Spotify cofounder Daniel Ek built his audio empire on the premise that music should be instantly playable, with no waiting around for songs to buffer or download. Now, he’s taking that desire for instant gratification and pointing it at our bodies. Ek has developed a $500 longevity body scanner that collects photos, blood, and electrical
The latest multi-billion dollar AI startup isn’t for writing code or generating images. It’s for answering your landlord. New York-based property and housing management company EliseAI is in talks to raise a new round of funding at a $3.7 billion valuation, including $300 million in financing. Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners are in talks
Stripe’s multi-billion-dollar pursuit of AI model marketplace startup OpenRouter isn’t just creating one of the biggest AI acquisitions of the year; it’s minting venture capital firms’ speedy wins. Andreessen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures are poised to turn investments made less than two years ago into payouts worth nearly $2 billion combined if Stripe acquires the
At the top, it’s hard to know where else to go. In an interview on Harry Stebbings’ 20VC podcast published on Monday, Andrew Macdonald, Uber’s chief operating officer and president, said that finding new businesses can be challenging when the company’s core business is already so large. Call it the “classic innovator’s dilemma,” he said.
Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes. They are all now owned by the same Italian company. Best known for Nutella and Ferrero Rocher chocolates, Ferrero has spent much of the past decade buying established American food brands and investing in US manufacturing. The privately held company now has more than 50 brands in its
A small investment made at the right moment has the power to launch ordinary people to millionaire status. All it took was $1,000 and an out-there idea for Jeffrey Sprecher, the founder and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, to set his business on a path to becoming a $85 billion behemoth. “I had this idea that