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CISOs are having to adapt at lightning speed to the rapidly changing AI landscape. DeepSeek is just the latest example of this in practice – a new ‘latest and greatest’ tool emerges and quickly tops download charts. Employees start using it at work despite the data policy explicitly stating all information will be held in China. Even the Pentagon is forced to tell its employees to stop using it. And of course DeepSeek is just the latest in what will be a long lineup of AI tools from China and elsewhere. Unauthorized AI usage is a ticking time bomb. Employees…

Cino, a FinTech firm specialising in real-time shared payments, has raised €3.5m in seed funding as it prepares to launch in the UK and expand its footprint across Europe.The funding round was led by Balderton Capital, with participation from Connect Ventures. Several angel investors also joined the round, including Barney Hussey-Yeo, founder of AI-powered money app Cleo.Founded in 2023, Cino has developed a payment app designed to transform how groups of friends, families or housemates split bills and make purchases together. Rather than one person covering a payment and chasing others for their share, Cino allows all members of a…

Lenkie, a UK-based FinTech focused on cashflow management, has raised £49m in Series A funding to drive its mission of improving access to capital for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The round consists of £4m in equity and a £45m debt facility, led by a large US private credit fund specialising in supporting international lenders.Lenkie claims that traditional banks have pulled back from small business lending, contributing to an estimated £22bn funding gap. This withdrawal has created a growing need for alternative financing solutions to help SMEs secure the capital they need to operate and grow.Lenkie offers payables financing — a…

Sustainability reporting is crucial for organisations to track and reduce emissions; however, the digital infrastructure supporting these reports, such as cloud storage, ESG software, and data processing, consumes significant electricity.According to Position Green, a considerable portion of this electricity comes from fossil fuels, adding to the environmental burden.As organisations refine their net-zero strategies, the carbon footprint of their reporting processes often remains overlooked. Questions arise about the energy consumed by sustainability data management and whether these activities could be increasing Scope 3 emissions through inefficient workflows.Significant volumes of ESG data are collected and stored from various sources, including internal operations…

BriteCore, a provider of cloud-native core insurance platforms for property and casualty insurers, has expanded its Solution Partner Marketplace. This enhancement introduces five new vendor integrations, marking a significant stride in BriteCore’s ongoing effort to equip insurers with cutting-edge technology solutions and increased flexibility in underwriting accuracy, claims processing, and overall operational efficiency.BriteCore’s core function is to offer property and casualty insurers advanced technology solutions that streamline and enhance their insurance processes. The BriteCore Solution Partner Marketplace is crafted to provide seamless access to innovative tools and services that augment insurers’ core operational capabilities.The reason behind this new product initiative…

Giift, a leading provider of AI-powered loyalty and rewards solutions, has rebranded globally as Xoxoday.The strategic move follows a $70m investment from Apis Growth Fund II, a private equity fund managed by UK-based Apis Partners. Apis Partners is known for backing growth-stage financial services and infrastructure firms with a focus on ESG and impact-driven investments.Xoxoday specialises in employee recognition, sales incentives, and customer loyalty programmes through its comprehensive suite of SaaS solutions. The company serves over 5,000 businesses worldwide, spanning startups to Fortune 500 firms such as Western Digital, Infosys, Nestlé, Mercedes-Benz, and Adobe. Its platform supports more than 65…

Beams Fintech Fund, a prominent private equity firm focused on growth-stage FinTech and financial services companies, has confirmed its participation in a $70m funding round for its portfolio company InsuranceDekho.The round was co-led by Beams Fintech Fund alongside Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and insurer BNP Paribas Cardif, which participated through its InsurTech fund managed by European investment firm Eurazeo.Launched in 2017 by founder Ankit Agrawal, InsuranceDekho has established itself as one of India’s leading InsurTech platforms, transforming how insurance is distributed across the country. The platform aims to make insurance more accessible to a broader population by using…

OpenAI on Monday said it is supporting a new consortium called NextGenAI that would focus on supporting AI-assisted research at top universities. NextGenAI, whose 15 founding academic partners include Harvard, the University of Oxford and MIT, will be funded with $50 million in research grants, compute funding, and API access from OpenAI, the company said. Students, educators, and researchers will be eligible to receive awards, which will be doled out over the coming months. “This initiative is built not only to fuel the next generation of discoveries, but also to prepare the next generation to shape AI’s future,” OpenAI wrote…

Tel Aviv-based Aryon Security has stepped out of stealth with $9 million seed funding raised from Viola Ventures and Blumberg Capital, and with support from angel investors Shlomo Kramer, Maty Siman, and Rubi Aronashvili. Aryon offers a Cloud Security Enforcement Platform based on the idea that prevention is better than cure. The purpose is simple: prevent misconfigurations and forgotten encryption before data is deployed to the cloud. The alternative, detect security issues after deployment, is costly, time consuming, difficult – and tempts fate. Aryon was founded by Ron Arbel (CEO), Ariel Litmanovich (CTO), and Yair Ladizhensky (VP R&D). All three…

Montreal, Canada – Just a few months ago, Canada’s governing Liberal Party seemed poised for a resounding 2025 election defeat. Opinion polls showed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s party trailing the opposition Conservatives by as many as 26 percentage points. An affordability crisis and widespread dislike of Trudeau had caused the Liberals’ support to plummet, and calls were growing for the embattled prime minister to resign ahead of a looming federal vote. Yet now, experts say the political tide is shifting due to a range of factors, including Trudeau’s decision to resign, a Liberal leadership race that has boosted the party’s momentum,…