Author: GT

The proliferation of scarily realistic deepfakes is one of the more pernicious by-products of the rise of AI, and falling victim to scams based on these deepfakes is already costing companies millions of dollars — not to mention the implications these could have on national security. A startup that’s built a toolset aimed at governments and enterprises to help detect and halt deepfakes and impersonations in audio, video, and still images is announcing some funding Wednesday with some impressive customers and investors in tow. GetReal — co-founded by Hany Farid, one of the pioneers in detecting deepfake media — has…

Fidelity Investments is looking to launch an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of SOL, the native cryptocurrency of blockchain platform Solana, according to a 19b-4 form filed by Cboe Exchange with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The industry giant has not yet filed an S-1 registration, which the commission would need to approve before the investment company can list the fund on a public exchange. “A meaningful portion of our customers are interested in and own digital assets,” a Fidelity spokesperson told etf.com. “Fidelity remains committed to providing customers with a portfolio of solutions that offer choice, accompanied by…

Terrestrial Energy, a small nuclear startup, merged with an acquisition company on Wednesday.  The North Carolina-based company is developing small modular reactors and expects to net $280 million from the deal. Before the SPAC merger, Terrestrial Energy had raised $94 million, according to PitchBook. The combined entity expects to list on Nasdaq under the symbol IMSR. The ticker is a reference to Terrestrial Energy’s flavor of small modular reactor (SMR), which it calls an integral molten salt reactor. In such a device, uranium fuel is mixed with various salts, such as lithium fluoride or sodium fluoride, that serve to suspend…

Sam Price, better known as Crypto Lifer, says there’s one big reason people aren’t buying Bitcoin: they still don’t understand it — and it’s not by accident. “They really don’t want people educated on Bitcoin,” Price told Rob Nelson on TheStreet Roundtable. “You have to kind of deep dive to find out. You have to want it. You have to go to YouTube — and you’re not going to get it on CNN or in the mainstream.” With Bitcoin hovering near $87,000, many people still believe they’re priced out of the market. But Price says that’s a myth that needs…

According to Bradley Tusk, co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners, venture capital has been “effectively dead for the last four years.” A self-proclaimed “Fixer,” Tusk recently made the decision not to raise a fourth fund. Instead, he decided to go back to his roots and launch an equity-for-services firm aimed at helping early stage startups navigate tech policy and regulation. Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Tusk to explore his pivot from traditional VC to equity-for-services, when it’s worth the risk to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, and why he’s dedicated to scaling mobile voting.…

WASHINGTON (AP) — American robotics companies are pushing for a national robotics strategy, including establishing a federal office focused on promoting the industry at a time when China is making intelligent robots a national priority.Representatives of companies — including Tesla, Boston Dynamics and Agility Robotics — on Wednesday met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to show off products and push for the United States to adopt policies that would boost American companies in a global race to develop the next generation of robots.Jeff Cardenas, co-founder and CEO of humanoid startup Apptronik, of Austin, Texas, pointed out to lawmakers that it…

(Bloomberg) — GameStop Corp. is seeking to sell $1.3 billion of convertible bonds to fund Bitcoin purchases as it embraces a strategy that was developed by the cryptocurrency advocate Michael Saylor. Most Read from Bloomberg The video-game retailer rallied after the company said on Tuesday that its board approved a plan to add Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset. That was followed on Wednesday by a filing announcing the planned sale of the bonds, which will be used for general purposes, including the acquisition of Bitcoin. The Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop joins a growing list of public companies taking on convertible…

Digital banking startup Mercury has raised $300 million in primary and secondary funding at a $3.5 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Wednesday. The valuation is more than double the startup’s valuation when it last raised capital — a $120 million Series B round in 2021 that valued the company at $1.62 billion post-money.  Sequoia led the latest round — a Series C — alongside existing backers Coatue, CRV, Andreessen Horowitz, and new investors Spark Capital and Marathon. It’s the first check that Sequoia has written into Mercury since the startup was founded in 2017. The raise…

In the opening 90 minutes of the evening session, U.S. stock futures are up marginally – S&P500 is up 0.1% while Nasdaq 100 is up 0.2%.  Earlier on Tuesday, Consumer Discretionary and Communications Services were the best performing sectors in the S&P500 – Google (GOOGL),  Meta (META), and Netflix (NFLX) had over 1% gains among the mega-caps – while defensively-oriented Healthcare and Utilities underperformed.    Investors have also shrugged the disappointing Consumer Confidence data with sentiment turning more upbeat on expectations of a more tempered tariff implementation by the White House and translating into 3rd consecutive session of gains. In…

A view of the 23andMe headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, on March 25, 2025.Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu | Getty Images23andMe co-founder Linda Avey took to social media on Wednesday to express frustration about the fate of the once-thriving genetic testing company that spiraled into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week.Avey helped launch 23andMe in 2006 alongside Paul Cusenza and Anne Wojcicki, who resigned as CEO on Friday. The company went mainstream due to its popular at-home DNA testing kits, but struggled in recent years to generate recurring revenue, stand up viable therapeutics and research businesses and assuage privacy concerns.”My time at…