September 7, 2024: Indices Mixed, Small Caps Working

Last week, Dow Jones lost 0.3%, S&P 500 rose 0.3%, Nasdaq composite gained 1.1%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 advanced 1%, hitting a new 2025 high. Markets rose to record highs Friday morning, but ended the week mixed. A weak August jobs report raised expectations for Fed rate cuts, while also raising questions about a slowing economy. Klarna set a U.S. IPO range valuing it up to US$14B. Lambda hired banks for a 2025 IPO amid surging AI-GPU demand. Anthropic raised US$13B at a US$170B pre-money with ~$5B ARR run-rate; OpenAI upsized its employee tender to ~US$10.3B at a US$500B valuation and is pursuing a US$41B primary, with SoftBank anchored. Broadcom guided AI chip/network revenue up 66% y/y next quarter and reportedly signed a US$10B custom-silicon customer. Figma beat but guided to slower growth. Salesforce broke its 8% growth streak on a one-off and guided softer. C3.ai revenue fell and named a new CEO. AppLovin and Robinhood will join the S&P 500 before Sep-22. Meta flagged ~US$600B U.S. capex through 2028. Apple is prepping an AI-powered web search. JetBlue picked Amazon Kuiper for in-flight Wi-Fi from 2027. A U.S. judge barred some Google search exclusivity but stopped short of divestitures. Amazon faces a nationwide price-parity class action; Anthropic agreed to a ~US$1.5B author-copyright settlement. Nasdaq tightened rules for “treasury crypto” financings, and Polymarket received a CFTC no-action path to launch in the U.S. In Canada, Sophic client Cybeats posted Q2-FY25 revenue of US$0.74M (+51% y/y) with a sharply narrower net loss as operating efficiencies kicked in. Subsequent to quarter-end, Cybeats raised US$3.24M, converted US$1.4M debentures to equity, and settled US$1.5M debt. Renoworks saw early adoption of LeadPOD and AI Design Assistant, lifting ARR from US$67K to US$336K across five manufacturers, supporting its AI-enabled remodeling thesis. Kraken Robotics announced US$13M of SAS and SeaPower battery orders across U.S., Norway, and Turkey, with integrations on four UUV classes and visibility at REPMUS.

Sophic Client Cybeats Technologies Corp. (CYBT-CSE,CYBCF-OTCQB) announces second quarter Fiscal 2025 financial results.

Revenue in Q2 2025 was $744,664 versus $492,331 in Q2 2024, an increase of 51% or $252,333. This growth was due to the addition of new customers and the expansion of our existing customers. Net loss in Q2 2025 was $(856,431), versus a loss of $(2,261,534) in Q2 2024, an improvement of $1,405,103 or 164%. The reduction in net loss was due to operational efficiencies. Cash at June 30, 2025 was $146,108 an increase of $111,009 from $35,099 at the end of fiscal 2024. Subsequent to the quarter ending, the Company closed a private placement for gross proceeds of $3,237,000. Operational Highlights in the Quarter: Expanded Market Reach with SBOM Consumer: Introduced asset management capabilities for IT and OT environments, now in pilots with a U.S. defense agency and Orange S.A., enabling continuous monitoring, compliance automation, and third-party risk management at scale. Expanded Enterprise Contract with Emerson: Emerson Electric Co. (NYSE: EMR), a global leader in industrial automation, doubled its use of Cybeats’ SBOM Studio, marking the third expansion of the relationship and reinforcing strong client adoption, recurring revenue growth, and Cybeats’ role as a key supplier in securing the software supply chain. Renewed and Expanded U.S. Government Contract: Cybeats renewed and expanded its contract with a major U.S. security agency, reinforcing its position as a trusted partner in government cybersecurity and highlighting growing demand for SBOM solutions in national security and critical infrastructure. AI-Powered Innovation and Global Recognition: Launched Magic Link, an AI-enhanced SBOM Studio feature that streamlines software risk management, and selected to join Canada’s U.K. Cybersecurity Market Development Mission, aligning with the U.K.’s new Software Security Code of Practice. Expanded Fortune 500 Contract: Renewed and expanded SBOM Studio license by 34% with a Fortune 500 water infrastructure company, extending coverage across global treatment plants, pumping stations, and cloud platforms, reinforcing Cybeats’ recurring revenue growth and 148% net revenue retention. EU Regulatory Tailwinds: European Union formally adopts Cyber-Crisis Management Blueprint mandating SBOM data exchange across 27 member states, creating a unified market opportunity and reinforcing Cybeats’ positioning as a leading SBOM compliance and analytics platform. Subsequent Events: Strengthened Balance Sheet: Settled $1.5M of indebtedness and converted $1.4M of debentures into equity, reducing debt and positioning Cybeats for commercial growth and scale-up. Closed $3.2M Financing: Completed LIFE offering of 32.4M units, providing growth capital to accelerate commercial scale-up, R&D, and working capital. https://t.co/QKk34e4r4w

