The Moats That Moved
The same week a widely shared analysis argued LLMs are "dismantling the moats that made vertical SaaS defensible," Figma reported 40% revenue growth and partnered with Anthropic to let users generate designs from code. Canva hit $4 billion in annual revenue. The design tools aren't dying. They're becoming the interface to AI itself.
Nvidia says it is working with Peak XV, Z47, and other VC firms in India to fund AI startups; 4,000+ Indian AI startups have joined its global startup program
Dylan Butts /CNBC:
OpenAI partners with six Indian education institutions, including IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, and AIIMS New Delhi, to provide ChatGPT Edu access to 100K+ students
OpenAI is expanding its footprint in India and moving into the country's higher-education system through partnerships with leading academic institutions.
Google rolls out Lyria 3, a generative music model that can make 30-second tracks with Nano Banana-made cover art, in beta in the Gemini app in eight languages
The Gemini app now features our most advanced music generation model Lyria 3, empowering anyone to make 30-second tracks using text or images in beta.
Bengaluru-based startup Sarvam AI unveils two models at the AI Impact Summit that it says are more tailored to Indian languages and cultures than other models
An Indian startup called Sarvam AI is making a push to create a viable competitor for the domestic market, unveiling an artificial-intelligence model …
Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised $1B from Autodesk, a16z, Nvidia, AMD, Sea, and others to build its world models for robotics, scientific discovery, and more
World Labs, a startup from artificial intelligence pioneer Fei-Fei Li, raised $1 billion in a new round of funding to pursue a novel approach to AI development.
Microsoft says it is on pace to invest $50B by 2030 to help expand AI across the Global South, after unveiling $17.5B worth of AI investments in India in 2025
Abu Sultan /Reuters:
Google unveils the $499 Pixel 10a, with a Tensor G4 and 8GB of RAM like the Pixel 9a, Satellite SOS, an 11% brighter screen, but no Pixelsnap, shipping March 4
Google's midrange Pixels have been our top pick for budget Android phones for a while. They offer good cameras and most of what you need at a budget-friendly price.
Social media addiction trial: Mark Zuckerberg says increasing engagement on Instagram is not a company goal and that Meta removes underage users it identifies
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back against the notion that the social media company made increasing time spent on Instagram a company goal.
Texas AG Ken Paxton sues TP-Link, alleging it deceptively markets its products as secure while allowing the CCP to hack into consumers' devices
Texas is suing networking equipment company TP-Link Systems for allegedly allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to hack into consumers' devices …
Audible launches an “immersion reading” feature that lets readers switch between ebook and audiobook versions of a title in their Audible and Kindle libraries
Only days after Spotify announced its foray into physical book sales, which included an audiobook feature that lets …
A Las Vegas federal appeals court rejects Kalshi's emergency bid for an administrative stay on Nevada's push to block the platform, a major setback for Kalshi
A federal appeals court rejected Kalshi's bid, setting the stage for Nevada's civil-enforcement proceedings
Sports-focused prediction market Novig raised a $75M Series B led by Pantera Capital at a $500M valuation; Novig is commission-free for retail traders
As the prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket dominate the attention of investors and regulators, a sports-focused challenger called Novig …
Saudi-backed AI startup Humain invested $3B in xAI, becoming a “significant minority shareholder” in a deal that completed just before SpaceX's xAI acquisition
Saudi-backed artificial intelligence company Humain has invested $3 billion into Elon Musk's AI startup xAI, according to a statement on Wednesday.
Microsoft confirms a bug that let Microsoft 365 Copilot summarize confidential emails from Sent Items and Drafts folders, and deployed a fix in early February
Microsoft says a Microsoft 365 Copilot bug has been causing the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails since late January …
OpenAI and Paradigm announce EVMbench, a benchmark that measures how well AI agents can detect, exploit, and patch high-severity smart contract vulnerabilities
Making smart contracts safer by evaluating AI agents' ability to detect, patch, and exploit vulnerabilities in blockchain environments.
