CB Insights: global VC investment in fintech fell 16% QoQ to $7.3B over 904 deals in Q1 2024, the lowest amount of funding the sector has seen since 2017 — When it comes to funding, the fintech sector didn't have a very good start to the year. — Fintech funding slid by 16% quarter …
Microsoft warns that China plans to disrupt elections in the US, South Korea, and India this year with AI-generated content after making a dry run in Taiwan — Beijing did a test run in Taiwan using AI-generated content to influence voters away from a pro-sovereignty candidate
Sources: Samsung plans to more than double its total chip investment in Taylor, Texas to ~$44B, a significant breakthrough for US' chip manufacturing plans — South Korean firm plans to add a second semiconductor factory and advanced-packaging facility at its new hub outside Austin
Paris-based Pigment, a subscription-based business planning and forecasting service, raised $145M, sources say at a $1B+ valuation, for $393M in total funding — - French software startup said to be valued above $1 billion — Funding round comes as VC financing remains sluggish globally
Patreon rolls out a Reddit-like community moderation feature that lets podcasters, artists, writers, and other creators assign community members as moderators — Patreon is taking a page out of Reddit's book. Now, podcasters, artists, writers, and other creators on the subscription-focused creator platform …
Stability AI releases Stable Audio 2.0, letting users create three minute sound clips from copyright-free audio samples, available for free via its website — Stable Audio 2., an audio generation model for Stability AI, now lets users upload their own audio samples which they can then transform using prompts …
Opera now lets Opera One users download and run 150 LLMs from 50+ families locally, including Llama and Google's Gemma, via the Ollama open source framework — Web browser company Opera announced today it will now allow users to download and use Large Language Models (LLMs) locally on their computer.
Sources: crypto VC firm Paradigm is in talks to raise $750M to $850M for a new fund, which would be the largest since the crash; a16z raised $4.5B in May 2022 — - New fund would be industry's largest since crypto downturn — Paradigm was a major investor in bankrupt exchange FTX
A profile of MIT labor economist David Autor, an unlikely AI optimist who says AI may help restore “the middle-skill, middle-class heart of the US labor market” — David Autor, an M.I.T. economist and tech contrarian, argues that A.I. is fundamentally different from past waves of computerization.
A profile of hiking app AllTrails, which exploded during the pandemic, has raised $225M+, and now focuses on helping users “find your outdoors”, not just trails — Fourteen years and one Apple App of the Year award in, AllTrails has become something rare: a tool that works for both experts and newbies.
Filing: Donald Trump's Truth Social lost $58M+ on $4.1M in revenue during 2023; Trump Media & Technology Group is valued at $7B+ after going public on March 26 — - All of the company's revenue comes from advertising on Truth Social, per the disclosures.
Interviews and Telegram messages detail how Russian middlemen used Tether to avoid US sanctions and procure parts for drones and other high-tech equipment — How Russian middlemen used tether to avoid U.S. sanctions and procure parts for drones and other high-tech equipment
Sources: OpenAI discussed training GPT-5 on public YouTube video transcripts; AI industry's need for high-quality text data may outstrip supply within two years — Firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic are working to find enough information to train next-generation artificial-intelligence models
Microsoft plans to unbundle Teams from Office 365 globally starting April 1 amid antitrust scrutiny, after a similar unbundling in EU in August 2023 — Microsoft (MSFT.O) will sell its chat and video app Teams separately from its Office product globally, the U.S. tech giant said on Monday …
Demis Hassabis says the AI hype caused by a surge of money is clouding research; CB Insights: VCs invested $42.5B in 2,500 AI startup equity rounds in 2023 — British AI pioneer says the billions of dollars being poured into start-ups is obscuring scientific progress in the field
Sarah Kessler / New York Times : US coding boot camp graduates are facing a tough job market due to AI coding tools and mass layoffs; Com...
