Tootfinder

NYC-based Vellum, which develops enterprise development tools for building, testing, and deploying AI-powered apps, raised a $20M Series A led by Leaders Fund (Kyt Dotson/SiliconANGLE)
https://siliconangle.com/2025/07/11/en

Enterprise AI development platform Vellum raises $20M to help businesses deploy apps faster - SiliconANGLE
Enterprise AI development platform Vellum raises $20M to help businesses deploy apps faster - SiliconANGLE

Germany to provide $47 million grant to support small, medium-sized Ukrainian businesses: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/12/germany-to-provide-million-grant.html

Small Businesses Brace for the Punishing Side Effects of Trump's Tariffs (Patricia Cohen/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/business/economy/tariffs-small-businesses.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/250811/p80#a250811p80

"Report: Big businesses are doing carbon dioxide removal all wrong"
#CarbonCapture #Climate #ClimateChange

Report: Big businesses are doing carbon dioxide removal all wrong
The technology is needed to limit global warming. But corporations are supporting it in lieu of emissions reductions.

CVS was so worried about shoplifting that it stole its own soul
I’m no marketing whiz, but it seems to me that CVS,
like a lot of brick-and-mortar businesses these days,
is confused about which business it’s actually in.
CVS might think it’s still in the business of helping you restock your toothpaste and bodywash, like a giant vending machine,
but plenty of online sites are doing that more cheaply and just as reliably.
What your neighborhood chain can …

CVS was so worried about shoplifting that it stole its own soul
My local pharmacy’s products are now encased in glass, and the whole thing makes me very nervous.

I continue to be amazed that anyone uses Amazon AWS, or Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Services. Only someone who's very happy to completely lock their business into a 3rd party proprietary stack they don't control, and loves paying 20x (2000%!) more than reasonable commodity infrastructure rates would do so. I'm amazed that these businesses are even viable. Just goes to show how much flab most corporations have. They're ripe for disruption and displacement.

Brain Co., co-founded by Jared Kushner, Elad Gil, and others to help enterprises and governments use AI, comes out of stealth with a $30M Series A (Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2025/09/10/jared-…

Meet Jared Kushner’s New AI Startup, Brain Co
Kushner teamed up with prolific solo investor Elad Gil and Luis Videgaray, the former Mexican foreign minister, to launch Brain Co., which helps businesses and governments apply AI to their operations.

The comments point to the racism Substack supports and recommend against it. 👍
Substack Offers Craft Businesses More Than Just a Newsletter - Craft Industry Alliance
https://craftindustryalliance.org/substack-offers-craft-businesses-more-than-just-a-newsletter/

Ukrainian businesses outraged as government blocks economic crimes bureau chief nominee: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/08/ukrainian-businesses-outraged-as-government.html

Mind the Gap: Revealing Security Barriers through Situational Awareness of Small and Medium Business Key Decision-Makers
Yuanhaur Chang, Oren Heller, Yaniv Shlomo, Iddo Bar-Noy, Ella Bokobza, Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Ning Zhang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.10025

Mind the Gap: Revealing Security Barriers through Situational Awareness of Small and Medium Business Key Decision-Makers
Key decision-makers in small and medium businesses (SMBs) often lack the awareness and knowledge to implement cybersecurity measures effectively. To gain a deeper understanding of how SMB executives navigate cybersecurity decision-making, we deployed a mixed-method approach, conducting semi-structured interviews (n=21) and online surveys (n=322) with SMB key decision-makers. Using thematic analysis, we revealed SMB decision-makers' perceived risks in terms of the digital assets they valued, and…

"Businesses and charities call for UK to scrap VAT on refurbished electronics"
#UK #UnitedKingdom #Technology

Trump’s nominee to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics told Fox News Digital on Monday that the agency should suspend monthly jobs reports
-- a change that could leave businesses and policymakers at least temporarily without the data they’ve used for decades to gauge the state of the labor market and broader economy.

E.J. Antoni, the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation,
whom Trump nominated Monday to lead the federal statistical agency,
has repeatedl…

Trump’s pick for BLS commissioner endorses suspending monthly jobs reports
“The BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports,” E.J. Antoni, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the federal statistical agency, said on Fox News Digital.