Apple adds support for third-party voice-based conversational apps in CarPlay starting with iOS 26.4, letting CarPlay users access apps like AI chatbots
With iOS 26.4, CarPlay users will be able to use third-party chatbots with CarPlay. AI services like Claude, Gemini …
eBay agrees to acquire secondhand clothing app Depop from Etsy for ~$1.2B in cash; Etsy bought Depop in 2021 for $1.6B; ETSY jumps 17%+ after hours
Niko Gallogly /New York Times:
Sources: while Meta offered OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger more money than OpenAI, he ultimately aligned more closely with OpenAI's overall vibe and vision
Less than a week before he ultimately joined OpenAI, OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger talked about the two job offers …
eBay reports Q4 revenue up 15% YoY to $3B, vs. $2.87B est., GMV up 10% to $21.2B, and forecasts Q1 profit above estimates; EBAY jumps 6%+ after hours
EBay Inc. agreed to buy Depop for about $1.2 billion in an effort to attract younger shoppers and stand out in an increasingly cluttered e-commerce market.
Dreamer, founded by former Stripe CTO David Singleton, Hugo Barra, and others, launches in beta to let technical and non-technical users build agentic AI apps
Dreamer is the name of the platform and company I started with Hugo, Nicholas and others a little over a year ago.
Meta plans to spend $65M in 2026 to boost state politicians friendly to AI; filings: Meta started two super PACs, one backing the GOP and another for Democrats
Meta's biggest election investment aims to prevent state legislation that it fears could inhibit artificial intelligence development.
Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 4.6 with improvements in coding, computer use, instruction following, and more; it features a 1M token context window in beta
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is our most capable Sonnet model yet. It's a full upgrade of the model's skills across coding, computer use …
Sources: Ineffable Intelligence, founded by former Google DeepMind Principal Scientist David Silver, is raising a $1B seed led by Sequoia at a ~$4B valuation
Sequoia Capital leading funding deal for David Silver's start-up Ineffable Intelligence at $4bn valuation
Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised $200M from Autodesk, part of a larger round; the companies are exploring integrating World Labs' AI models into Autodesk products
Fei-Fei Li's World Labs has secured a $200 million investment from software design giant Autodesk.
Figma reports Q4 revenue up 40% YoY to $303.8M, vs. $293.15M est., and forecasts Q1 revenue above estimates; FIG jumps 15%+ after hours
Figma shares jumped as much as 20% in extended trading on Wednesday after the design software maker reported robust results and quarterly guidance than Wall Street had predicted.
Perplexity says it has no plans to further pursue ads, which it introduced in 2024, after phasing them out in late 2025 over fears they would erode user trust
Leading start-ups have recently embraced sponsors as they search for revenue — AI start-up Perplexity has abandoned advertising …
How US citizens, clergy, and elected officials in conservative communities like Missouri are leading a grassroots rebellion against the Trump-backed AI boom
Republicans fear backlash against White House agenda could undermine support in this year's midterm elections
Sources: Meta has revived a previously shelved smartwatch project, now code-named Malibu 2, and plans to release it in 2026 with health features and Meta AI
Meta Platforms plans to release its first smartwatch in 2026, according to two people familiar with the matter.
OpenAI hires Instagram's VP of global partnerships, Charles Porch, as its first VP of global creative partnerships, seeking to win over a skeptical Hollywood
Charles Porch's newly created role as OpenAI's VP of global creative partnerships signals the AI giant's new focus on the entertainment industry
DoorDash reports Q4 revenue up 38% YoY to $3.96B, vs. $3.99B est., total orders up 32% to 903M, and forecasts Q1 adjusted EBITDA below estimates
Doordash's stock dropped 10% after the food delivery platform issued disappointing fourth-quarter results and guidance as it ramps up its investments in new technology.
Remitly co-founder Matt Oppenheimer steps down as CEO, will be succeeded by Banco Santander executive Sebastian Gunningham
Matt Oppenheimer is stepping down as chief executive officer of payments network Remitly Global Inc. and will be succeeded by Banco Santander SA's Sebastian Gunningham.
Selector, which offers an AI platform that promises to simplify network monitoring, raised a $32M Series B led by AVP at a $375M valuation
Network observability provider Selector Software Inc. today announced that it has raised a $32 million funding round at a $375 million valuation.
