**Jamie Dimon warns investors underestimate economic risks, says he wouldn't buy stocks or long-dated Treasurys at current prices** – The JPMorgan Chase CEO cautioned that markets are not fully pricing in geopolitical threats and fiscal dangers, including wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, U.S.-China tensions, and rising government deficits.
In an interview released Monday, Dimon said it is difficult to know what risks are already reflected in asset prices, but that "what's not baked in is what actually happens." His warning contrasts with investor optimism that has driven the S&P 500 nearly 10% higher this year, supported by resilient consumer spending, moderating inflation, and the artificial intelligence trade. JPMorgan and its peers recently posted blockbuster quarterly results from surging trading and investment banking revenue.
Dimon acknowledged the global economy is more resilient due to lower energy dependence but warned that a sudden tipping point remains possible. He predicted persistent U.S. budget deficits will eventually force interest rates higher as "bond vigilantes" demand greater compensation for government debt. Even if inflation falls to the Fed's 2% target, Dimon said the 10-year Treasury yield should be 4% to 4.5%, adding he sees little upside for bond prices.
On equities, Dimon said he would not buy the broader market at current valuations, though he might consider individual stocks. Regarding AI, he compared today's spending boom to the early internet era, noting that while the investment may pay off overall, the timeline and winners are uncertain—citing how Yahoo and Netscape faded while Google and Facebook emerged later.
NetApp, an intelligent data infrastructure company, has acquired DataPelago, a California-based AI data infrastructure startup, to enable zero-copy activation of enterprise data for AI by bringing GPU-accelerated processing directly to the storage layer. The acquisition addresses a critical bottleneck in enterprise AI deployment: preparing, governing, and activating data fast enough to put AI into production. DataPelago’s core technology, Nucleus, is a universal data processing engine that uses heterogeneous accelerated computing across CPUs and GPUs to process data where it lives—at the storage layer, rather than moving it to external compute clusters. This approach reduces infrastructure costs by up to 80% and delivers performance up to 10 times faster than conventional methods, eliminating the need to copy data from operational systems to AI systems. NetApp CEO George Kurian said the deal extends NetApp’s ability to help customers understand and process data with the agility required to unleash competitive advantage. DataPelago founder and CEO Rajan Goyal noted that enterprises have invested billions in GPUs and AI models, but fragmented data leaves computing resources idle. NetApp CPO Syam Nair emphasized that the combination enables true zero-copy activation. Following the acquisition, DataPelago will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of NetApp. The deal follows NetApp’s recent partnerships with Cisco, Google Cloud, Red Hat, and SK Telecom, signaling continued growth in AI infrastructure.
Stock futures are little changed as traders shift focus to earnings amid Middle East tensions
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US stock futures were little changed Monday evening as higher oil prices weighed on the major indexes and investors looked ahead to a busy week of corporate earnings, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq futures all hovering near flat. In regular trading, the Dow dropped 307 points (0.59%) pressured by a 2% decline in Apple shares, while the S&P 500 fell 0.19% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.05%. Oil prices rose after President Donald Trump posted that Tehran would pay for the deaths of three U.S. service members, with U.S. crude closing up 0.9% at $83.23 a barrel and Brent settling 1.3% higher at $89.22. The climb in energy prices pulled major averages lower, even as semiconductor stocks clawed back some losses—the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) posted a modest gain, aided by Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices.
Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed: Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.8%, South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.1%, but Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.58%. “It looks to be a quiet week ahead for stock investors that could be dominated by technicals and geopolitical headlines,” said Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management. “Earnings are continuing to flow in, but they may provide more support than a catalyst to send stock prices higher given lofty expectations.” Traders will hunt for details on artificial intelligence spending and listen for confirmation that executives aren’t becoming more cautious about the second half. Big names reporting this week include Alphabet, IBM, Tesla, General Motors, 3M, and Chubb.
