Tags: funding

Sierra, the AI startup founded by former Salesforce co‑CEO Bret Taylor, announced a $950 million financing round led by Tiger Global and GV. The infusion lifts the company’s post‑money valuation above $15 billion and gives it more than $1 billion to pursue its goal of becoming the global standard for AI‑powered customer experiences. Sierra now serves over 40% of the Fortune 50, claims its agents handle billions of interactions, and has accelerated its annual recurring revenue from $100 million to $150 million in just a few months. Read more

Google announced a redesign of Gemini’s crisis‑help module that lets users reach suicide‑prevention hotlines and text services with a single tap. The update adds more empathetic language and keeps the help option visible throughout the conversation. The change comes as the company faces a wrongful‑death lawsuit accusing the chatbot of encouraging a user to end his life. Google also pledged $30 million to fund global crisis hotlines over the next three years, saying the move reflects its commitment to user safety. Read more

OpenAI announced the purchase of TBPN, a daily livestream talk show that focuses on artificial intelligence and tech leadership. The acquisition aims to strengthen OpenAI's corporate communications and create a dedicated space for constructive conversations about AI. TBPN will retain editorial independence while operating under OpenAI's Strategy organization. The move comes amid heightened scrutiny of OpenAI's public image, large funding rounds, and ongoing debates over its defense contracts and revenue generation strategies. Read more

Swiss startup Jua has introduced an AI‑driven weather model called EPT‑2 that it says surpasses leading systems from Microsoft and Google. In a new report, the company compares EPT‑2 head‑to‑head with Microsoft’s Aurora, ECMWF’s ENS and IFS HRES models, finding it more accurate on variables such as wind speed and temperature, 25% faster, and using 75% less computing power than Aurora. Jua emphasizes that its approach builds a native physics simulation rather than retrofitting AI onto legacy infrastructure, positioning it as a potentially world‑leading forecaster. Read more

OpenAI announced that its ChatGPT chatbot has climbed to 900 million weekly active users, adding to a base of 50 million paying subscribers. The surge in user engagement coincided with a massive $110 billion private financing round, featuring major commitments from Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank. The new capital values the company at roughly $730 billion and underscores the rapid momentum of its subscription growth. OpenAI highlighted faster response times, higher reliability and stronger safety as the product scales, positioning ChatGPT as a leading tool for learning, writing, planning and building across a global audience. Read more

OpenAI announced a $110 billion private funding round, the largest ever, with Amazon contributing $50 billion, and Nvidia and SoftBank each adding $30 billion. The round values the company at a $730 billion pre‑money valuation and includes extensive cloud‑computing partnerships, notably a new stateful runtime environment on Amazon’s Bedrock platform and massive compute commitments from both Amazon and Nvidia. Part of Amazon’s investment is contingent on OpenAI achieving artificial general intelligence or completing an IPO, underscoring the high stakes of the deal. Read more

OpenAI is reportedly close to securing a funding round that could exceed $100 billion, pushing its valuation past $850 billion. The effort comes as the ChatGPT maker explores new revenue streams, including ads for free users, to offset high cash burn. Major investors such as Amazon, SoftBank, Nvidia and Microsoft are said to be involved in early tranches, with additional capital expected from venture firms and sovereign wealth funds. The deal would mark one of the largest tech financings in recent history. Read more

Anthropic is in the final stages of raising a $20 billion capital infusion at a valuation of $350 billion, according to Bloomberg. Investor demand has pushed the company to seek twice the amount it originally targeted. The round includes participation from a range of venture firms and strategic partners, notably Nvidia and Microsoft, which are expected to provide the bulk of the funding. Anthropic recently rolled out new AI models for legal and business research and introduced coding agents that have been praised for boosting developer productivity. The fundraising effort comes amid intense competition among frontier AI labs and rising compute costs, with rivals like OpenAI also gearing up for large capital raises and potential IPOs. Read more

Voice‑AI startup ElevenLabs announced a $500 million financing led by Sequoia Capital, pushing its valuation to $11 billion. Existing backers a16z, Iconiq and several others increased their stakes, while new investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, EvanticCapital and Bond joined the round. The capital will fund research, product development and international expansion into markets like India, Japan, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico. Co‑founder Mati Staniszewski highlighted plans to broaden the company’s offerings beyond voice, including video content and multi‑modal AI agents. The company closed the prior year with $330 million in annual recurring revenue. Read more

Legal AI startup Harvey has purchased Hexus, a two‑year‑old firm that builds AI‑driven product demo, video, and guide tools. Hexus founder Sakshi Pratap says her San Francisco team has already joined Harvey, while engineers in India will transition after a new Bangalore office opens. The deal aligns with Harvey’s aggressive expansion, as the company recently confirmed an $8 billion valuation after raising $160 million, bringing total funding to $760 million. Harvey now serves more than 1,000 clients in 60 countries, including most of the top U.S. law firms, and aims to accelerate its suite for in‑house legal departments. Read more

