Aug 28, 2025 5 min read Daily Rundown

⛵ Zuck Buys Then Loses

Highways for Carbon, Highways for Coin

Good Morning, Early Adopters!

The lesson is quiet: permanence belongs not to possession, but to the architectures that outlast it.

TALENT

Zuck’s Billion-Dollar Draft Picks Already Quitting

👀 What’s the move: Meta’s new “Superintelligence Labs” just lost at least three of the nine-figure AI stars Zuckerberg poached—two sprinted back to OpenAI after barely a month. Another veteran bowed out citing “different risks.” Even a longtime Meta exec defected to OpenAI.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This isn’t just churn—it’s culture clash. Zuck thought Wall Street-style contracts could buy frontier talent, but researchers keep boomeranging to labs where bureaucracy is thinner and identity clearer. Meta’s superlab risks becoming a revolving door: high-priced talent in, prestige out. OpenAI, ironically, looks stronger for surviving the raid.

⛵ Key takeaway: Turns out AGI scientists aren’t free agents—you can’t outbid gravity when loyalty points back to the frontier.

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CLIMATE TECH

Terraton Franchise Carbon Capture Like Fast Food

👀 What’s the move: Terraton just banked $11.5M (Lowercarbon, Gigascale, ANA, East Japan Rail, plus angels like Google’s Jeff Dean and OpenAI’s Bret Taylor) to turn biochar into a franchise business. Think “McDonald’s for carbon removal”: a ready-made kit for locals to spin up biochar plants, paired with a SaaS layer that runs ops, tracks offsets, and sells verified carbon credits to buyers like Microsoft, Google, and Airbus.

💡 Why it’s not boring: Biochar tech isn’t new — it’s the supply chain that’s broken. Most facilities are one-offs, capped at ~10k tons CO₂/year, far short of hyperscaler appetite. Terraton’s play isn’t just carbon removal; it’s a replication machine. By franchising local operators near agri-waste sources, Terraton scales both production and verification, turning a scattered science project into a global carbon commodity platform.

⛵ Key takeaway: Terraton isn’t selling dirt — it’s selling the McDonald’s playbook for carbon credits.

FINTECH

Tazapay Turns Cross-Border Chaos into a Stablecoin Highway

👀 What’s the move: Tazapay just closed its Series B with backing from Ripple, Circle, and Peak XV, locking in $10B+ annualized volume, 300% YoY growth, and a roadmap of global licenses. Its play: a “one-stop infra layer” for cross-border payments — local collections, payouts, cards, stablecoins — stitched into 70+ markets with compliance baked in.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This isn’t another Stripe clone. Tazapay is quietly becoming the fiat bridge for stablecoins, especially in emerging markets where last-mile rails are fragmented. Ripple and Circle’s investment isn’t charity — it’s a bet that the future of money won’t be built by banks, but by infra players who can blend Web2 settlement pipes with Web3 liquidity. If they nail licensing in the U.S., UAE, and Hong Kong, incumbents like SWIFT and Visa face an uncomfortable question: who owns the trust layer of cross-border trade?

⛵ Key takeaway: Tazapay isn’t building a payments app — it’s building the roads everyone else will have to drive on.

STARTUP SPOT

🔗 Tazapay
“Cross-border payments, fiat to stable.”
API platform for local collections in 70+ markets, payouts to 80+, escrow, cards, and stablecoin rails.
→ Founded 2020 in Singapore by Rahul Shinghal (ex-PayPal/Stripe), Saroj Mishra, Arul Kumaravel; $10B+ annual volume, 300% YoY growth, breakeven. Aug 2025 raised Series B led by Peak XV with Ripple, Circle, Norinchukin, GMO; funds to expand licensing (UAE, US, HK, AU) and fiat-stable rails.

🧬 Terraton
“Franchising biochar for carbon.”
Business-in-a-box: turnkey plants turn ag-waste into biochar, with SaaS for ops + carbon-credit sales.
→ Founded by Kevin Gibbs & Greg D’Alesandre; pilots in Africa remove ~20K tCO₂/yr. Aug 2025 raised $11.5M seed led by Lowercarbon & Gigascale; backers include ANA, JR East fund, Jeff Dean, Bret Taylor.

🧠 Maisa AI
“Auditable AI agents for work.”
Agentic automation with “Chain of Work” for full accountability; Digital Workers built for regulated industries.
→ Founded ~2024 by David Villalón & Manuel Romera (ex-Clibrain); HQ Valencia + SF. Aug 2025 raised $25M seed led by Creandum with NFX, Village Global, Forgepoint/Santander; launched Maisa Studio for no-code agent building.

BAY AREA MEMOS

Foxconn has injected an additional $168 million into its Mexico subsidiary to expand AI server production and strengthen its local manufacturing base.
Maisa AI has raised a $25 million to launch its platform for building accountable 'digital workers' aimed at solving enterprise AI's high failure rate.
AI coding platform Vercel is reportedly raising a new funding round at a 9 billion dollar valuation, driven by its growth in the AI application space.
A Las Vegas official confirms Tesla's self-driving software is being tested in Boring Company tunnels but says full autonomy remains a distant goal.
Anthropic agrees to settle a high-stakes copyright lawsuit brought by authors over the use of pirated books to train its AI models.

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