Author: Arabian Media staff
The one area outside of AI where investors are still enthusiastic is expense management fintech, at least if Ramp’s 2025 is anything to judge by. Every few months, Ramp has raised another large sum at another giant new valuation. On Monday, the fintech announced it had raised $300 million led by Lightspeed, which also included an employee tender offer. This is just a few months after a $500 million Series E-2 at a $22.5 billion valuation led by Iconiq, announced on July 30. That round was just a few weeks after a $200M Series E at $16 billion valuation led…
Chief executives are learning to live with a unique commander-in-chief Source link
Three years ago, Luminal co-founder Joe Fioti was working on chip design at Intel when he came to a realization. While he was working on making the best chips he could, the more important bottleneck was in software. “You can make the best hardware on earth, but if it’s hard for developers to use, they’re just not going to use it,” he told me. Now, he’s started a company that focuses entirely on that problem. On Monday, Luminal announced $5.3 million in seed funding, in a round led by Felicis Ventures with angel investment from Paul Graham, Guillermo Rauch, and…
Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos seems to be getting his hands dirty once again: The billionaire is partly backing a new AI startup called Project Prometheus that has raised $6.2 billion in funding, and will take on duties as co-chief executive of the new venture, The New York Times reported, citing several sources familiar with the project. Bezos will share the position with Vik Bajaj, who previously led and co-founded Google’s life sciences division. Bajaj also co-founded Verily, a biotech startup owned by Alphabet, and is the co-founder of Foresite Labs, an AI-focused affiliate of investment firm Foresite Capital, though the…
On Monday, a new Model Context Protocol security startup called Runlayer launched out of stealth with $11 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures’ Keith Rabois and Felicis. It was created by third-time founder Andrew Berman (previous companies: baby-monitor maker Nanit and an AI video conferencing tool, Vowel, that sold to Zapier in 2024). In the four months since Runlayer launched its product in stealth, it has signed dozens of customers, including eight unicorns or public companies like Gusto, Rippling, dbt Labs, Instacart, Opendoor, and Ramp, it says. It also nabbed David Soria Parra, the lead creator of MCP, as an…
Image credit: Reuters/Website Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia on Monday by the country’s International Crimes Tribunal for crimes against humanity, concluding a months-long trial over her role in a deadly crackdown on student-led protests in 2024. The tribunal found Hasina guilty of ordering the use of lethal force, including helicopters and drones, against demonstrators during the July–August uprising, which followed protests over government job allocations and escalated into nationwide violence. The crackdown, triggered by the reinstatement of a policy reserving 30 per cent of government jobs for relatives of veterans from Bangladesh’s war…
South Korea’s major defense giants have amassed roughly $69 billion in order backlogs as of late 2024, according to media reports. Seoul is also accelerating investment in advanced weapons systems and expanding its defense ties, particularly with Europe. With the new EU–South Korea Security and Defence Partnership in 2024 and growing exports of vehicles and artillery, the country has become the second-largest arms supplier to European NATO members. Yet despite that enormous industrial footprint, remarkably few startups have emerged to match or challenge the incumbents. The country’s defense-tech startup scene is still nascent, exposing a wide gap between Korea’s manufacturing…
Image credit: Getty Images The Federal Authority for Government Human Resources (FAHR) has confirmed that employees across UAE federal ministries and entities will observe the 54th Eid Al Etihad holiday on Monday and Tuesday, December 1–2, 2025. Work will resume on Wednesday, December 3, 2025, according to the authority’s announcement. Extending its congratulations to the UAE leadership, government, citizens, and residents, FAHR said it wished the nation continued prosperity and progress, the WAM report noted. Read more-Upcoming GCC public holidays, National Day closures: What to know أعلنت الهيئة الاتحادية للموارد البشرية الحكومية أن عطلة عيد الاتحاد الــ54 لدولة الإمارات العربية…
Image credit: Supplied In boardrooms from Dubai to Riyadh, and in HR departments across the world’s most ambitious economies, an unprecedented shift is underway. For decades, conversations about the “future of work” revolved around automation, digital transformation, and the gradual evolution of workplace technology. But according to Korn Ferry’s newly released Talent Acquisition Trends 2026 report, that future has not only arrived, it is accelerating into completely uncharted territory. Talent leaders across 1,900 global organisations, including many from the Middle East, are witnessing the emergence of a workforce where humans no longer simply operate AI tools. Instead, AI is becoming…
Flatpay, which facilitates card payments for SMBs, has joined the ranks of European fintech unicorns — or startups valued at more than $1 billion — a milestone that has driven some of the region’s biggest exits. These include competitors like Adyen, a Dutch payment processing giant that remains far ahead in scale. However, Flatpay’s fresh funding could help it narrow the gap. Flatpay’s bet is that it can challenge larger players by charging small merchants a flat transaction rate to use its card terminals and point-of-sales systems. This focus on a segment that accounts for 99% of European businesses has…