#Funding/M&A

AIBASAL Intelligence, founded by Tsinghua AIR's first PhD graduate Li Jianxiong, has secured lead funding from Five Source Capital, with Ivy Capital, Linear Capital and WestSummit Capital participating. The company says it is betting on an action-native In-Context embodied foundation model that lets robots learn on site from a few human demonstrations and trial attempts within minutes, without retraining after a scene change.

AIElon Musk announced on X on October 7 that Grok Bot will select the most suitable backend model for each specific task, explicitly naming Claude Opus 5.5. The source text is truncated, so the full list of other models and any further details are not available.

AIChina's Xiongan New Area is accelerating efforts to attract technology firms, officials and sources said, aiming to nurture local industries alongside state institutions relocated from Beijing. Officials are targeting companies that could reach valuations of 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) and list on markets including Hong Kong within a few years.

AIMeta, Walmart, Stripe and Sierra Technologies are partnering on a Personal Agent Protocol that would define how AI agents interact with businesses online. Sierra co-founder Bret Taylor said it will handle authentication and give companies visibility into personal agents' activity, and it is open for anyone to implement. The effort responds to concerns from six major banks, which urged the industry last month to set standards around transparency, safety, privacy, choice and interoperability.

AICaterpillar and CoreWeave are working to cut the time needed to train construction machines from months to hours, according to Caterpillar's Brandon Hootman. Caterpillar's ecosystem holds about 18 petabytes of federated machine, dealer and customer data, and a single machine can generate terabytes of LiDAR, camera and control data in a day. The partners use AI models, working with Nvidia, to annotate incoming field data so it can feed simulation and training within the same workday.

AINous Research, developer of the open-source Hermes AI agent, raised $90 million in a Series B round led by Robot Ventures, with Nvidia and Samsung participating. The company is now valued at $1.5 billion and says Hermes has been downloaded more than 24 million times. The source also reports $36 million in annualized revenue as of mid-September and expects it to exceed $100 million by year's end.

AIUS venture capital deal value reached a record $515.8 billion in the first nine months of 2026, driven largely by giant AI rounds for OpenAI and Anthropic, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. Exit activity has not kept pace, with third-quarter exit value heavily dependent on SpaceX's $60 billion all-stock purchase of Anysphere, and IPOs remaining sparse.

AIGallatin AI raised $50 million in a Series A round led by contributors including 8VC and Silent Ventures, following a $15 million seed raise in 2024. The El Segundo, California company's Navigator platform helps the U.S. military manage supply chains, with the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force listed as customers. Gallatin says it will use the funds to enhance Navigator's AI capabilities and hire more engineers.

AIA Financial Times report said OpenAI told prospective investors its annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion, about $20 billion below the $68 billion figure widely reported two months earlier. The gap is attributed to gross versus net revenue treatment, and the Nasdaq fell 1.25% as Oracle, Intel, Nvidia and CoreWeave declined. The report comes as OpenAI, valued at $852 billion, and Anthropic prepare for IPOs.

Why it matters: The article ties a revenue revision to market reaction and IPO valuations, showing how investor confidence in AI revenue figures can move tech stocks.

AIRohit Prasad, a longtime Amazon AI executive, will lead robotics pioneer Boston Dynamics as it prepares to manufacture humanoid robots at scale. The source provides no further details on the appointment or production timeline.

AIFormer BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes says humanity is wasting multi-trillion dollars on AI data centers that will eventually be overbuilt, causing a crash and a bailout that he expects will benefit bitcoin and other crypto. He expects infrastructure providers to seek payment for committed compute around late 2027 or 2028. Hayes is backing Flop, an AI-agent payments project expected to launch in the first quarter of 2027 that aims to create a spot market for computing power.

AICitrini Research argues that agentic finance, built on top of blockchains, is creating a new paradigm of fundamental crypto investing. The source does not provide further details on specific products, figures, or timelines.