Sophic Client Renoworks Software Inc. (RW-TSXV, ROWKF-OTC) achieves significant ARR growth with early adoption of LeadPOD and AI Design Assistant.

Five existing manufacturer customers across roofing, siding, trim, doors, and kitchen cabinets have already signed agreements, expanding their contribution to Renoworks’ annual recurring revenue (“ARR”) from US$67,000 to US$335,800, a fivefold increase. This early adoption demonstrates the broad applicability of Renoworks’ AI-powered homeowner engagement platform across multiple building product categories. It also validates the Company’s strategy of embedding AI analytics and generative design capabilities into remodel workflows, creating measurable revenue lift for customers while accelerating Renoworks’ own ARR expansion. “The rapid uptake of these solutions highlights both the pent-up demand for AI-enabled homeowner engagement tools and the scalability of our Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) model,” said Doug Vickerson, CEO of Renoworks. “Interest across our client footprint and opportunity pipeline is scaling rapidly as manufacturers and contractors seek not just a higher number of leads but better-qualified leads that are more likely to convert into real projects. LeadPOD addresses this need directly, while AI Design Assistant enhances the homeowner journey. Together, these solutions are already accelerating our recurring revenue growth and reinforcing our leadership in AI-driven remodeling solutions.” The Company has been actively engaging with several existing and new customers over the last 6 months introducing Renoworks’ AI solutions and believe that these early wins are just the beginning of a trend that should continue throughout the remainder of 2025 and into next year. https://t.co/qLszPCImL9

Sophic Client Kraken Robotics (PNG-TSXV, KRKNF-OTC) announces $13 million in Synthetic Aperture Sonar and battery sales.

The orders are from customers based in the United States, Norway, and Turkey and include an order for 10 SAS from one customer. The Kraken SAS and SeaPower battery systems from this order will be integrated on four different types of uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) platforms, ranging in size from small-class to large-class. “Many defense clients are moving toward Kraken SAS over sidescan because it offers significantly increased area coverage rates and consistent high resolution across the entire swath,” said Greg Reid, President and CEO of Kraken Robotics. “In contested areas when you only have a limited amount of time to survey, Kraken SAS ensures you are getting wide swaths of usable data to enable faster, more accurate identification of subsea hazards.” Kraken SAS and SeaPower batteries are built to be platform agnostic, coming in several different configurations with modular components to easily integrate into existing or new platforms. This month, several UUV platforms will feature Kraken SAS and SeaPower batteries as more than 20 countries collaborate on naval missions at the Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping using Maritime Unmanned Systems (REPMUS) exercise in Portugal. Kraken SAS was used to classify more than 50 mine-like objects during the annual month-long exercise last year. https://tinyurl.com/wcdxv443

Lightspeed (LSPD-TSX, LSPD-NYSE) would pay $11 million and admit no wrongdoing in proposed lawsuit settlement.

Montréal-based Lightspeed Commerce is admitting no liability in the proposed settlement of a 2021 class-action lawsuit alleging it misrepresented financial reports. The proposed settlement will see the defendants, which include Lightspeed, some of its leaders, and its auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, pay out $11 million without any admission of liability. The lawsuit was filed in October 2021 following a report from New York-based investment firm Spruce Point Capital Management that alleged the e-commerce company had inflated key metrics and wasn’t performing as well as it claimed. Spruce Point alleged it had “evidence of poor, inconsistent, and continually changing disclosures,” which led it to believe that Lightspeed had “engaged in a pattern of materially inflating the size, quality, and growth prospects of its business.” This included allegations that Lightspeed had “massively inflated” its pre-IPO business, including its customer count (85 percent higher) and gross transaction volume (10 percent higher). Lightspeed said at the time that the report contained “numerous important inaccuracies and mischaracterizations,” and the company continues to admit no wrongdoing through this proposed settlement. Still, Lightspeed’s trading value on the Toronto Stock Exchange went from nearly $160 per share before the report to almost $50 per share by the end of 2021. This settlement agreement follows the dismissal of a similar case against Lightspeed in a United States federal court earlier this year. In the dismissal, the judge ruled that the plaintiff failed “at the first step” and alleged “no plausible reasons why Lightspeed’s statements were false or misleading.” https://tinyurl.com/5n845m7d

White Star Capital wants to lead Canadian seed rounds with new US$50 million fund.

