Artificial Intelligence

OpenAI Introduces ChatGPT Health, A Dedicated Experience Designed For Health and Wellness

By Amit Chowdhry ● Today at 10:39 PM

OpenAI has introduced ChatGPT Health, a dedicated experience within ChatGPT that’s designed to help people feel more informed and prepared when navigating health and wellness questions. The company said health is already one of the most common uses of ChatGPT, with more than 230 million people globally asking health and wellness questions each week, and Health is intended to make those conversations more relevant by allowing users to securely connect health information and apps.

IMVARIA Announces Strategic Investments For AI-Based Digital Biomarker Solutions

By Amit Chowdhry ● Today at 6:03 PM

IMVARIA, a Berkeley, California-based health tech company developing AI-driven digital biomarker solutions, said it has secured strategic investments from new and existing investors to accelerate growth and expand its AI-powered diagnostic services.

Cyera: $400 Million Series F At $9 Billion Valuation Raised As Enterprises Ramp Up AI Security

By Amit Chowdhry ● Today at 8:33 AM

Cyera, an AI and data security company, has raised $400 million in a Series F funding round led by funds managed by Blackstone, pushing the company’s valuation to $9 billion and bringing total funding to more than $1.7 billion. The financing comes roughly six months after Cyera’s prior round and marks a valuation that the company says has tripled over the past year.

Fullcast Promotes Britt Davies to Chief People Officer as It Scales AI-Native RevOps Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Yesterday at 7:30 AM

Fullcast, an AI-native revenue operations platform for go-to-market teams, announced it has promoted Britt Davies to chief people officer as the company expands and increases investment in recruiting, employee experience, and culture.

CapStone Acquires Structurely To Expand AI-Driven Sales Automation Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

CapStone Holdings announced it has acquired Structurely, an AI-powered sales engagement company focused on automating early-stage revenue conversations for real estate and mortgage organizations. The deal positions Structurely for expanded investment and faster growth as enterprises increasingly adopt AI to improve sales efficiency and customer engagement.

Mobileye To Buy Mentee Robotics For $900 Million To Expand Physical AI Push Into Humanoid Robots

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Mobileye announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mentee Robotics Ltd., an AI-first humanoid robotics company, in a deal the companies say will broaden Mobileye’s ambitions beyond automotive autonomy into humanoid robots and “physical AI” systems designed to operate safely and effectively in real-world environments.

xAI Raises $20 Billion Series E

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

xAI announced it has closed an upsized Series E funding round totaling $20 billion, surpassing its previously targeted $15 billion raise, as the company accelerates development of its AI models and the infrastructure behind them. The company said the financing included participation from Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among other investors. And xAI added that NVIDIA and Cisco Investments joined as strategic investors, backing efforts to scale compute capacity and expand what it described as some of the world’s largest GPU clusters.

LMArena: $150 Million At $1.7 Billion Valuation Raised To Expand Real-World AI Evaluation

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

LMArena announced it has raised $150 million in new financing to expand its community-driven platform for evaluating frontier AI models, valuing the company at $1.7 billion post-money. The round was led by Felicis and UC Investments, the University of California’s investment office, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, The House Fund, LDVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Laude Ventures.

NVIDIA Releases New Open Models, Datasets And Tools To Broaden Real-World AI Development

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

NVIDIA has introduced a new slate of open models, data, and developer tooling aimed at accelerating AI adoption across industries ranging from enterprise software and cybersecurity to robotics, autonomous driving, and biomedicine. NVIDIA said the releases expand its open model universe with updates spanning the Nemotron family for agentic AI, the Cosmos platform for physical AI, the new Alpamayo family for autonomous vehicle development, the Isaac GR00T robotics model line, and new Clara models for healthcare and life sciences.

Bain & Company: Nicolas Willemot To Head Global Consumer Products And Aaron Cheris As Head Of Global Retail

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Bain & Company has appointed Nicolas Willemot as global head of its Consumer Products practice, elevating the longtime partner to lead the firm’s work with consumer goods companies facing shifting consumer expectations and accelerating technology change. And Bain has appointed partner Aaron Cheris as global head of its Retail practice, a leadership change the firm said is aimed at strengthening its work with retailers as advances in generative and “agentic” AI reshape shopping behavior and retail economics.

Microsoft Acquires Osmos To Add Agentic AI Data Engineering Capabilities To Fabric

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Microsoft announced it has acquired Osmos, an agentic AI data engineering platform designed to simplify complex data preparation workflows and help organizations turn raw data into analytics- and AI-ready assets within OneLake, the unified data lake at the core of Microsoft Fabric.

Azimuth AI Raises New Funding As Smart-Utility Edge-AI Chip Moves Toward Production

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Azimuth AI, a semiconductor company building custom edge-AI system-on-chips for smart utilities, energy, and industrial infrastructure, said it has closed a new funding round led by Jetha Global, with participation from existing investors Moneta Ventures and AUM Ventures as well as additional new investors.

Qualcomm Introduces New Robotics Stack And Dragonwing IQ10 Processor To Power Physical AI

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

At CES, Qualcomm Technologies unveiled a new end-to-end robotics architecture and its latest premium-tier robotics processor, the Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ10 Series, positioning the combined hardware and software stack as a foundation for “Physical AI” systems ranging from household and personal service robots to industrial autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and full-size humanoids.

Accordion Acquires FCM, Expanding Operator-Led Performance Improvement Offerings For Private Equity Clients

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

Accordion, an AI and data-powered financial consulting firm focused on private equity, has acquired FCM, an operator-led performance improvement firm known for large-scale value creation programs at private-equity-backed companies.

