Kite, formerly Zettablock, has raised $18 million in Series A funding, bringing total capital raised to $33 million, as it launches Kite AIR for programmable agent identity, stablecoin payments, and policy enforcement.

Erebor, a proposed U.S. bank backed by Palmer Luckey, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, aims to serve crypto, AI, and defense startups left underserved after SVB’s collapse.

Erebor, a proposed U.S. bank backed by Palmer Luckey, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, aims to serve crypto, AI, and defense startups left underserved after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse.

Erebor, a proposed U.S. national bank backed by Palmer Luckey, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, aims to serve crypto, AI, and defense startups after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

A new bank called Erebor, backed by Palmer Luckey, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, is seeking a U.S. national bank charter to serve crypto, AI, and defense startups after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Erebor, a proposed U.S. bank backed by Palmer Luckey, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, aims to serve crypto, AI, and defense startups after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Epirus has raised a $250 million Series D led by 8VC and Washington Harbour Partners, bringing total funding above $550 million. The company develops high-power microwave systems to counter drones and electronic threats, underscoring growing investor interest in defense tech.

Robinhood has unveiled a broad new product package in London, including Robinhood Earn with a 7% APY, tokenized stocks available for 24/7 trading across more than 120 countries, and perpetual futures on commodities, ETFs and FX in Europe with up to 10x leverage. According to the source article, the yield product is powered by a Morpho vault structured by Steakhouse and investing in spUSDG, USDe and SyrupUSDG, with roughly half of the yield currently coming from native returns and the other half from incentives. That makes part of the offer a customer-acquisition subsidy for now, though the article argues that growing USDG volume and treasury float sharing could eventually replace the marketing spend component. The launch is notable because Robinhood is distributing these products through its core app to 27 million users, supported by embedded wallets from Privy and insurance coverage through Lloyd’s of London for certain DeFi risks. Combined with tokenized equities that can be used as collateral, the company appears to be assembling the building blocks of an onchain prime brokerage model. The article also contrasts Robinhood’s strategy with Coinbase, and reviews other fintech developments involving Plaid’s potential IPO, Erebor’s deposit surge, and Meta’s reported interest in Kalshi.