The Information

Mercury co-founder and CEO Immad Akhund. Photo via Getty Images.

Inside Mercury’s Stumble From Fintech Hero to Target of the Feds

By Michael Roddan · Mar 28, 2024 6:00am PDT

The meeting last July between officials from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and executives from Choice Financial Group was tense. For most of the two-and-a-half hour session, the FDIC officials delivered the results of the agency’s recent examination of Choice, a once sleepy bank based in Fargo, N.D., for possible violations of... The meeting last July between officials from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and executives...

Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva. Photo by Getty.

The Financials Behind Canva’s Corporate Sales Battle Plan Against Adobe

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 27, 2024 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Software startup Canva, which has grown to a $26 billion valuation with a message that it is “democratizing design” for people without professional training, is increasingly pinning its fortunes on selling its suite of editing tools to the biggest companies in the world. The privately held Australian company told prospective... Software startup Canva, which has grown to a $26 billion valuation with a message that it is...

Apple CEO Tim Cook in Shanghai on March 21. Photo by AFP/China OUT via Getty Images.

Apple’s Vision Pro Gets Boost From China’s Media Kingmaker

By Wayne Ma · Mar 26, 2024 6:00am PDT

When Apple launched the Vision Pro headset, it leaned heavily on its own streaming app, as well as those of Disney and others, to market the headset’s most compelling feature: an immersive video experience. Now Tencent, China’s largest social media, streaming and gaming company, has agreed to make some of its most important apps... When Apple launched the Vision Pro headset, it leaned heavily on its own streaming app, as well...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Meta Pursues AI Talent With Quick Offers, Emails From Zuckerberg

By Kalley Huang and Jon Victor · Mar 25, 2024 6:00am PDT

Art by Mike Sullivan

Meta Pursues AI Talent With Quick Offers, Emails From Zuckerberg

By Kalley Huang and Jon Victor · Mar 25, 2024 6:00am PDT

To better compete for artificial intelligence researchers, Meta Platforms is making unconventional moves, including extending job offers to candidates without interviewing them and relaxing a longstanding practice of not increasing compensation for employees threatening to leave. In a sign of how seriously the social media company is taking the... To better compete for artificial intelligence researchers, Meta Platforms is making...

Benchmark partner Peter Fenton via Getty

Benchmark to Lead Investment in AI Video Startup HeyGen at $440 Million Valuation

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Kate Clark · Mar 23, 2024 12:26pm PDT · 1 comment

HeyGen, a three-year-old startup that uses artificial intelligence to generate avatars and voices for videos, is raising $60 million at a pre-investment valuation of $440 million, six times higher than the startup’s valuation four months ago, according to a person with direct knowledge of the round. Benchmark, the early-stage venture... HeyGen, a three-year-old startup that uses artificial intelligence to generate avatars and voices...

Cameo CEO Steven Galanis. Photo by Getty.

Cameo Valuation Plunges at Least 90% in ‘Cramdown’ Funding Round

By Cory Weinberg and Kaya Yurieff · Mar 22, 2024 11:47am PDT · 1 comment

Cameo authorized a $28 million round of funding last week that will drastically reduce its valuation, the company told shareholders, reflecting a big slowdown in the celebrity video shoutout app’s business. The funding, led by existing investor Valor Equity Partners, would value the company at less than $100 million, measured after the... Cameo authorized a $28 million round of funding last week that will drastically reduce its...

Rippling founder and CEO, Parker Conrad. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

In HR Software Battle, Rippling Makes Up Ground Against Deel—At a Cost

By Abubakar Idris and Natasha Mascarenhas · Mar 22, 2024 6:00am PDT

Rippling, a human-resources software startup valued at more than $11 billion, was a relative latecomer to the business of helping companies hire staff overseas. Now its expansion into dozens of countries, including the U.K. and Ireland, is starting to pay off. The eight-year-old startup’s annual recurring revenue roughly doubled to more... Rippling, a human-resources software startup valued at more than $11 billion, was a relative...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, left, and Inflection CEO Mustafa Suleyman, right. Photos by Getty.

