Apparently anyone can vibe code anything these days. So Claude and I tried to make a database for tracking the petty grievances of the masses.

Amazon has introduced Alexa for Shopping, combining its Rufus shopping chatbot with Alexa+ across its app, website, and Echo Show devices. The assistant can answer product questions, compare items, track prices, and support shopping reminders. It can also handle scheduled shopping actions and eligible automated purchases. The company said Alexa for Shopping combines Rufus’ product […] The post Amazon launches Alexa for Shopping as Rufus moves behind the scenes appeared first on AI News.

KPMG plans to use simulation software to help workers develop tax judgment that was once gained through years of preparing returns. Polly Thompson/Business Insider As AI takes on more work, KPMG US is testing a new simulation software to train its tax staffers. The tool is meant to help workers build the judgment that once came from years of grunt work. High-volume, high-speed simulations can help workers build skills faster, an exec said. At KPMG US, workers might no longer need years of hands-on, repetitive work to get good at tax prep. The company is testing an AI-powered simulation tool designed to help employees build the skills they once gained through years of pencil pushing. The goal is to allow junior staffers, in particular, to learn the ins and outs of tax prep as AI begins to take over tasks, said Brad Brown, the company's chief digital officer for tax. "You're not going to get as many repetitions of doing that task as you would have in the past," he said. "So we needed something to fill that void." Before the AI era, Brown said, an early-career tax professional at the company typically spent about four years preparing returns for clients, one after another. The repetition built judgment. As staffers gained experience, they could become more like advisors, offering guidance on the interplay between business decisions, regulations, and tax consequences, he said. The software tool, called TaxSIM, is designed to help workers develop skills "much more rapidly" through high-volume, high-speed simulation, without having to prepare as many returns from scratch, Brown said. The software will be available to the company's 10,000 tax staffers later in the year. KPMG's approach is an attempt to solve a problem that's hanging over large swaths of white-collar work: What happens when AI takes over the rote tasks that help people develop their skills? The idea behind the AI training is similar to how the game "Gran Turismo" simulates zipping around a Formula 1 course, said Kes Sampanthar, cofounder and CEO of Centaurian AI, which developed the tool with KPMG. "It's like the top athlete who gets better and better if they can get the right feedback," he said. 'Incredible acceleration' Instead of waiting perhaps years to encounter different client situations, tax workers at the Big Four firm will be able to cycle through simulated scenarios. The tool presents different results based on users' decision-making. "That just gives us incredible acceleration to create those skills," Brown said. He said that while some early-career workers are expressing concern about how they'll build their skills as AI takes on more work, the need to continually learn "cuts across every rung of the ladder." More experienced workers who use the tool can dig into broad concepts, including changing economic conditions, such as how tariffs ripple through organizations and countries, said Sampanthar, who's also a KPMG alum. "These are things you normally don't get feedback on," he said. Sampanthar said that, for any user, the system is designed to prompt them to work through their own reasoning before turning to AI for help. Some simulations can't be done with AI alone. "Learning happens when things are hard, not when things are easy," he said. Helping junior workers move up Brown said he expects the tool to accelerate the development of workers' analytical skills, helping some employees move up more quickly. In some cases, that might entail managing a team of AI agents and less time spent "working these tasks yourself through the midnight hour," Brown said. Ultimately, he said, it's a reminder that workers who can use AI alongside their judgment and analytic skills will be most successful. That doesn't mean AI simulations will replace every task, Brown said. A first-year tax analyst recently told him about wanting to build their first valuation model by hand before learning through simulation. The person's thinking, Brown said, was, "It's OK to do one or two, but I don't need to do four years of these to get to that level of skill." Do you have a story to share about your career? Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider

Communities across America are pushing back against data center development. UCG/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images OpenAI is hiring a "community engagement lead" for its Stargate team. The role will act as a liaison between OpenAI and the communities where it's building data centers. Americans are clashing with local governments and tech companies over data center developments. OpenAI needs help reversing the American public's souring view of data centers. The leading AI company shared a new job opening over the weekend for a position it called a "community engagement lead." These new employees would be tasked with talking to local communities in places where it plans to build its Stargate data centers. One measure of success, it said, would be "reduced friction." Tech companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in building data centers to power their products. Local communities, however, are not always so welcoming. Many residents worry that the data centers will drain water supplies, raise electric bills, cause noise, and just generally reduce their quality of life. AI companies argue that they can mitigate some of these problems by adopting new cooling techniques and paying for their own electricity costs. They also say these projects can create thousands of jobs in local communities, though many of those jobs are in the construction phase, which means they are temporary. Protests have arisen across the country as communities push back. Prominent businessmen, like "Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary, who is backing a data center development in Utah, have faced intense opposition. Building data centers is a near existential requirement for AI companies, whose ever-advancing chatbots and agents require ever-growing amounts of data to work effectively. Some companies, like Elon Musk's SpaceX, are exploring building them in space. The Stargate project — a partnership between OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and MGX — was announced by President Donald Trump the day after he began his second term. The group plans to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure across the United States. Stargate data centers are now planned in Texas, Michigan, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Ohio. In its job posting for the community engagement lead, OpenAI says that getting communities on board with these data centers was "mission-critical." "This role ensures that communities understand what we are building, why it matters, and how they can meaningfully benefit from it," the company said. OpenAI said potential candidates will be required to be based in, or willing to relocate to, communities where OpenAI is building data center sites. The job pays between $129,600 and $236,000, plus equity. "The Community Engagement Lead will proactively shape dialogue, surface concerns before they escalate, and embed community priorities into how projects are planned, communicated, and delivered," it said. Read the original article on Business Insider

