GameStop's CEO Struggles to Explain His eBay Offer

Top News

GameStop has made an unsolicited $56 billion bid to acquire eBay, offering $125 per share in a mix of cash and stock and backed by a roughly 5% stake and up to $20 billion in debt financing, with CEO Ryan Cohen saying he’s prepared to take the offer directly to shareholders if rejected. The Wall Street Journal has more here. (FWIW, Cohen could not explain the deal when he was asked about it on CNBC’s Squawk Box.)

Amazon is opening its logistics network to all businesses through a new service called Amazon Supply Chain Services, putting it in more direct competition with UPS and FedEx. TechCrunch has more here.

Both Anthropic and OpenAI announced joint ventures today designed to accelerate enterprise adoption of their AI tools. Anthropic is forming a roughly $1.5 billion venture, with investors including Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs; while OpenAI has raised more than $4 billion for a new venture called The Deployment Company backed by 19 investors including TPG, Brookfield, Advent, and Bain Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Sierra Raises $950M as the Race to Own Enterprise AI Gets Serious

Image Credits: Thibault Camus / AP Photo

By Connie Loizos

Bret Taylor’s AI startup Sierra is raising a $950 million funding round led by Tiger Global and GV, the company announced Monday, pushing its post-money valuation above $15 billion. The raise gives Sierra more than $1 billion to work with — capital the company says it will use to become the “global standard” for AI-powered customer experiences.

Like a lot of AI companies, Sierra has, smartly, been very proactive in touting its own growth in a crowded market. The company says it started with just four design partners a couple of years ago. Today it claims to have more than 40% of the Fortune 50 as customers, and says the agents running on its platform are handling billions of interactions, from refinancing mortgages to processing insurance claims, managing returns, and powering nonprofit fundraising campaigns.

Indeed, the funding news follows a stretch of breakneck revenue growth as shared by Sierra, which first said it hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue in late November, then published another post in early February, saying it had hit $150 million in ARR.

That pacing reflects both the urgency enterprises feel about deploying AI and the costs that come with it. Taylor, who also serves as chairman of OpenAI and was formerly co-CEO of Salesforce, has said that the best-case outcome for agentic AI is lower costs and higher revenue for clients, but before those returns materialize, the ramp-up phase can be pricey.

That exact scenario showed up in a conversation at one of TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC events last week. Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga put it plainly in conversation with this editor, saying that Uber “blew through our [AI] budget” soon after opening the door to agentic AI tools late last year. He also said the company is starting to see meaningful results.

Massive Fundings

Linkerbot, a two-year-old Beijing startup that develops highly dexterous robotic hands for humanoid robots, raised an undisclosed amount for its Series B+ round at a $3 billion valuation. Investors included Zhongguancun Science Park Fund, Bank of China Asset Management, and Fosun Capital. Reuters has more here.

Panthalassa, a 10-year-old company based in Portland, OR, that builds autonomous ocean-based systems to generate wave power and run AI computing at sea, raised $140 million in a Series B round led by Peter Thiel, with John Doerr, TIME Ventures, SciFi Ventures, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Hanwha Group, Fortescue Ventures, Future Positive, WTI, Nimble Partners, Super Micro Computer, Sozo Ventures, Dylan Field, Planetary VC, Leblon Capital, Resilience Reserve, Portland Seed Fund, Intrepid Oregon Fund, Founders Fund, Gigascale Capital, Lowercarbon Capital, Unless, and WovenEarth also piling on. More here.

Suno, a four-year-old startup based in Cambridge, MA, that generates music from text prompts, allowing users to create full songs using AI, is reportedly weeks away from closing a Series D round at a $5+ billion valuation, more than twice the valuation of a round it raised in November. Forbes has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

EnteroBiotix, a nine-year-old Edinburgh startup that is developing microbiome-based therapies that use bacteria from healthy donors to treat gut disorders like irritable bowel syndrome, raised a $25.7 million round co-led by Thairm Bio and the Scottish National Investment Bank. Clinical Trials Arena has more here.