Efficient Computer, which is developing AI chips with a “spatial dataflow” architecture to minimize energy consumption, raised a $60M Series A
Robinhood launches an IPO for Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a $1B closed-end fund to provide retail investors access to private markets, offering 40M shares at $25
Robinhood Markets Inc. is seeking to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering of a closed-end fund designed …
At India's AI Summit, Alphabet announces the America-India Connect Initiative, which will build new fiber optic lines between India, the US, and other countries
Alphabet Inc. unveiled several new initiatives to support its expansion in India, including new fiber-optic routes that will connect …
Venice, which develops identity security software, emerges from stealth after raising a $25M Series A led by IVP, following an $8M seed round
Snap says its direct revenue business has hit a $1B annualized revenue run rate, driven primarily by Snapchat+ surpassing 25M subscribers since its 2022 launch
Snap's direct revenue business has reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate, the company announced on Wednesday.
Cogent Security, which aims to use AI agents to decide which software bugs to remediate, raised a $42M Series A led by Bain, taking its total funding to $53M
Cogent Security has raised a $42 million Series A just six months after launch. Their bet? That AI agents can finally fix …
Matthew Ball's State of Video Gaming 2026 report: global video game content sales grew 5.3% YoY to $195.6B in 2025 while job losses fell 40% YoY to 9,200 people
Private funding fell a further 55% last year, according to Epyllion's latest State of Video Gaming report
Kana, which builds AI marketing agents to perform data analysis, audience targeting, campaign management, and more, emerges from stealth and raised a $15M seed
Marketing is one of the few operations no industry can afford to ignore, which is why we have a veritable host of AI-powered marketing tools …
Night Media, a talent agency that represents influencers like Twitch streamer Kai Cenat, raised $70M led by StepStone to expand into gaming, sports, and music
Digital savings startup Vestwell raised a $385M Series E co-led by Blue Owl and Sixth Street, after a $125M Series D in 2023, taking its total funding to $660M
Vestwell, a digital savings platform, has raised $385 million in a Series E funding round co-led by Blue Owl Capital and Sixth Street Growth.
Canva COO Cliff Obrecht says the company hit $4B in ARR at the end of 2025, had 265M+ MAUs and 31M+ paid users, and expects to IPO in the next “couple of years”
Creative company Canva ended 2025 on a high note with a 20% increase in monthly active users, growth that was partially propelled by adoption of its AI tools.
DG Matrix, which builds solid-state transformers to handle up to 2.4 MW and boost data center power efficiency, raised a $60M Series A led by Engine Ventures
Data centers face a conundrum: how to power increasingly dense server racks using equipment that relies on century-old technology.
CFTC Chair Mike Selig says the commission will file friend-of-the-court briefs to defend its exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets amid state lawsuits
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is launching a legal campaign to defend its regulatory turf on prediction markets …
Over 100 researchers from Johns Hopkins, Oxford, and more call for guardrails on some infectious disease datasets that could enable AI to design deadly viruses
Sources: Amazon shut down Blue Jay, a multi-armed robotic system launched in October 2025 for same-day delivery warehouses, to focus on small modular warehouses
- Amazon halts Blue Jay robot project amid strategic shift in warehouse technology. — Blue Jay faced high costs and complexities …
A US federal judge orders OpenAI to stop using “Cameo” in its Sora products and features, in a trademark lawsuit filed by celebrity video message app Cameo
A federal district court in Northern California ruled in favor of Cameo, a platform that allows users …
Mesh, founded by ex-SpaceX staff to mass produce optical transceivers that convert optical signals to electrical signals, raised a $50M Series A led by Thrive
Uber plans to spend $100M+ to build fast-charging, autonomous vehicle charging stations in the US, starting in the San Francisco Bay Area, LA, and Dallas
Uber Technologies Inc. is planning to spend more than $100 million to build fast-charging, autonomous-vehicle charging stations in the US …
Emergent, which offers an AI-powered software development service, says it is generating annual run-rate revenue of $100M+, just eight months after launch
