OpenClaw Fever just keeps spreading

Top News

• China going all in on OpenClaw agents: Bloomberg reports that major interest from Chinese government agencies and tech leaders is driving massive attention to OpenClaw inside America’s #1 AI rival. Images from a public OpenClaw demo and makeshift Genius Bar set up outside Tencent HQ in Shenzhen went viral over the weekend, and suggest that it’s not just young tech enthusiasts eager to learn more about AI agents, it’s EVERYBODY. (Even a few “grannies” are visible, as several commentators pointed out.) The city is mulling a new policy encouraging local companies to add OpenClaw features and services, and they’re even considering subsidies of up to $300,000 for businesses designing OpenClaw apps. A number of big-time Chinese tech companies — from Alibaba to Baidu — have already added OpenClaw features, and the hope is apparently that the need to power agents will continue driving fresh interest into lower-cost, open-source Chinese AI models like Moonshot’s Kimi and MiniMax’s M2.5.

• Anthropic sues Trump admin: Last week, we reported that the AI company was weighing legal action against the White House, challenging the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic as a “supply chain risk.” (This could potentially impact their relationship not just with the federal government, but other companies that do government work.) Now the company has followed through on the threat, filing a suit against the Trump Administration in the US District Court for Northern California and also Washington DC. Their lawyers accuse the government of violating Anthropic’s First Amendment rights, and exceeding the scope of the original “Supply Chain Risk” statute. The suit names several US government agencies and even a few individuals as defendants; the list includes the Department of War along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

• OpenAI acquires Promptfoo: The relatively tiny security startup was founded in 2024, and develops tools that test vulnerabilities within LLMs. They’ve raised just $23 million, and were valued at around $86 million last summer, but it seems like they’ve stumbled into something approaching product market fit; according to Promptfoo’s own numbers, their products are already in use by around 25% of the Fortune 500. (That’s Fortune 125 for those keeping track.) OpenAI will use Promptfoo’s tech to evaluate agentic workflows for security issues, while automating some of their “red-teaming” protocols. They plan to keep offering Promptfoo’s open source tools to the public, and may continue building out and expanding them over time.

TWiST 500

Here’s a company we haven’t talked about in a while… the UK’s NScale. In early 2024, they followed JCal’s viral advice and pivoted from crypto to AI, shifting their mining operations into AI data centers and rebranding as a “neo-cloud operator.” Today, they’re one of Europe’s largest sellers of computing resources for AI companies, and their new $2 billion Series C round ranks them among the most overall valuable European tech startups.

8090 Industries (co-founded by JCal’s bestie, Chamath Palihapitiya) co-led the round along with Norwegian energy firm Aker ASA. Nscale and Aker are collaborating on an Arctic Circle data center project, Stargate Norway, with OpenAI lined up as their first customer.

But that’s not all! Several luminaries climbed on board as new Nscale directors, including former Meta execs Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg. And founder and CEO Josh Payne just got a splashy profile in the New York Times this week, focusing on his personal journey from working in coal mines to leading one of his continent’s largest AI concerns. Now that’s an eventful week.

In other T500 CEO news, Jay Graber will exit her post as CEO of your most woke friends’ favorite social network, Bluesky. She’s switching over to a new role as the ‘Sky’s “chief innovation officer,” where she can focus on improving and fine tuning the platform’s technology. Former Automattic CEO (and Bluesky investor) Toni Schneider will step in as Graber’s replacement. In a blog post, Graber suggested the new role is a better fit for her skill stack, and praised Schneider as a “seasoned operator” who will focus on “scaling and execution.” – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2259: What is $TAO? We’re so glad you asked! On a TWiST special edition, we’re diving into the world of Bittensor and subnets. It’s a blockchain-based network divided into “subnets,” each of which power a different AI project, app, or tool. Find out how it all works — and how you can buy TAO and other subnet tokens, to own a small piece of the AI revolution — with special guests Mark Jeffrey (of Stillcore Capital) and Ala Shaabana (of Crucible Labs).

E2258: Big Wednesday show. We’ve got Erik Voorhees from privacy-forward Venice AI giving us the behind-the-scenes story of becoming OpenClaw’s default model (temporarily). PLUS Logan Allin of Fin Capital shares how he’s using generative AI to place smarter bets on founders. All that and two demos: George Pickett brings us into the OpenClaw Studio and David Kaufman shows us how Siteline helps keep track of agentic activity.

E2257: Jason welcomes OpenClaw Foundation board member (plus founder and investor) Dave Morin to take us inside the organization, and talk about its goals and where OpenClaw should go from here. PLUS diving into the mounting rivalry between OpenAI vs. Anthropic: who does Dave think will win? THEN we’re checking out two more awesome demos from Greg Kara of Runtools and George Yameen of PickleWatch.

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