Tags: technology funding

Anthropic announced Monday that it is forming a $1.5 billion joint venture with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Goldman Sachs to market its AI tools to corporate clients. Hours later, OpenAI disclosed a parallel effort, the Development Company, backed by $4 billion from 19 investors and valued at $10 billion. Both initiatives aim to give alternative asset managers preferred access to AI contracts while providing the labs with capital to expand engineering teams and embed technology directly into customer workflows. Weiterlesen

Artificial‑intelligence startup Anthropic is fielding preemptive bids to raise as much as $50 billion, potentially valuing the company at $850‑$900 billion. Sources say the round could total $40‑$50 billion and that investors are eager to commit, even before the firm decides at a May board meeting. Anthropic’s revenue run rate has surged past $30 billion, driven by its Claude coding tools, prompting investors to see untapped growth in sectors like finance and healthcare. The company has not commented on the fundraising talks. Weiterlesen

British AI start‑up Ineffable Intelligence announced a $1.1 billion funding round that values the company at $5.1 billion. Founded by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, the lab aims to create a “superlearner” that can acquire knowledge and skills through reinforcement learning alone, without relying on human‑generated data. The round was led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners and included investors such as Index Ventures, Google, Nvidia, the British Business Bank and the U.K.’s sovereign AI fund. Silver says any profits will fund high‑impact charities. Weiterlesen

AI research startup NeoCognition announced a $40 million seed financing led by Cambium Capital and Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from Vista Equity Partners, Intel CEO Lip‑Bu Tan and Databricks co‑founder Ion Stoica. The Ohio State‑based lab, headed by professor Yu Su, aims to create agents that can autonomously specialize across domains, addressing the reliability gap that plagues current AI assistants. The company plans to market its self‑learning agent platform to enterprise SaaS providers, leveraging Vista’s extensive software portfolio. Weiterlesen

Paris‑Milan venture firm 360 Capital has raised €85 million for a new deep‑tech vehicle supported by at least one major European defence prime. The fund, which adds to the firm’s €500 million‑plus asset base, targets dual‑use technologies at the intersection of software, hardware and national security. Backed by defence contractors seeking faster access to innovative startups, the vehicle aims to bridge Europe’s slow, fragmented procurement processes and provide portfolio companies with strategic procurement pathways. The move reflects a broader shift toward defence‑linked deep‑tech investing across the continent. Weiterlesen

Amazon is reportedly negotiating a major investment of at least $50 billion in OpenAI, which is seeking $100 billion in new funding that could lift its valuation to $830 billion. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is leading talks with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, while OpenAI also explores capital from sovereign wealth funds and tech giants. The deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter, highlighting Amazon’s deep ties to the AI sector through its AWS partnership with Anthropic and a new $11 billion data‑center campus in Indiana. Weiterlesen

The European Commission has launched a €307 million funding call under Horizon Europe to support research and development in artificial intelligence, data services, robotics, quantum technologies, and photonics. The program emphasizes trustworthy AI, ethical standards, and strategic autonomy, positioning Europe’s approach as values‑driven in contrast to the commercial speed of the United States. While the funding signals a strong policy commitment, officials acknowledge challenges in scaling infrastructure, talent, and market adoption needed to turn normative leadership into technological leadership. Weiterlesen

OpenAI has made the largest single investment in Merge Labs, the brain‑computer interface startup founded by Sam Altman and other tech leaders. The seed round, valued at $850 million, aims to develop non‑invasive technologies that connect to neurons using molecules and ultrasound. OpenAI’s involvement includes collaborating on scientific foundation models and AI tools to accelerate research. The move positions Merge Labs alongside other high‑profile BCI efforts such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink, while highlighting OpenAI’s strategy of investing in frontier technologies that could expand human interaction with artificial intelligence. Weiterlesen

Depthfirst, an AI‑focused cybersecurity startup, announced a $40 million Series A round led by Accel Partners with participation from SV Angel, Mantis VC, and Alt Capital. Founded in October 2024, the company offers its General Security Intelligence platform, an AI‑native suite that scans codebases, protects against credential exposures, and monitors threats to open‑source and third‑party components. The new capital will fund expanded research, engineering, product development, and sales teams. Co‑founder and CEO Qasim Mithani emphasized the need for defenses that keep pace with AI‑driven attacks, while the leadership team brings experience from Databricks, Amazon, Square, and Google DeepMind. Weiterlesen