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Sources: Perplexity is seeking new funding at a $20B post-money valuation, up from a reported $18B in its latest fundraising round in July (Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/perplexity-valuation-jumps-to-20-billion-in-latest…

Perplexity's valuation jumps to $20 billion in latest fundraise
AI startup Perplexity's valuation rose to $20 billion in fresh funding talks. It's a $2 billion jump from its last fundraise in July.

Françoise Thom, historienne : « Face Š Vladimir Poutine, les Européens sont en position de force, mais ils ne le savent pas »
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/08…

Françoise Thom : « Face à Vladimir Poutine, les Européens sont en position de force, mais ils ne le savent pas »
L’administration Trump est en train de réaliser le sauvetage du régime russe dont elle a besoin pour racketter l’Europe, estime, dans une tribune au « Monde », l’historienne spécialiste de la Russie, à la veille de la rencontre entre Donald Trump et Vladimir Poutine.

In #Neuss ist Europas erste vollautomatisierte und marktorientierte KWK-Großanlage in Betrieb.
E.ON und #MMNeuss vernetzen dabei Produktion, Netz und Markt digital. Die #KWK-Anlage erzielt bis zu 91 % B…

Digitale Vernetzung von KWK-Anlage mit Produktion, Netz und Markt:Eon und MM Neuss starten Europas erste vollautomatisierte und marktorientierte KWK-Großanlage
Neuss – Mit der erfolgreichen Inbetriebnahme einer europaweit einzigartigen Kraft-Wärme-Kopplungs-Anlage (KWK) haben E.ON und die Mayr-Melnhof Karton Grup...

Source: cloud startup Vercel has been approached by investors offering to invest hundreds of millions at an $8B-$9B valuation; it was valued at $3B last year (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/cloud-startup-vercel-fields-o…

Cloud Startup Vercel Fields Offers for $9 Billion Valuation
Vercel, a nine-year-old cloud startup that companies use to host and develop websites and artificial intelligence apps, has been approached by investors offering to invest hundreds of millions of dollars at a valuation between $8 billion to $9 billion, according to a person with direct knowledge ...

Efficient Forward-Only Data Valuation for Pretrained LLMs and VLMs
Wenlong Deng, Jiaming Zhang, Qi Zeng, Christos Thrampoulidis, Boying Gong, Xiaoxiao Li
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10180

Efficient Forward-Only Data Valuation for Pretrained LLMs and VLMs
Quantifying the influence of individual training samples is essential for enhancing the transparency and accountability of large language models (LLMs) and vision-language models (VLMs). However, existing data valuation methods often rely on Hessian information or model retraining, making them computationally prohibitive for billion-parameter models. In this work, we introduce For-Value, a forward-only data valuation framework that enables scalable and efficient influence estimation for both LL…

Filings: Bengaluru-based fintech Cred, which offers rewards for paying credit card bills and more, raised ~$72M at a $3.5B valuation, down from $6.4B in 2022 (The Economic Times)
https://ec…

Cred raises fresh funds from GIC, others; valuation cut by 45% to $3.5 billion
The fintech major was valued at $6.4 billion in 2022 during its last major fund infusion. The current fund infusion is in the form of primary capital, which means that existing investors have not sold any shares in this round. The drop in valuation was in line with the company's plans to list in India over the next two years, people in the know said.

Sources: chip startup Rivos, which plans to release a GPU for inference as early as 2026, is seeking to raise between $400M and $500M at a $2B valuation (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/chip-startup-rivos-seeks-500-million…

Chip Startup Rivos Seeks Up to $500 Million to Compete With Nvidia
Rivos, a chip startup that aims to compete with Nvidia, is seeking to raise between $400 million and $500 million, according to two people familiar with the matter. The Santa Clara, Calif.–based startup, backed by Intel’s CEO Lip-Bu Tan, is seeking a valuation of more than $2 billion, one of the ...

Squint, which uses AI and AR to modernize manufacturing processes, raised a $40M Series B led by The Westly Group and TCV at a $265M valuation (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/08/12/exclusi…

Exclusive: Squint raises $40 million at $265 million valuation to modernize manufacturing for companies like Pepsi and Michelin
Squint has raised a $40 million Series B at a valuation of $265 million, Fortune has exclusively learned.

Sources: Polymarket considers an offer valuing it at ~$9B, up from $1B in the summer; Kalshi is close to raising money at a $5B valuation, up from $2B in June (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/pr

Prediction Startup Polymarket Fields Offer for $9 Billion Valuation; Kalshi Nears $5 Billion Financing
Startups that enable people to bet on events such as the New York mayoral race, NFL games and the Federal Reserve rate decisions are in talks to raise more money at multi-billion-dollar valuations, as trading volume and rivalry between the two apps intensifies. Polymarket has considered an offer ...

Micro1, a Scale AI competitor that lets AI companies find contractors for data labeling and training, raised a $35M Series A led by O1A at a $500M valuation (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/12/micro1-a-competitor-to-sc…

Micro1, a competitor to Scale AI, raises funds at $500M valuation | TechCrunch
A three-year-old startup providing data for AI labs is trying to fill the gap in the market left by Scale AI.