AISingapore's Temasek says an unwinding of the artificial intelligence trade poses the biggest risk to markets, though it does not see that as imminent. Rohit Sipahimalani, Temasek's chief investment officer, said AI has kept U.S. stocks near record highs despite rising Treasury yields, while roughly half the Russell 3000 stocks sit at least 20% below their June highs. Temasek remains bullish on AI long term, aiming to raise its publicly traded AI exposure from about half to 70% to 75%.

AIAI is driving one of the largest capital spending cycles in decades, raising questions about how the investment will be financed and where credit-market risks and opportunities will emerge. PIMCO's Lotfi Karoui, Goldman Sachs' Amanda Lynam and Barclays' Brad Rogoff discussed these issues with Bloomberg's Romaine Bostick at the Bloomberg Future of Fixed Income 2026 conference in New York.

AIIMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said AI investment is becoming a key driver of countries' relative economic fortunes, but the boom is also inflationary and could widen inequality. She warned that AI could add up to half a percentage point to annual world growth if done right, while high interest rates, soaring energy costs and record public debt strain governments. She urged policymakers to stop delaying painful choices on debt and consider a prudently hawkish monetary stance.

AIThe S&P 500 closed above 7,800 for the first time, marking its first record close in nearly two months, while the Nasdaq Composite also hit a fresh all-time closing high. Chipmakers led gains, with Marvell Technology up 5.8%, Advanced Micro Devices up 3% and Broadcom up 3.7%. Investors are now watching Federal Reserve September meeting minutes and a $39 billion 10-year Treasury note auction.

AIApollo Capital Management and several banks are in talks to help SpaceX finance a $40 billion purchase of Nvidia GPUs, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The deal would rely mainly on investment-grade debt, with GPUs likely serving as collateral. SpaceX raised $25 billion in bonds in mid-June, weeks after its IPO.

AIOracle Corp. is trucking natural gas directly to several data centers to keep them on schedule despite power delays. The source provides no further details on volumes, costs, or duration of the arrangement.

AIPresident Donald Trump will award medals to tech executives including Elon Musk, Michael Dell and Satya Nadella at a science summit on Thursday, CNBC confirmed. Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su will receive the National Medal of Science, while Dell and Nadella will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, according to the White House. Each recipient has contributed financially to Trump or Republican campaigns and causes.

AICNBC's Jim Cramer said rising borrowing costs are dividing the stock market, with AI businesses largely insulated while rate-sensitive sectors face pressure. He cited data center builders, semiconductor firms, power providers and cybersecurity companies as far less constrained, since lenders remain eager to finance AI growth. Wednesday's $39 billion 10-year Treasury auction drew strong demand, though the 10-year yield briefly hit 5.365%, its highest since April 2002.

AIResearch firm New Constructs values Anthropic at $150 billion and calls its planned Nasdaq IPO, targeting a $2 trillion market cap, the most ridiculous offering of 2026. It cites reported 2025 revenue of $4.6 billion and a net loss of $42 billion from a leaked prospectus, and argues open-source competition makes Anthropic's business unviable. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment.

AISamsung Electronics projected third-quarter preliminary operating profit of 107.40 trillion won ($80.2 billion), topping 100 trillion won for the first time as AI demand fuels its chips business. The forecast is up 782% from a year earlier, on revenue of about 195 trillion won, up nearly 127%. Samsung shares fell 0.7% Thursday morning, and full third-quarter earnings are expected later this month.

AIPlaintiffs filed a proposed nationwide class action in federal court in Chicago alleging McDonald's AI pricing tool violates antitrust laws by coordinating prices across independent franchises. McDonald's denies that AI sets menu prices, saying franchisees decide and the tools only provide optional information. The complaint also cites a Reuters report that some franchise owners were pressured to use the tools and log deviations from their recommendations.

AITaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co reported September revenue of NT$511.86 billion ($16.03 billion), up 54.6% from a year earlier but down 0.6% from August. The company's third-quarter revenue was about NT$1.49 trillion, and it is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings next week.

AIManus, an AI agent startup, raised more than $500 million in a funding round led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with follow-on investment from Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund. The company did not disclose its post-funding valuation, though Bloomberg reported last month it was set to double to $4 billion. The round follows Beijing's order blocking Meta's roughly $2 billion acquisition of Manus.

