News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: AI architecture development company Pathway has announced the completion of a $30 million seed funding round, with participation from Id4 Ventures, TQ Ventures, Red Bridge Ventures, Kadmos Capital, and WS Investment, the investment arm of Wilson Sonsini, among others. Databricks' Chief AI Scientist Jonathan Frankle has joined as an angel investor.Pathway is developing a Bio-inspired Dynamic Hierarchical architecture (BDH), a "post-Transformer" architecture designed to overcome the limitations of current Transformer models, which continue to rely on ever-increasing data, GPUs, energy, and capital expansion. Unlike traditional large models that require periodic retraining, BDH enables continuous learning and ongoing adaptation with significantly less data.The company also announced the appointment of Adam Kurzrok, former product lead for Google DeepMind's Gemini, as Chief Product Officer. He will oversee the product direction of BDH models, covering areas such as model packaging, evaluation systems, and commercial deployment. (Finsmes)
According to EU-Startups, AI security startup Mindgard announced the completion of a €26 million (approximately $30 million) Series A funding round, led by Album VC, with participation from Karma Ventures, .406 Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, IQ Capital, and Lakestar. Mindgard was founded by Dr. Peter Garraghan in 2022, incubated by Lancaster University in the UK, and is headquartered in Boston and London. The company's platform provides Shadow AI discovery, AI red teaming, and runtime AI protection capabilities, and has helped disclose over 150 high-impact AI security vulnerabilities, covering issues such as the Cursor IDE zero-day code execution vulnerability, Google Antigravity trusted workspace defects, and ChatGPT image generation protection failures.
Odaily News: Payment company Stripe did not sign long-term supplier contracts with third-party stablecoin APIs. Instead, after Bridge achieved $5 billion in annualized cross-border transaction volume, Stripe acquired it outright for $1.1 billion and integrated stablecoin infrastructure into its global checkout layer. Fintech platform Robinhood did not expand internationally through external trading venues. Instead, it acquired cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp for $200 million, obtaining more than 50 global regulatory licenses and institutional liquidity. From 2012 to 2018, early B2B fintech startups paid traditional banks for proof-of-concept pilot fees. From 1996 to 2001, telecom infrastructure startups raised over $50 billion to lay dark fiber. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News The inside story behind stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK's acquisition by Mastercard for $1.8 billion has recently come to light. According to Concentric, an early investor in BVNK, during the bidding process, US crypto exchange Coinbase once held an advantageous position and reportedly submitted a bid as high as $2.5 billion, but ultimately withdrew from the competition due to insufficient strategic and cultural alignment between the two parties.Kjartan Rist, founding partner of Concentric, stated that BVNK's founding team did not focus solely on the offer price when selecting an acquirer, but placed greater emphasis on long-term partnership and corporate culture fit. "Coinbase may have offered a higher price, but the chemistry between the two sides was not ideal." In contrast, Mastercard, as a traditional financial services company, is more likely to create synergies with BVNK in payment infrastructure and stablecoin applications.It is understood that Mastercard participated in acquisition discussions with BVNK at an early stage, and after Coinbase failed to advance the deal, Mastercard re-emerged as the primary buyer, ultimately completing the acquisition for $1.8 billion.Visa also participated in the competition. Having previously invested in BVNK and holding a board observer seat, Visa once had an advantage. However, Visa ultimately chose not to pursue a direct acquisition, instead adopting an open strategy of partnering with multiple stablecoin companies.Founded in 2018, BVNK provides enterprises with stablecoin payment, cross-border settlement, and treasury management infrastructure. Its early investor Concentric invested in the company at a valuation of $4 million in 2019, and this transaction has generated substantial returns.The acquisition also reflects a new round of competition between traditional payment giants and crypto companies over stablecoin infrastructure. Previously, Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge for $1.1 billion, prompting payment giants such as Visa and Mastercard to accelerate their expansion into the stablecoin sector.Currently, the global stablecoin market size has approached $300 billion. As enterprise payments, cross-border settlements, and treasury management use cases grow rapidly, stablecoin infrastructure is becoming a critical gateway for traditional financial institutions to capture. (CoinDesk)
According to GlobeNewswire, Applied Digital—a Bitcoin mining hosting and cloud services company—announced a $300 million senior secured bridge financing facility led by Goldman Sachs to advance the construction of its AI data center projects. The financing is secured against project assets, is repayable at any time without penalty, and the company plans to pursue additional long-term financing in the future to support the development and construction of its AI data centers.