Indian vibe-coding platform Emergent was launched just eight months ago, and it now says it's generating annual run-rate revenue …
Braintrust, which helps companies evaluate and monitor their AI tools' performance, raised an $80M Series B led by Iconiq at an $800M post-money valuation
Automattic adds an AI assistant to WordPress.com, enabling users to perform site-wide layout and style modifications via natural language commands
Filings: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway cut its Amazon stake by 75%+ to ~2.3M shares in Q4 2025; Berkshire bought 5.1M NYT shares, worth ~$352M in December
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. slashed its stake in Amazon.com Inc. by more than 75% in the fourth quarter …
Palo Alto Networks reports Q2 revenue up 15% YoY to $2.6B, above $2.58B est., and projects Q3 adjusted EPS below estimates; PANW drops 7%+
Figma and Anthropic partner to launch Code to Canvas, letting users import code generated in Claude Code directly into Figma as editable designs
Q&A with Synthesia co-founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli on growing the London-based enterprise AI video platform, hitting a $4B valuation, regulation, and more
The founder of the $4bn UK start-up talks about his mission to reinvent content creation and how Europe can compete in the global AI race
Benchmark hires Jack Altman, the founder of Alt Capital and Lattice, as its fifth general partner; three Alt Capital team members will join him at Benchmark
Benchmark on Tuesday said it had hired Jack Altman, the founder of early-stage firm Alt Capital and HR software company Lattice, as its fifth general partner.
Snapchat launches creator subscriptions in alpha, available to some creators in the US starting February 23; creators set custom monthly pricing
Quantum computing company Infleqtion closed at $15.59 in its trading debut, up ~9% from its opening price of $14.25, after merging with a Michael Klein-led SPAC
Some private software companies including McAfee released earnings early to reassure investors worried about an AI-linked selloff, dubbed the “SaaSpocalypse”
SEC filing: Peter Thiel and Founders Fund have fully exited ETHZilla, after disclosing a 7.5% stake in August 2025; ether is down 60% from its August 2025 peak
Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel and his Founders Fund have fully exited ETHZilla Corp., according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
A look at MGX, Abu Dhabi's AI investment vehicle that has Anthropic, xAI, and OpenAI stakes; the firm plans to spend up to $10B annually over the next few years
Government-backed AI investor MGX has a bullish plan to spend up to $10 billion annually over the next few years.
Sources: Western Digital plans to raise $3.09B by selling a Sandisk stake at $535-$555/share, a 9.4% discount to Tuesday's close; the offering is oversubscribed
Western Digital Corp. is seeking to raise $3.09 billion from the sale of a stake in Sandisk Corp., after the digital storage company spun off …
Anthropic expects to pay Amazon, Google, and Microsoft $80B+ total to run its models on their servers through 2029, plus as much as $100B to train its models
Sources: AI legal software startup Legora is in talks to raise $400M at a $5B+ valuation, after raising $150M in October 2025 at a $1.8B valuation
As investors double down on the promise of automating legal work, the company is in talks to raise $400 million following two rounds in late 2025.LinkedIn:Iain MartinLinkedIn:Iain Martin:As investors ...
WBD joins Disney and Paramount in claiming infringement on ByteDance's AI video tool Seedance and demands ByteDance cease training AI on Warner Bros. characters
The studio's legal counsel fired off a letter on Tuesday to John Rogovin, the general counsel of ByteDance who happens …
Stripe's stablecoin firm Bridge wins conditional approval from the US OCC to form a national trust bank, which would allow it to issue and manage stablecoins
What to know: … Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure firm owned by Stripe, said Tuesday it has received conditional approval …
YouTube fully restores its services after a 2.5-hour outage on February 17, which started at around 7:45pm ET and was caused by a recommendations system issue
If you're trying to access YouTube right now and running into problems, you're not alone, as a widespread outage appears to be affecting YouTube and, to a lesser extent, YouTube TV.
Q&A with Ramp CEO Eric Glyman on scaling the expense management company to $1B+ in revenue, the “SaaS apocalypse”, using AI agents to review expenses, and more
Eric Glyman is the cofounder and CEO of Ramp, the finance automation platform that now powers over 2% of all corporate spend in the US.