Chris Fall, director of the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), has resigned just three months after his appointment, marking the latest leadership shakeup at the key AI standards body under the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The agency confirmed the departure to multiple outlets, though no reason was given. Fall, who previously led the Department of Energy’s Office of Science under the first Trump administration, succeeded Collin Burns, who left in less than a week in April after reportedly being “pushed out” due to his prior work at Anthropic amid Trump administration tensions with the company. Before Burns, venture capitalist David Sacks—then White House AI and crypto czar—stepped down in March. CAISI is the primary U.S. organization for developing technical standards, testing methods, and assessing cybersecurity risks for AI models. However, it was not involved in the recent model-risk controversy in June, when the Commerce Department invoked an export control directive forcing Anthropic to pull its Mythos and Fable models; the ban was lifted after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick approved Anthropic’s safety plans. The White House also signed an executive order for a new AI safety oversight program called “Gold Eagle,” but CAISI was not listed among participating federal agencies. Meanwhile, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis has called for an independent, industry-run standards body modeled after FINRA—a mission similar to CAISI’s. Fall’s resignation also follows debate over Chinese AI lab Moonshot’s new open model Kimi, which performed competitively against frontier models, and ongoing U.S. discussions about banning Chinese open-weight models. CAISI has released reports on Chinese models like GLM-5.2 and DeepSeek V4 Pro but has not detailed its testing processes. TechCrunch inquiries to the Department of Commerce and NIST about LLM evaluations have gone unanswered since July 9.
**Anthropic Settles Landmark $1.5 Billion Copyright Lawsuit, But Fair Use Debate Continues**
A federal judge has granted final approval to Anthropic’s landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action copyright lawsuit, allowing the AI lab to begin paying authors and publishers for using their copyrighted works without permission. The settlement, approved Monday by Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, resolves claims that Anthropic illegally downloaded and stored millions of copyrighted books to train its AI models. The payout will distribute $3,000 per work across approximately 500,000 works to rights holders.
While the settlement is the largest in U.S. copyright history, the underlying legal question remains unresolved. The court sided with Anthropic on the core issue, ruling that training AI models on copyrighted text constitutes fair use—a decision widely seen as a turning point for the AI industry. However, the judge found that Anthropic’s method of obtaining books from pirate sites like Library Genesis was illegal, prompting the settlement to avoid a trial on damages.
Because the case was settled, it will not reach an appeals court to set binding precedent, leaving other judges free to reach their own conclusions. The ruling does not settle the industry-wide legal question, as other lawsuits against Google, Meta, Midjourney, and OpenAI continue. Just last week, a group of publishers including Hachette, Cengage, and Elsevier filed a class action against Google over its use of copyrighted works to train its Gemini AI platform.
AI infrastructure startup Infinity announced a $15 million funding round at a $100 million valuation on Monday from investors including Touring Capital, Principal VC, and researchers from OpenAI and Anthropic, with the core goal of building a CUDA-alternative software stack that enables AI chips from any vendor to efficiently run AI models. The company addresses a key reason behind Nvidia’s dominance: its CUDA software, which allows GPUs to function as general-purpose processors and is the foundation of frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow. Most application-level startups lack the resources to write low-level kernel code to port models to non-Nvidia chips. Infinity’s universal inference library aims to automate that process for any chip type—SRAM, GPUs, phone chips, and systolic arrays.
Founded last year by former Google Brain researcher Jeremy Nixon (creator of the AGI House hacker community), Infinity is part of a wave of startups chipping away at Nvidia’s market lead. Its AI research agent, Ignition, writes, tests, and optimizes low-level inference code for alternative chips, self-optimizing across different architectures and claiming to deliver CUDA-level performance. A case study showed the agent reduces development from months or years to hours or days. Human engineers still provide high-level direction.
Customers include AI chip maker D-Matrix, and Infinity is in talks with other major chip and cloud companies. Instead of upfront license fees, the startup charges a cut of performance gains and cost savings measured in tokens per second. Infinity currently has 26 employees across design, operations, and engineering.
