Hey friends, first of all, happy spring!!! The sun has been beautiful lately, and it’s putting me in a good mood. 🌝 💃

Welcome to What’s the Deal? Your weekly roundup of the latest and greatest stories in tech, venture capital, and capital markets — with the biggest deals front and center.

I’m Ella, the voice behind this newsletter, and this week… stuff went down…

We’ve got top law firms getting caught using AI hallucinations in their court filings, and a literal shoe company pivoting to AI. Tell me how this makes sense.🧍‍♀️Please.

Anyways, I know you’re itching to read more— so let’s dive in!

Fintech - Revolut, a global digital banking app offering payments, crypto, and financial services, is targeting a $150B–$200B valuation in a future IPO as it expands

AI Humans - NeoCognition, a new research-driven startup, raised $40M to build self-learning AI agents that can specialize like humans and become more reliable

AI Underdog - DeepSeek, known for its ultra-cheap R1 model rivaling top labs, is raising $300M from outside investors for the first time, as it pushes low-cost, open-source competition

Deep Tech - Recursive Superintelligence, a four-month-old startup founded by ex-Google DeepMind and OpenAI researchers, just raised $500M+

Retail VC - Robinhood invested $75M into OpenAI —one of its largest bets yet—opening the door for everyday investors to potentially access private AI companies

Mega Deal? - SpaceX recently struck a deal with Cursor that could lead to a $60B acquisition, as Elon Musk pushes deeper into AI ahead of a potential IPO

“12 Month Window” - Elad Gil, a top Silicon Valley investor, says startups have a short “peak window” to sell at maximum value before AI competition catches up to them

Q1 Breakdown - Venture funding exploded to a record $300B in Q1 of 2026, driven overwhelmingly by massive AI deals and a handful of dominant companies

New CEO - Apple is transitioning leadership as John Ternus takes over as CEO from Tim Cook, marking a major shift as the company prepares for its next era focused on hardware and AI

Shoe Shift - Allbirds, a once-popular eco-friendly shoe company, surged after rebranding as an AI company, showing how fast the AI bubble is growing

Legal Hallucinations - Sullivan & Cromwell admitted to submitting a court filing filled with fake AI-generated citations

Chip Wars - Google is rolling out new AI chips built specifically for inference, intensifying its competition with Nvidia as demand for running AI agents surges

Hello! Thanks for reading, and welcome to What’s the Deal?, the newsletter brought to you by Finta.

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