Parikshit Augmented Generation_VC — 2026-06

Overview: June added a mix of (1) AI architecture + economics (post-transformer, “dark output,” energy/water footprint), (2) biotech globalization + policy (China outbound investment screening, CDMO restrictions, VC-backed clinical infrastructure), and (3) defense/space + infrastructure resilience.

• Included articles (June 2026):
  • Contraline gins up $92.5M in male birth control development push
  • The Sequence Knowledge #870: Liquid Models and the Search for a Post-Transformer Architecture
  • A divisive bill seeks to limit biotech investment in China
  • a16z’s global mission
  • Powerstack: Energy hoarding is the new strategy
  • AI Dark Output: The Visible Cost of Invisible Output
  • A Functional Taxonomy of World Models - by Fei-Fei Li
  • How RA Capital is offering ‘Chinese clinical expertise in a box’
  • Giant radar satellite set to probe Earth’s shifts and shudders
  • WuXi AppTec lands on Pentagon blacklist, facing Biosecure ban
  • India's policy contradictions make it harder for investors to crack market
  • On Training Data for Bio AI Models - by Bauer LeSavage
  • Dario Amodei — Machines of Loving Grace
  • Dan Dreyfus: America’s Infrastructure is Shockingly Fragile
  • The Sequence Knowledge #874: Transformers or Not?
  • Charts of the Week: Making the Stuff that Makes the Stuff
  • We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.
  • Analog reservoir AI chip enables real-time learning (TDK)
  • Token Capital vs Human Capital: Satya Nadella’s AI Problem
  • The Sequence Knowledge #878: Beyond Transformer: What We Learned
  • SpaceX to acquire the AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion
  • A Tale of Two Labs: Natera & Invitae
  • How to Win a Space War
  • A New Era of Midjourney
  • Lilly launches TuneLab platform…

Contraline gins up $92.5M in male birth control development push

Summary

Contraline raised a $92.5M Series B to advance a topical male contraceptive gel (NES/T: segesterone acetate + testosterone) into Phase 3, positioning men’s contraception as an emerging “consumerized” healthcare category.

Key points

• Series B co-led by BVF Partners and RA Capital; participation from GV, Lumira, Invus, others.
• Lead product NES/T Gel is hormone-based; aims to suppress sperm production while maintaining physiological testosterone.
• Completed Phase 2b (462 couples); Phase 3 expected in 2027.
• Contraline also developing ADAM, a non-hormonal, long-acting, reversible implant.

So what?

If Phase 3 financing is now secured, the remaining bottlenecks shift to trial execution, regulatory strategy, and ultimately distribution strategy (partner vs direct). This is also a test case for whether “men’s health as DTC channel” can support specialty-like therapeutics beyond ED/hair-loss.

The Sequence #870: Liquid Models and the Search for a Post-Transformer Architecture

Summary

Argues that transformer attention is powerful but has a “physics” cost (memory/compute scaling), motivating renewed interest in dynamic/continuous-time “liquid” models as alternatives for always-on, low-latency, on-device intelligence.

Key points

• Transformers externalize memory via context + KV cache; scaling costs show up sharply for long-running agents.
• Liquid models shift framing from attention-as-lookup to dynamics (continuous-time evolution).