Linara Bozieva created a 27 AI agent workflow to run her company. Courtesy of Linara Bozieva Linara Bozieva was laid off from eBay in 2024. She founded a growth marketing agency and built a three-layer AI workflow with 27 custom AI agents. She said her AI subscriptions cost under $1,000 a month. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Linara Bozieva, a 39-year-old founder of Ravenopous, based in San Jose. The following has been edited for length and clarity. A little over two years ago, I was laid off from eBay after spending 11 years with the company. My family and I had recently moved from Switzerland to the US, and it was a hard time. I looked at the job market and saw that many companies were laying off workers, and there seemed to be more candidates than openings. It felt worth it to start building something small, at least for a couple of years, to support my family and me. A few months after my layoff in 2024, I launched a traditional marketing agency. I don't have a marketing background, but I built a three-layer AI workflow with 27 custom AI agents that run an entire marketing strategy under my oversight. Business Insider wants to talk to founders of AI-powered companies with fewer than 10 workers, and to employees working alongside AI agents, to understand what the "Tiny Teams" era really feels like — the wins, the fears, and the human skills that stand out. Share your story by filling out this quick form. My professional background helped me automate my business When AI became mainstream, I used ChatGPT in my browser and tools like Midjourney for video stuff. Then I started seeing how people were using AI in these closed-loop systems, where agents acted autonomously, and I wanted to build something like that. I originally built my system on Google's Antigravity platform because it was very user-friendly, but I eventually switched to Claude Code after running into token limits with Gemini Pro. I love Claude, but I have started hitting token limits there as well. I worked in analytics at eBay, and that background helped when I was building the architecture and creating guidelines. At the same time, AI wrote a lot of the system itself. With all the markdown files, skills, agent files, and scripts, I told the model what I wanted it to do in plain language, the AI produced it, and then I tweaked as needed. Here's how my 27 AI agents function on my team My automated system has three layers: directives, orchestration, and execution. The directives layer defines who the agents are, what they know, and how they operate. The orchestration layer decides which agents should do what and when. There are six agents in the orchestration layer that act as the brain and think before any other agents act. Those agents are a market researcher agent, a data analyst agent, a creative director agent, a finance agent, a legal agent, and an orchestrator agent that routes tasks to the execution layer. After the tasks are routed, three agents build the technical groundwork, 10 work on driving traffic and awareness, and the last five agents are responsible for converting traffic into revenue. The execution layer includes scripts that help guide repeatable tasks. The entire setup costs me under $1,000 a month. I'm paying for Claude Code, Codex, and ChatGPT. Then I have a few specialized tools like HeyGen and ElevenLabs, and I'm paying for APIs because I'm also giving my Claude Code access to other models and tools through APIs. The hardest part was knowing when the system actually worked The system has now been trained on 14 clients in total. I currently have five clients, but I also tested the workflow on my own projects and did free work for friends to improve the agents. The most challenging thing was knowing when the system was operational. Which is why I tested it on 14 client profiles. I wanted to make sure that the system fully understood my approach and frameworks and delivered high-quality results every time. As a result, I now have Gemini and Claude generate my ad copy separately, then compare and combine the results to get something that feels more human. The final best copy is produced from their combined output. I also added scripts in the execution layer that pull customer pain points from Reddit discussions to sharpen the strategy. Social skills are what I've realized to be very valuable in the AI era With my business, the AI agents run ads, analyze performance, improve creatives, and then give me daily reports. The client gets weekly reports, and we do broader monthly calls. AI can process a transcript of a client call, but it cannot fully read the room or identify where the client seems most nervous. That judgment and client management still have to come from me. I'm also heavily involved in the strategy when there isn't enough incoming data, and my agent and I are at a crossroads about which path to choose. I continually check if what the agents propose really makes sense and is realistically doable as a strategy. Also, AI can build you a system, but you need to understand the domain. For example, I wouldn't be able to build a healthcare agent that treats colds and flu in children because I don't have that knowledge and wouldn't know which guidelines to include and which agents I would need, or how to better update the system as I go. I think all repetitive tasks can and will be done by AI in the future. However, the expertise needed for specific departments or domains will still be with humans acting as VPs over AI architecture. AI changed what I believe is possible for one person I still have a few traditional marketing clients that I serve with my freelancers. Since we've been serving them before, we can't say we aren't doing that anymore. It's a smaller, separate branch of my business. For all the new clients I take on, I now provide only full-cycle marketing through the AI system. Once a client is fully onboarded, I spend about two hours a week overseeing their account. If I focused only on client oversight, I think I could comfortably manage 20 to 25 clients on my own. Once I reach that number, I'll only hire people like me, operators who oversee the agents and guide the strategy. Building something on my own has been incredibly fulfilling and promising. It changed not just how I work, but what I believe one person can build. Do you have a story to share about working with mostly AI agents? If so, please reach out to the reporter at aapplegate@businessinsider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Bloomberg/Getty Images; Bloomberg/Getty Images Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5 sparked major cybersecurity concerns worldwide. The rise in AI coding heightens vulnerability to cyber attacks. Security professionals are working overtime to address the threats. The CISO, or chief information security officer, has suddenly become one of the most high-pressure roles in business. This spring, Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT‑5.5 models sparked a wave of fear that attackers armed with advanced AI models could soon crack systems worldwide. And the unease adds to the issues that cybersecurity already faces. More companies use outside code libraries than in eras prior, which could make it easier for hacks to spread if there are vulnerabilities in those packages of code. And last year, coding tools from OpenAI and Anthropic took off, helping developers churn out millions of lines of new code. Those tools are prone to creating errors and vulnerabilities that developers miss — putting researchers, companies, and governments on high alert. "Everyone's predicting that there will be a lot more hacking this year," said Isaac Evans, CEO of cybersecurity startup Semgrep. An OpenAI spokesperson pointed to a recent spree of cyber-focused announcements and releases that aim to have AI improvements help defenders work more quickly and effectively. The company's "Daybreak" page lets developers request a security scan. Anthropic, which is also in the midst of a cybersecurity push, did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Before Anthropic