Exotec: Interview With Co-Founder & CEO Romain Moulin About The Warehouse Robotics Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

Exotec develops warehouse robotics and automation solutions that combine hardware (robots) and software to optimize storage, retrieval, and order fulfillment operations. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Exotec co-founder and CEO Romain Moulin to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Cowbell Names John Botros CFO As Insurtech Targets Profitability and Accelerates Global Expansion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

Cowbell announced it is entering a “next cycle” of its growth strategy focused on sustained revenue expansion, operating profitability, and continued international buildout, as the cyber and specialty insurance provider broadens beyond its roots in adaptive cyber coverage.

Alchera X: Interview With President & CEO Michael Plaksin About The Visual AI Tech Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

Alchera X is an AI tech company that is engaging in the development and distribution of products involving: visual artificial intelligence (AI), AI data, facial recognition, augmented reality, wildfire detection, healthcare solutions, and more. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Alchera X’s President and CEO, Michael Plaksin, to learn more about the company.

Kodiak AI And Bosch Partner To Scale Production-Grade Autonomous Trucking Hardware

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

Kodiak AI said it has agreed with Bosch to collaborate on and scale the manufacturing of a production-grade, redundant autonomous platform designed to bring Kodiak’s AI-powered “Kodiak Driver” to trucks at commercial scale. The companies said the platform integrates specialized hardware, firmware, and software interfaces needed to automate trucks, either directly on a vehicle production line or through an upfitter.

Gnani.ai: Interview With Co-Founder & CEO Ganesh Gopalan About The Speech And Conversational Solutions Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2026

Gnani.ai develops AI-driven speech and conversational automation solutions for enterprises. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Gnani.ai co-founder and CEO Ganesh Gopalan to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Plaud Unveils Wearable AI Notetaker NotePin S And Plaud Desktop

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 4, 2026

Plaud has introduced Plaud NotePin S, an upgraded version of its wearable AI notetaker, and launched Plaud Desktop, a dedicated desktop app designed to capture and summarize online meetings without meeting bots. Based in San Francisco, the company said the two releases extend Plaud’s “conversation intelligence” across the full spectrum of how professionals meet today—face-to-face, on calls, and in virtual meetings.

SoftBank Completes Additional $22.5 Billion Investment In OpenAI

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 3, 2026

SoftBank Group announced it has completed an additional $22.5 billion investment in OpenAI, marking the second closing of its previously announced commitment to invest up to $40 billion and bringing the company’s total SoftBank-backed investment in the AI company to $30 billion. The second closing happened on December 26, 2025.

Axoniq: Interview With CEO & Board Member Jessica Reeves About Why Explainability Matters In AI

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 2, 2026

Axoniq, a company trusted by over 65,000 companies globally and with more than 70 million downloads, transforms how organizations develop AI native applications that seamlessly evolve and scale to meet tomorrow's business challenges. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Axoniq CEO and Board Member Jessica Reeves to gain a deeper understanding of the company.

Meta Acquires AI Agent Developer Manus For A Reported $2+ Billion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 31, 2025

AI agent developer Manus said it is joining Meta, a significant milestone for its work on general-purpose autonomous agents designed to help users with research, automation, and other complex tasks.

Traini: $7.5 Million Raised To Build Pet Emotional Intelligence Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 29, 2025

Traini, a Palo Alto-based startup focused on “pet emotional intelligence,” announced it has raised $7.5 million to develop AI systems that interpret pet emotions and intentions and translate them into human-understandable language through real-time, two-way interaction.

Accordion Acquires Pinnacle Healthcare Advisors To Expand Revenue Cycle Management Capabilities

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 27, 2025

DUX: $9 Million Seed Funding Closed To Bring Agentic Exposure Management To Modern Cyber Defense

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 26, 2025

Dux, an agentic exposure management platform designed to keep pace with AI-driven cyberattacks, has emerged from stealth with a $9 million seed financing round led by Redpoint, TLV Partners, and Maple Capital. The company said the round also included participation from cybersecurity executives from CrowdStrike, Okta, and Armis.

Nvidia Acquiring Groq’s Assets In A Reported $20 Billion Deal

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 26, 2025

Groq recently announced that it has entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia for Groq’s inference technology. This agreement reflects a shared focus on expanding access to high-performance, low-cost inference. While the size of the deal was not officially confirmed, CNBC revealed that Disruptive, the investment firm that spearheaded Groq’s most recent funding rounds, confirmed a massive $20 billion price. Alex Davis, the chief executive of Disruptive, noted that his firm invested over half a billion dollars into Groq over nearly a decade of development. Nvidia plans to pay the full sum in cash to acquire the specialized technology developed by the high-speed chip designer.

Manifold: $18 Million Series B Raised To Expand Vertical AI Platform For Life Sciences

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 23, 2025

Manifold, an AI platform focused on life sciences workflows from discovery through clinical and precision care, has raised $18 million in a Series B financing led by Reach Capital, with participation from SilverArc Capital, Industry Ventures, and existing investors TQ Ventures and Calibrate Ventures. The round brings Manifold’s total capital raised to $40 million as the company positions itself as a category player in “vertical AI” for the life sciences market.

Marissa Mayer’s Dazzle AI Raises $8 Million Seed Round At $35 Million Valuation

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 23, 2025

Dazzle AI, a new startup founded by entrepreneur and former Google and Yahoo executive Marissa Mayer, has raised $8 million in seed funding at a $35 million post-money valuation.

Lemon Slice Launched With $10.5 Million Seed Round

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 23, 2025

Lemon Slice, a frontier AI research and product lab focused on interactive video, debuted publicly with $10.5 million in seed funding and the launch of Lemon Slice-2. This real-time, “zero-shot” avatar model can turn a single image into a live, conversational video experience.