Enzo Health, a two-year-old startup based in Lehi, UT, that analyzes clinical documentation and patient data to help home healthcare providers manage reimbursement, compliance, and eligibility decisions, raised a $20 million Series A round led by N47, with Gradient, Tandem Ventures, and Rigby Watts also taking part. The company has raised a total of $26 million. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Smaller Fundings

A-Cube, an eight-year-old Milan startup that automates tax compliance by handling electronic invoicing and real-time reporting across different countries’ regulations, raised a $4.7 million round led by P101 SGR, with Sella DirectVentures also participating. EU-Startups has more here.

Barocal, a seven-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, that develops low-emissions cooling technology using solid-state materials that eliminate refrigerant gases, raised a $10 million seed round. World Fund, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, and IP Group invested in the deal. TechCrunch has more here.

LakeFusion, a two-year-old Austin startup that provides a master data management platform built natively on Databricks to unify and govern enterprise data for AI use, raised a $7.5 million seed round led by Silverton Partners, with Carbide Ventures also participating. More here.

Mobility Signage, a three-year-old Munich startup that connects and standardizes transit data across legacy systems to deliver consistent real-time passenger information across displays, announcements, and apps, raised a $2.1 million pre-seed round led by High-Tech Gründerfonds, with 2bX also contributing. Tech Funding News has more here.

New Funds

Haun Ventures, a four-year-old Menlo Park venture firm, has raised $1 billion across new early- and late-stage funds to invest in crypto and startups at the intersection of financial services, AI, and alternative assets. TechCrunch has more here.

Exits

SAP is acquiring Dremio, a roughly 9-year-old startup based in Santa Clara, CA, that builds open data lakehouse software; and Prior Labs, a young European AI research startup focused on building models for structured data. SAP also announced plans to invest €1 billion in Prior Labs over four years. Constellation Research has more here.

Cisco has acquired Astrix Security, a roughly five-year-old Israeli cybersecurity startup that helps enterprises monitor and control “non-human identities” such as AI agents, API keys, and automated systems to prevent breaches. The deal is valued at about $400 million. CTech has more here.

Going Public

Cerebras, a 10-year-old Sunnyvale-based AI chipmaker that provides cloud access to its processors for running models, is targeting a valuation of up to $26.6 billion in its U.S. IPO and plans to raise about $3.5 billion by selling shares priced between $115 and $125. TechCrunch has more here.

Fervo Energy, a nine-year-old Houston startup that develops enhanced geothermal power projects, is seeking to raise more than $1.3 billion in an IPO that could value the company at about $6.5 billion, more than double the valuation it was targeting earlier this year. The company has raised a total of approximately $1.5 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

People

OpenAI alleges that after Greg Brockman refused Elon Musk’s offer to settle their legal dispute over OpenAI’s structure, Musk texted him, “By the end of this week, you and Sam [Altman] will be the most hated men in America.” TechCrunch has more here.

At the OpenAI trial today, Elon Musk’s lawyers pressed president Greg Brockman over his $30 billion OpenAI stake, arguing it undercuts the company’s claim to prioritize AI safety over profit. The New York Times has more here.

Business Insider profiles Wachtell litigator William Savitt, a former cab driver and rock band singer who is leading Sam Altman’s defense against Elon Musk after previously scoring a victory against Musk over his attempt to back out of acquiring Twitter. More here.

Elon Musk has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle SEC allegations that he failed to properly disclose his growing Twitter stake in 2022, a case that accused him of costing shareholders millions. Bloomberg has more here.

Jeff Bezos is reportedly shopping his 417-foot, $500 million superyacht Koru — complete with a mermaid figurehead of Lauren Sánchez, a glass-bottom pool, and a $75 million support vessel — partly because its sheer size makes it difficult to dock and operate. The New York Post has more here.

Post-Its

Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark believes that there is a good chance we only have about two years.

Essential Reads

A Wall Street Journal analysis finds that 67% of profits on Polymarket go to just 0.1% of accounts, as sophisticated traders using data and algorithms consistently outperform casual users.