announced Mythos, security pros were already overburdened Evans' startup focuses on code security and operates a free, widely used code-scanning tool. He said that a recent threat prompted his company to scour its codebase for vulnerabilities, and the team found two — both contributed by Anthropic's Claude product. It's a drawback of the AI-coding boom. Evans said if a company generates 10 times the lines of code, it should expect 10 times the number of vulnerabilities, or worse. Feross Aboukhadijeh, CEO of cybersecurity startup Socket, reiterated Evans' worries about developers reviewing new code less carefully. That, plus using outside code libraries to complement a company's internal code, creates a "perfect storm" of danger, Aboukhadijeh said. Open-source code libraries are often well-maintained, following the principle that transparency helps remove bugs. Now, so many companies use code from these repositories — AI tools often pull from them — that a single security gap can imperil many firms. "The vulnerability surface of all software is expanding really quickly," Aboukhadijeh said. The "Mythos Moment" triggered a reckoning — and a lot of work for security teams Security teams already use new AI models to search for vulnerabilities while also worrying about attackers gaining access to models of similar strength. Then, on April 7, came what's now being called the "Mythos Moment." That day, Anthropic announced that its new general-purpose AI model, dubbed Mythos, had found thousands of severe security vulnerabilities, some that humans had missed for over a decade. While it identified vulnerabilities, it could also exploit "every major operating system and every major web browser," the company wrote, adding that some engineers at the lab had used the technology to find working hacks over a single night. The company decided not to release the model beyond a group of trusted partners, giving defenders a head start. The Mythos announcement put it plainly: "Ultimately, it's about to become very difficult for the security community." Anthropic's warning — that it'd made a model too dangerous to immediately release — reverberated around the world. The Trump administration began discussing a system to review new AI models. UK government officials also released an open letter about Mythos, warning businesses, "If your board has not recently discussed cyber risk, do so at your next meeting and then regularly. This is not an issue to delegate to your IT team and forget about." Meanwhile, the corporate world's security community leaped into action, either hunting for Mythos access or racing to test it. Some early reviews affirmed Anthropic's worries. A team at Mozilla, the organization behind Firefox, wrote that Mythos helped them find and fix more security bugs than they had in the previous year. Researchers with the security firm Calif say Mythos helped them identify bugs in MacOS, link them together, and ultimately figure out a way to corrupt part of the famously secure technology. (Apple did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, though it told The Wall Street Journal it is reviewing the findings.) Cybersecurity giants like CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, and Fortinet have each posted recent announcements warning about the potential dangers of frontier AI. Manoj Nair, who leads the emerging technologies and solutions office at the security startup Snyk, said that with Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5 landing on top of other security issues, "If you're a CISO today, you're living in what I call the 'AI fog'." Nair's company, like Socket and Semgrep, has signed onto a partnership with OpenAI to try to beat back the storm of worries. Anthropic is also hatching these partnerships, giving companies like Snyk a chance to try out the advanced tech. Logan Graham, who heads Anthropic's frontier red team, recently wrote on X that his cybersecurity team is bringing Mythos "to defenders as fast as we responsibly can." "Security is always a team sport," Nair said. "The model companies need to figure out that is how security works. And they are." Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email a scouncil@insider.com, or over text, Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 415-757-8198. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely. Read the original article on Business Insider

Jake Ellowitz Termina Business Insider creates its Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists based on data analyzed by Termina. Termina began with data on 1,974 investors and analyzed 25 success attributes, including exits. The analysis identifies skilled investors with a high likelihood of continued success. The Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists have reached their sixth year in our partnership with Business Insider, which objectively identifies and celebrates the success of some of the world's greatest seed investors. In the run of these Seed 100 releases, AI has emerged as a defining characteristic of seed-stage startups today, with results that will likely drive the rankings for years to come. To produce the 2026 lists, we statistically analyzed seed investor performance in 25 areas using Crunchbase and PitchBook data. We also accept direct track record submissions to this form. Since we aim to analyze the potential success of investors rather than focus solely on past achievements, we consider only active investors with at least five investments between 2011 and 2026. Our list includes solo venture capitalists and angel investors worldwide, assessed based on their investments in US companies. The investors that made the cut for the 2026 Seed 100 were those with the strongest long-term indicators: exits (IPOs or acquisitions). Investors with a previous AI footprint have benefited significantly in their rankings this year. To be named to the list, seed investors must have: Investments that led to successful exits, including successful IPOs or acquisitions (exits that were meaningfully above "liquidation preference" or demonstrated increased company value rather than simply raising capital). Intermediate signs of future success with seed investments consistently receiving material sums of follow-on investment. Still be in the game. Great investments 10 years ago will not carry an investor into the list if they are no longer active. Exits (IPOs or acquisitions) statistically have the greatest influence on investor differentiation. We also updated our methodology this year to weigh more recent investments for the intermediate milestones, such as follow-on fundraising. This year, the candidate pool meeting the above criteria included 1,974 investors, a 5% increase from last year's. Women comprised 11% of all seed investors in scope, up 8% from the release of the first Seed 100 in 2021. This year's final list included 22 investors who increased their rank, 30 with the same or lower rank, and 48 new investors. Twenty-seven investors in this year's ranking were also featured in the original 2021 Seed 100 list. An improved model of investment activity Our models have always factored in how active investors are, with investors estimated to do little to no investing ranked lower. However, investment activity has fluctuated over the years. While seed investment coverage across major data providers is spotty, we can still obtain trend estimates by analyzing aggregate statistics. Below, we show the total number of seed investments divided by the number of active seed investors in the US from 2010 to the present. This is based on the set of investors that are input into our Seed 100 and Seed 40 models. The total count fluctuates a lot, by up to 50% over the timeframe of the Seed 100 series, and by more over a longer timeframe. Annual seed investments per active investor Termina Source: Crunchbase and Termina analysis. Active investors are seed investors who have made a recent investment in the US. We changed this indicator to act more predominantly as a simple gate to remove investors who were clearly inactive. The Seed 100 and Seed 40 aim to help the ecosystem navigate, find, and celebrate great seed investors. Our updated activity logic is more inclusive across investment strategies, while still emphasizing investors still in the game. We plan to improve the model in the future by including a new counter-consensus indicator around sector selection. Some may view sector selection as one of the important insights of a great seed investor — the visionary investors of the past 10 years had big AI bets. What the future holds is up in the air, and we do not want the ranking to overemphasize recent success given current market conditions. Jake Ellowitz is the chief technology officer and cofounder of Termina, which works with venture capital and private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds, and executives to assess investment opportunities. Jake is also a cofounding partner at Tribe Capital. Michael Mao is a data scientist at Termina focused on quantitative underwriting and statistical modeling. Read the original article on Business Insider

