Jay Peters / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri says Threads is rebalancing ranking to prioritize content from people that users follow, warns that creators’ “unconnected” reach may go down — As Bluesky’s user numbers continue to rise, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri says Threads will change its For You page to show fewer posts from accounts you don’t follow.
Las Vegas-based Monkey Tilt, which combines online gambling with a chat function and content made by influencers, raised a $30M Series A led by Pantera (Catherine McGrath/Fortune)
Catherine McGrath / Fortune:
Las Vegas-based Monkey Tilt, which combines online gambling with a chat function and content made by influencers, raised a $30M Series A led by Pantera — Monkey Tilt launched just eight months ago and has amassed $200 million of monthly betting volume. — Online gambling used …
Ad software company Mediaocean acquires Innovid, an ad tech company focused on CTV, for $500M; Innovid had a market cap of ~$240M at market close on November 20 (Megan Graham/Wall Street Journal)
Megan Graham / Wall Street Journal:
Ad software company Mediaocean acquires Innovid, an ad tech company focused on CTV, for $500M; Innovid had a market cap of ~$240M at market close on November 20 — The privately held company will merge Innovid with Flashtalking, which it bought in 2021 — Advertising software …
Hawaii’s The Garden Island stops using AI-generated newscasters on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram after two months, likely due to the negative public response (Guthrie Scrimgeour/Wired)
Guthrie Scrimgeour / Wired:
Hawaii’s The Garden Island stops using AI-generated newscasters on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram after two months, likely due to the negative public response — A local newspaper in Hawaii experimented with AI-generated presenters to engage and boost its readership. After two months, the bots have been shelved.
Colorado-based Enveda, which uses AI to find drug candidates, raised $130M, after raising $55M in June, and launches a clinical trial for an oral eczema drug (Sarah McBride/Bloomberg)
Sarah McBride / Bloomberg:
Colorado-based Enveda, which uses AI to find drug candidates, raised $130M, after raising $55M in June, and launches a clinical trial for an oral eczema drug — AI has so far failed to transform health care, but investors are betting on its potential. — Enveda Therapeutics Inc. …
Wordware, which lets customers like Instacart and Runway create AI agents using natural language instead of code, raised a $30M seed led by Spark Capital (Michael Nuñez/VentureBeat)
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Wordware, which lets customers like Instacart and Runway create AI agents using natural language instead of code, raised a $30M seed led by Spark Capital — A San Francisco startup wants to make artificial intelligence development as easy as writing in a word processor.
Nick Pickles, who left X as VP of Global Affairs in September, joins Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity, which is building World Network, as chief policy officer (Michelle Conlin/Reuters)
Michelle Conlin / Reuters:
Nick Pickles, who left X as VP of Global Affairs in September, joins Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity, which is building World Network, as chief policy officer — Nick Pickles, the former head of global affairs at Elon Musk’s social media platform X, is joining forces with one of Musk’s rivals, his fellow OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman.
Cybersecurity startup Wiz acquires Dazz, a specialist in security remediation and risk management; sources: the cash-and-stock deal is valued at $450M (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Cybersecurity startup Wiz acquires Dazz, a specialist in security remediation and risk management; sources: the cash-and-stock deal is valued at $450M — Wiz, one of the most talked-about names in the world of cybersecurity, is making a significant acquisition to expand its product reach in cloud security …
Lightning AI, which lets customers fine-tune and run AI models in their preferred cloud environments, raised $50M, bringing its total funding to $103M (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Lightning AI, which lets customers fine-tune and run AI models in their preferred cloud environments, raised $50M, bringing its total funding to $103M — AI may be the hottest thing since sliced bread. But that doesn’t mean it’s getting easier to develop and run.
How Satya Nadella transformed Microsoft as it enters its 50th year, including by changing its toxic culture, embracing open source, and making the OpenAI deal (Steven Levy/Wired)
Steven Levy / Wired:
How Satya Nadella transformed Microsoft as it enters its 50th year, including by changing its toxic culture, embracing open source, and making the OpenAI deal — When Satya Nadella took over as CEO, the company was lumbering and uncool. He cleaned up a toxic culture, crafted the deal of the decade, and put Microsoft back on top.
