Morning Scan

AI money keeps finding new ways to compound — coding startups doubling valuations in months, chipmakers plugging Claude into R&D, infrastructure deals stacking up. The policy arguments about watermarks, antitrust, and who charges whom run alongside it. Business as usual, just faster.

$40B+ — Cognition's target valuation in new funding talks, up from $26B in May. (Bloomberg)

Machines & Minds

Cognition in talks to raise $1B+ at $40B+ valuation (paywall)

Three months, roughly 50% valuation bump — the AI coding gold rush shows no sign of slowing. (Bloomberg)

Lovable hits $13.3B valuation, doubling since December (paywall)

Europe's vibe-coding darling just became one of the continent's most valuable startups. (WSJ)

Kevin Weil seeking $150M for new AI science startup

The former OpenAI product chief wants a $750M valuation before shipping a product — the exec-to-founder pipeline stays busy. (Business Insider)

David Sacks' Craft Ventures targets $1B for new fund

First fund since his White House stint — the revolving door between D.C. policy and VC keeps spinning. (The Information)

CoreWeave jumps 14% after earnings beat

The AI-data-center trade is still working, for now. (SiliconANGLE)

Supermicro stock soars on crushed earnings

Wall Street forgave last year's accounting drama the moment the numbers got good again. (SiliconANGLE)

Connected World

French media ask regulators to make Google pay for AI answers

The AI-Overviews-are-eating-our-traffic fight goes formal in France. (The Next Web)

Anthropic starts watermarking all Claude output under EU AI Act

Invisible marks on text and files, rolling out globally. (The Next Web)

Apple fails to delay filing new App Store fees in Epic case

Apple gets 24 hours, not the reprieve it wanted, as the Epic saga grinds on. (AppleInsider)

CFTC orders Kalshi to keep operating in New York despite state lawsuit

Federal emergency powers overriding a state shutdown attempt — prediction markets get an unusually blunt assist. (CoinDesk)

Connected World

IBM inks $240M infrastructure deal with Together AI

Legacy tech keeps buying its way into the AI infrastructure boom rather than building it from scratch. (SiliconANGLE)

Apple Pay/Apple Card VP Jennifer Bailey retiring after 12 years

The exec who built Apple's payments business from scratch heads out — a quiet end to a very consequential run. (AppleInsider)

Tencent Q2 revenue up 11% to ~$30.4B on WeChat ad surge (paywall)

Ads and games both firing at once — a good problem to have. (Bloomberg)