Palo Alto Networks is charging full speed ahead on attempting to be as much of a one-stop cyber shop as is possible in the fast-changing field, buying CyberArk for a stunning $25 billion.
Investors weren’t especially happy, but properly integrated, it’s probably worthwhile long-term. Add as Zeus Kerravala notes, it’s a good addition for its artificial intelligence play.
IPOs keep on coming, just this week from Ambiq and Figma — the latter up more than threefold so fast trading had to be halted, and then topped $140 in after-hours trading. Pops are back, baby. Of course, those represent money left on the table, but they could spur more of the tech industry’s prime wealth-building mechanisms that have been in short supply for years now.
Just when you thought AI funding couldn’t get any crazier… it does. OpenAI reportedly is in talks to raise $8.3 billion at a stunning $300 billion valuation, while Anthropic apparently is in talks to raise $5 billion at a $170 billion valuation. Vast Data also is reported to be looking at a multibillion-dollar funding at a $30 billion valuation. And get a load of all those $100 million-plus fundings of other AI or adjacent companies below. The dot-com boom had nothing on this….uh-oh.
Some big tech companies are making a lot of money thanks in part to the AI boom — not just from selling it but from using its efficiencies internally, as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pointed out. But they’re also spending a lot to meet that demand, as Microsoft, Meta and Amazon showed this week. In fact, that’s what tripped up Amazon a day later, as its guidance came in light, suggesting its AI investments may take longer to pay off. For now, at least, their core businesses are doing well enough to support that spending.
Next week there’s still a lot of earnings reports coming from Advanced Micro Devices, Supermicro, Uber, Lyft, Palantir and many more.
Speaking of Zuckerberg, he thinks “superintelligence,” whatever that is, is almost here. Conveniently, he said it’s likely to be delivered via augmented reality glasses like the kind it makes, currently at a multibillion-dollar quarterly loss. I think some of us can be excused for worrying about tech titans deciding how this superintelligence will be used.
Dave dove into stablecoins, finding they’re achieving… stability! Crypto can use some solidity to counter the continuing drumbeat of fraud and other nefarious uses of crypto.
Here’s all the enterprise and emerging tech news and analysis this week from News and beyond:
AI and data: Are you ready for ‘superintelligence’?
Zuckerberg outlines Meta’s vision for AI superintelligence
Money matters
NiCE acquires customer service AI startup Cognigy for $955M
OpenAI hits $12B in annualized revenue, breaks 700M ChatGPT weekly active users (per The Information)
Salesforce and ServiceNow in talks to invest ~$750M each in Genesys, which uses AI to automate customer service functions, valuing Genesys at ~$15B (per Bloomberg)
Weeks after its last funding round, fintech startup Ramp raises $500M more
AI-native clinical documentation startup Ambience Healthcare raises $243M
Anaconda raises $150M+ to speed up Python-based AI projects
Physical operations AI firm Motive raises $150M ahead of possible IPO
AI infrastructure company fal raises $125M, valuing company at $1.5B
Salient secures $60M to expand AI-powered loan servicing platform
Lumana gets $40M to build more intelligent video surveillance systems
Dropzone AI raises $37M to expand AI SOC analyst development and integrations
Sparrow raises $35M in Series B funding to scale AI-powered solutions for leave management
E2B shares its vision of sandboxed, cloud environments for every AI agent after raising $21M in funding
Promptfoo raises $18.4M to build AI security and evaluation platform
Echo secures $15M seed round to build AI-powered vulnerability-free application infrastructure
AI data analyst startup Julius raises $10M seed round
Streamline AI raises $8.6M to transform work for in-house legal operations teams
Cyata Security gets $8.5M in funding to help companies get a grip on their AI agents
Runloop raises $7M seed round to bring enterprise-grade infrastructure to AI coding agents
Drizz launches with $2.7M to provide vision-based testing AI for mobile apps
New models and services
Microsoft turns Edge into an AI agent with new Copilot Mode
Google DeepMind releases highly accurate AI model map of Earth
Amazon DocumentDB goes serverless with automatic scaling to support agentic AI workloads
Chinese startup Z.ai releases cost-efficient GLM-4.5 reasoning model
Writer releases autonomous AI ‘super agent’ for enterprise users
OpenAI launches ChatGPT study mode to reduce AI misuse at schools and universities
Google rolls out new ways to use AI Mode search with PDFs, images, live video and more
Informatica tackles AI scaling roadblocks with new platform updates
AI startup Artificial Societies simulates the behavior of target audiences to speed up market research
Linux Foundation welcomes AGNTCY Project to standardize open multi-agent system infrastructure and break down AI agent silos
Policy
Trump administration announces medical records access plan, but privacy issues loom
Google said it will sign the EU AI Code of Practice
There’s even more AI and big data news on News
Around the enterprise: IPO fever
IPOs get even hotter
Chipmaker Ambiq Micro shares soar 60%+ after $96M IPO
Figma stock more than triples from $33 offering price in another blockbuster IPO
Firefly Aerospace seeks $5.5 billion valuation in IPO as US space race heats up
AI infrastructure firm WhiteFiber seeks $132.8M in IPO
Earnings
Microsoft crushes earnings expectations and its market cap soars above $4T And check out Dave Vellante’s analysis: Microsoft earnings: Turning up the heat with Azure, AI and the data center arms race, with proprietary data from theCUBE Research. It’s redefining what hyperscale looks like in the AI era, he adds.
