Nikkei Asia:
Analysis: China imported a record $30.9B in chipmaking equipment in 2024, including $9.63B from Japan, $9.53B from the Netherlands, and $4.86B from Singapore  —  TAIPEI/SEOUL — China bought a record amount of foreign chipmaking equipment in 2024 as part of efforts to massively expand domestic chip production …

Bloomberg:
Deep dive on the evolution of Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI, from its $1B investment in 2019 through Copilot rollouts and ChatGPT's launch to present day  —  Nervous customers and a volatile partnership with OpenAI are complicating things for Satya Nadella and the world's most valuable company.

Dan Primack / Axios:
Carta: VC deals are stalling at seed, with the Series A deal count falling by 79% between Q1 2022 and Q1 2025; 46% of seed deals were bridge rounds in Q1 2025  —  Top of the Morning  —  Venture capital's series progression is stalling at seed, according to new data released this morning by Carta.

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
London-based Granola, which provides an AI-based notetaking app, raised a $43M Series B led by NFDG at a $250M valuation, taking its total funding to $67M  —  AI-powered notetaking tool Granola has been on a roll.  The startup's seen a steep uptick in usage since it launched a year ago …

Reuters:
Utah-based property management software firm Entrata raised $200M from Blackstone at a $4.3B valuation; Entrata raised $507M from Silver Lake and others in 2021  —  Entrata on Thursday announced a $200 million minority investment from alternative asset manager Blackstone (BX.N) …