AI Funding Hits $615M; Talent Jumps In
Summary
Intense capital deployment and executive migration underscore the critical race for foundational AI talent and infrastructure dominance across all sectors.
- Massive Seed Funding Secured: Unconventional AI confirmed a \(475M seed round, while Fal raised \)140M, pushing its valuation to $4.5B.
- Executive Movement Confirmed: Slack CEO Denise Dresser joins OpenAI as CRO; Hinge CEO Justin McLeod steps down to launch AI dating app Overtone [1, 5].
- Infrastructure & Model Releases: CoreWeave defends its infrastructure deals 7, while Mistral releases Devstral 2 (123B params) and ServiceNow releases Apriel-1.6-15b [8, 11].
- Vertical AI Development: Rivian dedicates resources to building a proprietary AI assistant for vehicles, operating independently of its main tech budget 3.
- Competition & Efficiency Focus: Cursor CEO remains confident despite competition 2, while Boom Supersonic pivots to address AI power grid demands using supersonic engine tech 9.
- $615 Million - Total disclosed funding raised by Unconventional AI (\(475M) and Fal (\)140M) [4, 6].
- $4.5 Billion - Fal’s new valuation after securing its $140M Series D round led by Sequoia 4.
- 123 Billion - Parameters in Mistral’s newly released Devstral 2 foundational model 11.
- December 9, 2025 - Date when OpenAI confirmed hiring Slack’s CEO Denise Dresser as its new CRO 1.
- 15 Billion - Parameters defining the multimodal reasoning model Apriel-1.6-15b-Thinker released by ServiceNow 8.
Key Moments
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Unconventional AI confirms its massive $475M seed round
— Article [6] -
Fal nabbed $140M in fresh funding...tripling valuation to $4.5B
— Article [4] -
Slack CEO Denise Dresser to join OpenAI as chief revenue officer
— Article [1] -
Rivian is building its own AI assistant
— Article [3] -
Mistral releases Devstral2 (123B parameters)
— Article [11]