White Star Capital has launched a new seed fund to fill what it sees as a key gap in Canada’s venture capital (VC) market. The global, multi-stage VC firm has secured a first close of US$25 million for its North American Seed Fund, with a $50 million USD target. With this, it aims to lead pre-seed and seed financings for tech startups across Canada and the United States (US). Recent data from the Canadian Venture Capital And Private Equity Association indicates that there has been a steep decline in pre-seed and seed investment activity in Canada. While the latest results from Québec are slightly stronger in this respect, some industry leaders have been sounding the alarm in light of poor fundraising figures for startups and VCs, declining entrepreneurship, and performance anxiety. https://tinyurl.com/c99thbud

Klarna sets IPO pricing range.

UK-based buy-now pay-later firm Klarna took the next step towards going public, filing an updated IPO filing revealing it will offer 34.3 million shares for sale, priced between US$35 and US$37, raising a total of US$1.2 billion. The offering would value the company at up to US$14 billion. Most of the shares to be sold are held by Klarna shareholders, including Sequoia Capital, Silver Lake and Mubadala Investment. The company itself is only selling 5.5 million shares. The filing reveals that Sequoia is by far the biggest shareholder, holding 21% of the stock, while co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski owns about 7% of the stock. https://tinyurl.com/5y2xrp6b

Nvidia-backed cloud startup hires bankers for IPO.

Lambda, a San Jose, Calif.,-based cloud provider that rents out Nvidia graphics chips to AI companies, has hired Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Citi to prepare for an initial public offering in the U.S. as soon as the first half of next year, according to people with direct knowledge of the talks. The listing would follow the public debut of Coreweave, another cloud company whose fortunes have soared on demand from AI developers. The 13-year-old company’s revenue rose nearly 60% to more than US$140 million in the second quarter. The company lost around US$16 million in the second quarter. Lambda’s rival CoreWeave had revenue more than tripled to US$1.2 billion in the second quarter. While CoreWeave’s business is roughly 10 times the size of Lambda’s, its losses are also 20 times higher. Still, Lambda’s public debut would test the appetite of public market investors for another, and perhaps leaner, AI IPO. https://tinyurl.com/mkwkazf6

Anthropic raises US$13 billion at US$170 billion valuation.

Anthropic on Tuesday said it had raised US$13 billion at a US$170 billion valuation before the financing, in a round co-led by new investor Iconiq and returning investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Fidelity Management. The funding nearly tripled its valuation from a round led by Lightspeed at the start of this year. The size and price of the investment in OpenAI’s main rival reflect anticipation among venture capitalists that the leading AI companies are on their way taking huge shares of corporate and consumer spending, as they enter markets from drug discovery to shopping. The company as of August was generating US$5 billion in annualized revenue, up from US$1 billion at the start of the year. Anthropic has over 300,000 enterprise customers, and its coding copilot product, Claude Code, is generating over US$500 million in annualized revenue. The size and price of the round increased over the last few weeks, as Anthropic’s recent growth drove up demand. In July, The Information first reported that investors floated a new financing at valuations above US$100 billion. Other investors in the most recent round include Altimeter, Blackstone, General Catalyst, Jane Street and Insight Partners. Kleiner Perkins made its first investment into a model maker business in this round, as well. https://tinyurl.com/typmum9z

OpenAI increases employee share sale to US$10.3 billion.