Carolyn Fong for BI Wisdom Ventures, headed by Bradley Horowitz, wrote early checks to OpenAI in 2023 and to Anthropic in 2024. Horowitz became a full-time VC after serving as Google's VP of product for 15 years. Horowitz took the fifth spot on Business Insider's 2026 Seed 100 list. As OpenAI and Anthropic both race toward blockbuster IPOs, there are not many investors who can claim the distinction of backing both companies early. Bradley Horowitz, through his venture firm, Wisdom Ventures, wrote early checks to OpenAI in 2023 and to Anthropic in 2024. He was also an angel investor in Cerebras, which soared in its public market debut last week. His other seed investments include Slack, Miro, Ramp, and ScaleAI, a remarkable track record that has made Horowitz a perennial top VC on Business Insider's Seed 100. Carolyn Fong for BI After 15 years as a Google product executive helping build the very tools that define our digital lives—from Gmail to Google Photos— Horowitz now wants to focus on "tech-enabled well-being," seeking out founders who can use technology to reduce screen time and foster genuine, real-world human connection. He says it was while working on Google Photos a decade ago that he realized machine learning was advancing rapidly, when it could accurately identify objects in photos. "We were able to do automatic image recognition, so you no longer needed tagging," he remembers. "I had worked on that problem for 20 years, so to see it finally starting to work was a leading indicator that there were some fundamental changes coming." Horowitz had known OpenAI CEO Sam Altman since he was a young founder in Y Combinator at his previous company, Loopt. They stayed in touch, and when Wisdom Ventures was investing its first fund, Horowitz and his partners called Altman. Carolyn Fong for BI Wisdom also backed Anthropic the next year, bucking the conventional Silicon Valley prohibition against backing competitors. "We're not picking a winner in this race," Horowitz said. "We want humanity to be the winner." The flat tire test When evaluating founders, Horowitz tries to understand how they would act when things go wrong, which he calls the "flat tire test." "If you go on a road trip with a group of people and you get a flat tire three miles into it, some people are Debbie Downers and bummed out at your bad luck," he said, while others roll up their sleeves and make the best of a bad situation. "I find it more fun to work with the latter." Carolyn Fong for BI Horowitz gravitates toward founders who have worked in a bustling kitchen or as a camp counselor, environments where things break, stress runs high, and decisions matter in real time. "There are some people who crumble under chaos, and there are other people who thrive under chaos," he said. "The drama that happens in a restaurant is really good training for what it means to ship a product." After decades at Google and backing multiple breakout startups, Horowitz could more than afford to enjoy a comfortable retirement. Instead, Wisdom Ventures just closed an oversubscribed Fund II of around $80 million. Carolyn Fong for BI "To go sit on a beach or something like that would almost be an ethical violation," he said. "I feel obligated to take what I've learned and help people who are smarter and younger and have more energy than I do, but maybe spare them some grief they would otherwise experience by dint of my experience. That gives me tremendous joy." With the addition of former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, Wisdom will be focusing more on "tech-enabled well-being," a shift that reflects both personal motivation and a broader critique of the industry. Carolyn Fong for BI "We're looking at technologies that actually bring people together literally and get them off of screens," Horowitz said. Horowitz spent years building products designed to increase digital engagement, and he acknowledges the industry's mixed record. Technology, he says, has a "balance sheet" that includes both benefits and harm. Now he wants to help tilt that balance. "I want to make sure that in the remaining time I have left, I'm putting all my focus on the good that technology can do for us," he said. Read the original article on Business Insider

Alexa von Tobel, Laura Rippy, Mathilde Collin, Aileen Lee, and Nisha Dua. Mr.Nelson design for BI Some of tech's most powerful companies began as risky early bets. For decades, the venture capital that helped turn young startups into giants flowed through networks that largely excluded women. The investors on this year's Seed 40 are changing who gets to shape the future of tech. Business Insider's sixth annual Seed 40 spotlights the women who have proven they can spot breakout founders before the rest of the market catches on — and help steer those fledgling businesses toward becoming market leaders. The Seed 40 is a companion to Business Insider's Seed 100, which identifies the most successful early-stage investors. But because venture capital has historically been shaped by who you know, not just what you know, the Seed 100 also reflects the industry's lingering lack of gender diversity. Many women investors are still building the length and depth of track record required to be captured by our data model. That is why we also publish the Seed 40. It uses the same ranking and methodology as the Seed 100, and gives fuller recognition to the women whose early bets have helped shape the startup ecosystem — even as they remain underrepresented in venture capital's highest ranks. This list is compiled using data analysis by Termina, a Tribe Capital spinoff that builds software for quantitative diligence. Read the full methodology behind the list. 1. Shan-Lyn Ma Shan-Lyn Ma Zola Cofounder and co-CEO, Zola Select investments: Deliverr, Flow Commerce, Billie, Archive, Nara Organics, Vic.ai City: New York Cofounder of wedding planning company Zola, Shan-Lyn Ma started her career at Yahoo and is an active angel investor. She's backed several successful DTC startups, like trendy razor brand Billie and infant milk formula brand Nara Organics. "I've had the privilege of investing in many companies with compelling business models and growth trajectories, but it's less common for me to invest in a consumer product I've personally relied on," Ma told Business Insider. Nara Organics, however, became a product she used regularly while feeding her son, she said. Her e-commerce investments include Deliverr, acquired by Shopify in 2022 and then sold to Flexport in 2023, and Flow Commerce, sold to Global-e in 2021. 