Startups stories - Page 5

Elon Musk's xAI raises USD $20 billion, turbocharging Grok model training and GPU build-out as rivalry in frontier AI heats up.

Freshworks names AI-focused marketer Kady Srinivasan as CMO to sharpen its global brand and go-to-market engine in crowded SaaS markets.

J.P. Morgan's Fusion platform has integrated Crunchbase AI, giving institutional investors live startup forecasts and early risk signals.

Meta has bought Singapore AI start-up Manus, aiming to embed its autonomous general-purpose agent across consumer and business products.

Small firms across Australia and New Zealand turn to AI to sharpen 2026 growth, boost service standards and tackle persistent staff shortages.

A fresh US rate cut ripples through New Zealand markets as tech investors reassess global liquidity, risk assets and digital exposures.

Australian start-up Restoke.ai launches its AI 'restaurant manager' in the US, promising to boost margins and automate back-of-house work.

A viral festival clip of a top influencer sipping from a pink Huski champagne flute has sent global demand for the Kiwi drinkware brand soaring.

GovHack's 2025 Red Carpet Awards in Sydney spotlighted innovative open data projects driving public benefit across Australia and New Zealand.

Hyvä has made its Magento front-end solution free and open source, aiming to help smaller retailers worldwide access advanced eCommerce technology.

Paris-based Gradium raises USD $70 million to launch an AI voice platform offering expressive, low-latency, multilingual voice interactions for enterprises and developers.

ThoughtSpot has unveiled StartupSpot, a programme offering early-stage firms AI analytics integration for USD $12,999 per year, aiding data-driven product features.

Google DeepMind has launched its first Southeast Asian lab in Singapore to advance AI research and support regional language, culture, and innovation initiatives.

AWS unveils Kiro AI coding assistant with a new IDE, CLI tools, and features to boost code quality and collaboration for developers and teams.

Two NZ startups, Employment Hero and Clearhead, join forces to make affordable mental health support accessible for employees in small businesses.

Equinix plans a USD $22 million data centre in Lagos, its first in West Africa, boosting digital infrastructure to power Nigeria's growing tech economy by 2026.

Australian startup Heatseeker won top prize in L'Oréal's Big Bang Beauty Tech competition, advancing AI beauty tech across the South Asia Pacific region.

New Zealand's top cybersecurity experts and organisations were honoured at the 2025 iSANZ Awards amid rising cybercrime losses of NZD $1.6 billion annually.

Canva launched its AI-powered Creative Operating System, uniting design, collaboration and marketing tools, while offering its professional Affinity suite free to all users.

Dell launches Pro Max with GB10, a powerful desktop for local AI work supporting models up to 200 billion parameters and 1000 TFLOPS performance.