One of fantasy and sci-fi’s all-time greats has passed away. Artist Greg Hildebrandt, known for his iconic work on Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Marvel and Magic: The Gathering, died on Thursday at 85. He and his twin brother Tim, who died in 2006, were a powerhouse duo — the Brothers Hildebrandt — until they decided to pursue solo careers in 1981.

The duo was perhaps best known for their “Style B” poster (above) for the original Star Wars in 1977. Released in the UK (Tom Jung’s “Style A” was the original US poster), the art shows Luke Skywalker heroically hoisting his lightsaber high above his head like King Arthur wielded Excalibur. He’s flanked by a blaster-toting Princess Leia, with C-3PO and R2-D2 looking on from behind. Darth Vader’s imposing mask peers down on them in the background among a sea of stars, the Death Star and starfighters.

As for Luke and Leia’s noteworthy lack of resemblance to Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, neither the Brothers Hildebrandt nor Jung had access to the actors’ photos. So, they made do with generic hero images that could have been ripped from 1970s fantasy book covers. (Still rad, if not screen-accurate.) The Hildebrandt poster was used in the UK until January 1978, when it was replaced by Tom Chantrell’s “Style C” poster, which depicted the actual cast.

The brothers were also strongly associated with a series of The Lord of the Rings calendars. Decades before Peter Jackson brought the films to live action (and even before the 1978 animated version), their art — which drew on their influence from classic Disney films — was the most prominent visualization of Tolkien’s epic for many a 1970s fantasy reader.

Among Hildebrandt’s many other projects were comics for Marvel and DC, illustrations for Wizards of the Coast (Magic: The Gathering and Harry Potter), magazines Omni, Heavy Metal and Amazing Stories, album art for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Black Sabbath and a long list of book covers.

Hildebrandt also fought for freedom with his artistic gifts. After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he contributed illustrations for Operation USA’s benefit anthology comic book series. Profits were donated to Ukrainian refugee relief efforts. Explaining his decision, he wrote, “Any project that I can lend my art to that will thwart Putin is a project I will join with all my heart, soul and mind.”

Strange particles that have mass when moving one direction but no mass when moving in another were first theorised more than a decade ago. Now, these mass-shifting particles have been glimpsed in a semimetal exposed to extreme conditions.

“This [particle] is very bizarre. You can imagine walking on the streets of New York and if you go straight, you are super light, you are massless. But turn 90 degrees east or west, and you become super massive,” says …

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Money attracts money, as the saying goes. This week seemed to confirm it, with a couple startups announcing new rounds of funding only months after their previous ones, and familiar names launching new ventures.

Most interesting startup stories from the week

Whether it’s about IPOs, lobbying, or launching in public, finding momentum is key to success.

Confetti time: Salva Health won the Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 with the promise to lower breast cancer mortality thanks to an affordable screening device. The four other finalists out of the initial 200 shortlist were Gecko Materials, Luna, MabLab, and Stitch3D.

Half Zomato: India’s largest food delivery and quick-commerce scale-up Swiggy is looking to go public at a $11.3 billion value, less than half the market cap of its rival Zomato.

Wait and see: Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman declared that she wasn’t surprised that we haven’t seen a resurgence in startup IPOs yet. However, she thinks these will start to return with momentum in 2025.

EU Inc momentum: A petition calling for a new legal form for European startups is gaining momentum, with hopes of fostering Pan-European tech champions, but there are many hurdles to overcome along the way.

Eaten up: Generative AI unicorn ElevenLabs hired the team behind open source read-it-later app Omnivore. The team will now focus on ElevenReader, ElevenLabs’ own reader app.

Most interesting fundraises this week

If the names below sound familiar, it’s because several of these startups raised their previous rounds quite recently.

Chatbots: Sierra, an AI customer service startup co-founded by OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor and longtime Google exec Clay Bavor, is valued at $4.5 billion after raising $175 million.

Threat intelligence: French cybersecurity startup Filigran secured a $35 million Series B round of funding for its threat management suite of products, which includes both open source and enterprise offerings.

