Author: GT

Germany’s Munich Re has signed a definitive agreement to acquire digital insurance company Next Insurance for $2.6 billion, the firms announced on Thursday. Founded in 2016, Palo Alto-based Next Insurance is focused on providing insurance to small-to-medium-sized businesses. It was last valued at $2.5 billion in late 2023 when it raised $265 million. Next Insurance’s backers include Group 11, Allstate, Allianz X, Battery Ventures, Capital G, Redpoint Ventures, Nationwide, Amex Ventures, Ribbit Capital, and others. The company has raised nearly $1.2 billion in its lifetime, according to Crunchbase. Like many fintechs, Next Insurance’s valuation has taken a hit in recent…

Crypto has caught many eyes over recent months, with investors clamoring for exposure following the bullish move. The U.S. election helped light the fire in a big way, with President-elect Donald Trump’s favorable stance on digital assets providing a big boost. But it’s no secret that crypto is a volatile asset class, spooking many with a more conservative approach. Still, market participants can still obtain decent exposure through several stocks, a list that includes Robinhood Markets HOOD and Coinbase COIN. Robinhood Markets Robinhood’s easy-to-use platform lets investors trade a wide variety of assets, which includes cryptocurrencies. The stock sports a…

As Apple’s Siri comes under attack for failing at the most basic queries, the company is shaking up leadership in charge of Apple’s AI features for Siri. According to Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook is installing Mike Rockwell, the current VP of the Vision Products Group (the team behind the Vision Pro), to head up the Siri team. The report indicates Cook has “lost confidence” in the current AI head, John Giannandrea, “to execute on product development.” As a result, Giannandrea will no longer be in charge of Siri. Rockwell, meanwhile, will report to software chief Craig Federighi, while the…

AI-powered search startup Perplexity is said to be in early talks to raise up to $1 billion in a new funding round valuing the startup at $18 billion. Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported on Thursday that Perplexity’s annual recurring revenue has now reached $100 million. Perplexity’s valuation has soared in recent years. This new round would double Perplexity’s current valuation — $9 billion — as of December. In April 2024, Perplexity was valued at $1 billion. Rumors of a new round come as competition in the AI-powered search space heats up. On Thursday, Anthropic added web…

Crypto investors are still rattled by uncertainty, even as Bitcoin maintains its bullish structure, according to LunarCrush CEO Joe Vezzani. Speaking with TheStreet Roundtable’s Rob Nelson, Vezzani noted that despite Bitcoin’s resilience, sentiment in the market remains at its lowest levels since it hit $54,000. “Sentiment is extremely low in the market right now on Bitcoin and then also on the rest of the altcoin market,” Vezzani said. He pointed out that many investors still react emotionally, buying when prices are high and selling in panic when prices drop. “I always tell people just have a rule of thumb to…

Gwyneth Paltrow gave an update on her company Goop in a cover story for Vanity Fair.  Paltrow founded the lifestyle brand Goop in 2008 and it has raised more than $140 million from investors including Greycroft and G9 Ventures, according to PitchBook. The brand is often regarded as one of the first examples of a successful lifestyle company founded by an actor.  However, the company had some shake-ups in the past few years. Last June, industry insider publication Puck said that Goop sales had been flat since 2021 and that its beauty line was also not doing too well. Then,…

Trump Becomes First Sitting U.S. President To Speak at Crypto Conference, Renews Pledge To Make U.S. a ‘Bitcoin Superpower’ At the Blockworks Digital Asset Summit in Manhattan, President Donald Trump delivered a pre-recorded address, marking the first time a U.S. president has spoken at a crypto conference. He reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to making the U.S. the leading hub for cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, criticizing the previous administration’s approach. He pledged to end regulatory crackdowns like “Operation Choke Point 2.0” and announced policy shifts favoring digital assets. The term, originally coined by Castle Island Ventures’ Nic Carter, refers to efforts to…

As conventional AI benchmarking techniques prove inadequate, AI builders are turning to more creative ways to assess the capabilities of generative AI models. For one group of developers, that’s Minecraft, the Microsoft-owned sandbox-building game. The website Minecraft Benchmark (or MC-Bench) was developed collaboratively to pit AI models against each other in head-to-head challenges to respond to prompts with Minecraft creations. Users can vote on which model did a better job, and only after voting can they see which AI made each Minecraft build. Image Credits:Minecraft Benchmark (opens in a new window) For Adi Singh, the 12th-grader who started MC-Bench, the…

Bitcoin Volatility Hits 6-Month High as U.S. Economic Uncertainty Drives Market Instability Bitcoin’s price volatility has hit a six-month high, mainly due to macroeconomic concerns such as trade tensions, inflation risks, and economic uncertainty in the U.S. The cryptocurrency’s 30-day volatility reached 3.6% on Wednesday, up from 1.6% a month ago, according to CoinGlass. While lower than last year’s peak of 4.3%, this increase signals that Bitcoin’s price fluctuations are likely to continue. Analysts, including Greg Magadini of Amberdata, attribute this to broader economic concerns, including Trump’s trade policies and inflation fears. Magadini noted that this high-volatility environment will likely…

A federal judge on Thursday issued an order blocking Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing systems at the Social Security Administration (SSA) that store the personal information of millions of Americans. In the Thursday ruling, U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland accused DOGE of being “essentially engaged in a fishing expedition” in search of fraud based on “little more than suspicion.” Hollander said DOGE “never identified or articulated” a reason why it needs access to the “personal and private data of millions of Americans.”  The access, per Hollander, violates several federal privacy laws, and the order warned…