Crisp’s latest $26 million raise lands with the kind of clarity you rarely see in the AI funding drumbeat: investors are betting not on another generic platform touting “AI for everything,” but on a vertical system built to solve very specific pain points in retail and CPG. The announcement has a certain energy to it, almost like the industry’s finally admitting that horizontal … [Read more...] about Crisp’s $26M Series B1 Shows Why Vertical AI Is Pulling Ahead
Reports
Europe’s Spectrum Trap: How Smarter Policy Could Unlock a €75 Billion 5G Boost
Europe’s mobile industry feels caught in something like a slow-motion squeeze, with every new data point from the GSMA’s Spectrum Pricing and Renewals in Europe study underlining how much of the continent’s 5G underperformance isn’t technical at all, but structural. The report reads almost like a diagnosis: operators are spending heavily—€200 billion since 2019—yet still … [Read more...] about Europe’s Spectrum Trap: How Smarter Policy Could Unlock a €75 Billion 5G Boost
Airwallex’s $330M Series G: The New Gravity Center of Borderless Finance
The story almost writes itself: a company that began in Melbourne as a scrappy challenger to slow, fee-bloated cross-border banking now finds itself planting a second global headquarters in San Francisco, raising $330 million at an $8-billion valuation, and openly talking about a future where finance departments essentially run themselves. The tone coming from Airwallex feels … [Read more...] about Airwallex’s $330M Series G: The New Gravity Center of Borderless Finance
Salesforce Q3 FY26: Agentic AI Momentum in a Slower-Growth World
Salesforce’s third quarter of fiscal 2026 lands as a very “new Salesforce” kind of quarter: less about hyper-growth, more about disciplined profitability and early proof that its big bet on agentic AI is turning into real money. Revenue for the quarter reached $10.3 billion, up 9% year over year (8% in constant currency), with subscription and support at $9.7 billion, up 10%. … [Read more...] about Salesforce Q3 FY26: Agentic AI Momentum in a Slower-Growth World
Housing Inventory Stalls as Buyers Retreat and Sellers Lose Confidence
Housing supply is drifting into a strange, slightly weary limbo, almost as if the market exhaled after two years of tension and then wasn’t sure what to do next. The latest Redfin data sketches out a picture of a market that isn’t frozen, exactly, but moving with a kind of sluggish hesitation. Total inventory is technically still rising, up 5.1% year over year, yet that … [Read more...] about Housing Inventory Stalls as Buyers Retreat and Sellers Lose Confidence
Rio Tinto’s First Nuton® Copper in Arizona Marks a Quiet Technological Turning Point for U.S. Copper Supply
What makes this moment feel bigger than the usual mining milestone is how unforced it is. One month you’re looking at a heap leach pad in Arizona, the next you’re holding the first copper cathode ever produced using Rio Tinto’s Nuton® bioleaching technology—microbes, heat, oxidized sulphides, and all. After three decades of tinkering and refining, Nuton has finally crossed from … [Read more...] about Rio Tinto’s First Nuton® Copper in Arizona Marks a Quiet Technological Turning Point for U.S. Copper Supply
Next-Gen Nuclear Could Transform Emerging Economy Power Grids
A fresh report from The Rockefeller Foundation lands with a quiet sort of weight, mapping out how next-generation nuclear technologies—particularly small modular reactors—could reshape the electricity future of some of the fastest-growing energy markets on the planet. The study moves through Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Rwanda, and South Africa, … [Read more...] about Next-Gen Nuclear Could Transform Emerging Economy Power Grids
Diamond Market, November 2025 — A Cooling Curve for Small Stones, Steady Ground for Big Gems
November’s diamond market carried an oddly familiar rhythm — steady footing for larger stones, soft slippage for the smaller goods, and that persistent drag around the 1-carat category that’s become almost expected by now. Prices for big gems barely moved, holding their ground with a kind of quiet determination, while small stones continued their downward drift as the trends of … [Read more...] about Diamond Market, November 2025 — A Cooling Curve for Small Stones, Steady Ground for Big Gems
The Silent Monopoly: Why China’s Grip on Shipping Containers May Be the Real Strategic Risk
People love dramatic headlines about rare earths. They sound exotic, mysterious, the stuff of state secrets and geopolitics. But while the world obsesses over lithium, gallium, neodymium and the race to secure the minerals powering the next industrial age, something far more ordinary sits in the background—quiet, banal, almost invisible in its ubiquity—yet capable of freezing … [Read more...] about The Silent Monopoly: Why China’s Grip on Shipping Containers May Be the Real Strategic Risk
The China Illusion: Why Negotiating Market Access No Longer Makes Sense
Every year, another delegation flies to Beijing—ministers, CEOs, trade envoys—each of them repeating a familiar hope: that this time, the trade talks will unlock opportunity. That new rules, new agreements, new “openings” will finally give Western companies the market access they’ve been chasing for two decades. And yet, the pattern never changes. Concessions are temporary, … [Read more...] about The China Illusion: Why Negotiating Market Access No Longer Makes Sense