LiveKit, a developer of real‑time AI voice and video infrastructure, announced a $100 million funding round that values the company at $1 billion. The round was led by Index Ventures with participation from existing backers such as Altimeter Capital Management, Hanabi Capital and Redpoint Ventures. LiveKit powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT voice mode and counts customers like xAI, Salesforce, Tesla, 911 emergency service operators and mental‑health providers. Founded in 2021 by Russ d’Sa and David Zhao as an open‑source project, the startup pivoted to a managed cloud offering to meet enterprise demand amid the voice‑AI boom. Read more

Anthropic announced a reshuffle of its executive team, moving Instagram co‑founder Mike Krieger from chief product officer to co‑lead its internal incubator, the Labs team, alongside Ben Mann. The company plans to double the size of the Labs group within six months, aiming to accelerate experimental AI product development. President Daniela Amodei highlighted the rapid pace of AI advancement as the reason for a new organizational approach. The shift comes amid intensifying competition among AI startups and tech giants, and Anthropic is reportedly preparing a major fundraising round. Read more

ElevenLabs, the AI voice‑generation startup, announced it has reached $330 million in annual recurring revenue. The company, founded in 2022 and launched its first product in 2023, achieved rapid growth, hitting $100 million ARR in 20 months, $200 million in 10 months and the current level in five months. Fortune 500 firms and emerging startups are adopting its voice‑agent platform, which powers customer support and experience interactions. Enterprises have deployed the technology to handle more than 50,000 calls each month. The firm recently closed a $180 million Series C round co‑led by a16z and ICONIQ Growth, pushing its valuation to $3.3 billion, and later secured an additional $100 million from ICONIQ and Sequoia. ElevenLabs also expanded its offerings with music‑creation tools and celebrity voice partnerships. Read more

Elon Musk's artificial‑intelligence firm xAI disclosed a $20 billion Series E financing round, drawing capital from a mix of private‑equity firms, sovereign investors and technology companies such as Valor Equity Partners, Fidelity, Qatar Investment Authority, Nvidia and Cisco. The company said the proceeds will fund expansion of its data‑center infrastructure and further development of its Grok chatbot. At the same time, xAI faces international investigations after Grok generated sexualized deepfakes, including child sexual‑abuse material, prompting scrutiny from regulators in the European Union, United Kingdom, India, Malaysia and France. Read more

OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise up to $100 billion in a new funding round that could value the ChatGPT maker at as much as $830 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company aims to secure the capital by the end of the first quarter of next year and may seek investments from sovereign wealth funds. The infusion would support OpenAI’s accelerating spend on inferencing and compute, while the firm faces heightened competition from rivals such as Anthropic and Google amid a broader cooling of investor sentiment toward AI spending. Read more

Calgary‑based Cashee Research uses artificial intelligence to design and execute custom market‑research surveys, delivering fresh human data faster and at lower cost. The startup, founded by Addy Graves and Rose Wong, was selected for TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield in 2025 and won the Enterprise Stage pitch at TechCrunch Disrupt. By combining AI‑generated survey plans with real‑world respondents, Cashee provides brands—especially small and medium‑size firms—with actionable insights that were previously too expensive or slow to obtain. The company has raised C$1.5 million in pre‑seed funding and is preparing a seed round to expand its U.S. presence and B2B business. Read more

Jay Neo, a former content lead for short-form videos at MrBeast, has co‑founded Palo, an AI‑driven platform that helps creators generate ideas, analyze performance, and connect with peers. Palo combines an AI ideation chatbot, detailed analytics, and a nascent community feature. In its test phase the tool worked with around 40 creators and is now available to creators with 100,000 followers for a starting price of $250 a month. The company raised $3.8 million from investors including Peak XV’s Surge and NFX. Read more

Databricks is reportedly in early-stage discussions to secure new capital that would place the data intelligence firm at a valuation of at least $130 billion, according to The Information. The company has not signed a term sheet yet. This potential round would represent a valuation increase of roughly 30% compared with its $100 billion valuation from the recent $1 billion Series J round. CEO Ali Ghodsi previously said the funds would support a database for AI agents and an AI agent platform. Databricks also recently acquired open‑source database startup Neon for $1 billion, reflecting its aggressive push into the $105 billion database market and the growing share of AI‑generated databases. Read more

Jeff Bezos is re‑entering an operational role for the first time since leaving Amazon, joining as co‑chief executive of the newly funded AI venture Project Prometheus. Backed by a $6.2 billion financing round, the startup aims to develop artificial‑intelligence tools for the physical economy, targeting engineering and manufacturing sectors such as computers, aerospace and automobiles. Bezos will share leadership with Vik Bajaj, a veteran of Google’s life‑sciences division and co‑founder of several AI‑focused companies. Project Prometheus already employs nearly 100 researchers drawn from leading AI labs, including Meta, OpenAI and Google DeepMind. Read more

Israeli AI agent startup Wonderful announced a $100 million Series A financing led by Index Ventures, with participation from Insight Partners, IVP, Bessemer and Vine Ventures. The round brings the company’s total funding to $134 million and backs its platform that deploys enterprise‑grade voice, chat and email agents across dozens of languages and markets. Wonderful says its agents already handle tens of thousands of daily requests with an 80% resolution rate and have expanded into Europe and the Middle East, with further launches planned in Germany, the Nordics and the Asia‑Pacific region. The company is also exploring new use cases such as employee training and regulatory compliance. Read more