Ciridae, which is developing AI to streamline back-office operations for real-economy businesses, raised a $20M seed led by Accel, with a16z participating — AI is swiftly rewiring the way people work, but an outsize amount of this workplace revolution has so far been confined to Fortune 500-style companies.
Source: Shein is acquiring DTC clothing retailer Everlane, which focuses on sustainability and “radical transparency”, in a $100M deal — The Millennial D.T.C. company built a global brand based on sustainability and radical transparency. Now, after a years-long slump …
Analysis: 34 leading AI startups are generating ~$80B in annualized revenue, up 112% from six months ago, with Anthropic and OpenAI capturing 89% of the revenue — Anthropic and OpenAI are widening the revenue gap between themselves and the rest of the AI startup field.
Grafana says hackers have accessed its GitHub environment and demanded a ransom to prevent the release of its codebase; Grafana refused to pay — Grafana has disclosed that an “unauthorized party” obtained a token that granted them the ability to access the company's GitHub environment and download its codebase.
Nectar Social, which offers an agentic OS for marketers, raised a $30M Series A led by Menlo Ventures, with GV and True Ventures among investors — AI-powered marketing platform Nectar Social announced Thursday that it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund …
Vietnam's government, which once saw video games as a social risk, named gaming as one of its key cultural industries in 2025 and now promotes them at expos — Communist officials who long viewed video games as a social risk now see them as key to a knowledge-driven economy.
Hill County, which faced eight new data centers, passed what may be Texas' first county-wide ban on them, for one year; the state trails only VA in data centers — Opposition to data centers is spreading in regions led by both Democrats and Republicans, as politicians try to balance economic development …