2. Ann Miura-Ko Ann Miura-Ko Floodgate Cofounding partner, Floodgate Select investments: Merlin Labs, SmarterDX, Hebbia, Thinkful, Studio, Emotive City: Menlo Park, California Miura-Ko has built a reputation as one of the most influential early-stage investors in Silicon Valley by backing companies long before they become household names. As a cofounding partner at Floodgate, she has made prescient bets on category-defining startups like Lyft, Twitter, Twitch, and Okta. often spotting potential where others saw risk. A Stanford Ph.D. and longtime lecturer, Miura-Ko combines deep technical expertise with a founder-first mindset, helping entrepreneurs think through not just what to build, but why it matters. Her recent investments reflect that same forward-looking approach. AI startups like Hebbia, which raised $130 million in 2024, are part of her growing portfolio 3. Lynne Chou O'Keefe Lynne Chou O'Keefe Define Ventures Founder and managing partner, Define Ventures Select investments: Evermore Health, Cohere Health, 9amHealth, GXL, Liza Health, Marit, San Luca City: San Francisco Since founding Define Ventures in 2018, O'Keefe has set her sights on funding early-stage health startups that can have a real impact on the world. O'Keefe, who started her career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, told Business Insider that in the past year, Define has worked closely with portfolio company Evermore Health — which the VC firm has backed since its inception — by introducing several strategic customers and sourcing technical talent, including the medtech startup's CTO. Now, she focuses on championing early-stage health startups working on the most innovative and life-changing medical technologies. 4. Ann DeWitt Ann DeWitt Engine Ventures General partner, Engine Ventures Select investments: Terrestrial Bio, Cellino Bio, Matrisome, Bexorg, and Predicta Biosciences City: Cambridge, Massachusetts At Engine Ventures, Ann DeWitt helps start and build new biotech companies. She's worked closely with Predicta Biosciences, which is developing a blood test to help doctors better treat blood cancers — without the need for painful bone marrow biopsies. She worked with the academic founders to bring in a CEO, raise $23.4 million, and get the company off the ground. She's still closely involved as it grows. 5. Yun-Fang Juan Yun-Fang Juan Brighter Capital General partner, Brighter Capital Select investments: Infracost, Empowerly, Creatify, Chowdeck, Expo City: Cupertino, California Before founding VC firm Brighter Capital, Juan's career covered a lot of ground, from working as a tech lead in the early days of Facebook to opening a robotic dumpling shop. At Brighter, Juan has proven to be a prolific seed investor, with successful early bets including Reddit, Envoy, and Matterport. She told Business Insider that one of the most memorable investments she's worked on recently was AI marketing firm Creatify, which Juan invested in back in 2023. "They move and grow incredibly fast," she said. 6. Ling Wong Ling Wong Highbury Group Founder, CEO, and managing partner, Highbury Group Select investments: Devoted Health, Guardant Health, Stripe, Orca Bio City: Seattle Wong, the inventor of the first inhaled tuberculosis vaccine, is an entrepreneur and science-focused investor backing companies across healthcare and biotechnology. After earning her PhD from Harvard, she worked at the Gates Foundation, managing a $1.5 billion investment portfolio, before founding Highbury Group in 2013. Wong also served as a senior advisor to Lightspeed Venture Partners between 2019 and 2023. As an investor, she's been involved in several multibillion-dollar exits, including Anacor Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer) and the public companies Guardant Health and Singular Genomics. 7. Sarra Zayani Sarra Zayani Courtesy of Sarra Zayani Investor, Hedosophia Select investments: Embed, Pacaso, TaxBit, Savvy Wealth, Pivot, Metal Gear City: Paris After four years at Global Founders Capital, Sarra Zayani joined Hedosophia in 2023 to lead its early-stage investing team. Zayani also worked at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, focusing on private equity and venture capital. "At the earliest stages, I look for speed of execution and iteration," she told Business Insider. "Those traits reveal founders who adapt fast, endure setbacks, and uncover what comes next." 8. Aileen Lee Aileen Lee Cowboy Ventures Founder and managing partner, Cowboy Ventures Select investments: Guild, Drata, Mutiny, Basata, Eisen, Standard Kernel City: Palo Alto, California It's been over a decade since Lee coined the term "unicorn" to describe startups worth over $1 billion. She left Kleiner Perkins in 2012 to start her own firm, Cowboy Ventures, to invest in pre-seed to later-stage startups. Since then, a few of Lee's notable exits include Dollar Shave Club, which sold to Unilever for $1 billion in 2019, and Trendyol, which Alibaba acquired for almost $750 million in 2018. "We look for founders who are 'learning animals,' who have an incredible propensity to gather, synthesize, and grow with new information, and who love to think through possibilities, combined with an incredible velocity of execution," Lee told Business Insider. 9. Joanne Chen Joanne Chen Paolo Vescia General partner, Foundation Capital Select investments: Tennr, Fulcrum, Jasper, SafelyYou, Tonkean, Tubi City: San Francisco Chen learned to program early and created her first website for a client at age nine. She began her career as an engineer at Cisco and later worked on Wall Street, advising companies on IPOs, M&A, and fundraising. Chen was an angel investor for 2 years at Hyde Park Angels before joining Foundation in 2014, which focuses on AI and blockchain startups. She said a memorable deal was leading Tennr's seed round when it had no revenue or customers, and working closely with the team on early hiring and customer focus. Today, the AI healthcare company has moved through Series A, B, and C rounds in quick succession. Chen told Business Insider she uses AI to prep for panels, repurpose content across different formats, and to quickly get up to speed on founders. 10. Laura Rippy Laura Rippy Alumni Ventures Managing partner and board member, Alumni Ventures Select investments: Aurora Insight, Alix, Datanomix, Astro Mechanica City: Boston Rippy has become a key connector in venture capital's school-driven investing ecosystem. Based in Boston, she has built a network of founders and investors tied to top universities, channeling that access into two student- and alumni-focused funds: Green D at Dartmouth and Yard Ventures at Harvard. She also serves as managing partner at Alumni Ventures, one of the world's most active VC firms, with over 1,500 portfolio companies. Prior to joining Alumni Ventures in 2017, Rippy spent 14 years at the private family office Ripplecreek Partners. 11. Sarah Smith Sarah Smith Sarah Smith Fund General partner, Sarah Smith Fund Select investments: Rork, Mirai, F2, Rowspace, Bandana, Unreal Labs City: Menlo Park, California For sole general partner Smith, securing genuinely differentiated deal flow doesn't always rely on cold pitches or warm introductions — it comes directly from the next generation of venture talent she trains herself. Smith's edge as an investor is her highly selective Stanford Graduate School of Business Venture Fellowship. She brings three MBA students into her firm, connects them to her network of GPs and LPS, and arms them with $50,000 of capital to deploy. It's paid off big time when a cohort of fellows sourced and led an investment in Unreal Labs, which heavyweights Sequoia and First Round invested in just a week after Smith's initial investment. Past fund fellows have become partners at A16Z, Redpoint, Menlo Ventures, and Amplify. "The fellowship is a unique way for me to give back to Stanford and punch above my weight as a solo GP," she said. 12. Oana Olteanu Oana Olteanu Motive Force Managing director, Motive Force Select investments: Poolside, MaintainX, Inngest, HealthLeap City: San Francisco Olteanu recently left SignalFire to launch her own firm, Motive Force, where she's investing in AI-native startups with a focus on technical founders. One company she highlighted is Soffi, which aims to bring "beautiful software" to large businesses. Her portfolio also includes AI coding startup Poolside and equipment maintenance startup MaintainX, both of which have reached multibillion-dollar valuations. As a sole general partner, Olteanu is leaning heavily on AI to scale herself up. She's built a team of agents that support everything from sourcing to hiring, including a tool that scours technical blogs to find talent for her portfolio companies. 