Maria Deutscher
Latest from Maria Deutscher
Qualtrics to be taken private for $12.5B
Confirming recent reports, Qualtrics International Inc. today announced that it has agreed to be acquired by Silver Lake and CPP Investments for $12.5 billion. The all-cash transaction values Qualtrics at $18.15 per share. That’s 73% higher than the last unaffected closing price of the company’s stock. The deal will be financed with equity funding from ...
UK ends antitrust investigation of Google’s ‘Jedi Blue’ agreement with Meta
The U.K.’s antitrust regulator has ended its investigation into Jedi Blue, a controversial advertising agreement that Google and Meta Platforms Inc. signed in 2018. The Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, announced the decision today. The CMA also stated that it will continue to review some of the antitrust concerns raised during the probe, but ...
Financial regulators close Silicon Valley Bank
The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation today closed Silicon Valley Bank, a storied financial institution that counted many venture-backed startups as clients. The move follows a series of developments that cast doubt on the company’s financial stability. On Wednesday, Silicon Valley Bank disclosed that it had taken a $1.8 billion loss on a ...
Shares of tech startup-heavy Silicon Valley Bank plunge 60%+ on stock sale plan
Shares of SVB Financial Group Inc., the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, plunged more than 60% today after the financial institution announced plans to sell $2.2 billion in stock. The stock sale is part of an effort by the company to address recent losses in its securities portfolio. “We are taking these actions because ...
Alphabet’s Wing previews automated drone delivery system
Alphabet Inc.’s Wing unit today detailed the Wing Delivery Network, a hardware and software system designed to facilitate high-volume drone deliveries. Wing estimates the system will be capable of delivering millions of small packages in the near future. Moreover, the Alphabet unit expects that it will do so at a lower cost than traditional logistics ...
Microsoft’s Bing reaches 100 million daily active users
Microsoft Corp. has disclosed that its Bing search engine is now used by 100 million consumers every day. Yusuf Mehdi, the corporate vice president of Microsoft’s modern life, search and devices group, announced the milestone in a Wednesday blog post. The update comes about a month after the company released a new version of Bing ...
Vantage reels in $21M to lower companies’ cloud expenses
Vantage, a cloud cost optimization startup that counts NASA among its customers, has secured $21 million in new funding to finance growth initiatives. Vantage announced the funding round, a Series A investment, this morning. Scale Venture Partners was the lead investor. The round also saw the participation of Andreessen Horowitz, Harpoon Ventures and multiple angel ...
Hailo debuts new Hailo-15 AI vision processors
Chip startup Hailo Technologies Ltd. today debuted a new series of artificial intelligence processors, the Hailo-15 family, that’s optimized to run computer vision models. Tel Aviv-based Hailo is backed by more than $223 million in funding. It develops AI processors for vehicles, industrial equipment and other systems. The startup says that its silicon is used ...
DuckDuckGo launches generative AI search assistant
DuckDuckGo Inc. today launched DuckAssist, a new feature in its search engine that generates natural language responses to user questions. DuckAssist is powered by generative artificial intelligence models from OpenAI LLC and Anthropic, a San Francisco-based machine learning startup. The feature joins the growing list of generative AI tools introduced by search engine providers in ...
Stability AI acquires Init ML amid fundraising reports
Stability AI Ltd., the startup behind the Stable Diffusion generative artificial intelligence model, today announced that it has bought photo editing provider Init ML. The acquisition is Stability AI’s first since launch. It comes a few days after reports emerged that the startup is seeking to raise funding at a $4 billion valuation. That’s four ...