More bots: Read AI, whose AI bot summarizes meetings and more, released a Chrome extension and announced it raised $50 million in a Series B funding round, only six months after its $21 million Series A.

Protein cages: Archon Biosciences emerged from stealth and announced it raised $20 million in seed funding. The biotech startup is applying AI to drug development, with a focus on addressing shortcomings of antibody treatments.

Chip demand: GMI Cloud, a U.S.-based startup providing GPU cloud infrastructure, raised a Series A round of funding consisting of $15 million in equity and $67 million in debt financing. The round was led by Headline Asia, with participation from strategic investors based in Asia. 

Hot wave: Brightwave, a startup that developed an AI agent for asset managers, raised a $15 million Series A only four months after its seed round.

Most interesting VC and fund news this week

Wilde bets: Actor and director Olivia Wilde quietly launched a venture firm late last year, according to Bloomberg. Called Proximity Ventures, it is already investing in the consumer and enterprise sectors.

Same thesis, more capital: African venture capital firm Janngo Capital closed its oversubscribed second fund at €73 million (around $78 million) and plans to keep on writing checks ranging from €50,000 to €5 million.

New frontiers: Crosscut’s $100 million sixth fund will invest in “frontier tech,” including energy and power, space and underwater exploration, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, and security and defense.

Horizon Europe: The European Innovation Council will dedicate €1.4 billion (about $1.5 billion) to European deep tech research and startups next year, a €200 million budget increase in comparison with 2024.

Last but not least

AI is often present in funding stories these days, but aggregate data adds more nuance to the picture. Of the nearly 240 mega-rounds into U.S. startups that Crunchbase tracked so far this year, 87 went to biotech and healthcare, placing this category ahead of pure AI, although crossovers are common — for instance, in AI-enabled drug discovery. Xaira Therapeutics is one example; it raised a $1 billion mega-round earlier this year.

Meta is introducing some big changes with its Quest v71 update, including a redesign of Meta Horizon OS, a calendar app, and the ability to use Travel Mode on a train. The update will start rolling out gradually next week.

Let’s start with the redesign. Meta says that it’s “tweaking the look and feel of Horizon OS” and that new headsets will use an “improved” light theme by default. (Dark mode fans, fear not: the dark theme is still present, and if you’re already using it, Meta won’t switch you over automatically.) Meta has “also made assorted changes to the way panels look and behave, where the control bar resides, the colors of various UI elements, and so on,” according to a blog post. And the Settings menu has “a new look and layout” and improved search.

The calendar app looks like, well, a calendar app, and based on a brief video, it appears you’ll be able to look through different days while you’re in VR. Meta says the app can integrate with Google and Outlook calendars and will also include Meta Horizon Worlds events you subscribe to and meetings you’re invited to that take place in Meta Horizon Workrooms.

With the update to Travel Mode, you’ll be able to use the feature when on trains. Meta first introduced the feature in May, but at the time, it was only available to use on airplanes. Note that when in Travel Mode, you can’t use the Quest Pro or Touch Plus controllers, so some games might be difficult to play. Instead, Travel Mode is probably better suited for watching a movie or TV show while in transit. (Meta also explicitly says that you should not use travel mode in a car.)

The AI-powered search game is heating up, with OpenAI adding search capabilities to ChatGPT just yesterday, and Perplexity launching a macOS desktop app a week ago. Perplexity could be considered a leader in AI-powered search right now, and now Mac users can quickly use Perplexity’s advanced search engine right from their desktop without having to access it through a web browser.

If you’re not familiar with Perplexity, it’s a conversational search engine that launched the same year as ChatGPT. It allows you to ask questions and make queries using natural language (like how we communicate with each other in real life). Similar to ChatGPT, there are two tiers for users – a free ‘Standard’ tier which allows you to make unlimited ‘Quick’ searches, ideal for those seeking quick, basic answers produced by the Standard Perplexity AI Model (plus five free Pro tier searches a day), and the ‘Pro’ tier which includes Quick searches as well as 600 Pro searches a day.