I see no problem here. https://social.vmbrasseur.com/@vmbrasseur/115006183468266776

Straightforward Bayesian A/B testing with Dirichlet posteriors
Dustin Hayden, Thomas Armitage
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.08077 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.0…

Straightforward Bayesian A/B testing with Dirichlet posteriors
Bayesian A/B testing investigates metric changes using the joint posterior distribution of two (or more) experimentally-derived datasets. The construction of said joint posterior is often a time-consuming process requiring specialized knowledge and domain expertise. In businesses that perform tens to hundreds of A/B tests per month it is important to have a robust analysis pipeline that can handle the variety of experiments performed on a modern web platform; requiring a domain expert to select…

Source: Nvidia is scaling back DGX Cloud to primarily internal R&D use; DGX Cloud was initially envisioned to compete with major cloud providers like AWS (Anissa Gardizy/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/nvidia-steps-back-cloud-ef…

Nvidia Steps Back From Cloud Effort to Compete with AWS
Nvidia is stepping back from its nascent cloud computing business, which had put it in quasi-competition with Amazon Web Services. It has lessened its efforts to attract businesses to the cloud service, dubbed DGX Cloud, said a person with direct knowledge of the situation. Instead, Nvidia plans ...

Microsoft Is an AI Darling, but Its Core Businesses Are Booming Too: Company’s non-AI businesses, including productivity software and cloud computing, are going strong
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/microsoft-is-an-ai-darling-but-its-core-…

American critical infrastructure is ten thousand small businesses in a trenchcoat.

innovations from the semiconductor, electronics, metallurgy, and petroleum industries played a major role in reducing both PhotoVoltaic and Balance of System (BOS) costs,
but BOS costs were also impacted by innovations in software engineering and electric utilities.
Noninnovation factors, like efficiency gains from bulk purchasing and the accumulation of knowledge in the solar power industry, also reduced some cost variables.
In addition, while most PV panel innovations origi…

Surprisingly diverse innovations led to dramatically cheaper solar panels
A new study reveals key innovations that contributed to the rapid decline of solar energy systems, showing that many of the most significant technological advances came from outside the solar sector. This work could help businesses, researchers, and policymakers identify optimal areas for future investment.

"NZ Post is the latest company to drop its climate targets – another sign business is struggling to decarbonise"
#NewZealand #Climate #Business

NZ Post is the latest company to drop its climate targets – another sign business is struggling to decarbonise
A global initiative to encourage businesses to commit to science-backed climate targets may merely be giving the impression of progress.

A profile of 30-year-old Daniella Pierson, founder of lifestyle newsletter The Newsette, as sources say she's been exaggerating her companies' worth for years (Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicahunter-

‘Smoke And Mirrors’: How Entrepreneur Daniella Pierson Exaggerated And Self-Promoted Her Way Into Turmoil
Pierson has cozied up to everyone from Diane Von Furstenberg to Selena Gomez, burnishing her image as her businesses unraveled. A case study in how hubris is bad for business.

Agentic AI in 6G Software Businesses: A Layered Maturity Model
Muhammad Zohaib, Muhammad Azeem Akbar, Sami Hyrynsalmi, Arif Ali Khan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03393 https://

Agentic AI in 6G Software Businesses: A Layered Maturity Model
The emergence of agentic AI systems in 6G software businesses presents both strategic opportunities and significant challenges. While such systems promise increased autonomy, scalability, and intelligent decision-making across distributed environments, their adoption raises concerns regarding technical immaturity, integration complexity, organizational readiness, and performance-cost trade-offs. In this study, we conducted a preliminary thematic mapping to identify factors influencing the adopt…

"Voice AI infrastructure company helping businesses instantly connect with leads using real-time, human-sounding agents."
#Dystopia #AI

DOGE is still slashing government contracts, with around $2.2 billion in cyber contracts cut through August 2025.
Check out today's Metacurity for more on which contracts have been cut and other top infosec developments you should know, including
--18 popular JavaScript code packages were compromised by malware,
--WhatsApp former security chief accuses Meta of security and privacy flaws,
--Treasury sanctions Myanmar and Cambodia scam businesses and people,
--IC…

