Tobias

Verkada, a cloud‑based physical‑security startup, secured $100 million in a CapitalG‑led round, lifting its valuation to $5.8 billion. The funding will accelerate its AI product stack, complementing $1 billion in annualized bookings from 30,000 enterprise customers across retail, education and transportation. Verkada’s platform unifies cameras, sensors and access control, delivering AI features such as a Unified Timeline that stitches video clips into searchable narratives. Partnerships, like with TeraWatt, showcase AI‑driven analytics for high‑value assets.

IDC projects Apple will ship a record 247.4 million iPhones in 2025, a 6 % YoY rise driven by strong demand for the iPhone 17, especially in China where shipments could jump 17 % in Q4. The surge may enable Apple to out‑ship Samsung for the first time in 14 years and boost services revenue via new AI‑centric features. Supply‑chain partners Foxconn and Pegatron have expanded capacity, though a possible delay of the iPhone 18 could trim 2026 volumes.

French satellite operator Eutelsat’s shares dropped 7.8% after SoftBank halved its stake, selling 26 million shares. The move follows SoftBank’s shift toward AI investments. Eutelsat, which merged with OneWeb to rival Starlink, operates 600+ satellites versus Starlink’s 6,750, and has struggled in the U.S. market. A €1.35 billion French‑state injection makes the government its largest shareholder. The firm now targets high‑value B2B services—government, aviation, emergency and maritime—seeking stable cash flow amid European digital‑sovereignty support.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT experienced a brief outage on Tuesday due to a routing misconfiguration, affecting about 3,000 users before being resolved by evening. The incident follows a recent Mixpanel breach that exposed limited customer data, highlighting security challenges for AI platforms that rely on third‑party services. While the disruption underscores operational vulnerabilities for enterprise users, OpenAI’s quick response suggests improving incident management. Despite these setbacks, the platform still engages over 800 million weekly users, reinforcing its market position but prompting scrutiny of its network resilience and data‑governance practices.

Okta beat Q3 expectations with adjusted EPS of 82 c (vs 76 c) and revenue of $742 M (vs $730 M), marking 12% YoY growth and a 169% rise in net income to $43 M. Subscription revenue rose 11% to $724 M and the backlog increased 17% to $4.29 B. The company skipped FY2027 guidance, citing seasonal uncertainty, and introduced AI‑powered agents aimed at expanding its addressable market. It forecasts Q4 revenue of $748‑$750 M and EPS of 84‑85 c. Despite the beat, the stock fell >3% after hours as investors await clearer guidance.

At Re:Invent 2025, AWS unveiled Trainium 3, a custom AI‑training chip delivering roughly four‑fold performance and energy gains, promising up to 50 % cost cuts. It also introduced AWS Factories, an on‑premise service that blends Trainium accelerators with Nvidia GPUs for a full‑stack AI solution. AWS added 3.8 GW of compute in the past year and targets over 12 GW by 2027, which analysts say could generate $150 billion in annual revenue. The dual hardware strategy aims to reduce GPU‑dependency, enhance supply‑chain resilience, and sharpen AWS’s competitive edge against Azure and Google Cloud.

Semiconductor company Marvell announced a deal to acquire AI‑focused startup Celestial for an initial cash‑and‑stock price of at least $3.25 billion, potentially rising to $5.5 billion if revenue targets are met. The acquisition adds Celestial’s silicon‑photonic “photonic fabric” to Marvell’s networking portfolio, aiming to address optical‑interconnect bottlenecks in large‑scale AI training and inference. Marvell’s shares rose 13 % after a strong Q3 earnings report and a forecasted 25 % increase in data‑center revenue. The deal is expected to close early next year.

CrowdStrike posted FY 2026 Q3 results that topped forecasts, with revenue climbing 22% YoY to $1.23 billion and adjusted EPS reaching $0.96. The company recorded its highest operating cash flow, free cash flow and operating income, while net new ARR hit $265 million, lifting year‑end ARR to $4.92 billion—30% of which came from the on‑demand Falcon Flex tier. CEO George Kurtz warned AI is expanding both attack surfaces and defense needs, prompting a raised FY revenue outlook of $4.796‑$4.866 billion and EPS of $3.70‑$3.72. Analysts maintain a “Buy” rating with a $550 price target.

words.Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude, is preparing for a potential IPO—the largest slated for next year—by hiring law firm Wilson Sonsini and consulting banks. The company may raise a private round valued over $300 billion, with $15 billion pledged by Microsoft and Nvidia. It has hired former Airbnb IPO lead Krishna Rao and announced a $50 billion data‑center expansion. Rival OpenAI is also weighing a public listing, positioning both firms to test market appetite for fast‑growing, loss‑making AI ventures.

.Mistral AI unveiled a new suite of models, including a large‑scale, open‑weight multilingual multimodal model (Mistral 3) aimed at agentic tasks and positioned against GPT‑4‑Turbo and Gemini‑1.5, and a lightweight edge model (Ministral 3) that runs on a single GPU for robotics, drones and on‑device translation. Backed by a €1.7 billion funding round—led by ASML, Nvidia, Microsoft and Andreessen Horowitz—the French startup, now valued at €11.7 billion, has secured enterprise deals with HSBC and other sectors, pursuing a dual strategy of high‑performance research and efficient edge AI.