Microsoft Agreed to Pay Inflection $650 Million While Hiring Its Staff

By Jessica E. Lessin, Natasha Mascarenhas and Aaron Holmes · Mar 21, 2024 9:38am PDT · 7 comments

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, left, and Inflection CEO Mustafa Suleyman, right. Photos by Getty.

Microsoft Agreed to Pay Inflection $650 Million While Hiring Its Staff

By Jessica E. Lessin, Natasha Mascarenhas and Aaron Holmes · Mar 21, 2024 9:38am PDT · 7 comments

Microsoft doesn’t want its plan to hire two of Inflection AI’s co-founders and most of its 70-person staff to be seen as an acquisition. But it’s still writing a hefty check to the two-year-old artificial intelligence startup. The software giant has agreed to pay Inflection approximately $650 million, mostly in the form of a... Microsoft doesn’t want its plan to hire two of Inflection AI’s co-founders and most...

How a Legacy Media Company Dwarfed Venture Capitalists’ Returns on Reddit

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 21, 2024 6:00am PDT

The world was a much different place when media titan Condé Nast bought fledgling internet forum Reddit for around $10 million in 2006. Media companies were still figuring out the internet—Condé had just bought the website for Wired, a magazine it already owned—and glossy print titles like Vogue and an arsenal of... The world was a much different place when media titan Condé Nast bought fledgling internet...

Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez. Photo by Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Tepid Revenue at Cohere Shows OpenAI Competitors Face Uphill Battle

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Maria Heeter · Mar 20, 2024 3:14pm PDT

The conversational artificial intelligence boom sparked by ChatGPT boosted funding and valuations for startups in the field, but few of them are making much money. In the latest example, Cohere, one of the best-known startup competitors to OpenAI, which has raised $445 million from investors, was generating about $13 million in annualized... The conversational artificial intelligence boom sparked by ChatGPT boosted funding and valuations...

Art via Reddit/Shane Burke.

With IPO Looming, Reddit’s AI Pitch Faces Skeptics

By Cory Weinberg and Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 20, 2024 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

As Reddit executives and the company’s advisers try to reel in investors for its initial public offering, they’ve been using two seemingly magic words as part of their pitch: artificial intelligence. A slide deck for potential investors shows Reddit’s cartoon robot logo next to emblems of semiconductor companies Nvidia and Arm,... As Reddit executives and the company’s advisers try to reel in investors for its initial...

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Photo via YouTube/Stripe

AI Search Startup Perplexity Is Challenging Google—While Using Its Data

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Jon Victor and Aaron Holmes · Mar 19, 2024 1:11pm PDT · 5 comments

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Photo via YouTube/Stripe

AI Search Startup Perplexity Is Challenging Google—While Using Its Data

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Jon Victor and Aaron Holmes · Mar 19, 2024 1:11pm PDT · 5 comments

Perplexity AI, an artificial intelligence–powered search engine, has become a Silicon Valley startup darling for taking on Google with conversational answers rather than a list of web links. Tech CEOs such as Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Dell’s Michael Dell have sung the praises of the startup, and it has raised more than $100... Perplexity AI, an artificial intelligence–powered search engine, has become a Silicon...

Photo by Getty Images.

Temu Aims to Lessen Reliance on U.S. Shoppers

By Jing Yang · Mar 19, 2024 6:00am PDT

As Chinese shopping site Temu faces mounting hostility toward Chinese companies from U.S. politicians, it is looking to reduce its reliance on the U.S. market. Since it launched in the U.S. less than two years ago, the site, known for its ultralow prices, has caught fire with American shoppers. The U.S. accounted for 60% of total merchandise... As Chinese shopping site Temu faces mounting hostility toward Chinese companies from U.S....

Chris Lehane. Photo by AFP via Getty Images.