NUBURU Inc, a dual-use defense and security platform company, has closed its best-efforts public offering raising gross proceeds of $38m, positioning the firm to advance its proposed Tekne acquisition and address NYSE American delisting compliance through a planned reverse stock split. The offering consisted of 244,372,984 shares of common stock and/or pre-funded warrants, each accompanied by Series B Preferred Stock, at a combined price of $0.1555 per share or $0.1554 per pre-funded warrant—representing a ~30% premium to the $0.1199 closing price on July 15. Proceeds, before agent fees and expenses, will fund the acquisition of a controlling stake in Tekne, repay outstanding debentures, and simplify NUBURU’s capital structure. The offering was led by a New York-based single-family office with participation from accredited investors and family offices; Joseph Gunnar & Co LLC acted as exclusive placement agent. However, because NUBURU’s stock traded below $0.10 during the trading day, the company received a notice from NYSE American indicating violation of Section 1003(f)(v) and that proceedings to delist common stock would commence. NUBURU plans to appeal and implement a reverse stock split, already approved by stockholders, to regain compliance. Executive chairman and co-CEO Alessandro Zamboni expressed gratitude to investors, stating the capital positions the company to advance the Tekne acquisition, simplify capital structure via debenture repayment, and build the integrated defense and security platform. Co-CEO Dario Barisoni highlighted progress on the Golden Power process and integration of software, photonics, electronic warfare, defense mobility, and advanced manufacturing into a unified platform.
Stock futures traded near flat on Sunday evening after the S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and Dow Jones Industrial Average all posted weekly losses, pressured by a sharp decline in semiconductor stocks that signals continued weakness in the chip sector. S&P 500 futures dipped 0.1%, Nasdaq-100 futures hovered around the flatline, and Dow futures fell 84 points (0.2%). Last week, the S&P 500 dropped 1.6%, the Nasdaq sank 2.9%, and the Dow lost 0.9%. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) suffered its third weekly decline in four weeks, losing nearly 9%. BTIG chief market technician Jonathan Krinsky warned that the chip selloff may not be over, stating it is "probably too soon to look for a bottom" despite a possible short-term bounce.
Traders also monitored escalating U.S.-Iran tensions over the weekend. U.S. forces attacked Iran for the eighth consecutive night, while Iran intensified airstrikes on American bases. A third U.S. service member was killed, and unidentified remains were found near a July 17 attack in Jordan. Oil futures rose on the conflict: West Texas Intermediate gained 3% to above $85 per barrel, and Brent crude added 3% to above $91.
Investors await a busy earnings week, including "Magnificent Seven" members Alphabet and Tesla (reporting Wednesday after the bell) and Intel (Thursday), which fell 13% last week amid the chip rout.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spent July 15-16 in Tokyo securing Japan-wide AI and robotics deals, including a national AI factory, robotics partnerships, and chip-material agreements, targeting physical AI for factory floors and machines. The visit produced three major projects: Noetra, a sovereign-AI consortium backed by 44 domestic firms and up to ¥1 trillion ($6.2 billion) over five years, with Nvidia building a Vera Rubin AI factory (13,750 Vera CPUs, 27,500 Rubin GPUs, 140 MW) expected by 2028; a robotics coalition including Fanuc, Yaskawa, Kawasaki Heavy, Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC, Sony, SoftBank, Kubota, and AIRoA adopting Nvidia’s Cosmos 3 Edge models on Jetson Thor chips; and Toyota committing to Nvidia’s Drive platform for next-gen vehicles and manufacturing simulations. Japan aims to deploy 10 million AI-equipped robots across 18 sectors by 2040, backed by $65 billion in public-private investment, targeting over 30% of the global AI robotics market valued at ¥20 trillion ($133 billion). Huang appeared with trade minister Ryosei Akazawa and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, emphasizing Japan’s sovereign push for domestic AI compute while relying on American silicon. The Noetra factory, billed as “the world’s first national AI infrastructure,” trains trillions-of-parameter foundation models for physical AI, with three stages: a reasoning model (fiscal 2026), omni-modal (2028), and Real-world Native AI for robots (2030). The Takaichi administration’s growth plan targets ¥370 trillion ($2.3 trillion) in investment by 2040, centering AI and semiconductors. Huang’s two-day blitz included meetings with Toyota, Fanuc, Yaskawa, Fujitsu, Kawasaki CEOs, and supply-chain chiefs, mirroring his Taiwan keynote and Seoul GPU deal.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Credit: DIGITIMES Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has delivered a clear message ahead of his trip to Japan: the chipmaker's growth is still accelerating, even with quarterly revenue approaching US$100 billion.
Alphabet and Tesla lead a busy earnings week as 77 S&P 500 companies report Q2 results, with strong early season showing as 88% exceed expectations. The reports follow a tough week on Wall Street dragged lower by semiconductor declines and Iran-U.S. tensions.