OpenAI has increased the size of its employee share sale to roughly US$10.3 billion at a US$500 billion valuation, according to a person close to the company. That’s up from about US$8 billion. The boost in size was to accommodate increased investor demand, according to the same person. The more-than US$10 billion share sale will amount to more than the entire volume of shares sold by startup employees and investors last year. Some current and former employees can sell up to US$30 million each, according to the person and another person with knowledge of the share sale. OpenAI is currently in the process of raising a US$41 billion round, with SoftBank committed to invest US$22.5 billion by the end of the year, provided OpenAI successfully restructures itself. Employee share sales have become more common as late-stage startups, such as SpaceX, Stripe and Databricks delay going public. In particular, for AI companies, share sales are a way to reward employees that could be recruited by competitors. For instance, Anthropic allowed current and former employees to sell up to US$2 million each at a US$61.5 billion valuation in May. https://tinyurl.com/4yys3wa8

Broadcom projects AI chip sales growth accelerating to 66%.

Broadcom said Thursday that its revenue from designing artificial intelligence chips and related networking equipment rose 63% in the fiscal quarter that ended Aug. 3 to US$5.2 billion from the same period last year, beating its earlier projection of US$4.4 billion in the quarter. As if that wasn’t good enough, CEO Hock Tan also projected that the AI business will generate US$6.2 billion in the current fiscal quarter, a 66% increase from last year. Tan also said he will remain CEO through 2030 “at least.” Broadcom designs AI chips for major firms such as Google, Apple and OpenAI, which want their own chips to lessen their reliance on Nvidia’s. Broadcom said it signed a new, unnamed major chip customer, which would contribute US$10 billion in revenue in the third quarter of next year. But Broadcom’s chip unit is much smaller than Nvidia, which last week said sales from chips and networking gear rose 56% to US$41 billion in the fiscal quarter that ended July 27. Broadcom’s free cash flow in the quarter grew to US$7 billion, up from US$6 billion last quarter and 47% higher year-over-year. Shares rose 3% in after-hours trading and have risen 32% this year, slightly outpacing Nvidia’s stock rise in the same period. https://tinyurl.com/4u8nnk26

Figma shares swoon on decelerating revenue growth forecast.

Figma’s June quarter revenue grew 41% to US$249.6 million, the newly public company said Wednesday, as customers spent more on its AI-powered design software. The company’s free cash flow was US$60 million in the quarter, which was its first quarter as a publicly traded company, up from negative free cash flow of US$179.8 million in the same quarter a year prior. The company forecast that its revenue growth would decelerate to 33% in the current quarter and 37% for the full year. Figma’s stock fell 15% in after hours trading, and by Wednesday evening Figma’s stock was trading 44% lower than its initial public offering in August. CEO Dylan Field told shareholders on Wednesday that the company plans to speed up revenue growth by developing more AI design products and charging enterprise customers for them in the coming quarter, but warned that the company’s margins may fall as it builds those products. “We’re focused on building a durable, long term business that serves the needs of our customers … we expect margins to come down in the near term as we invest in the long term,” Field said. “We know that approach won’t resonate with everyone, but we believe we have an incredible opportunity.” https://tinyurl.com/3pcupms2

Salesforce breaks low-growth streak but projects worse results in october quarter.

Salesforce revenue rose 10% to US$10.2 billion in the fiscal quarter that ended in July, breaking a streak of 8% revenue growth in the prior four quarters that had drawn concerns about its future growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era. But the customer management software giant also said in a call with analysts that the faster growth was driven primarily by a one-time recognition of licensing and professional services revenue. Revenue growth in the current fiscal quarter will tick down to between 8% and 9% year over year, the company said. And while Salesforce also improved its operating profit margin in the July quarter to 22.8%, or nearly 3 percentage points higher than in the April quarter, it projected an operating margin in the current fiscal quarter of 21.2% compared to the 21.6% operating margin it projected for the fiscal year that ends in January. That means it may have trouble hitting the full-year margin target. Shareholders have long paid attention to the company’s margins, which have historically lagged those of other software firms. Shares fell 5% in after-hours trading after falling 22% so far this year, as it hadn’t shown a revenue boost from AI the way some of its peers have. The company’s Agentforce AI business has gotten off to a slow start. https://tinyurl.com/fuktsr7k

C3 AI reports declining revenue, announces new CEO to replace Siebel.

Shares of the enterprise artificial intelligence company C3 AI fell 14% in extended trading on Wednesday after it announced fiscal first-quarter results and the appointment of Stephen Ehikian as its new CEO. C3 AI reported US$70.3 million in revenue for the quarter, down from US$87.2 million during the same period last year. The company’s GAAP net loss widened to an 86-cent loss from a 50-cent loss a year ago. https://tinyurl.com/mtarbstm

Crypto treasury stocks drop as Nasdaq steps up scrutiny.

