Friday Founders: Issue #1 | Highlights from 6–12 June 2025

Hi Founders,

It’s Friday, 13 June 2025, and the past seven days were anything but quiet. From Apple’s shimmering new interface to Stripe’s full-throttle return to crypto rails, these are the 10 stories you’ll want on your radar before the weekend.

1. 📱 Apple Unveils “Liquid Glass” + On-Device Apple Intelligence

TL;DR: WWDC 25 previewed a translucent design language that ripples across iPhone, iPad, Mac & Vision Pro and introduced Apple Intelligence, a privacy-centric LLM suite that runs entirely on M-series silicon.

Why you should care: Users will soon equate instant AI with private AI; cloud-only inference flows will feel sluggish and sketchy. Begin scoping edge-model fallbacks and audit any data that leaves the device.
Read more here → Apple Newsroom 

2. 💰 Anduril Lands a Record $2.5 B Series G (Valuation: $30.5 B)

TL;DR: The defense-tech scale-up doubled its value and pulled in a $1 B lead check from Founders Fund to ramp autonomous drones, maritime robots, and LatticeOS.

Why you should care: Proprietary hardware + AI still attracts mega-rounds. Even pure-software teams can win by supplying autonomy stacks, secure firmware, or GPU logistics to primes like Anduril.
Read more here → TechCrunch

3. 🤖 Cursor’s Parent Anysphere Raises $900 M, Hits $9.9 B

TL;DR: The AI coding companion crossed $500 M ARR and closed a Thrive-led mega-round—its third in 12 months.

Why you should care: “Copilot” features are shifting from novelty to baseline. Dev-tools without context-aware automation are now competing on UI polish alone—time to embed or integrate.
Read more here → Crunchbase News

4. 🏷️ OpenAI Cuts o3 Prices 80 % and Ships o3-pro

TL;DR: Input tokens drop to $2/M and output to $6/M; new 200 K-context o3-pro costs what o3 did last week.

Why you should care: Your AI unit-economics just improved 5×. Dust off features deemed “too expensive” last quarter and ship before competitors recalculate.
Read more here → OpenAI Community 

5. 💳 Stripe Buys Crypto-Wallet Startup Privy

TL;DR: Two years after pausing most crypto projects, Stripe is baking self-custodial wallets into Connect via the Privy acquisition.

Why you should care: Stablecoin checkout may soon be a one-API call flow. Cross-border SaaS, marketplaces, and creator payouts could clear in minutes, not days.
Read more here → Privy Blog

6. ⚖️ Brussels Weighs a 6- to 12-Month Pause on the EU AI Act

TL;DR: Lacking final technical standards, the Commission is considering delaying enforcement of “high-risk” provisions until 2026.

Why you should care: This is a grace period, not a pardon. Start logging training data lineage and bias tests while investors still view compliance spend as proactive, not reactive.
Read more here → DLA Piper 

7. 🧸 Mattel × OpenAI Team Up for AI-Powered Toys

TL;DR: Barbie and Hot Wheels will gain voice-interactive story-modes, with the first products targeting the 2025 holiday season.

Why you should care: Generative AI is leaving screens for physical goods. If you own kid-friendly IP, voice-first experiences and smart-toy accessories are the next premium SKU.
Read more here → Reuters

8. 🔍 Glean Raises $150 M Series F at a $7.2 B Valuation

TL;DR: Workplace search + RAG agents helped Glean top $100 M ARR, and the new cash fuels global expansion.

Why you should care: Retrieval and permission-aware knowledge graphs are the stickiest layer of enterprise AI. Products that can’t integrate will be abstracted away.
Read more here → Glean Blog

9. 🚑 Carbyne Secures $100 M in AT&T-Led Round

TL;DR: The Israeli startup is modernising 911 call centers with an app-free, cloud-native platform that converts voice into real-time dashboards.

Why you should care: “Boring AI” that fixes legacy gov-tech wins decade-long contracts. Scan other regulated niches—permits, utilities, courts—for similar upgrade gaps.
Read more here → CTech

10. 🛠️ Vercel v0 Launches “Design Mode” (Click-Edit Tailwind)

TL;DR: Non-coders can now tweak live Tailwind components in a browser tab—no IDE, no credit spend, JSX regenerated on save.

Why you should care: Designer-developer hand-offs just collapsed from days to minutes. Front-end tools that can’t plug into v0 risk looking heavyweight overnight.
Read more here → Vercel Community