DOGE has slashed government cyber contracts by $2.2 billion so far
18 popular JavaScript code packages compromised by malware, WhatsApp ex-security chief accuses Meta of security and privacy flaws, Treasury sanctions Myanmar & Cambodia scam workers and firms, ICE is spending $4m on facial to hunt for cop assaulters, Hacked Boris Johnson files leaked, much more

Group of small businesses calls on Supreme Court to decide tariffs case - SCOTUSblog
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/group-of-small-businesses-calls-on-supreme-court-to-decide-tariffs-case/

Ai-fixing jobs are well-paid, but they have a huge AI-education element in them.
The BBC writes about several stories of AI firefighting.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyvm1dyp9v2o

'I'm being paid to fix issues caused by AI'
Businesses that rush to use AI to write content or computer code, often have to pay humans to fix it.

The End of De Minimis Exemption Is Creating Chaos for Small Businesses - Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-end-of-de-minimis-creating-chaos-for-small-businesses-2025-9

No ok.
Source @thetimothysnyder@threads.net: https://snyder.sub stack.com/p/concentration-camp-labor
h/t @paula_rhodes@threads.net
#USpol #labor #labour

The vacated rule, meant to go into effect on 14 July, would have covered all forms of negative option marketing
– programs that allow sellers to interpret customer inaction as acceptance of subscriptions,
often leading to unintended charges.
The FTC’s original 1973 rule only covered limited forms of these practices.
It would have also stopped businesses from forcing customers through lengthy chat sessions with agents or creating other barriers to cancellation.
The…

France extradites Nigerian national to US over $2.5 million hack targeting tax businesses https://therecord.media/france-extradites-nigerian-national-ver-tax-hack-scam

Kingston's Efficient Homes Show BITESIZE (2025-09) - Making our homes greener and boosting Kingston's green businesses! - https://www.earth.org.uk/Kingston-Efficient-Homes-Show-2025-Bitesize.html

Kingstons Efficient Homes Show BITESIZE (2025-09)
Making our homes greener and boosting Kingstons green businesses!

Why So Many Key Institutions Have Folded Rather Than Challenge Trump (Perry Bacon/New Republic)
https://newrepublic.com/article/198787/media-universities-businesses-trump-pressure-institutions
http://www.memeorandum.com/250805/p71#a250805p71

A Survey of Real-World Recommender Systems: Challenges, Constraints, and Industrial Perspectives
Kuan Zou, Aixin Sun
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06002 https://

A Survey of Real-World Recommender Systems: Challenges, Constraints, and Industrial Perspectives
Recommender systems have generated tremendous value for both users and businesses, drawing significant attention from academia and industry alike. However, due to practical constraints, academic research remains largely confined to offline dataset optimizations, lacking access to real user data and large-scale recommendation platforms. This limitation reduces practical relevance, slows technological progress, and hampers a full understanding of the key challenges in recommender systems. In this…

The dumbest thing about "using AI is mandatory" rules for businesses is that it will lead to people just automating triggering meaningless "AI" processes to meet their quota which add nothing but cost a lot.

A little bit of Korea in Buenos Aires.

Prompt Migration: Stabilizing GenAI Applications with Evolving Large Language Models
Shivani Tripathi, Pushpanjali Nema, Aditya Halder, Shi Qiao, Alekh Jindal
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05573

Prompt Migration: Stabilizing GenAI Applications with Evolving Large Language Models
Generative AI is transforming business applications by enabling natural language interfaces and intelligent automation. However, the underlying large language models (LLMs) are evolving rapidly and so prompting them consistently is a challenge. This leads to inconsistent and unpredictable application behavior, undermining the reliability that businesses require for mission-critical workflows. In this paper, we introduce the concept of prompt migration as a systematic approach to stabilizing Gen…

Dismantling Mafia connections triggers a surge in bank credit to legitimate businesses, lifts local output, and raises productivity – although it comes with a modest uptick in borrowing costs, research shows.
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/fightin…

Dave Solomon, CEO Good Machine (@ Sun Valley Forum)
"Venture funding isn't set up for most businesses to succeed. It's the wrong tool for climate, because we need the businesses in this space to work. We need financing tools that help 90% of companies succeed and 10% fail rather than the reverse."