Nasdaq recently told some companies listed on the exchange that under certain circumstances, their shareholders would need to approve the plan to issue new shares to raise funding to buy crypto, according to company filings and people familiar with the matter. Nasdaq wants to protect the rights of existing shareholders, particularly if the capital raised comes in the form of crypto. Nasdaq’s move could slow down deals and introduce uncertainty as companies race to buy crypto. So far this year, 124 U.S.-listed companies have announced plans to raise more than US$133 billion to buy crypto, according to Architect Partners. Many stocks soared after their initial announcements to buy crypto, though some have fallen since. Bitcoin treasury stock Strategy fell as much as 3% during trading before closing at down 0.8%. Bitcoin fell 1.6% Thursday. Ether-holding stock Sharplink Gaming fell 8%. Solana-holding stocks Upexi and DeFi Development fell 4.5%and 7.6% respectively. Heritage Distilling, which holds $IP tokens and is awaiting a shareholder vote, fell 0.3%. https://tinyurl.com/274cv6zf

AppLovin and Robinhood added to S&P 500.

Shares of advertising technology company AppLovin and stock trading app Robinhood Markets each jumped about 7% in extended trading on Friday after S&P Global said the two will join the S&P 500 index. The changes will go into effect before the beginning of trading on Sept. 22, S&P Global announced in a statement. AppLovin will replace MarketAxess Holdings, while Robinhood will take the place of Caesars Entertainment. In March, short-seller Fuzzy Panda Research advised the committee for the large-cap U.S. index to keep AppLovin from becoming a constituent. AppLovin shares dropped 15% in December, when the committee picked Workday to join the S&P 500. Robinhood, for its part, saw shares slip 2% in June when it was excluded from a quarterly rebalancing of the index. The S&P 500 already has a heavy concentration of large technology companies. Datadog and DoorDash entered earlier this year. It’s normal for stocks to go up on news of their inclusion in a major index such as the S&P 500. Fund managers need to buy shares to reflect the updates. AppLovin and Robinhood both went public on Nasdaq in 2021. https://tinyurl.com/wscxu6td

Meta plans to spend US$600 billion through 2028 in the U.S., Zuckerberg says.

Meta Platforms plans to spend “something like at least US$600 billion” through 2028 on data centers and other infrastructure in the U.S., Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday at a dinner with President Donald Trump and other technology executives. In July, Meta estimated its capital expenditures in 2025 would be between US$66 billion and US$72 billion, up at least 68% from its capital expenditures in 2024. It also said it expected “similarly significant capital expenditures dollar growth in 2026” as it expands its computing capacity for its artificial intelligence efforts. Zuckerberg in July said Meta would “invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute” for AI, though he didn’t provide a timeframe for that spending. He added that “we have the capital from our business to do this.” Meta is raising US$29 billion for a joint venture to build a data center in Louisiana called Hyperion. It also recently struck a cloud computing deal worth more than US$10 billion over six years with Google Cloud. https://tinyurl.com/bdz8p8ks

Apple is working on AI-powered search engine.

Apple is working on a web-search engine powered by artificial intelligence, similar to products offered by AI rivals Perplexity and OpenAI, Bloomberg reported. The tool will integrate into Apple’s Siri voice assistant, and potentially its Safari web browser and Spotlight search tool. The company is planning to release the web-search feature alongside its delayed Siri revamp in the spring of next year, Bloomberg also reported. With the search tool, Siri would be more capable of looking up information across the web without linking to external services. Currently, for more complex queries, Siri has to link out to either Google search or OpenAI’s ChatGPT for answers. Apple will likely still have to rely on external partnerships to deliver the new AI features. Apple is talking to Google about providing the AI model that powers the new version of Siri, Bloomberg reported. In the past, it has also held conversations with AI upstarts Anthropic and OpenAI. https://tinyurl.com/y2fdpkfd

Broadcom’s new US$10 billion customer said to be OpenAI.

