As expected, the cold plunge sent my body into shock. Venturing into one of LA Tech Week’s most-talked-about events, Rejuvenation Mansion in glossy Bel Air, I had no intention of subjecting myself to a first-time ice plunge in the midst of a networking-heavy day. But, after 15 minutes in the pop-up sauna, chatting with a […]
Dialogue AI’s oversubscribed, $6 million seed round is proof that investors, researchers, and any industry that would benefit from structured feedback (generated rapidly and at scale) are excited about the possibilities of a live, AI-based conversational interviewer. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, joined by Michael Eisner-founded Tornante Company, Seven Stars, Uncommon Projects, […]
“[IPOs] generate liquidity for the investors and the employees, who can then use that cash to invest in new companies or start new ones. It has this virtuous flywheel multiplier effect.” Kamran Ansari, who previously invested in companies with Greycroft and Headline VC, made the move this month to Infinity Ventures as venture partner, where […]
As real-world data dries up or becomes too messy to use, synthetic data steps in for fields ranging from agentic AI to chemistry labs When Google unveiled its latest world model, Genie 3, it felt like the dawn of a new way to train physical AI. Instead of putting together messy, hard-to-label real-world footage, the […]
On the heels of the passing of the GENIUS Act (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins of 2025), the next era of stablecoin usage is being driven by a growing cohort of fintechs and neobanks –integrating stablecoins into their product and service offerings, going where traditional systems have found it economically or operationally […]
Hi there and welcome to Funded, where we spotlight early-stage bets on the future of tech.This week’s spotlight is on international payouts, where Routefusion is building the infrastructure that helps platforms and financial institutions move money across borders without the backend chaos. Routefusion has raised $26.5 million in Series A funding led by PeakSpan Capital, […]
Lacking safeguards, at least for now, fraud is flourishing through stablecoins As stablecoins enter mainstream use, buoyed by regulatory normalization and a surge of institutional interest by bulge bracket banks, among other entities, this new kind of blockchain-based financial technology may encounter a forceful headwind in the form of fraud. With their one-two punch of […]
As banking leaders and fintech builders know all too well, the rise of generative AI is making it increasingly difficult in online and digital communications to know what is real and what’s not. Fraud is a challenge that is keeping bankers, business owners, and investors up at night. In Visa’s 2025 Global eCommerce Payments & […]
The venture firms betting on AI are now using it to rethink their own ops and due diligence. The AI gold rush is at its peak in 2025. Every day, a new AI startup raises funds with the promise to change the world, or a prominent AI lab raises a massive round at an eye-popping […]
Where are startup dollars going? A16z just released a new report tracking the top 50 AI-native apps by actual startup spend, based on data from 200,000+ customers of Mercury, a fintech providing banking services. The takeaway is that “not only is AI augmenting employees in specific roles (‘AI for patent lawyers’), it’s turning specific roles […]