X-energy stock pops 27% on first day of trading following upsized IPO

X-energy stock pops 27% on first day of trading following upsized IPO

X-energy’s stock popped today in its debut on the Nasdaq, opening at $30.11 before closing at $29.20, up 27% over its initial public offering of $23 per share. Investors can’t get enough nuclear power, apparently. Even the initial share price had been revised upward from the $16 to $19 target floated by the company during…

Cohere acquires, merges with Germany-based startup to create a ‘transatlantic AI powerhouse’

Cohere acquires, merges with Germany-based startup to create a ‘transatlantic AI powerhouse’

Cohere, the Canada-based enterprise AI unicorn, announced Friday that it would merge with the Germany-based enterprise AI company Aleph Alpha. The deal, which has yet to close, will value the newly formed company at $20 billion, the FT reported. Schwarz Group, one of Aleph Alpha’s top backers, will also invest $600 million in Cohere’s Series E round,…

Steve Ballmer blasts founder he backed who pleaded guilty to fraud: ‘I was duped and feel silly’

Steve Ballmer blasts founder he backed who pleaded guilty to fraud: ‘I was duped and feel silly’

Silicon Valley tends to tolerate a certain amount of founder exaggeration when pitching investors, often dismissing it as part of selling a vision. But some choices cross the line and can lead to jail time for founders and scandal for their investors. A case in point is Joseph Sanberg, whose once high-flying fintech startup Aspiration…

Palantir is reportedly helping the IRS investigate financial crimes

Palantir is reportedly helping the IRS investigate financial crimes

Palantir has helped the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations office probe a variety of financial crimes in the U.S. for much of the last decade, The Intercept reported. The IRS has paid the firm $130 million since 2018 to use its data analysis software to pore over financial records for investigative purposes, the outlet reported…

Two college kids raise a $5.1 million pre-seed to build an AI social network in iMessage

Two college kids raise a $5.1 million pre-seed to build an AI social network in iMessage

Series, a social networking app, announced that it raised a $5.1 million pre-seed round, with investors including Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail, Pear VC, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and GPTZero founder Edward Tian. The company was founded early last year by Yale students Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, both still seniors at the university.  Series considers…

ComfyUI hits $500M valuation as creators seek more control over AI-generated media

ComfyUI hits $500M valuation as creators seek more control over AI-generated media

ComfyUI, a startup that helps creators control image, video, and audio outputs from diffusion models with a node-based workflow, has raised a $30 million funding round at a $500 million valuation. The round was led by Craft Ventures, with participation from other investors including Pace Capital, Chemistry, and TruArrow. ComfyUI was started as an open-source…

Google to invest up to $40B in Anthropic in cash and compute

Google to invest up to $40B in Anthropic in cash and compute

Google plans to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic and support the AI firm’s growing computing needs, Bloomberg reports. The Alphabet subsidiary is committing to invest $10 billion now, at a $350 billion valuation for Anthropic, with another $30 billion to follow if Anthropic hits certain performance targets, according to Anthropic.  The promise of…

Marked-up Mac minis flood eBay amid shortages driven by AI

Marked-up Mac minis flood eBay amid shortages driven by AI

Overpriced Mac minis are flooding eBay amid shortages of the sold-out machines, which have become a favored tool for running on-device AI models like OpenClaw. This week, reports indicated that the $599 M4 Mac mini base model with 16GB RAM and 256GB of storage is sold out on Apple’s retail website, with no options for…

Nuclear startup X-energy raises $1B in data center-driven IPO

Nuclear startup X-energy raises $1B in data center-driven IPO

Nuclear startup X-energy raised $1 billion in its initial public offering yesterday, selling 44.3 million shares for $23 each, a hefty premium above the $16 to $19 per share it was seeking. Initially, the company had hoped to raise around $800 million. The stock is expected to begin trading on Friday on the Nasdaq Exchange…