Maria Deutscher
Latest from Maria Deutscher
Samsung invests in AI video generation startup Irreverent Labs
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has invested in Irreverent Labs Inc., a Seattle startup that develops artificial intelligence models for generating video content. Irreverent Labs announced the investment this morning. The startup didn’t disclose how much funding it raised from Samsung. According to GeekWire, the electronics giant provided the capital through its Samsung Next startup fund. ...
Meta’s new Code Llama large language model optimized for programming tasks
Meta Platforms Inc. today introduced Code Llama, an open-source large language model that can automatically generate code snippets and explain how they work. The model is free for commercial use. Code Llama is based on another open-source language model, Llama 2, that Meta released last month. The latter model is more general-purpose in nature. It ...
Portkey.ai closes $3M seed round to speed up AI application development
Newly launched artificial intelligence startup Portkey.ai today announced that it has raised $3 million in seed funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round. According to Portkey.ai, the venture capital firm was joined by “prominent figures” from Amazon Web Services Inc., OpenAI LP, Cloudflare Inc. and other major enterprise technology companies. AI providers such as OpenAI ...
SpyCloud bags $110M to help companies respond to login credential leaks faster
SpyCloud Inc., a cybersecurity startup that counts half the Fortune 10 as customers, has raised $110 million in funding to finance new growth initiatives. Austin-based SpyCloud announced the investment this morning. It said that the funding included a “commitment of primary and secondary capital.” That suggests the investment included a secondary raise, a deal through ...
Microsoft integrates the Python programming language into Excel
Microsoft Corp. is releasing a new version of Excel that will enable users to write and run Python code directly in the spreadsheet editor’s interface. Stefan Kinnestrand, a general manager for product marketing at Microsoft, detailed the update in a blog post today. The Python support is currently available in public preview. Excel includes data ...
Thoma Bravo expected to close $2.3B ForgeRock acquisition following antitrust scrutiny
Thoma Bravo is expected this week to close its acquisition of ForgeRock Inc., a cybersecurity company it agreed to buy last year for $2.3 billion. Bloomberg reported the development today, citing sources familiar with the matter. The U.S. Department of Justice had reportedly considered filing a lawsuit to block the acquisition. Bloomberg’s sources said that ...
Microsoft restructures Activision Blizzard deal in bid to win UK regulatory approval
Microsoft Corp. has restructured its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. to win regulatory approval for the deal in the U.K. The company announced the move this morning. Microsoft inked a $68.7 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard, one of the world’s largest video game developers, early last year. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority, ...
Kubernetes autoscaling engine KEDA graduates from CNCF’s incubator program
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation today announced the graduation of KEDA, an open-source tool created by Microsoft Corp. and Red Hat to make Kubernetes clusters more efficient. The milestone follows more than three years of development. “Since joining the CNCF Sandbox, the KEDA community has grown and improved the project in a sustainable way, and ...
SentinelOne reportedly exploring a sale after mixed quarterly results
Cybersecurity provider SentinelOne Inc. has hired an investment bank to help it explore a sale, Reuters reported today. The company is said to be working with Qatalyst Partners, a San Francisco-based bank that specializes in mergers and acquisitions, to “explore options.” Those options reportedly include a sale to private equity firms. Today’s report suggests that ...
Generative AI startup Contextual AI names Google Cloud its preferred cloud provider
Contextual AI Inc., a startup developing large language models for the enterprise, today named Google Cloud as its preferred cloud provider. The company will use Google Cloud services to power several parts of its business. Most notably, it plans to leverage the search giant’s infrastructure to train its language models. Palo Alto, California-based Contextual AI launched from ...