SoftBank and PayPay said to be in talks to invest in Seven & i
SoftBank and PayPay said to be in talks to invest in Seven & i

Japan’s biggest payments app and its most famous convenience-store chain may be about to get closer. SoftBank and its payments arm PayPay are in talks to invest in Seven & i Holdings, the retailer behind 7-Eleven, according to Bloomberg, which repo…

Tencent in talks to become Manus’ largest shareholder
Tencent in talks to become Manus’ largest shareholder

Manus was, briefly, one of the most valuable exits in Chinese AI. Meta agreed to buy the agentic AI startup for more than $2bn late last year, then watched Beijing block the deal on national-security grounds. Now the company is being bought back by the…

Bezos opens Blue Origin to outside investors for the first time in 26 years
Bezos opens Blue Origin to outside investors for the first time in 26 years

Jeff Bezos is letting outside investors into Blue Origin for the first time since he founded it in 2000. The rocket company is seeking about $10bn in fresh capital at a $130bn pre-money valuation, according to CNBC. For 26 years, Bezos bankrolled the c…

Ollama raises $65M as its open-model runner hits nearly 9M developers
Ollama raises $65M as its open-model runner hits nearly 9M developers

Ollama has raised a $65M Series B led by Theory Ventures. Benchmark, 8VC, Y Combinator and others joined. The round takes the company’s total funding to $88M, three years after it launched, and Ollama set out the plan in a blog post on Thursday. Founde…

Lithuania’s Oxylabs raises $130M from Warburg Pincus at a $3.6bn valuation
Lithuania’s Oxylabs raises $130M from Warburg Pincus at a $3.6bn valuation

Oxylabs has raised $130M from private equity firm Warburg Pincus. It is the company’s first outside investment since it launched in 2015. The deal values the Vilnius-based data infrastructure firm at around $3.6bn. Oxylabs announced the raise on Thursd…

Databento raises $97M to take on Bloomberg’s terminal
Databento raises $97M to take on Bloomberg’s terminal

Databento has raised $97M in Series B funding to build what it calls the market data platform for modern finance. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates, with DRW, Redpoint Ventures, and Tribe Capital joining. The company announced the raise on…

Lyzr used its own AI agent to help raise a $100mn round
Lyzr used its own AI agent to help raise a $100mn round

A startup that builds artificial-intelligence agents for large companies has turned that software on itself, using one of its own agents to help run a $100 million fundraise. Lyzr, an enterprise AI agents firm backed by Accenture, says the agent handle…

Rubrik pledges more than $500m for the UK and makes London its European base
Rubrik pledges more than $500m for the UK and makes London its European base

Rubrik, the US data-security company, said it will invest more than $500m in Britain over the next five years and make London its headquarters for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The commitment, announced on Wednesday and worth about £375m, lands …

Alchemab lands £25m from British Business Bank in record life sciences bet
Alchemab lands £25m from British Business Bank in record life sciences bet

Cambridge biotech Alchemab Therapeutics has extended its Series A round with a £25 million ($34 million) investment from the British Business Bank, which the company says is the state-owned lender’s largest backing of a life sciences company to date. T…

AI money watch: five funding rounds that matter today
AI money watch: five funding rounds that matter today

A busy 24 hours for AI and deep-tech money, from a $300m quantum bet to Paris voice AI and Europe’s energy startups. Here are the rounds worth knowing. The cash keeps flowing into AI and deep tech. The past day alone brought a $300m quantum raise, a fr…