We can’t trust this administration with unchecked power
— especially not when it’s holding hands with the billionaires building machines that could replace us.
Trump’s second term is already a constitutional demolition derby:
ICE raiding sanctuary cities with no due process.
Mass deportation orders streamlined through algorithmic “targeting” lists.
Tariff trade wars launched without congressional oversight— crashing small businesses, jacking up prices, creating glo…

How Do We Stop Trump, Thiel & Their Approaching AI Autocracy?
A Human Sovereignty Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Re: https://zeroes.ca/@broadwaybabyto/114804470667350177
Yeah, I still do most of my weekly shopping at one of the big UK supermarkets (Tesco currently, switched from Sainsbury's when they just Would Not Stop advertising on GB News), because I only have so many…

"Brazil implores businesses to attend major climate summit, despite 'second thoughts' amid Trump backlash"
#Brazil #ClimateSummit

Brazil implores businesses to attend major climate summit, despite 'second thoughts' amid Trump backlash
November's COP30 summit comes at a precarious time for climate action, as companies back away from environmental initiatives, and attacks on green energy by President Trump.

Three men convicted in London arson plot tied to Russia's Wagner Group: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/08/three-men-convicted-in-london.html

"Trump's fundraising efforts reflect the support of influential donors who may expect favorable policies in return"
#Politics
https://www.newsweek.com/american-bus…

List of American Companies that Support President Donald Trump
Companies like Coca-Cola, PayPal and Uber have all contributed to Trump's campaign or the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

1/2: Eeek!
https://blog.google/products/chrome/store-reviews/
Just me, or is this a horrifying prospect? The SEO wars and the Amazon homepage have taught us that businesses will do anything - ANYTHING, ethics be damned, to game their online reputations. This …

Chrome is helping you shop smarter and safer with store reviews.
We’re introducing store reviews to Google Chrome in the U.S. to make your online shopping experience safer and more efficient. This feature uses data from Google Shopping and other popular review websites to provide people with helpful insights when shopping on e-commerce sites.Just click the icon to the left of the web address and you can access an AI-generated summary of reviews. The description will cover topics like customer service, product quality, shipping, pricing and returns, helping…

Especially with service businesses, there’s a sweet spot between “not busy enough to survive” and “the line is too long.”
Went to order a pick-up pizza from the best local place, which happens to be run by a family out of a half-apartment-half-household-paint-store, and was previously only open on Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons. They’ve been hit by the influencers lately, and started offering Uber Eats.
They were sold out for the day when I got the urge, a couple hours a…

Eine kritische #Sicherheitslücke in #SharePoint-Servern wird derzeit aktiv ausgenutzt.
Betroffen sind lokale Installationen in Unternehmen und Behörden, nicht jedoch #Microsoft365

Microsoft alerts businesses and governments to attacks on SharePoint servers
Microsoft has issued an alert about “active attacks” on server software used by government agencies and businesses to share documents within organizations and recommended security updates that customers should apply immediately.

Recommending With, Not For: Co-Designing Recommender Systems for Social Good
Michael D. Ekstrand, Afsaneh Razi, Aleksandra Sarcevic, Maria Soledad Pera, Robin Burke, Katherine Landau Wright
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03792

Recommending With, Not For: Co-Designing Recommender Systems for Social Good
Recommender systems are usually designed by engineers, researchers, designers, and other members of development teams. These systems are then evaluated based on goals set by the aforementioned teams and other business units of the platforms operating the recommender systems. This design approach emphasizes the designers' vision for how the system can best serve the interests of users, providers, businesses, and other stakeholders. Although designers may be well-informed about user needs through…

EU Commission president Von der Leyen, yesterday:
"Today's deal creates certainty in uncertain times. It delivers stability and predictability, for citizens and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic."
Trump regime: "Not so fast."
Thread on Bluesky: https://

I am very disappointed in #MayorLurie's action re TNC's on Market. It's clear the voters got snookered/[played by the language re "commercial vehicles" - where the clear intent was to allow deliveries to the businesses on Market. Conveniently ignoring the commercial licenses of TNCs - but hey, we need to keep the segment that can afford to use the TNCs happy, don't we…