**Tuesday** – General Motors reports before the bell. Analysts expect over 25% bottom-line growth. Deutsche Bank notes no change in consumer behavior despite macro instability. GM shares rose after the last three reports.
**Wednesday** – CME Group reports premarket; earnings forecast to fall slightly. Morgan Stanley remains bullish, citing strong moat in futures and options. IBM reports after close, limping in after a 25% plunge on disappointing preliminary results. Oppenheimer downgraded the stock, citing difficulty meeting full-year guidance.
**Tesla** reports after Wednesday’s close; earnings forecast up 25% year over year. Jefferies flags strong China/Europe volume but highlights risks in Cybercab output and Robotaxi ramp. Shares fell after three of the last four releases.
**Alphabet** reports after Wednesday’s close; earnings and revenue expected to grow over 20%. BMO raised price target to $455, noting investors expect Gemini models to remain competitive. Alphabet has beaten expectations for 13 straight quarters.
**Thursday** – Intel reports after close; expected revenue growth above 12% year over year. Susquehanna expects strong Q2 but warns of weaker second-half PC builds due to worsening memory dynamics. Intel beats earnings 77% of the time but averages a 1.3% decline on earnings days.
Honda Prologue discontinuation highlights a broader EV industry retreat from the U.S. market in 2026, as multiple automakers pull models due to the end of the $7,500 federal tax credit, tariffs, changing consumer tastes, and regulatory pressures. The Prologue, which sold roughly 33,000 units in 2024 and 39,000 in 2025 before sales collapsed, was built at GM’s Mexico plant. Honda also canceled its Acura RDX, Honda 0 sedan and SUV, and the Sony-Honda joint venture Afeela EVs. Hyundai stopped selling the Ioniq 6 (made in South Korea) while its Georgia-built Ioniq 5/9 continue. Nissan dropped the 2026 Ariya. Polestar effectively exited the U.S. due to a ban on Chinese-connected vehicle tech. Tesla ended Model S and Model X production to focus on AI, autonomy, and robots. Volkswagen halted production of the ID.4 and paused the ID Buzz until 2027. Volvo pulled the EX30 and EX30 Cross Country. Despite these exits, U.S. EV sales are slowly recovering: Q2 2026 sales were 20.5% lower than Q2 2025, improving from a 36% drop in Q4 2025. New EVs like the Rivian R2 are entering, and the market expects a gradual rebound. TechCrunch will update this list periodically.
Kimi AI: Threat or Menace?
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Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI released the open-source Kimi K3 model this week, sparking renewed debate over China’s role in open-source AI and sending chip stocks like Nvidia lower as the Nasdaq fell about 1% on Friday. Moonshot stated that Kimi K3 “still trails the most powerful proprietary models, Claude Fable 5 and GPT 5.6 Sol,” but demonstrated “frontier-level performance” across evaluations, consistently outperforming other tested models. Independent analyses from Arena.ai and Vals AI confirmed Kimi is competitive with flagship frontier models. The launch coincided with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech at the World AI Conference in Shanghai, amplifying concerns about US-China AI competition amid the Trump administration’s tariff war and national security debates. Former White House AI czar David Sacks warned that the US is “tying itself in knots” with regulations, while former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick accused Chinese firms of “distilling off” American AI models—though US models have also been built on Chinese ones. OpenAI’s Dean Ball called Kimi “a very good model” whose performance likely cannot be explained by distillation alone, and suggested the Trump administration may create regulatory risk around Chinese open-weight models via soft law to generate “fear, uncertainty, and doubt.” However, AI editor Shakeel Hashim argued fears are overblown, as Kimi likely lacks dangerous cyber capabilities and China will face similar incentives to restrict open models once they reach that threshold. The controversy mirrors the debate after DeepSeek’s R1 launch in January 2025, but is now heightened by geopolitical tensions and upcoming AI company IPOs.
