Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
Accel has closed a new $550 million India fund, less than two years after raising its previous India-focused vehicle, as part of a coordinated $3.5 billion global fundraising effort. The new India fund was oversubscribed and closed within weeks, people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Accel still has more than 55% of its previous $650 million India fund available for investment, the people said, underlining that the latest raise came despite ample capital remaining in its earlier vehicle. The fundraising comes as Accel bets that India’s next startup wave will be driven not only by AI, but also by…
Bumble’s buzz is sounding familiar.When Whitney Wolfe Herd left Tinder to found Bumble, she positioned the new rival as Tinder’s antithesis.”I always felt that for me as a woman, I always had to wait around,” she told The New York Times in 2017. So, women would have to message first, and they’d have 24 hours to do it.The app enjoyed early success in the mid-2010s and again during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then came the industry’s tightening, the stock’s sinking, and a widespread feeling of online dating malaise. While competitors like Hinge rose in the ranks, Bumble changed from a progressive…
Oracle has drawn up plans for a new round of job cuts to reduce payroll as it racks up billions in debt to fund AI infrastructure, according to people familiar with the plans and an internal document viewed by Business Insider.The cuts could reach double-digit percentages on some teams, according to the document. The company has requested managers provide lists of affected employees, with the intention of reducing payroll by the time the second quarter begins on Sept. 1, according to one of the people with direct knowledge.Oracle declined to comment.This potential round of layoffs follows cuts earlier this year.…
Kevin Weil, the former chief product officer of OpenAI, has sought a valuation of at least $750 million for a new AI science startup, in the latest example of AI pushing into science. Weil is aiming to raise $150 million in the round, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. The details have not been finalized yet and could still change.Weil did not respond to a request for comment.Weil’s fundraising is a broader sign that AI’s next frontier is shifting from chatbots to science. A growing number of OpenAI and Google alums are launching startups that promise to…
ChatGPT is on desktops across the world, but there’s been one place where it’s been lacking: the Linux community. Certain sectors of the open source developer community have been clamoring for OpenAI to bring its chatbot to their neck of the woods. As of this week, OpenAI has rectified this oversight, launching a dedicated ChatGPT app for Linux. “Linux has been one of the most-requested platforms for the desktop app, and this launch extends ChatGPT and Codex across every major desktop operating system,” the company said Tuesday. The new app, which is being released in preview, will give Linux users…
In a significant milestone for Google, CEO Sundar Pichai announced via X that the Gemini app has become one of the company’s fastest-growing products, recently surpassing 1 billion monthly active users. Pichai also noted it was the 14th Google product to hit the 1 billion mark. With this rapid growth, Gemini is keeping pace with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which hit 1 billion monthly active users back in June. The company has been steadily integrating Gemini across its products, from Search and Workspace to Android and its standalone app. Google’s AI Mode in Search, in particular, has achieved a lot of success,…
TikTok is shuttering its Nashville office in early October and laying off 250 staffers.Last week, the company told impacted workers they’d remain on payroll for the next couple of months before the office officially closed. After that, employees are being offered one month of severance pay plus an additional month of pay for each year they’ve worked at the company, three impacted staffers said.TikTok’s severance package falls within the range of what other media and tech firms have offered in recent layoff rounds:In February, The Washington Post offered laid-off workers a month of base pay, plus two weeks of pay…
Brad Lightcap, one of the longest-serving executives at OpenAI, is leaving the powerful AI lab to “start something new.” In an internal message that Lightcap shared online Tuesday, the outgoing executive told OpenAI staff that it was “bittersweet to share that I’ll be moving on from OpenAI to start something new.” Lightcap, who joined the company in 2018, spent four years as OpenAI’s chief financial officer. He then ascended to chief operating officer, where he served from 2022 until earlier this year when, amidst a shakeup of executive roles, he transitioned to lead special projects at the company. Prior to…
River AI, an AI startup founded by xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin, has secured $1.1 billion in funding in a seed/Series A round led by General Catalyst and AMP PBC, with participation from Nvidia, AMD Ventures, Y Combinator, and Temasek. (AMP PBC is an AI-focused investment firm founded in 2026 by former Andreessen Horowitz general partner Anjney Midha, backer of companies at a16z like Black Forest Labs, Mistral AI, LMArena and OpenRouter.) River came out of stealth in June with a fascinating mission. Babuschkin, whose resume includes AI roles at DeepMind and OpenAI, intends to reinvent AI from scratch, beginning with how…
Tesla is giving its Cybercab a little help from another Elon Musk company.On Monday, the EV maker shared photos on X of what it called the “First Cybercab with Starlink integration.” The images show a square-like cutout in the roofline, where the satellite internet equipment is built directly into the vehicle.In a subsequent X post, Musk said riders inside the autonomous two-seat car can “watch live sports in 4k or movies or games or productivity.”The integration is another example of how Musk’s companies are increasingly intertwined. Tesla is using SpaceX’s AI personality, Grok, as a voice assistant in its vehicles;…