Daily Saturday, 15 August 2026
SpaceX buys Cursor, Databricks hits $7B ARR, Nvidia backs OpenAI
Major acquisitions and revenue milestones define the week's tech landscape
SpaceX closes its $60B acquisition of Cursor, two months after SpaceX formally announced it had agreed to acquire the startup (Bloomberg)
SpaceX completes $60B acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor.
Databricks Just Crossed $7B ARR Growing 80% (!): A 30-Point Acceleration, a $190B Valuation, and the Margin Bill for Agents
Databricks crosses $7B ARR with 80% growth and $190B valuation.
Sources: Nvidia has reworked a deal to finance an OpenAI Ohio data center campus so that it would initially guarantee only half of its planned $250B backstop (Anissa Gardizy/Wall Street Journal)
Nvidia reworks $250B OpenAI Ohio data center financing deal.
Sources: Anthropic projects 2028 revenue of ~$190B-$200B, vs. a revenue run rate of $47B in May, as bankers and investors price the company ahead of an IPO (Echo Wang/Reuters)
Anthropic projects $200B revenue by 2028 ahead of potential IPO.
Docs: Anthropic told investors it generated $11.5B+ in revenue, with positive adjusted operating income, in Q2, up from $787M in Q2 2025 and $4.73B in Q1 2026 (Bloomberg)
Anthropic reports $11.5B+ revenue run rate in Q2.
Source: OpenAI CFO told investors that enterprise business now generates more revenue than ChatGPT-led consumer business; enterprise customers grew 32% in July (Kate Rooney/CNBC)
OpenAI enterprise revenue now surpasses consumer business revenue.
Investor letter: Thrive's 2022 early-stage $516M fund that invested in OpenAI and SpaceX was worth $3.7B+ as of the end of June, net of fees and other charges (Natasha Mascarenhas/Bloomberg)
Thrive Capital's $516M fund is now worth $3.7B.
Z.ai says GLM-5.3 scores 84.5% on CyberGym, vs. Mythos 5's 83.8%, and its most sensitive cybersecurity functions will only be available to verified users (Reuters)
Z.ai claims GLM-5.3 scores 84.5% on CyberGym benchmark.
Google is making private AI practical with homomorphic encryption
Google makes private AI practical with homomorphic encryption.
How Cloudflare detects MCP traffic and helps secure it
Cloudflare detects MCP traffic to secure AI agent workflows.
Stop giving your coding agent a million-token context window
Derive effective context windows to optimize coding agents.
Cloudflare Migrates JavaScript CDN Serving 9B Requests a Day to Its Developer Platform
Cloudflare migrates cdnjs to its Developer Platform architecture.
Show the other 108 stories
When Genius Fails: The Intellectual Arrogance of the AI Labs
AI by Hand
Maximizing the value of your Claude Code sessions
AI At Home Part 1: A Box Of Scraps
Text AI watermarks will always be trivial to remove
alchemy-utils 0.1a1
Release: alchemy-utils 0.1a1 Performance boost for DuckDB exports and CSV imports, see here .