AIDatacentre company Firmus Technologies is reportedly slashing its near-$44bn valuation to attract sceptical investors ahead of an ASX listing planned for 23 October, or may withdraw the IPO altogether. Its valuation rose from $1.85bn to $15bn in about eight weeks and then to almost $44bn days before the report, while the company has only two small operational sites. About 97% of its contracted revenue sits on facilities that are not yet built, according to Minotaur Capital co-founder Armina Rosenberg.

AINasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said tokenizing assets such as Treasurys, equities and money market funds, along with the flow of money, could free up tens of billions of dollars in capital tied up as collateral across the global financial system. She said moving markets to 24/7 trading would require real-time risk and collateral management, with Nasdaq launching AI agents within its risk platform that initially provide recommendations. Friedman added that not every asset is liquid enough to support round-the-clock trading.

AIMoët Hennessy is directing artificial intelligence at a persistent problem in winemaking, according to The Wall Street Journal's tech newsletter headline. The source text provided contains no further details on the technology, results, or specifics of the effort.

AIBiotech companies TRex Bio and Retension Pharmaceuticals are set to make their public debuts, continuing a rebound in the industry's IPO market. The source provides no further details on offering size, pricing, or timing.

AIOracle, Broadcom and SpaceX are seeking blockbuster debt financing to pay for AI chips. Lenders including Apollo, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs are in talks on megadeals worth tens of billions of dollars apiece.

AIBiohub, the nonprofit backed by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, is coordinating a $1.8 billion effort covering data, lab equipment, and compute. Meta, Google DeepMind, and Isomorphic Labs are contributing a combined $300 million, and the US Department of Energy is investing over $500 million over five years. Commercial funders get one year of exclusive access to data they paid for, while government-funded data will be public without that restriction, and a first dataset is expected in about a year.

AINous Research, developer of the open source Hermes Agent, raised a $90 million Series B at a $1.5 billion valuation led by Robot Ventures. The capital will fund its enterprise push with Hermes for Businesses, which lets companies deploy customized AI agents for multi-step workflows while keeping data private. The article reports about $36 million in annualized revenue by mid-September 2026, citing The Wall Street Journal.

AIManus' parent company Butterfly Effect said it raised more than $500 million, its first funding round since Meta called off its $2 billion acquisition. Boyu Capital and IDG Capital led the round, and existing shareholders including Tencent also participated, though the valuation was not disclosed.

AIZach Yadegari, the teen co-founder of calorie tracking app Cal AI, has launched Persona, a personal AI assistant startup that has raised $10 million led by Vine Ventures. Persona will offer a $179 wearable band that activates via button or wrist flick, with the model running in the cloud rather than on the device. The band is expected in December, and Persona is currently a free beta available through iMessage.

AISpaceX is buying spectrum licenses to build a mobile network that would compete with major telecom companies. The source provides no further details on the licenses' cost, timing, or network specifications.

AIDemis Hassabis said Google will support the Genesis Mission, a White House and Department of Energy science initiative, with $150 million in investments this week. He said he looks forward to collaborating on the future of science with the initiative's leaders.

AISpaceX announced an agreement to buy a nationwide 800 MHz spectrum portfolio from Grain Management, subject to FCC approval. The license covers up to 14 MHz of paired spectrum and is intended to help Starlink become a major US mobile carrier. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile shares fell in extended trading after the announcement.

AIFirmus Technologies withdrew its application to list on the ASX after investor demand for its AI datacentre business failed to materialise. The company had an anticipated $44bn valuation and planned to raise $7bn ahead of a 23 October listing, and will now seek private capital instead.

AICNBC's Jim Cramer said Thursday's AI stock sell-off, which followed a Financial Times report that OpenAI's annualized revenue was about $20 billion below previously signaled levels, shows why investors need diversification. Oracle fell 5.5% and Broadcom dropped 4.35%, while Home Depot rallied as Treasury yields eased. Cramer argued that concentrated portfolios risk panic-selling and missing a recovery.