DeepSeek closes $7bn-plus round with an unusual structure
DeepSeek closes $7bn-plus round with an unusual structure

DeepSeek, the Chinese AI lab that unsettled the industry with a cheap, capable model last year, has closed its first round of outside funding, raising roughly 50 billion yuan, about $7bn, in a deal whose structure is as notable as its size. The valuati…

Exclusive: Optiak raises €4m to build an orchestration layer for enterprise AI
Exclusive: Optiak raises €4m to build an orchestration layer for enterprise AI

Optiak, a startup building what it calls a modular operating system for enterprise AI, has come out of stealth with a €4m pre-seed round, about $4.7m, led by Market One Capital, Next Tier Ventures, EA Ventures Plug and Play EMEA Fund and Mission. The c…

Rocapine raises $13m to build wellness apps that hold instead of hook
Rocapine raises $13m to build wellness apps that hold instead of hook

Rocapine, a Paris venture studio building wellness apps, has raised a $13m Series A led by Educapital, the company said. The pitch is a neat inversion: take the playbook that made mobile gaming addictive, fast iteration, AI-native development, performa…

Japan’s biggest taxi app raised $553 million in the country’s largest IPO this year
Japan’s biggest taxi app raised $553 million in the country’s largest IPO this year

Go Inc., Japan’s most widely used taxi-hailing app, begins trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday after raising ¥88.6 billion ($553 million) in the country’s largest initial public offering this year. The offering was more than 25 times oversub…

Asian tech stocks surged after the Iran-US deal, and AI chipmakers gained the most
Asian tech stocks surged after the Iran-US deal, and AI chipmakers gained the most

Asian technology stocks surged on Monday after the United States and Iran announced a peace agreement, with AI and semiconductor companies posting the largest gains. SoftBank rose 10 per cent, SK Hynix climbed 6.42 per cent, and Samsung Electronics gai…

Monday.com launches Monday Ventures, a $200m fund for workplace-AI startups
Monday.com launches Monday Ventures, a $200m fund for workplace-AI startups

Monday.com is becoming an investor. The Israeli work-management company has launched Monday Ventures, a corporate fund that will put up to $200m into startups building the next generation of workplace AI, according to a report in the Israeli business d…

Sarvam becomes India’s newest AI unicorn with a $234m round led by HCLTech
Sarvam becomes India’s newest AI unicorn with a $234m round led by HCLTech

Sarvam, the Bengaluru company building India’s sovereign AI stack, has become the country’s newest AI unicorn. It has raised $234m in the first close of a $300m Series B, at a $1.5bn valuation, led by IT services giant HCLTech, which is putting in $150…

NewCore raises $66m to give AI agents a corporate identity
NewCore raises $66m to give AI agents a corporate identity

NewCore has come out of stealth with $66m to solve a problem most companies have not named yet: who, or what, is logging into their systems. The identity-security startup, based in Tel Aviv and San Francisco, is building a platform to govern both human…

Nvidia’s first bond sale since 2021 seeks at least $20bn
Nvidia’s first bond sale since 2021 seeks at least $20bn

The Nvidia bond sale is on. The chipmaker is seeking to raise at least $20bn in its first corporate bond offering since 2021, Bloomberg reported, citing people with direct knowledge. It is selling the debt in seven tranches, with maturities running fro…

Tencent-backed Enflame wins approval for an $888m IPO, the last of China’s ‘four AI chip dragons’
Tencent-backed Enflame wins approval for an $888m IPO, the last of China’s ‘four AI chip dragons’

The Enflame IPO is on. Shanghai Enflame Technology, an AI-chip startup backed by Tencent, has won listing-committee approval to raise about 6 billion yuan ($888m) on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR board, according to Bloomberg. It is the last of Ch…