Games
In a rare and unexpected move, Apple has made its first-ever video game studio acquisition, welcoming the two-person team behind Sneaky Sasquatch—RAC7—into the fold. While Apple insists this is a unique, situational acquisition rather than a broader shift in strategy, the decision offers meaningful insight into how the
Cybersecurity
Horizon3.ai, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup, is raising $100M in a round led by NEA, with $73M already secured, per an SEC filing. The funding will support expansion of its AI-powered security tools amid strong growth. While neither Horizon3.ai nor NEA have commented publicly on the funding, sources
Style & Beauty
In a bold move to expand its footprint in the prestige beauty market, e.l.f. Beauty (NYSE: ELF) announced Wednesday it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire rhode, the skincare brand founded by Hailey Rhode Bieber. The deal was revealed alongside e.l.f.’s Q4 earnings for
Retail
Meta is preparing to make a significant move into brick-and-mortar retail, following a strategy that may mirror Apple’s global store presence. The company is developing plans to open physical stores and hire retail employees, marking a strategic shift aimed at boosting sales of its hardware products like Meta Quest
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has quietly launched an updated version of its flagship R1 reasoning model, making it available to developers through the popular open-source platform Hugging Face. The update was announced in a WeChat post Wednesday morning. Minor Upgrade, Major Model According to DeepSeek, the new release is a
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Telegram is diving deeper into the AI race, announcing a landmark partnership with Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI. As part of the agreement, xAI’s Grok chatbot will be integrated directly into the Telegram messaging platform and its app ecosystem for at least one year. The deal is
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Anthropic has begun rolling out a new voice mode for its Claude chatbot app, allowing users to engage in fully spoken conversations with Claude. Currently in beta and available only in English, the feature is gradually being made available to mobile users over the coming weeks, the company announced via
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Opera is entering the AI browser race with the announcement of Opera Neon, a new browser designed to take on tasks on your behalf—from online shopping and form-filling to coding and content creation. Unveiled on Tuesday, Neon aims to redefine how users interact with the web by focusing on
Biotechnology
Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface startup, Neuralink, has raised $600 million in a new funding round, pushing its pre-money valuation to $9 billion. The round marks a significant leap in valuation for the company, which was reportedly worth $5 billion less than a year ago. The identities of the investors
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
In a move that signals its intensifying focus on AI and data dominance, Salesforce has officially acquired cloud data management firm Informatica for $8 billion. The all-equity transaction marks one of Salesforce’s most significant acquisitions to date, aimed at strengthening its foundational data infrastructure to support AI at enterprise
Biotechnology
Samsung’s venture capital arm is preparing to invest in California-based medical device startup Exo, as part of a funding round that could reach $100 million. The round is reportedly being led by Sands Capital, Bold Capital, and Qubit Health Capital. Notably, Qubit Health’s chairman, former Medtronic CEO Omar
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
OpenAI is rolling out a significant upgrade to Operator, its autonomous AI agent capable of browsing the web and interacting with cloud-hosted software environments. The company has announced that Operator will soon run on a new version of its o3 model—part of the latest o-series, known for superior reasoning