The Pulse: Meta’s self-inflicted resignation-wave
The social media giant is offering $1M+ retainer equity grants to staff who are leaving: and even this is not effective. Also: is Grok Bot…
Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) is now supported on Vercel CDN
Secure all your internal vibe-coded applications — in one click
Introducing Cloudflare Access for Workers. Attach an Access policy directly to a Worker and it applies everywhere that Worker runs — routes…
How to bring your software delivery workflow into GitHub with agent apps
See how four GitHub agent apps can help you scope, secure, roll out, and ship a feature across the SDLC–all without leaving GitHub. The pos…
How to switch models in Claude Code with one command
Claude Code speaks Anthropic's Messages protocol and so do the major gateways. A small shell wrapper points it at any model, with live rate…
WorkOS Applied AI Showcase July 28 2026 - Moving to an AI-native Organization
WorkOS is becoming an AI-native organization. The Applied AI Showcase in NYC on July 28th 2026 showed exactly how with live demos and talks…
LLM-Generated GraphQL Mocks Arrive at Airbnb and Expedia, While the Spec Lags behind
Expedia Group has open-sourced mockql-rs, a Rust CLI that fills @mock-annotated GraphQL fields with LLM-generated data at request time. It…
Exploring Compose HTML for Server Side Rendering
Something is happening in server-rendered web development. React shipped Server Components. HTMX made “hypermedia” cool again. Phoenix Live…
Retiring home-grown SCIM without anyone noticing
How SCIM Bridge moves live enterprise directories onto WorkOS Directory Sync with zero downtime, staged authority, and lossless rollback un…
Solving integration woes with a hackathon
Ryan welcomes Meryll Blanchet, Director of Engineering for Adobe Brand Visibility, to chat about Adobe’s recent acquisition of Semrush, how…
40 Companies Joined The Unicorn Board In July, The Highest Count In 4 Years
The sectors leading the herd to the Unicorn Board in July, by count, were financial services, robotics, AI orchestration, multimodal AI, en…
Thrive Capital Finds its Lane as a New Kind of Venture Investor
Plus, the dubious business of prediction markets & the White House targets an OpenAI policy exec
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Data, Neolab, AI Infrastructure, Defense And AI Coding Lead
Databricks is back raising another $5 billion, after it raised that amount just eight months ago. The largest fundings this week also went…
Meta’s ‘open’ AI, and a $250M deal gone very wrong
Meta released Glimmer this week, an open-weight AI model anyone can download and run on their own hardware — a contrast to Muse Spark, the…
Maharashtra FDA Suspends Licences of 14 Dark Stores Of Blinkit, Zepto & Instamart
The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reportedly suspended the licences of 14 “food business establishments” linked to qui…
ASML, Amadeus and others commit to backing Mistral’s data centre buildout
Honestly, Who Buys SOTA?
State of the art models are two-thirds smarter than last November & labs ship two new models every three days. But 84% of tokens on OpenRou…
Can Zepto’s Revenue Engine Outrun Quick Commerce Costs?
In 2021, when much of India was still getting used to ordering groceries online, two teenage Stanford dropouts, Aadit Palicha…
Uber, Rapido Held Talks To Combine India Operations, Says Report; Rapido Denies
Ride-hailing majors Uber and Rapido reportedly held talks in May to combine their India operations, but the discussions broke down…
Tiger Global Offloads Entire Stake In OTT Platform The Viral Fever
Private equity firm Tiger Global Management has reportedly exited The Viral Fever (TVF), the digital entertainment company behind shows suc…
Peak XV Leads $45 Mn Bet On US-Based AI Code Testing Startup Blacksmith
Peak XV Partners led a $45 Mn Series B funding round of San Francisco-based AI code testing startup Blacksmith at…
Thrive’s Joshua Kushner chides Silicon Valley VCs over AI euphoria
The AI opportunity is huge, but "it would also be a grave error in our minds to let excitement weaken our investment discipline," Kushner w…
The Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker
Over 127,000 workers at U.S.-based tech companies were laid off in mass job cuts in 2025, per a Crunchbase News tally, and the layoffs have…
AI Frenzy Brings Dual Valuation Deals into the Mainstream
Prestige firms are monetizing their brand names by getting better prices than others in the same funding round
10 drone startups to watch in 2026, according to VCs
The best meetups in London for founders and VCs
Europe’s 30 most active public funds in H1 2026
FirstCry Q1: Loss Narrows 35% YoY To ₹44 Cr, Revenue Up 13%
Kidswear brand FirstCry’s consolidated net loss narrowed 35% to ₹44 Cr in the June quarter from ₹66.5 Cr in the…
Firstcry reports Rs 2,106 Cr revenue and Rs 44 Cr loss in Q1 FY27
Brainbees Solutions, the parent company of kids-focused omnichannel retailer FirstCry, reported a modest 13% year-on-year growth in revenue…
Awfis Q1 Profit More Than Doubles To ₹24 Cr, Revenue Up 27% YoY
Coworking space provider Awfis’ net profit jumped 140% YoY to ₹24 Cr in the June quarter of FY27 from ₹10…
Navi To File For ₹3,000 Cr IPO By December: Report
Fintech unicorn Navi is reportedly planning to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for an initial public offering (IPO)…
Inside L&T Vyoma’s Plan To Build India’s AI Infrastructure Giant
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is consolidating its data centre, cloud and AI infrastructure businesses under newly incorporated subsidiary Vyoma.AI…
How $303 Mn Bluetile Acquisition Complicates Nazara’s Growth Story
At a time when founder Nitish Mittersain is set to step down as the CEO on September 1, 2026, Nazara…
Mamaearth parent posts Rs 756 Cr revenue in Q1 FY27; doubles profit
Honasa Consumer, the parent company of Mamaearth, announced its financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 202…
Legora in talks to raise at a $10bn valuation, according to reports
Honasa Q1 Profit More Than Doubles To ₹90 Cr, Revenue Up 27% YoY
Mamaearth parent Honasa Consumer’s consolidated net profit more than doubled to ₹90.5 Cr in the quarter ended June 2026 from…
Kog is going deeper to squeeze more inference out of GPUs
The idea that GPUs are poorly suited for agentic workflows may be a misconception, according to French startup Kog.
