A look at military tech startup Shield AI, recently valued at $5.6B, and its new CEO Gary Steele, who aims to grow annual revenue from $300M to $1B by 2028 (Jessica Mathews/Fortune)
Fortune
Shield AIโ€™s new CEO says the $5.6B defense tech startup is at an inflection point | Fortune
Demand for Shield AIโ€™s V-BAT is ramping up in Europe and Asia.
Techmeme
A look at military tech startup Shield AI, recently valued at $5.6B, and its new CEO Gary Steele, who aims to grow annual revenue from $300M to $1B by 2028
By Jessica Mathews / Fortune. View the full context on Techmeme.
A group of PE firms led by Permira and Warburg Pincus agrees to buy Clearwater Analytics, in a deal valuing the financial software maker at $8.4B including debt (Ryan Gould/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
Permira, Warburg Agree to Buy Clearwater Analytics for $8.4 Billion
A group of private equity firms led by Permira and Warburg Pincus has agreed to acquire Clearwater Analytics Holdings Inc. in a deal valuing the in...
Techmeme
Private equity firms led by Permira and Warburg Pincus agree to buy Clearwater Analytics, in a deal valuing the financial software maker at $8.4B including debt
By Ryan Gould / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
Echo, which uses AI agents to build Docker images that eliminate vulnerabilities at the source, raised a $35M Series A, bringing its total funding to $50M (Ionut Arghire/SecurityWeek)
SecurityWeek
Echo Raises $35 Million in Series A Funding
The fresh investment comes less than six months after the startupโ€™s seed funding announcement.
Techmeme
Echo, which uses AI agents to build Docker images that eliminate vulnerabilities at the source, raised a $35M Series A, bringing its total funding to $50M
By Ionut Arghire / SecurityWeek. View the full context on Techmeme.
Sources: The US DHS is investigating whether 6 CISA staffers who were suspended in July misled CISA's acting director into taking a polygraph, which he failed (John Sakellariadis/Politico) https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/21/cisa-acting-director-madhu-gottumukkala-polygraph-investigation-00701996
Techmeme
Sources: DHS is investigating whether six staffers misled CISA
By John Sakellariadis / Politico. View the full context on Techmeme.
Source: OpenAI's compute margin has jumped to about 70% in October from about 52% at the end of 2024 and roughly 35% in January 2024 (Sri Muppidi/The Information) https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-getting-efficient-running-ai-internal-financials-show
Techmeme
Source: OpenAI
By Sri Muppidi / The Information. View the full context on Techmeme.
Sources detail the efforts SoftBank is making to raise the necessary funds as it races to close its $22.5B funding commitment to OpenAI by the end of this year (Reuters) https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/softbank-races-fulfill-225-billion-funding-commitment-openai-by-year-end-sources-2025-12-19/
Techmeme
Sources detail SoftBank
From Reuters. View the full context on Techmeme.
Sources: tech lobbyists say that David Sacks' push for an EO blocking state AI laws undercut their efforts to craft a permanent, bipartisan federal solution (Politico) https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/20/big-tech-gets-worried-about-trumps-ai-czar-00701112
Techmeme
Sources: tech lobbyists say that David Sacks
From Politico. View the full context on Techmeme.
Q&A with Blizzard President Johanna Faries on company staff bonus transparency, working under Xbox leadership, restoring the NetEase partnership, and more (Jason Schreier/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
Blizzard President Talks Culture, Bonuses and Releasing More Games
Johanna Faries, who took over as president of Blizzard in 2024, reveals whatโ€™s coming from the storied studio
Techmeme
Q&A with Blizzard President Johanna Faries on company staff bonus transparency, working under Xbox leadership, restoring the NetEase partnership, and more
By Jason Schreier / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
US CHIPS Act-funded SMART USA Institute, focused on digital twins for chipmaking, says the Department of Commerce will terminate its $285M five-year contract (Samuel K. Moore/IEEE Spectrum) https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductor-digital-twins-funding
Techmeme
US CHIPS Act-funded SMART USA Institute, focused on digital twins for chipmaking, says the Department of Commerce will terminate its $285M five-year contract
By Samuel K. Moore / IEEE Spectrum. View the full context on Techmeme.
Q&A with Harvard economist Jason Furman, who consults for OpenAI, on the similarities between the AI boom and the dot-com era, AI's impact on jobs, and more (Shirin Ghaffary/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
OpenAI Is โ€˜Definitely Notโ€™ Too Big to Fail, Economist Says
A leading economist isnโ€™t overly concerned about the fallout from the AI bubble bursting, if it happens. But firstโ€ฆ
Techmeme
Q&A with Harvard economist Jason Furman, who consults for OpenAI, on the similarities between the AI boom and the dot-com era, AI
By Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.