First Pass

9 stories from 5 sources

Investors Fund AI and Prediction Markets as New Infrastructure

Day’s Recap

Supporting Articles

Prediction market Kalshi nearly doubled its valuation to $40 billion after raising $1 billion in a Series G co-led by Wellington and Sequoia.

8:01 PMFinextra

Prediction market Kalshi announced a $1 billion Series G financing round that values the company at $40 billion. It said the capital will advance its goal of building a financial exchange that gives individuals, businesses, and institutions more direct ways to act on forecasts.

3:11 PMPYMNTS

Prediction market platform Kalshi reached a $40 billion valuation in its latest funding round, up from $5 billion one year ago.

8:05 AMCNBC

Canadian AI company Cohere announced a $5 billion financing round to build what it calls a sovereign alternative to AI systems controlled by major US and Chinese technology companies. The company rejects the idea that advanced AI will inevitably be monopolized by a few frontier labs.

4:49 PMPYMNTS

Serval raised $150 million at a $3 billion valuation in a Sequoia-led round, with the firm increasing its backing. The startup is targeting ServiceNow, while ServiceNow argues that AI lowers the barrier to starting a company but does not make running an enterprise easier.

2:34 PMFortune

Other Developments

A curated list of other prominent stories from this day.

PhotonPay, which is building a stablecoin-focused financial operating system, raised $40 million in a Series C led by Blockchain Capital.

8:01 PMFinextra

AI assistant startup Wabi reportedly raised $55 million at a $1.25 billion valuation. The funding will support software that lets groups use AI to coordinate activities and make decisions together.

4:04 PMPYMNTS

Dream is building an AI world model for construction that incorporates real-world physics and construction standards. It trained the system on more than 100 million square feet of building data drawn from U.S. permit archives.

12:21 PMTechCrunch

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