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

The fundraise is the first major capital raise under Sequoia's new leadership, with Alfred Lin and Pat Grady now serving as co-stewards of the 54-year-old firm.

Factory hits $1.5B valuation to build AI coding for enterprises

The three-year-old startup raised $150 million led by Khosla Ventures.

Luma launches AI-powered production studio with faith-focused Wonder Project

The studio's first project will be about Moses and star Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley, to be released this spring on Prime Video.

Netflix co-founder and chair Reed Hastings to leave board

Hastings helped to transform the video rental industry — first with physical, then digital, delivery.

Upscale AI in talks to raise at $2B valuation, says report

AI infrastructure company Upscale AI is reportedly in talks to raise its third funding round since launching just seven months ago.

Physical Intelligence, a hot robotics startup, says its new robot brain can figure out tasks it was never taught

The new model, called π0.7, represents what the company describes as an early but meaningful step toward the long-sought goal of a general-purpose robot brain.

From the Startup Battlefield stage to the International Space Station: geCKo Materials built a sticky product

This week on Build Mode, Isabelle Johannessen speaks with Capella Kerst, founder and CEO of geCKo Materials.

Slash, a Ramp competitor founded by teenagers, raises $100M at $1.4B valuation

Five years later the founders, now 24 years old, say their startup has achieved $300 million in annualized revenue.

OpenAI takes aim at Anthropic with beefed-up Codex that gives it more power over your desktop

OpenAI's agentic coding tool has gotten a major makeover, with a variety of new powers and abilities.

European police email 75,000 people asking them to stop DDoS attacks

Europol coordinated an operation against for-hire distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) services, including the arrest of four people and the takedown of 53 domains.

Anthropic CPO leaves Figma’s board after reports he will offer a competing product

Krieger's departure and any forthcoming design tools will be another data point for investors who fear the SaaSpocalypse — that the largest AI labs will come to dominate software businesses, a thesis that has rocked public markets at times this year.

It’s not just you — Bluesky is (sorta) down

Bluesky has been experiencing ongoing service disruptions since just before 3 a.m. ET.

Everything we like is a psyop

If culture is shaped by TikTok's algorithmic feed, then it's time for us to decide where we draw the line between necessary marketing and inauthentic growth hacking.

Google now lets you explore the web side-by-side with AI Mode

Now, when you're using AI Mode on Chrome desktop, clicking a link will open the web page side-by-side with AI Mode.

Two Americans sentenced for helping North Korea steal $5 million in fake IT worker scheme

The U.S. Department of Justice announced that two Americans were sentenced to years in prison for helping the North Korean government place fake IT workers in U.S. companies.

InsightFinder raises $15M to help companies figure out where AI agents go wrong

According to CEO Helen Gu, the biggest problem facing the industry today is not just monitoring and diagnosing where AI models go wrong — it's also diagnosing how the entire tech stack operates now that AI is part of it.

AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1, and it’s boosting their revenue too

Adobe says AI traffic to U.S. retail sites also jumped 269% in March, with visitors converting better and generating more revenue than non-AI shoppers.

Roblox’s AI assistant gets new agentic tools to plan, build, and test games

The new tools are designed to help creators throughout the entire development process.

Google adds Nano Banana-powered image generation to Gemini’s Personal Intelligence

That means its AI images can be created using Gemini's understanding of your likes and interests, without those having to be explicitly noted in the prompt.

Google is now targeting bad ads over bad actors

Google blocked 8.3 billion ads in 2025 but suspended fewer advertisers.