All posts tagged: fund

Reeves in talks over ‘war bonds’ to fund defence spending

Reeves in talks over ‘war bonds’ to fund defence spending

Published by Sam Flores

Rachel Reeves is considering issuing war bonds to fund increased defence spending, The Telegraph has learnt. Members of the public and financial institutions would be able to buy bonds to raise money that would be ring-fenced for national security. The Chancellor is reviewing whether this could solve the impasse over how to raise £17.6bn to meet the Government’s pledge to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2029-2030. A poster from 1918 promotes the sale of Victory Bonds John Healey, the Defence Secretary, is understood to be interested in the idea, which has been raised with him privately in recent weeks. Issuing bonds would be less politically problematic than funding defence by cutting the welfare budget, which military chiefs and some Cabinet ministers have backed in recent weeks. Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to explain how his Government will achieve its flagship spending target amid mounting criticism of the state of the military. Lord Hain, a Labour peer who was a Cabinet minister in the Brown and Blair governments, has argued …

Politics Home | Labour MP Calls For Pension Triple Lock Reform To Fund Defence Spending Boost

Politics Home | Labour MP Calls For Pension Triple Lock Reform To Fund Defence Spending Boost

Published by Sam Flores

4 min read19 min A Labour backbencher has called for the pension triple lock to be reformed to help fund a rise in defence spending. Graeme Downie, who was elected as the Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar in 2024, wrote in The House this weekend that the government should be brave enough to ask older people who “benefited financially from peace” to make a greater contribution to future national security.  “If there is to be a true whole of society approach to defence, and younger people could be expected to die, what are older people willing to sacrifice?” he wrote. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under pressure to expedite plans to raise defence spending amid warnings that international conflicts pose an increasing threat to the UK. As things stand, the government is committed to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2027, with the target of reaching 3 per cent in the next parliament. Starmer has recently indicated that he is willing to go further, but is facing growing calls, including from senior Labour figures, to detail how he will …

Jennifer Gilbert Sends Works to Sotheby’s to Fund Detroit Nonprofit Lumana

Jennifer Gilbert Sends Works to Sotheby’s to Fund Detroit Nonprofit Lumana

Published by Jenni Sidey

A small group of high-value works from the collection of entrepreneur and philanthropist Jennifer Gilbert will go to auction at Sotheby’s this spring, with proceeds directed toward Lumana, a Detroit-based arts nonprofit she is developing. The works will be split across Sotheby’s May contemporary sales and its June design auction. The top lots include Joan Mitchell’s Loom II (1976), estimated at $5 million to $7 million, and Kenneth Noland’s Circle (1958), carrying a $4 million to $6 million estimate—an ambitious figure that, if achieved, would set a new high-water mark for the artist.  Related Articles Other works by George Rickey and Harry Bertoia round out the group, which leans heavily on midcentury abstraction and design—material that remains dependable, if not especially speculative, in the current market.  The sale arrives at a moment when collectors and institutions alike are leaning on established names, even as broader demand has softened outside the top tier. With that in mind the sale is well thought out: a handful of recognizable works, positioned to perform, tied to a honorable outcome. Proceeds will go toward Lumana, which Gilbert is building in …

New leaders, new fund: Sequoia has raised B to expand its AI bets

New leaders, new fund: Sequoia has raised $7B to expand its AI bets

Published by skeptic

Few venture firms have bet more aggressively on AI than Sequoia Capital, and it isn’t slowing down. The Silicon Valley stalwart has raised roughly $7 billion for a new fund, according to Bloomberg. Sequoia declined TechCrunch’s request for comment. The money will go toward what the firm calls its “expansion strategy” — essentially its late-stage investing arm, focused on the U.S. and Europe — and it’s nearly double Sequoia’s last comparable fund, a $3.4 billion vehicle raised in 2022. That growth in fund size reflects something bigger: late-stage investing has taken on an entirely new meaning in the AI era. Companies can now scale at a speed and cost that would have been unimaginable a decade ago, and the firms backing them have to keep pace. The money signals where Sequoia sees the future: deeply embedded in AI, from the giants building the underlying technology to the startups putting it to work. The firm has backed two of the most prominent players in the AI race — OpenAI originally and, more recently, Anthropic — both …

The UK Launches Its 5 Million Sovereign AI Fund

The UK Launches Its $675 Million Sovereign AI Fund

Published by skeptic

The UK government has launched a venture fund for investing in domestic AI startups, part of a bid to minimize the country’s dependence on foreign-made technology. The fund, Sovereign AI, will invest roughly $675 million in homegrown startups in fields ranging from model development, to agentic AI, to drug discovery. In addition, portfolio startups will gain access to the UK’s fleet of supercomputers, free visas for international hires, procurement opportunities, and advice from specialists within government. Sovereign AI will be led by James Wise, a partner at VC firm Balterdon Capital, and Joséphine Kant, formerly of Dogwood Ventures and Y Combinator, an accelerator program whose funding helped establish OpenAI. On Thursday, the fund announced an investment in Callosum, a startup developing software that helps different classes of processors to function effectively alongside one another. The fund has awarded a further six startups—Prima Mente, Cosine, Cursive, Doubleword, Twig Bio, and Odyssey—up to one million GPU hours worth of compute each on the UK’s supercomputer network. They will use that compute to train new models and run …