13. Naomi Ionita Naomi Ionita Courtesy of Naomi Ionita Board director, investor, and advisor Select investments: Listen Labs, Flora, Nuance Labs, Mastra, Orb, Fleetsmith City: San Francisco Ionita is willing to go the extra mile to secure a competitive deal — even if it means hiking up San Francisco's hills at 35 weeks pregnant to pitch an entrepreneur. That's part of how she locked down an investment in Endgame, a startup building tools for revenue teams. Ionita focuses on infrastructure and applications, with a special interest in products helping companies rethink how to work in an AI-native world. Her sharp eye for software has yielded exits, including Fleetsmith, which Apple bought in 2020, and Eppo, which Datadog acquired last year. Before she was a venture capitalist, Ionita spent years leading teams focused on growing and keeping users, as well as monetizing products, at Invoice2Go and Evernote. 14. Mathilde Collin Mathilde Collin Courtesy of Mathilde Collin Cofounder and executive chair, Front Select investments: Mercury, Speak, Retool, Vanta, Meter, Dust, Postscript, Mutiny City: San Francisco Colllin cofounded Front, a customer service platform startup, in 2013 after working as a project manager at another startup. Since stepping down as CEO in 2024, she's been investing in various startups, including the fintech banking startup Mercury and the tool-building platform Retool. She's also a visiting partner at Y Combinator and is building a nonprofit called KORA, a site that measures AI benchmarks for child safety. 15. Stephanie Palmeri Stephanie Palmeri NextView Ventures Partner, NextView Ventures Select investments: SchoolAI, Poshmark, Wrapbook, Hallow, Carrot Fertility City: San Francisco NextView Ventures partner Palmeri invests in founders using AI to reshape how people live, work, and learn. She's been building a portfolio of AI-native companies to bet on early before the rest of the market catches up. She invested in SchoolAI - one of her first investments at the firm. Last year, she guided it through its Series A funding led by Insight Partners. Previously, Palmeri spent a decade as a partner at Uncork Capital, where she made seed investments in Poshmark, Clever, Chariot, and ClassDojo. Before venture investing, Palmeri held roles at Accenture and Estée Lauder. 16. Shruti Gandhi Shruti Gandhi Array Ventures General partner, Array Ventures Select investments: Placer.ai, Rad AI, Openprise, Simility, Solugen, Zimperium City: San Francisco In under a decade, Gandhi went from investor to solo capitalist with three funds closed and another on the way, regulatory filings show. She noted that her last fund included checks from more than half of the entrepreneurs in her portfolio, a sign of the trust she has earned. A former startup founder herself, Gandhi launched Array Ventures in 2016 because she saw a need for more investors willing to roll up their sleeves at the seed stage. Today, she lends her expertise to help technical founders close early sales and craft their go-to-market strategies. 17. Sara Deshpande Sara Deshpande Maven Ventures General partner, Maven Ventures Select investments: Hello Heart, Carrot Fertility, Perplexity, Gondola AI City: Palo Alto, California Now at Maven for over a decade and the first employee at the seed-stage firm, Deshpande has a knack for spotting early-stage consumer tech startups. She has led Maven's investments into digital health companies like Hello Heart and Carrot Fertility. She's also guided the firm's investments into AI startups like Perplexity and Gondola AI. "I'm particularly excited about really novel and unique ideas right now that can reach millions of customers and have a dramatic positive impact on their lives," she told Business Insider. Deshpande also teaches a startups course at Stanford's business school. 18. Julia Hartz Julia Hartz Eventbrite Cofounder, Eventbrite Select investments: Felt, mmhmm, Doppler, Socket, Nooks City: San Francisco Julia Hartz, the former CEO and cofounder of Eventbrite, has entered a new chapter after stepping down earlier this year and overseeing the company's $500 million sale to Bending Spoons. Alongside founding and leading Eventbrite, Hartz has angel invested, backing startups like Socket, which secures open-source software, and Nooks, an autonomous sales assistant platform. Before building Eventbrite into a global ticketing powerhouse, Hartz worked in television development at MTV and FX. 19. Anne Dwane Anne Dwane Chris Michel Cofounder and general partner, Village Global Select investments: Apex Space, Fal, Hadrian City: San Francisco Dwane cofounded Village Global in 2017. Prior to that, she worked at GSV Acceleration Fund and was chief business officer at Chegg. Village Global invests at inception. It has introduced its portfolio companies, such as Apex Space, Fal, and Hadrian, to other founders for enterprise sales and direct investment. Dwane said that seeing these founders engage is "electric." Before Village Global, Dwane cofounded the veteran-focused news site Military.com and later served as the CEO of Zinch, a university-recruitment startup acquired by the edtech company Chegg in 2011. 20. Kirsten Green Kirsten Green Forerunner Founder, Forerunner Select investments: Chime, Faire, Hims&Hers, Decagon, Wabi, Depthfirst, Basic Capital City: San Francisco She founded Forerunner in 2012 after launching a career in finance and private equity. Forerunner invested in Chime's seed round in 2013 — the fintech company went public in 2025. Her wins include Chime, Hims&Hers, and Warby Parker. Green spearheaded Forerunner's now-annual consumer AI "Humans in the Loop" conference, where hot AI startups present their emerging tech to investors. 21. Brianne Kimmel Brianne Kimmel Worklife Ventures Founder, Worklife Ventures Select investments: Deel, Supabase, Hightouch, WorkOS, and Metronome City: San Francisco Brianne Kimmel has built Worklife Ventures into a fund known for backing technical founders early. Over the past year, one of her earliest bets, Metronome, became her first $1 billion outcome, reinforcing her focus on investing in infrastructure for the AI economy. Kimmel looks for founders who think outside the bubble. "When I founded Worklife in 2019 to make work more creative, flexible, and human, I wanted to build a future where anyone could be a founder," she told Business Insider. "We partner with deep technologists who want to build intuitive products that become a part of mainstream culture." 22. Caterina Fake Caterina Fake LinkedIn Founder, Worklife Ventures Select investments: Deel, Supabase, Hightouch, WorkOS, and Metronome City: San Francisco A serial entrepreneur, Caterina Fake, co-founded social photo-sharing site Flickr, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. Today, she invests through Yes VC, backing companies at the intersection of climate, AI, health and longevity, energy, and defense. Her portfolio includes successes like Etsy, Cloudera, Oura, and Adept. In 2024, Fake was also recognized by venture firm TRAC as a "SuperForecaster," a distinction for investors with an exceptional ability to spot breakout companies early. She emphasizes that identifying future unicorns — combined with strong networks and access — is essential for top-tier venture investing. 