Read AI launches a email based ‘digital twin’ to help you with schedules and answers

Meeting notetaker Read AI on Thursday launched an AI-powered email-based assistant called Ada, saying it helps users manage their schedules, answer questions based on a company’s knowledge base, and reply to out-of-office emails. The company is calling Ada a “digital twin” that handles tasks for you around the clock. Read AI said that the assistant … Read more

Gushwork bets on AI search for customer leads — and early results are emerging

As AI-powered search tools reshape how businesses are discovered online, India-founded startup Gushwork is helping companies capture customers from platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — with early traction that is beginning to draw investor support. The two-year-old startup said Thursday it had raised $9 million in a seed round led by Susquehanna International … Read more

Anthropic acquires computer-use AI startup Vercept after Meta poached one of its founders

Anthropic on Wednesday announced that it has acquired Vercept, an AI startup with deep roots to some of the biggest names in Seattle’s tech scene. The acquisition marks the latest after Anthropic acquired coding agent engine Bun in December to help scale Claude Code. Vercept had created tools for more complex agentic tasks, including its … Read more

Nvidia challenger AI chip startup MatX raised $500M

MatX, a chip startup founded by two former Google hardware engineers, has raised a $500 million Series B led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness, an investment fund formed by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. The company’s goal is to make its processors 10 times better at training LLMs and delivering results than Nvidia’s GPUs. … Read more

Spanish ‘soonicorn’ Multiverse Computing releases free compressed AI model

Large language models have a problem: they are large. Multiverse Computing, a Spanish startup, is addressing this issue with compressed models that aim to close the gap between what frontier models can do and what companies can actually afford to deploy.  The secret sauce is CompactifAI, a compression technology inspired by quantum computing that the … Read more

Stripe’s valuation soars 74% to $159 billion

Another year, another Stripe tender offer where investors buy shares from employees that values the company at an enormous step up. On Tuesday, Stripe announced that this latest secondary transaction now values the company at $159 billion. Investors buying the shares include Thrive Capital, Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz, and Stripe itself. In February 2025, Stripe announced … Read more

Canva acquires startups working on animation and marketing

On Monday, creative suite maker Canva announced the dual acquisition of startups Cavalry, which works on animation, and Mango AI, which works on improving ad performance. UK-based Cavalry works on 2D motion animation for different verticals such as advertising, marketing, gaming, and generative art. Canva said that Cavalry’s tooling will add to the existing capabilities … Read more