Slate Auto raises 0M to fund its affordable EV truck plans

Slate Auto raises $650M to fund its affordable EV truck plans

Published by skeptic

Jeff Bezos-backed electric vehicle startup Slate Auto has raised another $650 million as the company prepares to put its first affordable pickup trucks into production by the end of 2026. The carmaker said Monday that the Series C funding round was led by TWG Global, a firm run by Guggenheim Partners chief executive (and Los Angeles Dodgers owner) Mark Walter and investor Thomas Tull. Slate Auto’s press release thanked “visionary investors” but the company did not name any others who were involved in the fundraise. The new round means Slate Auto has raised roughly $1.4 billion to date. Previous investors have included General Catalyst, Jeff Bezos’ family office, VC firm Slauson & Co., and former Amazon executive Diego Piacentini, as TechCrunch first reported last year. The company is also loaded with Amazon DNA. Beyond its investors, it was co-founded by Amazon’s former Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke. The heads of Slate’s mobility, user experience/user interface, e-commerce, fleet sales, and HR teams all used to work at Amazon. And, the company recently installed former Amazon Marketplace VP …

EU pledges €700m to Global Fund to tackle worldwide health challenges

EU pledges €700m to Global Fund to tackle worldwide health challenges

Published by skeptic

The European Commission has announced plans to commit €700m to the Global Fund, reinforcing its position as a central player in global health financing. The pledge, unveiled at the One Health Summit in Lyon by Commissioner Jozef Síkela, is part of a broader package aimed at tackling infectious diseases and strengthening health systems worldwide. Alongside the headline contribution, the EU will allocate additional funding to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and support research into neglected diseases, signalling a multi-pronged approach to some of the most pressing global health threats. Commenting on the major fiscal backing, Sikela said: “Global health security is a shared responsibility and a strategic investment in our common future. “With our support to the Global Fund and our new One Health initiative with Africa, the European Union confirms its commitment to strengthening health systems and global health resilience. A renewed commitment to the Global Fund The €700m investment will contribute to the Global Fund’s eighth replenishment cycle, covering the period from 2027 to 2029. Of this, €185m will be made available immediately through …

VC Eclipse has a new .3B fund to back — and build — ‘physical AI’ startups

VC Eclipse has a new $1.3B fund to back — and build — ‘physical AI’ startups

Published by skeptic

It takes just a skim of Eclipse’s recent investments to see where this venture firm’s interests lie — and where it is headed. The Palo Alto-based VC, which saw its median deal size explode over the past several years, has poured an increasing amount of money into the “physical world.” Its deals include electric boat developer Arc, buzzy battery recycling and material firm Redwood Materials, self-driving construction vehicle startup Bedrock Robotics, autonomous vehicle tech company Wayve, and industrial robotics lab Mind Robotics. With $1.3 billion in fresh capital — which is split between a $591 million early-stage incubation fund and one more oriented toward growth startups — Eclipse is zeroing in on what partner Jiten Behl describes as the next big technological era. “Over the last two decades, we’ve seen multiple waves of innovation,” Behl said, listing the internet, mobile cloud, and social media eras. “This is the first time where stuff is going to move from our screens into the physical world; we’re going to see advanced levels of intelligence, along with actual actions, …

OpenAI alums have been quietly investing from a new, potentially 0M fund 

OpenAI alums have been quietly investing from a new, potentially $100M fund 

Published by skeptic

A new venture capital fund with deep ties to OpenAI has made its first close on its $100 million goal, the founders tell TechCrunch. The partners have already written a couple of checks.  The fund is called Zero Shot (a play on the AI training term) and its co-founding team includes several OpenAI OGs who found themselves becoming VCs almost by serendipity.   Three of the founding partners hail from OpenAI. Evan Morikawa, the former head of applied engineering during the launch of DALL·E and ChatGPT through Codex, is now at robotics startup Generalist. Andrew Mayne, OpenAI’s original prompt engineer, is well-known as the host of The OpenAI podcast. Mayne also founded Interdimensional, an AI deployment consultancy. And Shawn Jain is an engineer and former researcher at OpenAI, who then became a VC and is a founder of his own GenAI startup, Synthefy.   The alums are joined by VC Kelly Kovacs, previously a founding partner at 01A, the growth-stage venture firm founded by Dick Costello and Adam Bain. The fifth founding member of the fund is Brett Rounsaville, formerly of …