The IBM-HashiCorp coupling could be more complicated than it seems

When IBM announced its intention to acquire HashiCorp for $6.4 billion on Wednesday at market close, it was easy to conclude that the two companies should fit well together, but a deal comes down to more than strategy. It also comes down to the financials. The question is whether this acquisition h

Area man, Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, buys The Onion

Jeff Lawson, the co-founder and recently departed CEO of enterprise infrastructure software company Twilio, is the proud new owner of satirical online newspaper The Onion. “Alright, the news is out — yes, I bought The Onion,” Lawson wrote in a LinkedIn post late Thursday, after it was

Thoma Bravo to take UK cybersecurity company Darktrace private in $5B deal

Darktrace is set to go private in a deal that values the U.K.-based cybersecurity giant at around $5 billion. A newly formed entity called Luke Bidco Ltd., formed by private equity giant Thoma Bravo, has tabled an all-cash bid of £6.20 ($7.75) per share, which represents a 44% premium on its aver

It’s a sunny day for Google Cloud

Google Cloud, Google’s cloud computing division, had a blockbuster fiscal quarter, blowing past analysts’ expectations and sending Google parent company Alphabet’s stock soaring 13%+ in after-hours trading. Google Cloud revenue jumped 28% to $9.57 billion in Q1 2024, bolstered by

Watch it and weep (or smile): Synthesia’s AI video avatars now feature emotions

Generative AI has captured the public imagination with a leap into creating elaborate, plausibly real text and imagery out of verbal prompts. But the catch — and there is often a catch — is that the results are often far from perfect when you look a little closer. People point out strange finge

IBM moves deeper into hybrid cloud management with $6.4B HashiCorp acquisition

IBM wisely gravitated away from trying to be a pure cloud infrastructure vendor years ago, recognizing that it could never compete with the big three: Amazon, Microsoft and Google. It has since moved on to helping IT departments manage complex hybrid environments, using its financial clout to acqui

Eric Schmidt-backed Augment, a GitHub Copilot rival, launches out of stealth with $252M

AI is supercharging coding — and developers are embracing it. In a recent StackOverflow poll, 44% of software engineers said that they use AI tools as part of their development processes now and 26% plan to soon. Gartner estimates that over half of organizations are currently piloting or have alr

Dripos raises $11M Series A to replace Square, Toast and 8 other pieces of software

Small coffee shops that relied on foot traffic were thrown for a loop when the global pandemic kept people in their homes. That's when many coffee shop owners turned to technology to help them take online orders and payments. Startups were also eager to help these businesses stay safely in busi

Stainless is helping OpenAI, Anthropic and others build SDKs for their APIs

Besides a focus on generative AI, what do AI startups like OpenAI, Anthropic and Together AI share in common? They use Stainless, a platform created by ex-Stripe staffer Alex Rattray, to generate SDKs for their APIs. Rattray, who studied economics at the University of Pennsylvania, has been buildin

Snowflake releases a flagship generative AI model of its own

All-around, highly generalizable generative AI models were the name of the game once, and they arguably still are. But increasingly, as cloud vendors large and small join the generative AI fray, we’re seeing a new crop of models focused on the deepest-pocketed potential customers: the enterpr

Tines taps $50M to expand its workflow automation beyond security teams

Automation continues to be a major theme in the enterprise — underscored not least by the rise of AI as a tool to help fix some of the more routine, resource-intensive and fragmented aspects of how security and other IT functions operate. To capitalize on that trend, one of the bigger startup

Amazon wants to host companies’ custom generative AI models

AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing business, wants to become the go-to place companies host and fine-tune their custom generative AI models. Today, AWS announced the launch of Custom Model Import (in preview), a new feature in Bedrock, AWS’ enterprise-focused suite of generative AI services

Rippling's Parker Conrad on the company’s new round, new SF lease and, also, its newest critic

Last week, technewss broke the news that the workforce management software outfit Rippling was on the cusp of closing a new, $200 million round of funding at a hefty $13.4 billion valuation led by Coatue. We also reported that the round featured a separate, $670 million secondary component meant t

How United Airlines uses AI to make flying the friendly skies a bit easier

When you board a United Airlines plane, the gate agents, flight attendants and others involved in making sure your plane leaves on time are in a chatroom coordinating a lot of the work that you, as a passenger, will hopefully never notice. Is there still space for carry-on bags? Did the caterer bri