Gloomy guidance and increased cloud competition weigh on Amazon’s stock, despite solid earnings beat
Apple’s revenue growth hits four-year high as iPhone sales soar
Shares of chipmakers Arm and Qualcomm slide as smartphone sales skid
Meta’s stock makes sharp gains on blowout earnings results
Samsung earnings dip as chip division weighs on results despite mobile and display growth
Confluent beats on earnings and revenue but outlook disappoints investors
Equinix raises guidance after earnings beat
F5 Networks earnings and revenue beat, stock rises 9%
Five9 stock soars as Q2 revenue beats estimates, guidance tops expectations
PayPal shares drop 8%+ despite better-than-expected earnings
Robinhood delivers strong quarter with surging revenue and customer growth
Cloudflare beats earnings estimates with strong revenue and customer growth
Commvault shares jump 18%+ on strong quarterly results
Check Point shares plunge after earnings edge by forecasts but billings come in light
Tenable shares rise 7% after-hours on earnings beat
Freshworks earnings top estimates with double-digit growth in revenue and customer spending
Seagate stock slides despite earnings beat after sales outlook disappoints
Western Digital stock climbs 5% amid earnings beat, outlook, dividend
Other money matters
AI chipmaker Groq slashes projections soon after sharing with investors (per The Information) But it’s still reportedly planning to raise $600M at a $6B valuation (per Bloomberg).
Tesla signs $16.5B chip manufacturing contract with Samsung
Data center hardware startup Oxide Computer raises $100M
Observe raises $156M to accelerate enterprise shift to AI-native observability
Cadence settles with US government over export violation, agreeing to $140.6M penalty
FuriosaAI closes $125M round to scale production of next-gen AI inference chip
Positron AI secures $51.6M in Series A round to accelerate inference-optimized hardware
Teramount raises $50M to supercharge AI chips with light
FluidCloud gets $8.1M to reverse engineer cloud environments and unlock true multicloud agility
Exclusive Matrice.ai teams up with Voltage Park to accelerate no-code computer vision development
New products and services
Huawei launches CloudMatrix 384 server as an alternative to Nvidia’s AI infrastructure stack
StackGen’s AI agents do away with IaC scripts to automate cloud infrastructure design and management
Analysis
How to migrate enterprise databases and data to the cloud
Five takeaways from Zoom’s Perspectives event
We have lots more news on cloud, infrastructure and apps
Cyber beat: Palo Alto Networks’ big deal
Money matters
In huge cybersecurity deal, Palo Alto Networks acquires CyberArk for $25B
Zeus Kerravala’s take: Analysis: Palo Alto Networks bolsters Its AI play with acquisition of CyberArk
Axonius reportedly acquires healthcare cybersecurity company Cynerio in deal worth up to $250M
AI security startup Noma Security closes $100M funding round
Safe reels in $70M for its cyber risk analysis platform
API and AI security firm Wallarm raises $55M in funding
BlinkOps raises $50M to expand deployment of no-code security micro-agents
Legion raises $38M to automate SOC workflows through browser-native AI
Fable Security launches with $31M to stop risky human behavior
Prophet Security raises $30M Series A round for AI agent-driven security operations center platform
Echo raises $15M to scale platform for vulnerability-free container images
Seal Security raises $13M to scale automated open-source vulnerability remediation
Threat hunting startup Nebulock closes $8.5M to grow AI threat detection engine
Other new services
Booz Allen debuts Vellox Reverser to automate malware reverse engineering using AI
Trend Micro launches Digital Twin model for proactive cybersecurity defense
Singulr AI launches unified control plane to streamline enterprise AI governance
ZEST Security adds AWS Service Control Policies to expand cloud risk mitigation
Pangea launches AI Detection and Response to close gaps in generative AI security
SpecterOps expands identity threat visibility with BloodHound v8.0 update
RAD Security debuts RADBots to streamline security investigations and compliance
Attack & response
Lazarus turns open source into a weapon in its latest global espionage push
Google Cloud report highlights shift in ransomware tactics targeting backup systems
More cybersecurity news here
Elsewhere in tech: Stability for stablecoins
Breaking Analysis: Stablecoins gain legitimacy as crypto finds clarity in the regulatory fog
PayPal joins the party: PayPal expands crypto payments for US merchants to lower cross-border fees
Speaking of crypto: SEC debuts ‘Project Crypto’ to bring US financial markets ‘on chain’
Coinbase to expand core platform beyond cryptocurrency with tokenized real-world assets
And check out more news on emerging tech, blockchain and crypto and policy
Comings and goings
AI and high-performance infrastructure provider Penguin Solutions appointed former NetApp exec Tony Frey SVP and chief revenue officer and former Dell exec Ted Gillick SVP of strategy and corporate development.
Identity security firm Entrust has promoted Mike Baxter to president and chief technology and product officer, Patrick Steele to chief sales officer, and Kelsey Holthus to chief human resources officer, all reporting to incoming CEO Tony Ball.
Former Cybereason Chief Operating Officer Emmy Linder is new CEO at malware detection and response firm Stairwell, succeeding founder Mike Wiacek, who will become chief technology officer.
Security firm Tines appointed Heather Planishek chief operating and financial officer.
What’s next
Events
Aug. 2-7: Black Hat USA, Las Vegas: News will be onsite with the news, and TheCUBE will wrap up analysis and interviews on Friday, Aug. 8.
Earnings
Monday, Aug. 4: Palantir, Kyndryl
Tuesday, Aug. 5: AMD, GlobalFoundries, Supermicro, Arista, Digital Ocean, Snap, Rivian, RingCentral
Wednesday, Aug. 6: Extreme Networks, Uber, Lyft, Informatica, Fortinet, Amplitude, Duolingo
Thursday, Aug. 7: Datadog, CyberArk, Appian, Dropbox, Rackspace, Twilio, Atlassian, Rapid7, JFrog, Expensify, OpenText
Image: News/Reve
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