February 18, 2026

The robots who predict the future

To be human is, fundamentally, to be a forecaster. Occasionally a pretty good one. Trying to see the future, whether through the lens of past experience or the logic of cause and effect, has helped us hunt, avoid being hunted, plant crops, forge social bonds, and in general survive in a world that does not…

Simon Data is putting customer data to work with $54M Series D

August 8, 2023
The customer data platform (CDP) has become a standard way to collect first party customer data and put it to work. Simon Data, which was founded in 2015, has always had a vision of being more than purely a customer data repository. It also offers applications out of the box to work with that data, […]

Catch+Release is building an AI-powered search engine to help brands license user-generated content

August 8, 2023
Companies seeking images or videos for their materials materials will typically commission a shoot, or scour stock media catalogs. Catch+Release, however, wants to help marketers license existing user-generated content, and the eight-year-old startup is setting out to build an AI-powered search engine to help brands do just that. Catch+Release — founded out of San Francisco […]

Chargeflow, which taps AI to fight chargebacks, raises $14M

August 8, 2023
Chargeflow, a startup using AI to fight chargeback fraud, today announced that it raised $11 million in a seed round led by the VC firm OpenView Venture Partners. The tranche builds on Chargeflow’s previously undisclosed $3 million seed round closed several months ago, bringing the startup’s total raised to $14 million. Chargeflow was launched in […]

Sachin Bansal sells Navi’s microfinancing unit for $178.5 million

August 8, 2023
Svatantra Microfin has reached an agreement to acquire Navi Group’s microfinancing unit Chaitanya India for about $178.5 million, the two firms said Tuesday, latest in a series of events at entrepreneur Sachin Bansal’s firm that has struggled to secure a banking license. Svatantra said it will become the second largest microfinancing firm in India with […]

The Download: political AI models, and a wrongful arrest

August 8, 2023
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI language models are rife with different political biases The news: AI language models contain different political biases, according to a new study. Researchers conducted tests on 14 large language models and found…

Electoral Commission hack exposed data of 40 million UK voters

August 8, 2023
The personal information of approximately 40 million U.K. voters was exposed to hackers for more than a year after the Electoral Commission fell victim to a “complex cyberattack”. The Electoral Commission, the watchdog responsible for overseeing elections in the U.K., said in a statement on Wednesday that it first identified suspicious activity on its network […]

Lessons Learned With Grover, Understanding The Dark Side

August 8, 2023
On this episode of the Jeff Fenster Show, we have Lessons Learned where we review our interview with Tim Grover where he shares his insights on building successful relationships, discovering the mindset of a champion, and creating balance in life.