Lurie is damaging transit, the environment—and democracy—on Market Street - 48 hills
The mayor is undoing the will of the voters and opening the street to Uber, Lyft, Waymo—and others are sure to follow

I am very disappointed in #MayorLurie's action re TNC's on Market. It's clear the voters got snookered/[played by the language re "commercial vehicles" - where the clear intent was to allow deliveries to the businesses on Market. Conveniently ignoring the commercial licenses of TNCs - but hey, we need to keep the segment that can afford to use the TNCs happy, don't we…

Lurie is damaging transit, the environment—and democracy—on Market Street - 48 hills
The mayor is undoing the will of the voters and opening the street to Uber, Lyft, Waymo—and others are sure to follow

Businesses got some clarity on Trump's trade deal. They aren't reassured. (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/01/businesses-got-some-clarity-on-trumps-trade-deal-it-isnt-reassuring-00490252
http://www.memeorandum.com/250802/p35#a250802p35

Just for clarification, dear namesake, rules and red tape are acting as a “boot on the neck” of *bad* businesses.
Good businesses don’t need to worry about rules and red tape as they don’t need rules to stop them doing bad things.
#ukpolitics

ElevenLabs launches Eleven Music, letting individuals and businesses use its AI model to generate music cleared for commercial use via English-language prompts (Belle Lin/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/voice-startup…

A few things have progressed since my studies, but #ewaste recycling im #India calls for the dexterity of informal businesses. The formal efforts keep on adding harm.
Rest of The World reports on gov pressure and producer protest

Inside India’s billion-dollar e-waste empire
The informal recycling economy is turning global e-waste into profit — at a steep human and environmental cost.

Meta expands voice calls on WhatsApp to large businesses and explores AI-powered product recommendations for merchants' sites (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/01/meta-adds-busines…

Meta adds business voice calling to WhatsApp, explores AI-powered product reccomendations | TechCrunch
WhatsApp is adding more AI features to its business suite. The company on Tuesday announced it's introducing the ability for large businesses to reach

Cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover threatens to hit British economic growth https://therecord.media/cyberattack-jaguar-land-rover-economic-growth-uk-government

It's only Tuesday so stay ahead of the curve by checking out today's Metacurity for the most critical infosec developments you should know, including
--Three Chinese threat groups exploited SharePoint flaws, Microsoft,
--Businesses will have to report ransom payments in UK,
--AZ election officials blast CISA after Iran site defacement,
--Dutch public prosecutors disconnected after suspected hack,
--SoCal engineer pleads guilty to missile-related blueprint…

Three Chinese threat groups exploited SharePoint flaws, Microsoft
Businesses will have to report ransom payments in UK, AZ election officials blast CISA after Iran site defacement, Dutch public prosecutors disconnected after suspected hack, SoCal engineer pleads guilty to missile-related blueprints theft, Aussie body sues Fortnum for client data theft, much more

A new report shows that Trump was more desperate for cash in 2024 than we knew (Zeeshan Aleem/MSNBC)
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-businesses-money-presidency-report-rcna216784
http://www.memeorandum.com/250703/p131#a250703p131

Gater Gitmo is to filter out workers for Trumps new Slavery policy where he sells them to businesses.
He says the farmers will be "owners" in this video
Make Americans Slaves Again
https://bsky.app/profile/fetchstep.bsky.social/post/3lszigsx…

Q&A with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Anthropic's growth to ~$5B in ARR, focusing on B2B, AI talent wars, open-source models, safety regulations, and more (John Collison/Cheeky Pint)
https://cheekypint.substack.com/p/a-cheeky-pint-with-anthropic-ceo

A Cheeky Pint with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
Dario Amodei joins John Collison to talk about Anthropic's growth to almost $5 billion in ARR, how AI models show capitalistic impulses, predictions for an agentic future, the economics of model businesses, and the 19th-century concept of vitalism.

Trump tariffs would cost US employers $82.3B (Elizabeth Crisp/The Hill)
https://thehill.com/business/5381700-midsize-us-businesses-donald-trump-tariffs/
http://www.memeorandum.com/250702/p101#a250702p101

After Marks and Spencer refused to say whether it paid a ransom, the UK's Home Office proposes that businesses will have to notify the government if they plan on paying a ransom to cyber criminals under new proposals.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-l

UK to lead crackdown on cyber criminals with ransomware measures
Measures to tackle the threat of ransomware and protect businesses and critical services will be taken forward with industry following public consultation.

