Crusoe vs Modal

Crusoe abandons $1.25B Boom turbine deal for AI data centers

Crusoe, a Denver-based AI data center startup, has abandoned a $1.25 billion agreement to purchase 29 of Boom Supersonic's 42-megawatt Superpower natural gas turbines. The deal, announced last year, positioned Crusoe as Boom's launch customer for its stationary power plant business. Boom CEO Blake Scholl confirmed the termination in a social media post, noting that turbines are no longer part of Crusoe's near-term power mix. A Crusoe spokesperson cited the need for flexible energy solutions as the reason. The company's Abilene campuses for OpenAI and Oracle are grid-powered, while a Microsoft campus uses on-site gas turbines. Losing the launch customer is a setback for Boom, which raised $300 million in 2025 largely to commercialize this business.

• Crusoe terminates $1.25B turbine purchase agreement with Boom Supersonic.
• Agreement covered 29 units of Boom's 42-megawatt Superpower turbines.
• First deliveries were planned for 2027.

Crusoe on Track for $2B Revenue Amid Data Center Backlash

Crusoe, a data center builder and cloud provider, is on track for $2 billion in revenue this year, according to financials obtained by Newcomer. The company recently raised $3.9 billion at a $30.9 billion valuation, led by Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, and Mubadala. CEO Chase Lochmiller believes better marketing can quell the political uproar against data centers. The article highlights the contradiction of the AI industry's rapid growth and its uncertain future, as public backlash against data centers builds.

• Crusoe raised $3.9 billion at a $30.9 billion valuation.
• The funding round was led by Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, and Mubadala.
• Crusoe is on track to generate $2 billion in revenue this year.

AI Week: Gemini 3.8, OpenAI Astra for Law, Figure Helix 2.5, Crusoe $3.9B

This weekly roundup covers key AI developments: Google's Gemini 3.8 Live models with background tool calls and simultaneous reasoning; OpenAI's Astra for Law, a specialized GPT-6 Astra configuration for legal workflows; Figure's Helix 2.5 humanoid policy showing zero-shot generalization in 30 unseen homes; and Crusoe's $3.9 billion Series F at a $30.9 billion valuation for AI infrastructure. Other news includes Profound's $180M Series D, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's comments on antitrust waivers, OpenAI's potential $1.2 trillion valuation funding round, Emulate's $700M seed talks, Manus's $500M raise, Bain Capital Ventures' $1.6B fund, Treble's $18M Series A-2, Snap's SPECS AR glasses, and SoftBank's increased Arm-backed margin loan. The article provides a comprehensive overview of AI infrastructure, robotics, and funding trends.

• Google introduced Gemini 3.8 Live and Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking for voice agents with real-time visual grounding and background tool calls.
• OpenAI launched Astra for Law, a GPT-6 Astra configuration with a Legal Search Index for legal work.
• Figure's Helix 2.5 improved zero-shot home task success from 9% to 56% across 30 unseen homes.

Modal Hits $1B ARR, Raises $750M Series D at $15.75B Valuation

Modal, an AI infrastructure startup, announced it has crossed $1 billion in annualized run rate and raised a $750 million Series D round at a $15.75 billion valuation, led by Accel. The company's usage has tripled since its Series C and grown more than 15x year-over-year. Modal's Sandboxes product, launched in 2023 in response to developers using LLMs to generate code, has become a $300 million run rate product on its own, with nearly 3 billion sandboxes spun up and scaling to a million concurrent. The funding round marks Modal's transition from an infra unicorn to an infra decacorn, positioning it as a key player in the AI infrastructure space.

• Modal raised a $750M Series D at a $15.75B valuation, led by Accel.
• Modal crossed $1B in annualized run rate.
• Usage has tripled since Series C and grown over 15x year-over-year.

Runtime recap: the full keynote, VM Sandboxes, Modal Clusters, and more.

Modal announces a runtime product update with VM Sandboxes and Modal Clusters, as highlighted in a blog post.

Modal Labs closing in on $750M round at $15.75B valuation

AI inference infrastructure provider Modal Labs is nearing a $750 million funding round led by Accel at a $15.75 billion valuation, according to a source. This would more than triple its valuation from $4.65 billion in May. The round comes amid surging demand for inference services, with other startups like Baseten, Fireworks, and Fal also raising at higher valuations. Modal Labs, founded in 2021 by Erik Bernhardsson and Akshat Bubna, provides infrastructure for training and running AI models without managing servers. The company has surpassed $300 million in annualized revenue as of May. The funding talks follow a security incident in July where a customer's data was compromised, but Modal's platform was not breached.

• Modal Labs is nearing a $750 million funding round led by Accel at a $15.75 billion valuation.
• The round would more than triple Modal Labs' valuation from $4.65 billion in May.
• Modal Labs has surpassed $300 million in annualized revenue as of May.