23. Jana Messerschmidt Jana Messerschmidt #Angels Founding partner, #Angels Select investments: Anchorage, Argentio, Carta, Vanta, Ashby, Persona, Lovevery City: San Francisco Before becoming a venture capitalist, Messerschmidt worked in tech at companies including Netflix and Twitter, now X, where she spent six years as its vice president of global business development and platform. A few years after leaving Twitter, she joined Lightspeed Venture Partners as a partner. Messerschmidt also founded #Angels in 2015 with other former female tech execs to close the gender gap among investors and founders. She bets on entrepreneurs from the get-go and her investments include private capital platform Carta and recruiting software maker Ashby. 24. Julie Lein Julie Lein Urban Innovation Fund Managing partner, Urban Innovation Fund Select investments: Jeeves, Ethic, Electriphi, Variance & Sent City: San Francisco As managing partner of Urban Innovation Fund, Lein invests in startups that aim to transform large, regulated industries like energy, government, transportation, and fintech. The fund manages $300 million in assets and has invested in over 70 seed-stage startups since 2016. Lein wrote a large check for Ethic's seed round, a sustainable, tech-enabled asset manager, and also helped it make several customer introductions. Recently, Ethic raised a Series D round led by State Street. Lein says the firm only invests in startups "looking to make the world a better place" by overhauling massive, regulated industries. It also uses AI tools to work with "regulatory tailwinds" to inform deal sourcing. For example, she says an AI-powered research project led directly to its investment in Mogul, which is building a system of record for royalties. 25. Anna Palmer Anna Palmer Boston Legacy FC Cofounder and general partner, XFactor Ventures; venture partner, Flybridge Capital Select investments: Boston Legacy FC, Women's Professional Baseball League, Chief, Mixlab, Intramotev City: Boston Palmer specializes in backing women founders at the seed stage, and cofounded XFactor Ventures in 2016 with support from Flybridge Capital, where she is also a venture partner. Palmer is also a founder and managing partner of Boston Legacy FC, a team in the National Women's Soccer League. She told Business Insider that after sourcing the opportunity in 2022 and collaborating with the lead investor and the team on hiring, marketing, real estate, and fundraising, Boston Legacy FC kicked off its season to 30,000 fans in March. Prior to investing, Palmer was the cofounder and CEO of Dough Collective, a marketplace for women and diverse makers that was acquired by Ivy Market Collective (IMC) in 2021. 26. Lan Xuezhao Lan Xuezhao Basis Set Ventures Founder and managing partner, Basis Set Select investments: Quince, Scale, Sakana, OpenArt, Tigris Data City: San Francisco Xuezhao began investing in AI long before it became the hottest sector in the tech world. The former Dropbox executive was one of the earliest investors in Scale AI, the AI training platform that received a $14 billion investment from Meta last summer. Xuezhao told Business Insider that Basic Set, the venture fund she founded in 2017, was constantly building with AI. The fund even has an AI partner named Pascal, whose bio sits alongside Xuezhao's on Basic Set's website. 27. Alexa von Tobel Alexa von Tobel Inspired Capital Founder and managing partner, Inspired Capital Select investments: BrightAI, Good Inside, Suno, Duckbill, ShopMy, Solace Health, Teamshares, Habi City: New York After founding fintech company LearnVest and exiting with an almost $400 million acquisition in 2015, von Tobel later launched Inspired Capital in 2019. She led Inspired's investment in BrightAI, a physical AI infrastructure startup, in 2025. The AI company raised a $51 million Series A round co-led by Inspired and Khosla Ventures. "The investment is a direct expression of a thesis I've been building around Physical AI," she told Business Insider. "The most consequential AI applications of this decade will live not just in software, but in the physical world. Power grids, water systems, and industrial infrastructure represent some of the largest underleveraged data opportunities." 28. Steph Korey Goodwin Steph Korey Goodwin Heidi Gutman Cofounder, Charmspring Select investments: Allara, Create Wellness, Veracity, Lovevery, WellTheory, Devotion City: New York Korey Goodwin, the cofounder of luggage brand Away, is one of the few women to build a venture-backed startup valued at more than $1 billion. Since stepping down as chief executive, she has used her influence to back and elevate a new generation of founders, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds. Her investments include WellTheory, an autoimmune care company that recently raised a $14 million Series A round led by General Catalyst. Her latest company, Charmspring, makes a visual routine board designed to help children anticipate what comes next and build age-appropriate skills. 29. Jen Rubio Jen Rubio Courtesy of Jen Rubio Entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist Select investments: Kalshi, Liquid Death, Ramp, Sanzo, ShopMy City: New York Rubio is a rare entrepreneur who can traverse the cultural zeitgeist, moving easily between tech, politics, and the art world, where she's made a name for herself as a collector and philanthropist. Since stepping back as executive chair of Away, the luggage brand she cofounded, she's turned her operating prowess toward mentoring founders. Her past investments include Liquid Death, the canned water brand last valued at $1.4 billion, and the $32 billion fintech darling Ramp. 30. Mar Hershenson Mar Hershenson Pear VC Founding managing partner, Pear VC Select investments: DoorDash, Vanta, Quadric, Cardless, BioAge, Federato, Vals AI, Bobyard City: San Francisco and Menlo Park, California Hershenson, who is originally from Spain, earned her PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford and cofounded three startups over 13 years in mobile commerce, enterprise software, and semiconductors. She brings operational and technical expertise to Pear VC, the early-stage firm she cofounded in 2013. Hershenson told Business Insider that one company she's spent a lot of time on recently is the legal AI startup August, which she first met through PearX, the firm's pre-seed program, and which has now grown its customer base across five continents. 31. Lu Zhang Lu Zhang Fusion Fund Founder and managing partner, Fusion Fund Select investments: You.com, Otter.ai, GrubMarket, vCluster, Wand AI City: Palo Alto, California Zhang invests at the earliest stages across AI and deep tech. One recent highlight is Eridu, which builds next-generation networking technology for data centers. She worked closely with founder Drew Perkins on shaping the idea, market, and early product — and the company emerged from stealth this year with an oversubscribed Series A of over $200 million. 32. Nisha Dua Nisha Dua BBG Ventures Cofounder and managing partner, BBG Ventures Select investments: Spring Health, Starface, SuperCircle, HopskipDrive, Nara Organics, Peak Health City: New York After stints at law firm Blake Dawson, Bain, and AOL, where she ran strategy across 13 brands, Dua cofounded BBGV with Susan Lyne in 2014. Now deploying BBGV's fourth fund, Dua has backed breakout companies including Spring Health, Zola, Starface, HopSkipDrive, Topline Pro, Supercircle, and Canela Media. She also founded BUILT BY GIRLS, connecting more than 20,000 young women with tech professionals. 33. Heather Redman Heather Redman Flying Fish Partners Cofounder and managing partner, Flying Fish Ventures Select investments: MightySignal, Boltive, Reclaim.ai, Picnic City: Seattle Redman began her career as an executive and general counsel at a series of digital and new media pioneers, including Getty Images and Atom Entertainment. She cofounded Flying Fish Ventures, which invests in early-stage artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics companies, in 2016, and the Seattle-based fund has gone on to invest in a string of AI-native startups, including Axiom, Simular, and Latent Labs. Redman also serves as a board member for the Seattle branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and as a part-time advisor to the University of Washington College of Engineering. 