TRO | Tesla And SpaceX Become An Nvidia Challenger, Building A Chip Factory In Texas

Plus, Lovable Reaches US$13.3 Billion Valuation and Anthropic Could Go Public At A US$2 Trillion Valuation

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Meliora Company
August 17, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

 Subscribe | 17th August, 2026

In this fast-moving Vertical AI economy, headlines are everywhere but optimism is rare.

Here’s our take on 3 stories that will help you be relentlessly optimistic about the future.

1. Tesla And SpaceX Commit US$16.8 Billion To Build A Chip Factory In Texas

Tesla and SpaceX have announced a joint US$16.8 billion investment to begin construction of Terafab, a semiconductor manufacturing facility in Texas. The factory will initially produce chips for Tesla's autonomous vehicles and robotics division, and SpaceXAI's Grok models, with capacity to supply third-party customers over time. The investment is structured across multiple phases, with the first phase targeting production of 100,000 wafers per month by end of 2028. The announcement arrives as the US government continues to pressure domestic chip manufacturing under its CHIPS Act commitments.

Here’s why this matters: The vertical integration story at SpaceX and Tesla has been building for years, and Terafab is its most concrete expression yet. Owning chip manufacturing eliminates one of the most significant dependencies in both the autonomous vehicle and AI industries: access to semiconductors during periods of global supply constraint. The more significant implication is competitive. A chip factory jointly owned by the two most valuable companies in Elon Musk's portfolio, supplying AI and automotive compute internally before selling to third parties, is a direct challenge to Nvidia's position as the indispensable infrastructure layer of the AI economy. The era of every AI company depending on the same chip supplier is evolving.

2. Lovable Valuation Reaches US$13.3 Billion As Vibe Coding Reaches Escape Velocity

Lovable has raised US$400 million in a Series C led by Menlo Ventures and the Scaleup Europe Fund, confirming a US$13.3 billion valuation - double its US$6.6 billion valuation from December. The raise follows the start-up hitting US$500 million in annualised revenue in June, hosting 60 million projects attracting 900 million monthly visitors. Lovable has developed its own in-house AI model alongside frontier model options, signed a multiyear Google Cloud deal in June expanding usage fivefold, and has begun backing other European start-ups including Danish hardware vibe-coding platform Atech.

Here’s why this matters: Lovable's trajectory tells its own story without the numbers. Lovable has gone from a December fundraise to doubling its valuation in eight months, driven almost entirely by product-led growth with a lean team. The Scaleup Europe Fund's co-lead position is significant: European institutional capital backing a European AI start-up at this scale, in competition with US and Asian alternatives, is exactly the outcome European sovereign AI advocates have been pushing for. For the broader technology industry, Lovable's growth confirms that vibe coding has moved from trend to infrastructure. The question is no longer whether natural language software development works. It is who builds the platform that owns it.

3. Anthropic Could Go Public At A US$2 Trillion Valuation

Anthropic is preparing to go public as early as October, with shareholders anticipating a valuation of over US$2 trillion that would eclipse SpaceX and become the largest IPO ever completed. Investors estimate annualised revenue could reach US$100 to US$120 billion by end of 2026, more than 10 times its level at the start of the year. At that growth rate, a valuation of US$3 trillion is not unreasonable. Management has not yet set a target valuation. Anthropic filed paperwork with the SEC in June and is now in a quiet period.

Here’s why this matters: The revenue trajectory is the most significant number in this story. Growing from under US$10 billion to potentially US$120 billion in annualised revenue in a single year would be without precedent in the history of American business. For the TMT industry, the IPO will provide the first verified public window into Anthropic's financials, including its cost structure and path to profitability. Two risks are worth watching: Washington's ongoing friction with Anthropic, which briefly forced the withdrawal of its most powerful models in June, and pricing pressure, with Anthropic's flagship model now reported to cost two and a half times more than OpenAI's as cheaper Chinese alternatives continue to close the capability gap.

Award Nominated Podcast: The Relentless Optimist 

How do you convince Elton John to play an intimate gig at London’s Union Chapel?

Nominated for the 2026 British Podcast Awards, The Relentless Optimist tells stories of founding courage and making the impossible the inevitable.

Every episode of Series 1 available now.

Still Curious?

Our Pursuit Of Better

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Founded in 2002, Omilia has raised US$67 million in Series B funding led by Expedition Growth Capital. The Athens-based start-up deploys self-learning voice agents across customer contact points for Capital One, Discover, RBC, and Taco Bell, with over 1,000 Taco Bell outlets now using its voice ordering system. The company is targeting US$1 billion in revenue within three years.

Cloudflare has launched Kitesurf, a headless browser built for AI agents rather than human users, allowing agents to navigate and interact with websites without needing a visible interface. The browser handles JavaScript rendering, cookie management, and bot detection bypass, giving AI agents reliable access to the web at scale. Kitesurf is available now through Cloudflare's developer platform with usage-based pricing.

The Pursuit of Better, Together

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