-scale chip—one giant chip instead of hundreds of small ones.

Every board meeting: another failure.

CEO Andrew Feldman: "We were spending $8 million a month. We had incinerated nearly $200 million trying to solve one technical problem."

Why was it impossible?

Normal chips: Dice a silicon wafer into tiny pieces. Each piece = one chip.

Cerebras: Use the entire wafer as one massive chip.

Problem: Heat. Power. Packaging. No one had ever done it. The brightest minds in semiconductors tried for decades. All failed.

The breakthrough:

July 2019. They solved it.

They invented a machine that could bolt in 40 screws simultaneously to secure the wafer without cracking it.

The founding team "just stood in the lab and stared at it. Watching a computer run is about as exciting as watching paint dry. But there we were...stunned."

The outcome:

• $60B valuation (IPO May 2026)

• Customers: OpenAI, AWS

• $1B loan from OpenAI (secured by warrants worth $9B+ today)

Eclipse's return:

Eclipse led the $6.5M Series A in 2016.

Total invested: $147 million.

Value at IPO: $2.5 billion.

17x return.

Why this matters:

Eclipse founder Lior Susan bet on "physical world" tech when everyone else was chasing SaaS. His portfolio companies raised $15B in 2025 and $4.5B in Q1 2026 alone.

Cerebras just validated the entire thesis: Hardware is back.

Bottom line:

Cerebras burned $200M. Almost died. Solved an impossible problem. IPO'd at $60B. Made Eclipse $2.5B richer.

This is what venture capital looks like when it works.

📊 PAST WEEK'S FUNDING & M&A RECAP

Big raises (May 12-17, 2026):

Defense & Space:

• Anduril: $5B Series H at $61B valuation (defense tech)

• Starfish Space: $111.7M (autonomous space vehicles)

• Rocket Lab: Record Q1 revenue $200.3M, $2.2B backlog

AI Infrastructure:

• Fractile: $220M Series B (AI inference chips)

• DeepInfra: $107M Series B (AI infrastructure layer)

• Aria Networks: $125M Series A (AI-driven data center networking)

• Tessera Labs: $60M (Andreessen Horowitz-led)

Crypto & Compliance:

• Elliptic: $120M Series D at $670M valuation (crypto compliance, Deutsche Bank + Nasdaq investors)

Biotech:

• CREATE Medicines: $122M Series B (in vivo CAR-T cancer therapy)

• Sidewinder Therapeutics: $137M Series B (cancer drugs)

Enterprise AI:

• Judgment Labs: $32M seed + Series A (AI agent infrastructure, Lightspeed-led)

• Outmarket AI: $17M Series A (insurance AI platform)

• GovWell: $25M Series A (AI for government)

Total raised this week: ~$6.5 billion (defense + AI infrastructure dominating)appens if (when?) they fail to ship. Spoiler: The downside is $4 billion. The upside is infinite. That's the bet.

🔥 THE BOTTOM LINE

Musk lost to Altman. Anthropic bought Stainless and cut off rivals. Kin Health raised $9M using the GoodRx playbook. Cerebras almost died—now it's worth $60B.

This is private markets in 2026:

Billion-dollar lawsuits ✅
Strategic M&A ✅
Health-tech that works ✅
Hardware bets that almost kill everyone ✅
VCs getting obscenely rich ✅

AI is expensive. AI is messy. AI is wildly profitable.

And if you're not paying attention, you're missing the biggest wealth creation event of the decade.

See you Thursday. Until then, keep hunting. ☕

Alberto, Jo
Founderscrowd

P.S. Premium members got our top 10 AI infrastructure picks that could follow Cerebras' path: burn cash → solve impossible problems → IPO at 20x. Most are in chips, networking, and cooling. The next $60B company is already burning millions. The question is: which one?

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