Index Ventures co-founder Neil Rimer warns of impending wealth redistribution in the AI era, voluntary or forced, as tech philanthropy declines and wealth concentration reaches Gilded Age levels. In a late May interview in Athens, Rimer said he has “a strong sense that there will be some sort of a redistribution” from AI-generated wealth, hoping it’s voluntary. Index Ventures, which raised roughly $15 billion from outside investors and netted about $9 billion from exits including Figma’s IPO and Google’s purchase of Wiz, reflects the scale of new fortunes. Meanwhile, the Giving Pledge is losing steam—only four signatories in 2024—and overall U.S. charitable giving participation fell to roughly half of households, down from two-thirds in 2000. California voters will decide this year on a 5% one-time wealth tax targeting billionaires; OpenAI is reportedly considering going public in 2027, partly to avoid the tax. Elon Musk became the first trillionaire after SpaceX’s IPO,
Databricks announced a new funding round valuing the AI data analytics company at $188 billion, led by Coatue, with the raise estimated at roughly $3 billion and expected to close later this summer, marking another leap in its valuation as it successfully pivots from a SaaS-era data platform to an AI powerhouse. The company, which has raised multiple rounds over the past year and a half—including a $5 billion Series L five months ago at a $134 billion valuation, a $1 billion round at $100 billion in September 2025, and a record $10 billion at $62 billion in December 2024—now faces memes about running out of alphabet letters for its funding rounds. Founded in 2013, Databricks initially built its success on cloud-based data storage and analytics, then repositioned itself as an AI provider by launching products like Lakebase (a database for AI agents), Unity (an AI gateway), and Omnigent (a meta-harness managing multiple agents). It has increasingly championed affordable Chinese open-weight models for cost control, a key 2026 trend, especially Z.ai’s GLM 5.2 for coding tasks. Last week, CEO Ali Ghodsi shared internal benchmarking showing that open models like GLM 5.2 handle high-level coding at lower cost than proprietary models from Anthropic and OpenAI, and that the choice of agentic coding harness—such as open-source Pi—equally impacts cost and quality. These developments reinforce Databricks’ AI-halo, driving its valuation surge as investors chase AI-focused companies.
Vertu Alphafold, a luxury foldable phone with a built-in AI agent called Hermes targeting executives, is the core news point for readers seeking smartphone AI features and luxury business devices. The UK-founded luxury phone maker, known for hand-finished devices costing tens of thousands of dollars, has launched the Alphafold starting at $6,880, pairing calfskin leather and titanium with an AI designed to automate executive workflows—analyzing documents, planning trips, and managing tasks. However, a TechCrunch review reveals the Alphafold is built on a ZTE Nubia hardware platform, with striking similarities to the $1,100 ZTE Nubia Fold, including hinge design, dimensions, and ZTE identifiers in the software. Vertu confirmed a supply-chain partnership with ZTE/Nubia for hardware, while Vertu provides luxury materials, software, quality control, and after-sales service. The 264-gram Alphafold feels heavier than Samsung’s 215-gram Galaxy Z Fold 7, but its curved frame aids unfolding. The Hermes Agent impressed with local file analysis and multi-step workflow automation, surpassing Google Gemini on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 in some tasks. Yet, in tests simulating executive scenarios—like messaging a contact, navigating to the airport, and setting reminders—Hermes acted more autonomously but made errors (e.g., wrong reminder time, incorrect trip dates), while Gemini asked clarifying questions for more accurate results. Ultimately, Vertu’s bet is not on building a better foldable but on selling an AI agent as a digital executive assistant to the ultra-wealthy, though the hardware’s ZTE foundation and mixed AI performance raise questions about its value proposition.
Amazon (AMZN) is setting up for a potential breakout, with technical charts across multiple time frames signaling a bullish reversal that could position the e-commerce and cloud giant as the next Magnificent Seven stock to reclaim market leadership amid the AI buildout. The stock recently gapped above prior resistance near $245, closing above its 50-day moving average, while forming an inverted head-and-shoulders pattern on the one-year daily chart. Momentum indicators confirm the move: a bullish divergence in the RSI from the left shoulder to the pattern lows, and a bullish MACD crossover buy signal as the stock turned higher from recent lows. On the five-year weekly chart, AMZN has been consolidating beneath its 1.618 Fibonacci extension level of ~$254, a level it previously reached three times. After recently eclipsing that mark, the next Fibonacci-based upside target is ~$360 (2.618 extension). Relative strength against the Consumer Discretionary Sector (XLY) also shows AMZN breaking above its 50-period relative strength moving average, a pattern that previously preceded an 82% rally. For short-term traders, a stop below $245 targets upside to $270; for longer-term holders, maintaining above the uptrend at $220 supports a bullish target of $360, while a break below $220 would warrant re-evaluation. The technical setup, combined with Amazon’s role as a primary beneficiary of the next phase of artificial intelligence expansion, presents what analysts describe as an attractive risk/reward opportunity.
