Company
Hudson River Trading (HRT) is a quantitative trading firm that uses algorithmic models and high-performance computing to trade securities across global markets.
PicoJool, the Gelsinger-backed optics startup, raised a $27.5 million Series A to get its VCSEL links for AI data centers qualified with customers. For operators, that means a new low-power option to put through trials, with volume supply still at the planning stage.
Reality
The first customer is also the lead investor, which blunts the validation. What is left is a non-Nvidia inference system buyers can benchmark instead of read about.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishersReality
The $375m Series C priced Positron at $3.5bn before the money, and the up-to-$500m follow-on has to be sitting at $4.5bn pre-money to reach the $5bn headline, which only holds if every dollar of it is drawn.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishersReality
The $875 million round prices an inference chip whose performance figures come from cycle-accurate simulations and whose production date has moved from early 2027 into the second half. The system Positron ships today runs on HBM.
Reality
The pre-IPO round is being discussed against a valuation of $12bn or more. What it repairs is a balance sheet built on loans against accelerators nobody can price at resale.
Reality
HRT went from new CoreWeave account to a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar commitment in about five months, and bought early access to NVIDIA's newest parts along the way.
Reality
Management says scale is starting to show up as operating leverage. The release as supplied gives a backlog, power figures and more than $14bn of fresh capital, but no margin numbers.
Reality