AWS rolls out Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, meant to help businesses create a network of AI agents that analyze internal data, write code, and take on other tasks (Rachyl Jones/Semafor)
https://www.semafor.com/article/07/16/2025

Amazon launches AI agent-building platform for businesses to help boost productivity
The product launch comes amid high anxiety among workers about job cuts due to AI.

Google's "AI Overviews" are garbage. Sadly they are now becoming the main way people interact with the web.
(Original title: Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain)
https://www.404media.co/googles-ai-is-destro…

Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain
Google’s AI Overview, which is easy to fool into stating nonsense as fact, is stopping people from finding and supporting small businesses and credible sources.

Trump celebrated the start of his long-awaited tariffs Thursday,
— though economists say the cost of the import taxes will probably get passed on to U.S. consumers and businesses.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the federal government could collect $50 billion a month in tariff revenue,
which Trump administration officials hope will be a boon to the U.S.'s dismal financial health.

U.S. stocks finished mixed Thursday, as investors appeared unbothered by the …

Trump’s tariffs take effect, potentially upending global trade and prices
New import taxes kick in on goods from dozens of U.S. trading partners.

List of the Kremlin’s secret contractors: Russian businesses profiting from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/22/list-of-the-kremlins-secret.html

Shop Progressive Small Businesses at Little Blue Cart
https://littlebluecart.com/

Tailor, which offers a headless ERP system for retail businesses that separates the frontend and backend, raised a $22M Series A from ANRI, NEA, YC, and others (Kate Park/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/30/tailor-a-headless-erp-start…

Tailor, a 'headless' ERP startup, raises $22M Series A | TechCrunch
Tailor, a San Francisco- and Tokyo-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, has raised $22 million in a Series A funding round. Investors

ElevenLabs launches Eleven Music, letting individuals and businesses use its AI model to generate music cleared for commercial use via English-language prompts (Belle Lin/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/voice-startup…

More than 300 auto recycling businesses in North America were hit by a cyberattack on August 6. The attack targeted companies using SimpleHelp, a program that allows remote access to computer systems.
Data Heist: Ransomware hits hundreds of auto recyclers
https://www.

'Tariff engineering' is making a comeback as businesses employ creative ways to skirt higher duties (Anniek Bao/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/18/businesses-tweak-products-to-qualify-for-lowter-tariffed-categories-.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/250618/p34#a250618p34

Sources: Pinecone, which provides an AI-compatible vector database, is exploring a sale after receiving takeover interest; Pinecone was valued at $750M in 2023 (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/top-funded-ai-database-star…

Top-Funded AI Database Startup Pinecone Considers a Sale
When the artificial intelligence boom began a few years ago, investors flocked to startups that helped businesses transform and store proprietary data in a format AI could understand, known as a vector database. The technology allowed businesses to use a customized AI chatbot to search or ...

"Giant Corporations Protect 15,000 Square Miles of Forests in Partnership With WWF Stewardship Program"
#Trees #Nature #Environment

Giant Corporations Protect 15,000 Square Miles of Forests in Partnership With WWF Stewardship Program
The WWF Forests Forward program has partnered with 26 big businesses to reduce deforestation and they've conserved 15 million sq-miles.

Payroll and HR software provider Gusto agrees to acquire Guideline, which offers 401(k) plans to small businesses; Guideline was valued at $1.15B in 2021 (Jordan Novet/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/27/gusto-retirement-guideline-deal.html

Gusto agrees to buy retirement plan provider Guideline
Gusto, which offers payroll and human resources software, has agreed to acquire Guideline, a startup that provides 401(k) plans to small businesses.