Political Veteran Lehane Nearing Deal to Join OpenAI

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 18, 2024 6:25am PDT

OpenAI, coming off months of controversy, is looking to add more political and public relations muscle. Chris Lehane, the former Airbnb policy chief and a veteran of the Clinton White House, is nearing a deal to join the artificial intelligence startup as a senior executive, according to people familiar with the potential move. OpenAI, coming off months of controversy, is looking to add more political and public relations...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announcing the GPT Store in November. Photo via Getty

OpenAI’s Chatbot App Store Is Off to a Slow Start

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 18, 2024 6:00am PDT · 5 comments

Last fall, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sought to capitalize on the raging success of ChatGPT by launching an app store. Similar to the way Apple turned the iPhone into a big business for mobile app developers, OpenAI hoped developers would tap into its artificial intelligence to create and sell their own conversational AI apps to ChatGPT customers. ... Last fall, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sought to capitalize on the raging success of ChatGPT by...

Art by Clark Miller

Microsoft Security Breaches Rile U.S. Government Customers

By Aaron Holmes · Mar 15, 2024 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

Art by Clark Miller

Microsoft Security Breaches Rile U.S. Government Customers

By Aaron Holmes · Mar 15, 2024 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

Microsoft became the world’s biggest seller of cybersecurity software by bundling it with Office and Teams apps. But after a series of hacks exploited that software in the past year, several of Microsoft’s biggest customers are considering whether their reliance on Microsoft’s software bundle puts their security at risk. The... Microsoft became the world’s biggest seller of cybersecurity software by bundling it with...

Jane Dunlevie and Jason Rowe. Photos via Goldman Sachs and Fulbright Canada.

Goldman Sachs, Girding for More Deals, Promotes Two Tech Bankers

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 14, 2024 12:17pm PDT · 1 comment

Goldman Sachs promoted two of its senior investment bankers this week to prepare for a moment it has long been hoping for: a return of tech deals. Jane Dunlevie, a tech-focused banker who helped run Instacart’s initial public offering and Stripe’s $7 billion private capital raise last year, will expand her role to become global head... Goldman Sachs promoted two of its senior investment bankers this week to prepare for a moment it...

Nextdoor's Nirav Tolia. Photo by Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty Images.

Former Nextdoor Employee Says CEO Tolia Sexually Harassed Her

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 14, 2024 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

A former Nextdoor employee alleged to a company-appointed investigator and to its board of directors in the summer of 2018 that its chief executive and co-founder, Nirav Tolia, sexually harassed her in 2015. A Nextdoor spokesperson confirmed the investigation of Tolia, who left the CEO job in 2018 but was reappointed last month by its board of... A former Nextdoor employee alleged to a company-appointed investigator and to its board of...

Art by Shane Burke

How Stalking and Harassment Allegations Fractured a Semiconductor Startup

By Paris Martineau · Mar 13, 2024 10:30am PDT · 1 comment

In March last year, the former girlfriend of Erik Hosler—then the CEO of semiconductor manufacturing startup xLight—applied for a domestic violence restraining order against him, accusing Hosler of stalking and harassing her. A judge in California had already granted a temporary order, and when xLight learned of the dispute, it asked... In March last year, the former girlfriend of Erik Hosler—then the CEO of semiconductor...

Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Before CEO Exit, Allbirds’ Design Mishaps Were Piling Up

By Ann Gehan · Mar 13, 2024 6:00am PDT · 3 comments

Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Before CEO Exit, Allbirds’ Design Mishaps Were Piling Up

By Ann Gehan · Mar 13, 2024 6:00am PDT · 3 comments

Last fall, Allbirds was preparing to launch an updated version of its popular Wool Runner shoe when its product design team realized there was a problem. A flaw in the design meant Allbirds had to scramble to remove and replace the fabric inside roughly 30,000 pairs of shoes, two people who worked on the launch said. The last-minute snag... Last fall, Allbirds was preparing to launch an updated version of its popular Wool Runner shoe...