The new era of AI agents and betting markets

Author

Jackson Berger
November 27, 2025

TL;DR. Anthropic just raised the bar with Claude Opus 4.5, now the leading AI model for coding and agent workflows and officially leapfrogging key competitors. Kalshi is surging as prediction markets go mainstream, pulling in a massive $1B round at an $11B valuation as trading volume explodes. And AWS is going big on government AI, committing $50B to build next-generation infrastructure.

Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.5, leading AI for coding and agents

Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4.5, its most powerful model yet. It outperforms Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.1 on benchmarks and handles agent tasks, terminal commands, and long conversations more efficiently. With a lower price point and smarter context handling, it looks like a practical upgrade for developers and researchers.

Kalshi’s valuation jumps to $11B after raising massive $1B round

Prediction market Kalshi raised $1B at an $11B valuation, up from $5B in its previous round. The company has surged in popularity through election and pop culture forecasting, reportedly reaching $50B in annualized trading volume.

AWS is spending $50B to build AI infrastructure for the US government

Amazon Web Services announced a $50B investment to build high-performance AI and supercomputing infrastructure for U.S. government agencies. It will add 1.3 gigawatts of compute power across classified cloud regions with the goal to transform missions in defense, research, and innovation.

PitchBook flags venture secondaries as core market infrastructure

In PitchBook’s latest Secondary Market Watch report, venture secondaries are moving from fringe to foundational. $80.3B in direct secondary volume and major acquisitions by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Charles Schwab point to rising institutional confidence. Rapid SPV growth is widening access, but investors still need to evaluate structure, rights, and fees since quality varies. The market is becoming a permanent pillar of venture, with continued progress needed on transparency, pricing consistency, and broader access.

Quick Takes

More notable fundings this week

Revolut: raised at a $75B valuation – Fintech super app offering banking, trading, and payments. The UK-based company continues its global expansion with strong investor support.

Kraken: $800M in dual-tranche funding at a $20B valuation – One of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, Kraken is scaling ahead of a potential IPO. Backed by investors like Tribe Capital and Hummingbird Ventures.

X-energy: $700M Series D – Developer of next-generation nuclear reactors for clean energy. The round includes support from the U.S. Department of Energy and private investors focused on energy infrastructure.

Physical Intelligence: $600M raise at a $5.6B valuation – Robotics software company building AI for physical systems. The round was led by CapitalG, Alphabet’s growth fund.

Harmonic: $120M Series C at a $1.45B valuation – AI research lab developing Mathematical Superintelligence (MSI) for scientific discovery and reasoning. Investors include Lux Capital and DCVC.

🦃 Happy Thanksgiving from the Augment team!

We’re thankful to have you reading with us every week!

Until next time.
-Jack