If Trump loses his tariff lawsuit, America may have to refund businesses more than $200 billion (Elisabeth Buchwald/CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/03/economy/trump-tariff-refund
http://www.memeorandum.com/250903/p168#a250903p168

Businesses are passing along tariff costs, Fed reports
https://thehill.com/business/5406292-businesses-tariff-costs-consumers/

Tel Aviv-based Wonderful, which develops customer support AI agents for businesses in non-English speaking countries, raised a $34M seed led by Index Ventures (Yuliya Chernova/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wonderfu…

When JD Vance arrived in the Senate in 2023, he backed a raft of proposals that were characterized as reflecting a new brand of economic populism for the Republican Party.
He championed higher taxes on some businesses, increased support for families and a willingness to interfere in free markets that bordered on the heretical in the modern GOP.

Two years later, the now-vice president’s distinctive policy ideas are hard to find in the tax legislation now advancing through Congres…

JD Vance’s prior vision for populism is largely absent from GOP tax bill
The GOP tax bill advancing through Congress does not include key proposals championed by JD Vance, including a $5,000 child tax credit and a tax on executives of large banks that fail.

Microsoft's Q4 earnings show its non-AI "core infrastructure business" is booming, with consumer productivity software revenue up 20%, its best uptick in years (Asa Fitch/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.w…

Trump maintains control over and can profit from his businesses while in office through a revocable trust, of which he is both the sole donor and sole beneficiary.
In his first term, those looking to support Trump financially could lend him money against his real estate, license his name, buy his assets, join one of his clubs or book a hotel.
Since leaving office in 2021, Trump’s business empire expanded into the digital realm, where the products are often intangible, but the rev…

Truth Social, the $Trump meme coin and World Liberty Financial Give Supporters And Favor Seekers New Ways To Pay Trump
Foreign firms, crypto whales and political allies are using Trump’s newest ventures to route millions into companies he profits from while in office.

For Sale: Trump is leveraging power of his office to reap profits for family businesses (Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/trump-businesses-trump-organization-white-house-conflicts-of-interest-b970b5681b27f86dcd461ff473be23fa
http://www.memeorandum.com/250718/p22#a250718p22

Lina Khan cites Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny, saying letting startups grow independently, rather than be acquired, can generate "enormous value" (Anthony Ha/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/02/lina-khan-point…

Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny | TechCrunch
A surprising figure is celebrating Figma’s successful IPO: Lina Khan, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, who said the offering demonstrates the value of "letting startups grow into independently successful businesses."

Sources: Palmer Luckey is preparing to launch Erebor, a US bank backed by Joe Lonsdale and other tech investors to serve startups, including crypto businesses (Tabby Kinder/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/8c903f2e-42a6-496b-b098-ca733f340ffc

Peter Thiel joins tech billionaires backing new lender Erebor to rival Silicon Valley Bank
Start-up named after the dragon’s mountain in ‘Lord of the Rings’

Trump’s MAGA agenda is increasingly at odds with free market economics, and some key conservatives are beginning to notice.
At least one Republican—Texas Representative Chip Roy—has harpooned the president’s Intel deal, reminding CNBC Thursday that government stakes in private entities defies conservative values.
Roy also challenged the Trump administration’s intent to develop a state-owned investment fund known as a "sovereign wealth fund".
“I think the problem he…

MAGA Rep. Slams Trump’s Shady Takeover of Businesses
The Texas Republican has sparred with him in the past.

Sources: Sweden-based AI-powered app builder Lovable is set to raise $150M led by Accel at a ~$1.8B valuation, as investors rush to back "vibe coding" startups (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/01bc8e7e-6c45-4348-b89f-00e091149531

Swedish AI ‘vibe-coding’ start-up Lovable valued at almost $2bn
Two-year-old group nears more than $150mn in new funding as investors swarm around AI coding businesses

The Federal Trade Commission, last month, announced that it would approve the merger of two of the biggest ad agencies in the world
-- only if the parties agree to an unusual condition:
The merged company cannot refuse to place ads on websites for political reasons.
The move was a sharp break from its traditional practice.
The F.T.C. is usually focused on such concerns as consumer protection and monopoly power;
Now it’s trying to dictate where businesses adverti…

Opinion | Trump’s Campaign to Coerce Advertisers Into Backing Conservative Media
The administration seeks to coerce advertisers into using conservative media.