Mirae Asset Venture Investments Marks First Close Of Fund II At ₹1,125 Cr
Investment firm Mirae Asset Venture Investments (MAVI) India has marked the first close of its second fund at ₹1,125 Cr…
Exclusive: Former Dyson India Boss Ankit Jain Bags Funding From BEENEXT For New Venture
Former Dyson India MD Ankit Jain is working on a startup focused on building premium consumer appliances, sources told Inc42. …
Atomberg To Form JV With Voltas To Manufacture AC Compressors
IPO-bound consumer appliances startup Atomberg has joined hands with Tata-owned Voltas to manufacture compressors for room air conditioners…
Rapido Bags Karnataka Cab Aggregator Licence Till 2031
Mobility unicorn Rapido has secured the cab aggregator licence from the Karnataka State Transport Authority. Granted under the Karnataka On…
Bluehill.VC Marks Final Close Of ₹400 Cr Maiden Frontier Tech Fund
Early-stage VC firm Bluehill.VC has marked the final close of its maiden ₹400 Cr frontier tech fund. The fund includes…
D2C Brand Scrubsy Nets $3 Mn To Expand Home Cleaning Offerings
D2C home-cleaning startup Scrubsy has raised ₹27 Cr ($3 Mn) in a seed round led by V3 Ventures. Founded in…
Amagi’s profit zooms 8.5X in Q1 FY27; revenue rises to Rs 437 Cr
SaaS firm Amagi, which got listed on the stock exchanges earlier this year, reported a net profit of Rs 34 crore in Q1 FY27 while its opera…
WeWork Inc Sells 2.5% Stake In WeWork India For ₹244 Cr
US-based WeWork Inc yesterday offloaded WeWork India shares worth ₹244.1 Cr via multiple open-market transactions. As per BSE data, WeWork…
[Update] Shiprocket IPO Oversubscribed 3.16X On Day 2
Update | August 13, 2026 Shiprocket’s public issue was subscribed 3.16X on the second day of bidding, receiving bids for…
BlackSoil AMC deploys Rs 750 Cr across 40 companies, closes second credit fund at Rs 500 Cr
BlackSoil Asset Management, the asset management arm of alternative credit platform BlackSoil, has deployed Rs 750 crore across 40 companie…
Centricity Raises ₹280 Cr To Expand Wealthtech Platform, NRI Business
Wealthtech startup Centricity has raised ₹280 Cr (around $29 Mn) in a funding round led by SMBC Asia Rising Fund,…
Zetwerk files UDRHP to raise Rs 2,600 Cr via fresh issue; promoters to account for 53% of OFS
Manufacturing platform Zetwerk has filed its Updated Draft Red Herring Prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), m…
Home cleaning products startup Scrubsy raises Rs 27 Cr from V3 Ventures
Gurugram-based home-cleaning products startup Scrubsy has raised Rs 27 crore (around $3 million) from V3 Ventures. The company operates und…
Qwen 3.8 27B
Every Fucking Website (2020)
Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?
