All posts tagged: 500M

UK’s £500m Sovereign AI initiative backs domestic AI innovators

UK’s £500m Sovereign AI initiative backs domestic AI innovators

Published by skeptic

The UK Government has launched an ambitious £500m initiative to strengthen its position in artificial intelligence (AI), placing homegrown startups at the centre of its AI strategy. Branded Sovereign AI, the programme is designed to fund British founders, accelerate innovation, and ensure the country retains control over technologies increasingly tied to both economic growth and national security. At its core, Sovereign AI represents a deliberate shift: rather than relying on external tech giants, the UK is seeking to cultivate its own AI ecosystem, keeping talent, intellectual property and long-term value within its borders. UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall explained: “We believe in Britain, and we are betting on Britain. We are backing our brilliant innovators and entrepreneurs, so we seize the benefits of AI to reshape Britain for the benefit of all. “Sovereign AI is unlike anything the government has ever done before. Its unique approach will help break down the barriers that have too often held back British enterprise and innovation. This is how we ensure Britain’s economic prosperity and national security in the modern age. “My message …

Quince hits B valuation with giant 0M round led by Iconiq

Quince hits $10B valuation with giant $500M round led by Iconiq

Published by skeptic

In a sea of massive valuations for early-stage AI startups, today we have a bit of rare news: a jumbo round and valuation step-up for an e-commerce company. Quince announced on Wednesday that it raised a $500 million Series E round at a $10.1 billion valuation. The round was led by previous investor Iconiq, which also led Quince’s $200 million Series D in early 2025 at a reported $4.5 billion valuation. That’s more than double the valuation in less than a year. Quince rose to fame on Instagram with its $50 cashmere sweater, but has since amassed a wider range of product offerings, including apparel, home, accessories, beauty, and wellness. Unlike typical e-commerce retail sites, the company manufactures its products and sells them to consumers directly. Quince, which launched out of beta in 2020, calls its business model “manufacturer-to-consumer.” And because it owns most of its own tech stack and controls its designs and manufacturing, Quince can more accurately predict its sales, according to a blog post by Iconiq. This allows smaller batch manufacturing with …

Nvidia challenger AI chip startup MatX raised 0M

Nvidia challenger AI chip startup MatX raised $500M

Published by skeptic

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.   Other investors in the round include Marvell Technology, NFDG, Spark Capital, and Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, the startup’s founder and CEO Reiner Pope announced Tuesday in a post on LinkedIn. Although the company didn’t release its latest valuation, Etched, MatX’s closest competitor, raised a $500 million round at a $5 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported last month. Etched didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. MatX’s latest round comes more than a year after its Series A of about $100 million, which was led by Spark Capital. TechCrunch earlier reported that the 2024 round valued the startup at more than $300 million. Before co-founding MatX in 2023, Pope led AI software development for Google’s TPUs, the …

ElevenLabs raises 0M from Sequoia at an billion valuation

ElevenLabs raises $500M from Sequoia at an $11 billion valuation

Published by skeptic

Voice AI company ElevenLabs said today it raised $500 million in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital, which was an investor in the startup’s last secondary round through a tender. Sequoia partner Andrew Reed is joining the company’s board. The startup is now valued at $11 billion, more than three times its valuation in its last round in January 2025. Earlier in the year, the Financial Times reported that the startup was looking to raise at that valuation. The company said that existing investor a16z quadrupled its investment amount, and Iconiq, which led the last round, tripled it. Some prior investors, like BroadLight, NFDG, Valor Capital, AMP Coalition, and Smash Capital, also joined the round. New investors for the funding included Lightspeed Venture Partners, EvanticCapital, and Bond. ElevenLabs said that it will disclose some investors later in February, which might be strategic partners. The company has raised over $781 million to date. It said that it will use the funding for research and product development, along with expansion in international markets like India, …

UAE Firm Bought 49% Of Trump-Linked Crypto Startup For 0M: WSJ

UAE Firm Bought 49% Of Trump-Linked Crypto Startup For $500M: WSJ

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Amin Hagshanas via Cointelegraph, A UAE-backed investment vehicle quietly agreed to buy nearly half of World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency startup linked to President Donald Trump, just days before he returned to the White House, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Aryam Investment 1, an Abu Dhabi entity backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, signed a deal in January 2025 to purchase a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million, the Journal said, citing documents and people familiar with the matter. Half of that amount was paid upfront, sending $187 million to Trump family-controlled entities, with additional tens of millions flowing to entities tied to co-founders, including relatives of US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, per the report. The agreement was reportedly signed by Eric Trump. The Journal reported that the deal had not been publicly disclosed, despite World Liberty later revealing that the Trump family’s stake had fallen sharply. Tahnoon’s ambitions grow after Trump election Tahnoon, the brother of the United Arab Emirates president and …

Intel spinout Articul8 raises more than half of M round at 0M valuation

Intel spinout Articul8 raises more than half of $70M round at $500M valuation

Published by skeptic

Articul8, an enterprise AI company spun out of Intel in early 2024, has secured more than half of a planned $70 million funding round at a $500 million pre-money valuation, according to its CEO, as it looks to capitalize on growing demand for AI systems in regulated industries. The Series B funding round is structured in two installments, with the first led by Spain’s Adara Ventures, Articul8 founder and CEO Arun K. Subramaniyan (pictured above, center) said in an interview. He declined to disclose the size of the initial installment, but said the company expects to close the round in the first quarter of this year. Articul8’s valuation for its current funding round marks a roughly fivefold increase from the company’s $100 million post-money Series A valuation in January 2024. Since then, the Santa Clara-based company said it has surpassed $90 million in total contract value — the cumulative value of all signed customer contracts — from 29 paying customers, including Hitachi Energy, AWS, Franklin Templeton, and Intel. Subramaniyan told TechCrunch that Articul8 was not …