Oxide Computer, which provides on-premise cloud computers to businesses, raised a $100M Series B led by Thomas Tull's US Innovative Technology Fund (Max A. Cherney/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/cloud-server-startup-oxid…

While the White House calls Trump's Scotland trip a “working visit”
— it is the president’s latest example of using the trappings of the White House to promote and enrich his businesses while in office.
In his first term, Democrats cried foul at Trump’s Washington, DC, hotel, which became a popular destination for foreign delegations to spend money.
The blowback was strong enough that in 2019, Trump scrapped the idea of hosting a G7 meeting at his Doral, Florida, resor…

Trump’s Scotland trip latest example of blending private business with presidential duties
President Donald Trump took off for Scotland on Friday for his latest presidential trip mixing business and golf.

Ramp raised a $500M Series E-2 led by Iconiq Growth at a $22.5B valuation, says it has 40,000 businesses as clients, with $700M in annualized revenue in March (Belle Lin/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-finance-app-ram…

There's a lot of pressurefor businesses to get ahead with AI.
And I imagine at many companies
there's a sense that if you don't keep up, you're leaving innovation on the table.
At the same time, there's a gap between the excitement around AI and understanding what it means for each role.
CarGurus started an internal initiative "AI Forward" to meet business units and function where they are.
The group works together to evaluate u…

How CarGurus's new working group helps employees experiment with AI
The online marketplace for cars is helping its employees adopt and explore new tech with AI Forward, a working group designed to lead AI adoption.

NPCI, which runs India's digital payments network UPI, has started making its infrastructure available to banks to deliver short-term loans to small businesses (Financial Times)

Sources: the US Commerce Department is discussing charging patent holders 1%-5% of their patent value, a radical move likely to spark pushback from businesses (Amrith Ramkumar/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/patent

Sola, which wants to use AI agents to automate businesses' repetitive, manual tasks, raised $21M, including a $3.5M seed and a $17.5M Series A led by a16z (Emma Hinchliffe/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/sola-solutions-ai-startup-r…

Exclusive: Two MIT dropouts raised $21 million for their AI startup that does legacy businesses’ grunt work
Sola Solutions' technology, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Sarah Guo, automates grunt work for businesses, replacing RPA.

Yelp is making AI videos about restaurants, using AI generated scripts and voice-overs based on reviews, incorporating pictures and videos posted by users (Jay Peters/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/714944/yelp-ai-stitched-videos

Yelp is creating its own AI videos about restaurants
Yelp is using AI to stitch together and narrate user-posted content into videos about restaurants, food, and nightlife businesses that are available now in its iPhone and iPad app.

Centific, an AI "data foundry" that works with businesses to develop, train, and deploy their AI models, raised a $60M Series A led by Granite Asia (Nicholas Gordon/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/asia/2025/06/25/centi…

Singapore VC Granite Asia leads $60 million funding round for AI ‘data foundry’ Centific to fund global expansion
“This funding round isn’t about necessity—it’s about ambition,” CEO Venkat Rangapuram said in a statement.

Q&A with General Catalyst's Hemant Taneja on the VC firm's "AI roll-up" strategy to buy service businesses and inject them with AI, investment bubbles, and more (George Hammond/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/2757870b-dbbf-4603-9fc3-7ccd03ffc…

New Zealand-based Xero, which offers accounting software for small businesses, agrees to acquire payments software company Melio in a $2.5B cash-and-stock deal (Rajasik Mukherjee/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactiona

Businesses and households served by PJM, the US' largest power grid operator, will pay a record $16.1B for electricity supplies amid an AI-driven demand surge (Naureen S Malik/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Xelix, which uses AI to automate businesses' accounts payable workflows by connecting with ERP systems, raised a $160M Series B led by Insight Partners (Ryan Lawler/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/fintech-deals/2025/07/21/xelix-160-million-accounts-…

Xelix raises $160M to automate accounts payable
Back office operations fit neatly into AI's strengths.

Q&A with Grindr CEO George Arison on developing AI-powered features like Wingman and A-List, Grindr's new telehealth service Woodwork, his RTO mandate, and more (J. Edward Moreno/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/business/grindr-dating-app-push-into-ai-stock/

Grindr built a wildly successful dating app. Will its push into AI finally get Wall Street's attention?
George Arison, who joined Grindr in 2022, says the company is leaning hard into AI and building “a half dozen or so” other businesses that are tangential to Grindr.