Qwen3.8-27B
GLM-5.3: Frontier coding with emergent cyber capabilities
Filing: Nvidia has a nearly $21B stake in SpaceX and a $30B stake in Intel; Nvidia invested as much as $2B in xAI in 2025 and $5B in Intel (Lynn Doan/Bloomberg)
Lynn Doan / Bloomberg : Filing: Nvidia has a nearly $21B stake in SpaceX and a $30B stake in Intel; Nvidia invested as much as $2B in xAI i…
Count Binface receives over a quarter of votes in Clacton by-election
Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin
The MSI Claw EX is the most important PC handheld since Steam Deck — I still wouldn’t buy one
As The Verge's resident handheld reviewer, I have nearly every portable gaming PC on a shelf in my house. The MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus is now…
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says the US is "not in favor" of Apple buying Chinese memory chips, and there have to be "other solutions to the memory issue" (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal : Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says the US is “not in favor” of Apple buying Chinese memory chips, and…
Amazon adds a clause in its user agreement that seeks to prevent shoppers from filing class-action lawsuits against it, after removing a similar clause in 2021 (Spencer Soper/Bloomberg)
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg : Amazon adds a clause in its user agreement that seeks to prevent shoppers from filing class-action lawsuits aga…
Sources: PayPal is in talks to sell itself to a group including Stripe and Advent, which proposed paying $60.50/share in July; PayPal is seeking a higher price (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal : Sources: PayPal is in talks to sell itself to a group including Stripe and Advent, which proposed paying $60.50/share…
Risk report: Anthropic raises misalignment risk estimate from very low to low and says it doesn't plan to release a stronger internal model called "Model 2" (Madison Mills/Axios)
Madison Mills / Axios : Risk report: Anthropic raises misalignment risk estimate from very low to low and says it doesn't plan to release a…
In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
Nevada granted Tesla a robotaxi permit, but capped the fleet at 10 vehicles, not 5,000 that Tesla sought, banned airport pickups, and ordered other restrictions (Joann Muller/Axios)
Joann Muller / Axios : Nevada granted Tesla a robotaxi permit, but capped the fleet at 10 vehicles, not 5,000 that Tesla sought, banned air…
Seven books I keep close because I love them
Going Dark, and the era of law enforcement hacking
RustDesk now supports true unattended remote access on Wayland
Google’s best new camera feature is only for the Pixel 11 series
Arguably the coolest new photo feature for the Pixel 11 lineup is Google's new Camera Looks, which process image data differently at the se…
You can now turn off Google Gemini’s visible watermarks
Google will now allow you to remove visible watermarks from the images, videos, and music made with AI tools. With the update, you can togg…
France's top court blocks social media ban for under-15s
Judge gives Google one week to fix "anticompetitive" app store download in Google Play
Third-party app stores are about to become more visible in Google Play.
OpenAI and Anthropic in price war as Chinese AI rivals gain ground
US groups release cheaper models after new challenges to their trillion-dollar ambitions.
Introducing Toast 1
Dear people who work at the airport
RISC-V: They Should Have Known Better
I turned my RSS feeds into an e-ink newspaper to stop reading on my phone
I built a 500k-domain search engine for makers in a weekend for $10
How Compaction Works in Pi
The TEMU-Fication of Software, Digital Goods and Services
Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft
The White House announces new tariffs on drones and components, including a 100% levy on "particularly sensitive" models, aiming to cut reliance on Chinese tech (Demetri Sevastopulo/Financial Times)
Demetri Sevastopulo / Financial Times : The White House announces new tariffs on drones and components, including a 100% levy on “par…
SMIC co-CEO Zhao Haijun says the company raised prices following negotiations with customers in Q1, and that it will charge more for wafers processed in Q3 (Reuters)
Reuters : SMIC co-CEO Zhao Haijun says the company raised prices following negotiations with customers in Q1, and that it will charge more…
Inside SK Hynix's $720B Yongin Cluster, which it calls the world's largest network of memory factories and is set to go into production in February 2027 (Katie Tarasov/CNBC)
Katie Tarasov / CNBC : Inside SK Hynix's $720B Yongin Cluster, which it calls the world's largest network of memory factories and is set to…
Flock CEO Garrett Langley acknowledges the company "got this one wrong" and is assuming greater responsibility for preventing US law enforcement misuse (Lauren Feiner/The Verge)
