Kate Clark

It’s my first day at The Wall Street Journal covering startups, VC, AI and more. Confidential tips welcome: kate.clark@wsj.com | Signal: 415-409-9095.

Cerebras’s high-flying market debut kicks off a hotly anticipated year of AI IPOs. Shares more than doubled, forcing a brief pause in trading. on.wsj.com/4wKcfo6

Here is an early look at the front page of today's Wall Street Journal on.wsj.com/3Rk7iSv

Exclusive: The U.K. chip startup Fractile said it has raised a $220 million Series B funding round led by Factorial Funds, Accel and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund on.wsj.com/4nseSGS

Exclusive: OpenAI’s Sam Altman’s personal investments are coming under intensifying scrutiny from Republicans following an April article in The Wall Street Journal on.wsj.com/4u2brZT

Scoop on Wispr, the company that founders and developers are not exactly whispering about w/ @RebeccaTorrenc5 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Exclusive: Google is in talks with SpaceX for a rocket launch deal as the search giant expands its own efforts to put orbital data centers in space on.wsj.com/4nqozpg

Scoop: Arif Janmohamed (Lightspeed) and Trevor Oelschig (GC) are raising $375 million for their new firm Duration Ventures to invest in early-stage enterprise AI startups wsj.com/pro/venture-ca…

What’s faster than typing on your laptop? Whispering to it. It’s also a lot more annoying. on.wsj.com/4tvfEnM

Wall Street is taking over cryptoland, and being met with little resistance. In Miami Beach, one of the crypto industry’s biggest conferences had a corporate sheen this year. on.wsj.com/42njFzz

SCOOP: VP JD Vance held a secret call with CEOs of giant AI companies including Elon Musk, Dario Amodei and Sam Altman. Vance expressed concern with the potential of AI systems and impact they could have on local banks + other smaller businesses. It’s an instance of the administration scrambling to decide what to do with AI. Story w/ @AmrithRamkumar + @natalieandrews wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-…

Exclusive: Corporate card and expense management startup Ramp is seeking $750 million at a valuation above $40 billion as investors bet on its rapid AI-driven growth. on.wsj.com/3QW7KX5

Sources: Ramp told investors it is raising $750M co-led by Iconiq Capital and GIC at a valuation of $40B+ before the investment, up from $32B in November 2025 (@kateclarktweets / Wall Street Journal) (Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)

Scoop: @tryramp is raising funds at $40 billion+ valuation wsj.com/business/entre…

China’s DeepSeek is raising money from government-backed investors, aligning the AI startup with Beijing’s push for technology self-sufficiency. on.wsj.com/3QTATlB

SCOOP: James Murdoch in Talks to Buy Vox’s New York Magazine and Podcast Division wsj.com/business/media… via @WSJ

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussed spinning out the company’s robotics and consumer hardware divisions last year to give them more room to grow without weighing down the core business, sources say on.wsj.com/4tMi6al

Total banger from my colleagues @neilmhta @ByKLong and @ceostroff that gives hard numbers on the winners and losers in prediction markets: wsj.com/finance/invest…

🚨🚨🚨SCOOP: @ryancohen's GameStop is offering to buy eBay for $125/sh, or $56 billion. GameStop has built a roughly 5% stake in eBay already. I spoke to Ryan Cohen exclusively about why he's pursuing this deal. $GME $EBAY wsj.com/business/deals…

OpenAI’s chatbot dispenses advice on weapons and role-plays mass shootings. The carnage is raising scrutiny on when and how companies intervene. on.wsj.com/4d6eZ65

Sources: Coatue formed Next Frontier in 2025 to buy land for data centers; Next Frontier has a JV with neocloud Fluidstack that's raised $5.7B via junk bonds (Wall Street Journal) (Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)