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Apple explores Mistral, Perplexity deals

Rare M&A talks hint at a major AI shift in Cupertino

Author

Eddie Yoon
August 26, 2025 • Read time: 8 minutes

👋 Good morning/evening (wherever you are). It’s Tuesday.

Apple has quietly weighed the idea of buying two high-profile AI startups, Mistral and Perplexity, according to The Information.

It’s rare for Apple to even consider acquisitions of this scale, which makes the internal discussions more telling than the outcome.

A deal would give Apple instant leverage in AI with Mistral’s models and Perplexity’s search platform backed by Bezos and Nvidia.

OK let’s keep going ↓

🔥 Creative pulse

I’ve been testing “impossible shots” with the world’s best AI camera.

Yes, I’m talking about Google Gemini 2.5 Flash (nano banana). It’s pretty amazing.

I shared the 4 prompts in the LinkedIn post:

  • Front / God POV

  • Side Profile / Vortex

  • Back View / Infinite Mirrors

  • Three-Quarter Right / Fractal Orbit

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Inside the club, members are landing gigs, building connections, and creating together.

The AI creative wave is exploding. Don’t watch from the sidelines. One idea here could change your life. Join the AI Creative Club today.

💡 Here’s what you should know

💰 The numbers

  • Meta plans a colossal $50B investment in a new AI data center in Louisiana, dubbed the Hyperion facility.

  • JPMorgan committed $500M to Numerai, the Paul Tudor Jones–backed hedge fund that fuses crowdsourced AI models with crypto.

  • Attio raised $52M in Series B to scale its AI‑native CRM platform.

  • Assort Health closed a $50M Series B round, at a $750 million valuation, to scale its AI voice-agent platform that automates patient calls in healthcare practices.

  • Aurasell raised $30M in seed funding in just 28 hours to challenge legacy sales software with AI-driven automation.

  • Debut raised $20M to expand its AI-powered skin longevity ingredient discovery platform, starting deployment in Asia.

  • Eyebot secured $20M in Series A funding for its AI-powered vision test kiosks.

  • Nest Health closed $12.5M in Series A funding to expand its care services for Medicaid families.

  • Splight raised $12.4M in SAFE funding for its AI-enhanced grid technologies.

  • Barti Software raised $12M in Series A to advance its AI-powered eyecare EHR platform.

  • Kira closed a $6.7M seed round to help companies launch embedded AI fintech products.

  • AiGent raised $6M in seed funding for AI-driven distributed energy reliability systems.

  • Sleep.ai raised $5.5M in venture funding to accelerate commercialization of its AI-powered sleep intelligence platform.

🧠 Thought starters

😂 Meme of the day

Remember when this banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $6.24 million?

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

Join the AI Creative Club (you’ll find me there). It’s not only for artists and filmmakers…it’s for anyone who recognizes this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn as much as you can about AI to multiply your impact...to become superhuman. Remember, creativity is just intelligence having fun. This club is for ultra curious people, and if you’ve made it this far…you’re pretty damn curious and probably the smartest one in your circle of friends. It would be my honor to have you in there.

👋 Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and X (Twitter)

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