the price hikes
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Apple has raised prices across its Mac, iPad, and other product lines today, citing “unsustainable” increases in component costs—particularly for memory and high-bandwidth memory driven by AI server demand—as confirmed by CEO Tim Cook in a recent interview and reiterated in an official statement to Reuters. The price hikes, which Cook described as “unavoidable,” affect the base models of MacBook Neo (now $699, up from $599), 13-inch MacBook Air ($1,299, up from $1,099), 15-inch MacBook Air ($1,499, up from $1,299), M5 MacBook Pro ($1,999, up from $1,699), and numerous other Macs. iPads also see increases, including iPad ($449, up from $349), 11-inch iPad Air ($749, up from $599), and iPad Pro models. Additional products like Apple TV 4K ($199), HomePod ($349), HomePod mini ($129), and Vision Pro ($3,699) have also risen. iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods pricing remains unchanged. Tim Cook explained that Apple had tried to shield customers but “the situation has become unsustainable,” noting that memory suppliers are “passing along huge price increases” as more high-bandwidth memory is allocated to AI servers. Apple’s statement to Reuters called it an unprecedented component price surge. For shoppers, many Apple products on Amazon remain at prior discounts during Prime Day, including the M5 MacBook Air 13-inch from $949 and M5 Pro MacBook Pro from $2,034.
**General Compute secures $400M loan from Upper90 using inference-specific chips as collateral**, a deal that marks a first for the emerging AI inference cloud sector and signals growing financial market appetite for cost-efficient, Nvidia-alternative infrastructure. The startup, founded by CEO Finn Puklowski and CTO Jason Goodison, raised a $15 million seed round in May to build a neocloud powered by SambaNova’s SN50 chips—purpose-built for inference, not training. These chips are power-efficient, don’t require water cooling, and can be deployed faster across more data centers. General Compute claims they deliver 16x faster inference than GPU-based clouds.
Upper90, a tech investment firm led by former Goldman Sachs quant Billy Libby, structured the loan—possibly the first to put inference-specific chips as collateral. Libby previously financed GPU purchases for Crusoe in 2021, pioneering chip-backed loans before CoreWeave turned the model into an IPO blockbuster. Now, with GPUs well-understood and possibly over-bought, Upper90 is betting on the next wave: open-source inference. “Everyone doesn’t need a supercomputer, but they do need inference and AI,” Libby said.
The financing reflects a broader market shift: open-source model providers like OpenRouter and Fireworks are raising large rounds, new chipmakers like Groq and Cerebras attract acquirer interest, and TensorWave makes a similar bet on AMD. As alternative chips scale, General Compute’s access to non-Nvidia silicon gives it a cost-efficiency advantage. “This is the first signal of capital organizing itself and the fragmenting of Nvidia’s monopolistic dominance,” Puklowski said.
NUBURU Inc, a dual-use defense and directed-energy technology company, has announced a proposed best-efforts public offering of up to $38m at a 5% premium to market to fund its acquisition of a 70% controlling stake in European defense manufacturer Tekne S.p.A.
The offering, announced on 17 July 2026, is priced at $0.1555 per share or equivalent security, representing a premium to the 10 July closing price. If fully subscribed, NUBURU intends to use net proceeds to satisfy financial assurance requirements under the Italian Government Golden Power review, enabling completion of the Tekne acquisition. Funds will also redeem approximately $15.5m in outstanding debenture principal and $1.25m in convertible notes from the Lyocon acquisition, ending recurring stock issuances under the firm’s standby equity purchase agreement. The capital raise will strengthen stockholders’ equity and pro forma tangible book value to support NYSE American continued-listing compliance, and provide working capital to halt use of the equity line for at least 90 days.
Joseph Gunnar & Co LLC is exclusive placement agent. The move aligns with NUBURU’s Defense & Security transformation plan, advancing non-kinetic effects, electronic warfare, and advanced manufacturing capabilities through the Tekne strategic alliance.