Lauren Feiner / The Verge : Flock CEO Garrett Langley acknowledges the company “got this one wrong” and is assuming greater res…
Flock says it will now require US law enforcement to attach a criminal case number to license plate searches, after a WaPo investigation into police misuse (Washington Post)
Washington Post : Flock says it will now require US law enforcement to attach a criminal case number to license plate searches, after a WaP…
Waymo receives approval from the California Public Utilities Commission to expand across 18 counties, including Sacramento and San Diego (Fred Lambert/Electrek)
Fred Lambert / Electrek : Waymo receives approval from the California Public Utilities Commission to expand across 18 counties, including S…
Didi reports Q2 revenue up 11% YoY to ~$9.3B, net income of ~$128M, after two consecutive quarterly losses, China mobility transaction value up 9.5% to ~$13.4B (Luz Ding/Bloomberg)
Luz Ding / Bloomberg : Didi reports Q2 revenue up 11% YoY to ~$9.3B, net income of ~$128M, after two consecutive quarterly losses, China mo…
Charter receives final state approval to buy Cox for $21.9B after making concessions to California regulators, including low-cost internet for some households (Patience Haggin/Wall Street Journal)
Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal : Charter receives final state approval to buy Cox for $21.9B after making concessions to California…
Sources: the CFTC has launched a probe into prediction markets' "mention markets", prompting Kalshi to remove bets on word choices from sports-related offerings (Bobby Allyn/NPR)
Bobby Allyn / NPR : Sources: the CFTC has launched a probe into prediction markets' “mention markets”, prompting Kalshi to remo…
JD.com reports Q2 revenue down 2.9% YoY to ~$51.4B and net income of ~$1.1B, above ~$964M est., driven by JD Retail profitability and narrowing food losses (Luz Ding/Bloomberg)
Luz Ding / Bloomberg : JD.com reports Q2 revenue down 2.9% YoY to ~$51.4B and net income of ~$1.1B, above ~$964M est., driven by JD Retail…
SMIC reports Q2 revenue up 36% YoY to ~$3B, net profit up 3x+ to ~$479.2M, above ~$283.1M est., and a 25.3% gross margin, driven by strong mature-node orders (Sherry Qin/Wall Street Journal)
Sherry Qin / Wall Street Journal : SMIC reports Q2 revenue up 36% YoY to ~$3B, net profit up 3x+ to ~$479.2M, above ~$283.1M est., and a 25…
A profile of Amy Kremer, a pro-Trump activist who helped organize the January 6 rally and currently chairs the grassroots anti-data center group Humans First (Veronica Irwin/Transformer)
Veronica Irwin / Transformer : A profile of Amy Kremer, a pro-Trump activist who helped organize the January 6 rally and currently chairs t…
Amsterdam-based Adyen reports H1 2026 net revenue up 19% YoY to €1.3B, processed volumes up 24% YoY to €803.8B, and EBITDA of €641.5M; ADYEN.AS rises 12%+ (Adam Whittaker/Wall Street Journal)
Adam Whittaker / Wall Street Journal : Amsterdam-based Adyen reports H1 2026 net revenue up 19% YoY to €1.3B, processed volumes up 24%…
The US OCC conditionally approves a bank charter application for Trump family's World Liberty Financial, allowing it to directly issue its USD1 stablecoin (Reuters)
Reuters : The US OCC conditionally approves a bank charter application for Trump family's World Liberty Financial, allowing it to directly…
Sources: Silver Lake is in talks to acquire HR and financial management software maker Workday, which has a market value of ~$43B; WDAY jumps 18%+ (Milana Vinn/Reuters)
Milana Vinn / Reuters : Sources: Silver Lake is in talks to acquire HR and financial management software maker Workday, which has a market…
Tether says KPMG completed Tether's first full audit and found its 2025 financial statements fairly presented its financial position in all material respects (Krisztian Sandor/CoinDesk)
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk : Tether says KPMG completed Tether's first full audit and found its 2025 financial statements fairly presented…
US-based robot vacuum maker Matic rolls out a firmware update that lets users control its $1,245 vacuum with voice commands in more than 70 languages (Chris Welch/Bloomberg)
Chris Welch / Bloomberg : US-based robot vacuum maker Matic rolls out a firmware update that lets users control its $1,245 vacuum with voic…
Samsung’s $1,900 Z Fold 8 is still vulnerable to pocket lint
iFixit has provisionally given Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 a repairability score of 4 out of 10, which largely hinged on… well, the hinge. In…
Quiet luxury has come for wearables
This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and poti…
Rivian is finally getting a long-requested feature — and no, it’s not CarPlay
Rivian R1S owners, rejoice. Rivian has heard your pleas for second-row captain's chairs. For years, Rivian owners have lamented the absence…
Trump declares 100 percent tariffs on many drones and all aircraft parts
The United States has already banned future foreign drones from entering the United States unless their companies kiss the ring - as well a…