Maria Deutscher
Latest from Maria Deutscher
Alpaca raises $150M to grow its brokerage account management platform
Financial technology startup AlpacaDB Inc. today announced that it has raised $150 million in funding at a $1.15 billion valuation. The Series D round was led by Drive Capital. It also drew contributions from more than a dozen other backers including the venture capital arms of BNP Paribas and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, two of ...
Google introduces Personal Intelligence personalization tool for Gemini
Google LLC today debuted a tool called Personal Intelligence that will enable consumers to tailor its Gemini chatbot to their preferences. The tool will initially be available to a limited number of paying users in the U.S. Google plans to expand access over time. Consumers can enable Personal Intelligence through a new option in the ...
Robot software startup Skild AI raises $1.4B round backed by Nvidia, Jeff Bezos
Skild AI Inc., a startup that develops artificial intelligence software for robots, has raised $1.4 billion from a group of prominent investors. Today’s funding announcement comes about a month after reports of the funding round first emerged. Skild AI has raised about $400 million more than expected. The consortium that provided the capital was led by ...
Microsoft details plan to prevent its data centers from straining power, water resources
Microsoft Corp. today announced an initiative to prevent its data centers from harming the areas where they’re built. Brad Smith, the tech giant’s vice chair and president, detailed the program in a blog post. The Community-First AI Infrastructure Plan, as it’s known, comprises more than a dozen elements. Many of them focus on ensuring that ...
CrowdStrike acquires browser security startup Seraphic Security for $400M
CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. is acquiring Seraphic Security Ltd., a startup that helps enterprises protect employees’ browsers from online threats. The companies announced the deal today without disclosing its financial terms, though Calcalist pegged the amount at $400 million. Seraphic, which maintains offices in Palo Alto, California, and Israel, previously raised about $37 million from investors. ...
Salesforce makes revamped Slackbot generally available
Salesforce Inc. today launched a significantly enhanced version of Slackbot, the artificial intelligence assistant embedded in Slack. The company first debuted the upgrade at its Dreamforce 2025 conference in October. Slackbot originally focused on relatively simple tasks such as displaying notifications. The new version significantly expands the range of use cases that the tool can ...
Nvidia, Lilly to invest up to $1B in new AI medical research lab
Nvidia Corp. is partnering with Eli Lilly and Co. to open a research lab that will use artificial intelligence to speed up drug discovery. The companies announced the collaboration today. They plan to spend up to $1 billion on the lab, which is set to open its doors in South San Francisco later this year. ...
Custodial wallet provider BitGo files for $201M public offering
BitGo Holdings Inc., a startup that stores digital assets on behalf of other organizations, today filed for an initial public offering. The company and several of its investors plan to sell 11.8 million shares for $15 to $17 apiece. At the top end of the range, the offering would fetch $201 million and value BitGo ...
Apple will use Google’s Gemini models to power new Siri release
Apple Inc. will use Google LLC’s Gemini series of large language models to power its Siri voice assistant. The companies announced the partnership, which is described as a multiyear deal, this morning. When reports of the collaboration first emerged in August, Bloomberg reported that Apple was set to pay Google about $1 billion per year ...
OpenAI invests $500M in SoftBank’s SB Energy unit
OpenAI Group PBC today announced plans to invest $500 million in SoftBank Group Corp.’s SB Energy unit, which develops renewable energy installations and data centers. The transaction also has several other components. First, SoftBank will match OpenAI’s $500 million investment in SB Energy, doubling the value of the funding round to $1 billion. Additionally, the latter ...