Bengaluru-based Stable Money, whose app lets users invest in fixed deposits and corporate bonds, raised $25M at a ~$175M valuation, taking total funding to $65M
The startup plans to grow its overall business five times by the end of this year, enter new cities through physical expansion …
Amazon's stock closed up 1.2% on February 17, ending a nine-day slide that wiped out $450B+ in market cap after Amazon said it would spend $200B in 2026 capex
Amazon shares closed up more than 1% on Tuesday, snapping a nine-day slide that shaved billions off of its market cap.
Filing: Nvidia sold 1.1M Arm shares, worth ~$140M based on Arm's closing price on February 17, sometime in Q4 2025, bringing Nvidia's stake to zero
Nvidia Corp. sold off the last of its stake in Arm Holdings Plc, a chip technology company that it tried and failed to acquire five years ago.
Palantir moves its HQ from Denver to Miami, as the city's leadership aims to turn it into the next Silicon Valley, with backing of billionaires like Ken Griffin
Josh Kushner's Thrive raised $10B+ for its tenth and largest fund, lifting its AUM to ~$50B; sources: it distributed 64% of capital raised during the 2021 peak
Sources: Apple is ramping up work on AI wearables with cameras and Siri, such as smart glasses, AirPods, and a pendant that can be worn as a necklace or pinned
Apple Inc. is accelerating development of three new wearable devices as part of a shift toward artificial intelligence-powered hardware …
A look at China's push to become a world leader in brain-computer interfaces, as Shanghai-based startup NeuroXess moves to human trials with Beijing's backing
Looser regulation and new investment are helping groups such as NeuroXess accelerate trials of ‘brain-computer interfaces’
Filing: Gemini says its COO, CFO, and chief legal officer are leaving; Cameron Winklevoss will take on many of the COO's duties; GEMI closes down 12.9%
Crypto VC firm Dragonfly closes a $650M fund, its fourth, as the crypto VCs go through a “mass extinction event”; Dragonfly backed Polymarket's Series B
Meta commits to buying millions of Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin GPUs in a multiyear deal; a source says Meta's in-house AI chip strategy had technical challenges
Social media group will purchase millions of chips even as it tries to develop its own AI hardware
Tesla agrees to stop using the term “autopilot” to market its EVs in California to avoid a 30-day suspension by the state's DMV, resolving a long-running battle
Tesla has stopped using the term “autopilot” to market its electric vehicles in California in order to avoid a 30-day suspension by the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Google signs a power purchase agreement with Ormat to supply up to 150 MW of geothermal energy to its Nevada data centers through NV Energy starting in 2028
Alphabet Inc.'s Google plans to draw on geothermal power from renewable energy company Ormat Technologies to help fuel its fleet of data centers in Nevada.
Raspberry Pi stock closes up 36% after rising as much as 42% on Tuesday, amid chatter that its products could benefit from low-cost AI projects like OpenClaw
Battery Ventures raised $3.25B for its XV fund, roughly matching its 2022 raise, to back software and industrial tech startups amid AI-led disruption concerns
Global investment firm Battery Ventures has raised $3.25 billion to fund new tech deals, including investments in software companies …
Google schedules I/O 2026 for May 19 to 20 in Mountain View, teasing the “latest AI breakthroughs and updates” in Gemini, Android, and more
Following the puzzle this morning, Google has announced that I/O 2026 is taking place May 19-20. — I/O 2026 will feature …
A look at India's sensible AI regulation, promising foundation models, chip ambitions, energy constraints, startup ecosystem, and blossoming venture funding
India's AI Summit promises a revolution. The electricity grid, the tax code, and the literal ground beneath the chip fab have other plans.
Yotta says it is investing $2B to deploy Nvidia's Blackwell B300 GPUs at its data center campus in Noida, India to create one of Asia's largest AI superclusters
Himanshi Lohchab /The Economic Times:
Source: Benchmark's 2020 fund is now worth 10x+ and 2024 fund is 3x what investors put in, based on cash distributions and the paper value of its investments
Natasha Mascarenhas /Bloomberg:
Google expands Quick Share support with AirDrop to the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold, after introducing it on the Pixel 10 in November 2025
After introducing on the Pixel 10 last year, Google is expanding Quick Share support with AirDrop to the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold.