Lidar manufacturer Luminar files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and says it reached a deal to sell its semiconductor subsidiary to Quantum Computing Inc. for $110M (Reshmi Basu/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
Volvo Supplier Luminar Files Bankruptcy After Contract Dispute
Luminar Technologies Inc, which manufactures laser-based sensors for cars, filed for bankruptcy shortly after it lost a contract with Swedish carma...
Techmeme
Lidar manufacturer Luminar files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and says it reached a deal to sell its chip subsidiary to Quantum Computing Inc. for $110M in cash
By Reshmi Basu / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
Mexico-based fintech Plata raised up to $500M in a financing deal arranged by Nomura Securities International, as it moves toward becoming a full-fledged bank (Prakhar Srivastava/Reuters) https://www.reuters.com/technology/plata-raises-up-500-million-it-readies-mexico-bank-2025-12-15/
Techmeme
Mexico-based fintech Plata raised up to $500M in a financing deal arranged by Nomura Securities International, as it moves toward becoming a full-fledged bank
By Prakhar Srivastava / Reuters. View the full context on Techmeme.
Google is shutting down its dark web monitoring tool, launched in 2024 to alert users when their personal info is detected on the dark web, on February 16, 2026 (Ben Schoon/9to5Google)
9to5Google
Google is shutting down its 'Dark web report' tool after just over a year
One of the lesser-known features that Google offers is a “Dark Web Report” monitoring tool, but it’s about to shut...
Techmeme
Google is shutting down its dark web monitoring tool, launched in 2024 to alert users when their personal info is detected on the dark web, on February 16, 2026
By Ben Schoon / 9to5Google. View the full context on Techmeme.
NY-based Octane, which offers "instant" financing for large recreational and lifestyle purchases, raised a $100M Series F at a post-money valuation of $1.3B (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
Crunchbase News
Exclusive: Octane Lands $100M Series F At $1.3B Valuation To Help People Finance Large Lifestyle And Recreational Purchases
Octane, a startup that offers β€œinstant” financing for large recreational and lifestyle purchases, has raised $100 million in a Series F round w...
Techmeme
NYC-based Octane, which offers “instant” financing for large recreational and lifestyle purchases, raised a $100M Series F at a $1.3B post-money valuation
By Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News. View the full context on Techmeme.
Nvidia announces it has acquired SchedMD, the developer of Slurm, an open-source workload management system for HPC and AI (Arsheeya Bajwa/Reuters) https://www.reuters.com/business/nvidia-buys-ai-software-provider-schedmd-expand-open-source-ai-push-2025-12-15/
Techmeme
Nvidia acquires SchedMD, the developer of Slurm, an open-source AI workload management system, and says it will keep distributing Slurm on an open-source basis
By Arsheeya Bajwa / Reuters. View the full context on Techmeme.
The Trump administration launches US Tech Force to recruit ~1,000 staffers from Apple, Meta, xAI, and others for two-year stints to modernize the government (Natalie Alms/Nextgov/FCW)
Nextgov.com
Trump admin launches US Tech Force to recruit temporary workers after shedding thousands this year
Some of the recruits to government service will be on leaves of absence from private sector companies while working for government β€” a setup that...
Techmeme
The Trump administration forms the US Tech Force to recruit ~1,000 employees from Apple, Meta, xAI, and others for two-year stints to modernize government tech
By Natalie Alms / Nextgov/FCW. View the full context on Techmeme.
Source: Dragoneer raised $4.3B for its seventh VC fund and now has over $30B in AUM; it raised $3.8B for its sixth private fund in 2022 (Dan Primack/Axios) https://www.axios.com/2025/12/15/dragoneer-vc-fund
Techmeme
Source: Dragoneer raised $4.3B for its seventh VC fund and now has over $30B in AUM; it raised $3.8B for its sixth private fund in 2022
By Dan Primack / Axios. View the full context on Techmeme.
LG smart TV owners say a webOS update pinned Microsoft Copilot to TV home screens, with no apparent way to remove the app; LG unveiled an AI TV strategy at CES (Luke James/Tom's Hardware)
Tom
LG TV users baffled by unremovable Microsoft Copilot installation — surprise forced update shows app pinned to the home screen (Updated)
Users report Copilot appearing after a recent software update, with no option to uninstall.
Techmeme
LG smart TV owners say a webOS update pinned Microsoft Copilot to the home screen, with no apparent way to remove the app; LG unveiled an AI TV strategy at CES
By Luke James / Tom
Internal documents: Meta earned $18B+ in annual ad sales from China in 2024, making up 10%+ of its global revenue, with $3B+ linked to fraudulent ads like scams (Reuters) https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-tolerates-rampant-ad-fraud-china-safeguard-billions-revenue-2025-12-15/
Techmeme
Internal docs: Meta earned $18B+ in annual ad sales from China in 2024, making up 10%+ of its global revenue, with $3B+ linked to fraudulent ads, like for scams
From Reuters. View the full context on Techmeme.
Lightspeed raised a record $9B across six funds to invest in AI, with $3.3B to back breakout companies like Anthropic; Lightspeed has backed 165 AI startups (Erin Griffith/New York Times)
In A.I. Boom, Venture Capital Firms Are Raising Loads More Money
Lightspeed Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley venture firm, has amassed more than $9 billion to invest in artificial intelligence. That is its bigg...
Techmeme
Lightspeed raised $9B+ across six AI funds, including $3.3B to back breakout hits like Anthropic, xAI, and Mistral; Lightspeed has backed 165 AI startups
By Erin Griffith / New York Times. View the full context on Techmeme.