34. Rudina Seseri Rudina Seseri Greg M. Cooper Founder and managing partner, Glasswing Ventures Select investments: Basetwo, Iris Finance, Reprise, Ship Angel, Verusen City: Boston Long before ChatGPT became a household name, Seseri was backing machine-learning startups on the conviction that data-hungry startups would shape the next era of software. The Glasswing Ventures cofounder has built a record of spotting founders poised to upend industries from enterprise security to computing. More recently, the firm has notched a pair of significant exits: Snowflake acquired the data-engineering company TensorStax in February, and Google bought the image-generation startup Common Sense Machines in January. In November, Seseri announced the close of over $200 million in capital commitments for Glasswing's third fund, its largest to date. 35. Ruth Foxe Blader Ruth Foxe Blader Citrine Venture Partners Managing partner, Citrine Venture Partners Select investments: Lemonade, Kaiko, Burnbot, RockRose Risk, Starmoire City: New York Foxe Blader has spent decades working in tech, both building companies and investing in them. She co-founded a new fund, Citrine, earlier this year, which focuses on fintech and AI. She also recently co-founded and invested in two startups — RockRose Risk, an AI-powered insurance broker, and Starmoire, an AI fashion resale marketplace. She likes to get hands-on with portfolio companies: helping Starmoire explore using AI robots for their warehouse operations. 36. Ellen Levy Ellen Levy Courtesy of Ellen Levy Founding managing director, Silicon Valley Connect Select investments: Cache Financials, Soxton, Manas AI, Mercy Bioanalytics, Credo.ai, Blockstream, Its Electric City: Menlo Park, California Once dubbed the most connected woman in Silicon Valley, Levy facilitates relationship building between the San Francisco tech community and the rest of the world. In addition to holding that position since 2007, Levy has made angel investments in dozens of startups in AI, automation, and biotech. She started her career in the corporate world and has completed stints at PwC, Apple, Stanford University, and LinkedIn, where she was vice president of strategic initiatives. 37. Varsha Rao Varsha Rao Courtesy of Varsha Rao Angel investor Select investments: Grow Therapy, Commure, MatX, Sanas AI, Observo, Qualified Health, TextQL City: San Francisco Rao's career has seen her work as a founder, CEO, and executive. She founded e-commerce site Eve.com in the late 1990s, worked as Airbnb's Head of Global Operations from 2013 to 2016, and most recently was CEO of telehealth platform Nurx, which was acquired by Thirty Madison in 2022. Now an angel investor and part-time executive partner at Flare Capital Partners, Rao is focused on identifying the most promising early-stage consumer tech and healthcare startups. She told Business Insider that the most memorable company she had supported in the past year was TextQL, an agentic data platform, helping them expand into the healthcare sector. 38. Julia Lipton Julia Lipton LinkedIn Founder and managing partner, Awesome People Ventures Select investments: Function Health, OneBrief, Writer, Nooks, Ambience City: Austin Lipton's early-stage fund, Awesome People Ventures, invests in AI, healthtech, wellness, and software companies. The fund has an impressive roster of investors in its fund, including Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon. One of Lipton's bets, AI medical scribe startup Ambience raised over $200 million in funding in 2025 at a $1.25 billion valuation. She previously founded Soundboard, a consulting firm for Silicon Valley CEOs, and also held growth and product roles at OneMedical and Quixey. 39. Lily Lyman Lily Lyman Underscore VC Managing partner, Underscore VC Select investments: BusRight, Goldcast, Herald, Hi Marley, Slang.ai, Tetrascience City: Boston Lyman has become one of the Boston investors founders most want in their corner. She's known for rolling up her sleeves to help portfolio companies recruit top executives and raise later funding. Her super-connector status has even earned her a nickname: the Kevin Bacon of tech, for her seeming six degrees of separation from just about everyone in the industry. Lyman made early bets on Goldcast, a content-creation company that was recently acquired by Cvent for $300 million, and Slang.ai, a developer of virtual phone agents. In February, that company announced a $36 million Series B funding round led by US Venture Partners. 40. Janet Bannister Janet Bannister Real Ventures Founder and managing partner, Staircase Ventures Select investments: Biossil, Fillip Fleet, Una City: Toronto Bannister founded Staircase Ventures in 2023 as a firm focused on backing Canadian early-stage startups. She was a managing partner at Real Ventures prior to founding Staircase. Staircase was the first investor in Biossil, an AI biotech startup, and helped support the company in its earliest stages, Bannister told Business Insider. She connected the company with leaders at university hospitals and advanced discussions needed to secure Biossil's commercial rights to a vaccine platform, she added. After investing, the company went on to raise additional financing from Founders Fund and OpenAI. In addition to capital, Staircase offers its seed-stage founders resources like CEO coaching, peer support groups, health and wellness resources, financial advisors, and a stipend to spend on family matters. Credits Editorial Leena Rao, Melia Russell, Ben Bergman, Sydney Bradley, Tom Carter, Rosalie Chan, Shubhangi Goel, Robert Scammell, Geoff Weiss Design Bryan Erickson, Isabel Fernández Pujol, Tyler Le, Rebecca Zisser Development Monsicha Srisuantang, Randy Yeip, Read the original article on Business Insider

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Why SpaceX’s Competitors Can’t Close the Gap, Even With Unlimited Capital  The largest IPO in history … SpaceX’s Moat Is Not Luck: Why Its Structural Advantages Are Nearly Impossible to ReplicateRead more The post SpaceX’s Moat Is Not Luck: Why Its Structural Advantages Are Nearly Impossible to Replicate appeared first on .

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John Markoff / New York Times: Security researcher Peter G. Neumann, who criticized lax industry attitudes toward computer security and digital privacy, died on May 17 at the age of 93  —  For decades, he criticized the industry's lax attitudes toward both computer security and individual digital privacy.  And he developed solutions.

Terrence O'Brien / The Verge: Microsoft says it's retiring Teams' Together Mode, debuted in 2020, and plans to simplify meeting layouts and focus on video quality, stability, and performance  —  The company wants to focus on improving video quality and performance instead of gimmicks.

Eduard Kovacs / SecurityWeek: Pwn2Own Berlin 2026: participants earned a total of ~$1.3M for 47 vulnerabilities, with successful exploits of AI products like Codex, Cursor, and LM Studio  —  Participants demonstrated exploits for Windows, Linux, VMware, Nvidia, and AI products. … Pwn2Own Berlin 2026 has come to an end …

Financial Times: Sources: Anthropic agrees to brief the Financial Stability Board on global financial system vulnerabilities found by Mythos, following a request by FSB's Chair  —  US tech group will discuss capabilities of its new AI model with members of the Financial Stability Board

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: Samsung's shares jumped as much as 6.7% after the company resumed talks with its union and a court partially granted an injunction against illegal union actions  —  Samsung Electronics Co.'s shares jumped after company management entered make-or-break wage negotiations with its largest labor union aimed …