XOi raises $230M, acquires Specifx to expand its tech for field service technicians
Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers that come to mind when you think about lucrative opportunities in B2B technology. But that same blind spot speaks of the opportunity in the space for those who are stepping up and targeting “the job site.” One of the players in that space, XOi […]
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India lauds Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, plans to host its models on local servers
India’s IT minister on Thursday praised DeepSeek‘s progress and said the country will host the Chinese AI lab’s large language models on domestic servers, in a rare opening for Chinese technology in India. “You have seen what DeepSeek has done — $5.5 million and a very very powerful model,” IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on […]
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European embedded banking startup Swan adds another $44 million to its Series B
French startup Swan has raised another €42 million (around $44 million at current exchange rates). The company considers this round as the second part of the Series B round that was originally announced in September 2024. Swan helps other companies offer financial products at scale. The company can generate both virtual and physical cards that […]
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SoftBank in talks to invest as much as $25B in OpenAI, report says
SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI as part of a broader partnership that could see the Japanese conglomerate spend more than $40 billion on AI initiatives with the Microsoft-backed startup, according to Financial Times. The potential investment would make SoftBank OpenAI’s largest single backer, the report said, surpassing Microsoft […]
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Meta says end of fact-checking hasn’t impacted ad spend
Meta says its controversial decision to put an end to its fact-checking program hasn’t impacted advertiser spend. On its Q4 2024 call, Meta CFO Susan Li assured investors that advertiser demand remains strong and the company’s commitment to brand safety remains unchanged, despite the new measures. Meanwhile, CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that the community notes […]
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Zuck shrugs off DeepSeek, vows to spend hundreds of billions on AI
Meta is doubling down on AI spending despite markets briefly panicking over concerns DeepSeek will reduce AI demand.
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LinkedIn passes $2B in premium revenues in 12 months, with overall revenues up 9% on the year
LinkedIn, the social platform where people look for and talk about work, may be less visible in Microsoft’s earnings compared to the years when it was an independent company. But around earnings time, LinkedIn often reveals some figures that point to how it continues to grow. On Wednesday, as Microsoft reported its Q2 numbers, the […]
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Elon Musk claims Tesla will launch a self-driving service in Austin in June
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday that his company will launch a paid ride-hailing robotaxi service in Austin, Texas this coming June, the latest in a long line of sky-high promises he has yet to meet about autonomy. Musk was unsurprisingly light on details. He said that there will be no people in the cars, […]
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Threads adds another 20M monthly users since December, reaching 320M
Threads, Meta’s microblogging service, is growing at a fast pace as users gravitate to the app over rivals like X. During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings presentation on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Threads now has 320 million monthly active users (MAUs), up from 300 million last month. The app had 275 million monthly active […]
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