OpenAI could spend US$10 billion next year on the artificial intelligence chip it is co-designing with Broadcom, according to a report in The Financial Times. During Broadcom’s earnings call on Thursday, CEO Hock Tan said the firm signed a US$10 billion contract with a new, unnamed customer. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long sought to develop a chip his firm could use to lower its costs and reduce its reliance on Nvidia’s graphics processing units. Spokespeople for OpenAI and Broadcom did not have a comment. https://tinyurl.com/3ttbm6by

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says AI has already replaced 4,000 jobs.

The tech giant has cut 4,000 customer support roles this year after deploying artificial intelligence agents to handle a growing share of the company’s work, Benioff said in a new podcast. Salesforce cut 4,000 customer support roles this year after deploying artificial intelligence agents to handle a growing share of the company’s work, CEO Marc Benioff said in a new podcast. Speaking on “The Logan Bartlett Show” ahead of Labor Day weekend, Benioff said the San Francisco software giant reduced its support staff by nearly half. “I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I need less heads,” he said in the episode released Friday. The CEO, who co-founded Salesforce in 1999, called the past eight months “the most exciting” of his career, even as the company trimmed thousands of jobs. He said the reorganization also allowed Salesforce to shift workers into growth areas. “I’ve rebalanced my support head count as I said, so I can now put those heads into sales,” Benioff said. “So I’ve increased my distribution capacity.” A https://tinyurl.com/35hbr2xt

JetBlue will be first airline to use Amazon’s project Kuiper satellite internet.

JetBlue and Amazon have struck a deal for the airline to use Amazon’s Project Kuiper still-to-launch satellite internet service to power the Wi-Fi on some of its flights, the companies said Thursday, marking the first agreement between Project Kuiper and an airline. Project Kuiper will provide Wi-Fi service for roughly a quarter of JetBlue’s fleet beginning in 2027, the companies said. Amazon now has more than 100 Kuiper satellites in orbit following launches that began in April, and said it plans to start offering service to its first customers later this year. The deal also ramps up competition with Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service, which has a deal with United to power the in-flight Wi-Fi on its planes. United has said that by the end of 2025, it would add Starlink service to its entire fleet of regional planes and would start adding the service to its mainline planes as well. https://tinyurl.com/3jpev2ax

Antitrust Judge bars Google from exclusive deals but lets it keep Chrome.

An antitrust judge rejected the Justice Department’s most drastic proposals for how Google’s search business should be overhauled to make up for its illegal monopoly, saying in a decision Tuesday afternoon he wouldn’t require the company to sell either its Chrome browser or its Android operating system. The judge barred Google from entering into exclusive contracts for distributing its search engine and ruled that Google must share some data with rival search engines. But the judge said Google could pay for distribution of search and its AI products, which suggests Google may continue to pay US$20 billion a year to Apple for making Google its search provider on Safari, as long as the deal isn’t exclusive. The judge said that the government “overreached in seeking forced divesture of these key assets.” Google also will be allowed to continue making non-exclusive deals for distributing Google Search, Chrome and its generative AI products. The judge noted that “cutting off payment from Google almost certainly will impose substantial—in some cases, crippling—downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban.” In a statement, Google said the decision “recognizes how much the industry has changed through the advent of AI.” The Justice Department called the decision “significant remedies,” although Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater also said that the department would “continue to review the opinion to consider the Department’s options and next steps regarding seeking additional relief.” Also on Tuesday, the European Union paused plans to fine Google over its adtech business, for fear of retaliation from the Trump administration, Bloomberg reported. https://tinyurl.com/52z5z5pn

Anthropic to pay US$1.5 billion in author copyright settlement.

Anthropic has agreed to pay at least US$1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit from a group of authors alleging copyright infringement. The deal amounts to Anthropic paying about US$3,000 for each of the 500,000 books in the class action lawsuit, in one of the largest settlements over AI and intellectual property to date. This marks the first settlement in a number of outstanding copyright lawsuits filed against model makers such as OpenAI, Meta Platforms and Midjourney, which claim that the companies trained their models on content without creators’ permission. Anthropic itself is facing another lawsuit filed against it by record labels including Universal Music Group, who claim that the company trained its model on copyrighted lyrics. https://tinyurl.com/4vbxhf5h

Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales.

Amazon.com must face a class action on behalf of hundreds of millions of U.S. consumers over claims that the online retail giant overcharged for products sold by third-party sellers, a federal judge in Seattle has ruled. U.S. District Judge John Chun in an order unsealed on Friday certified a nationwide class involving 288 million customers and billions of transactions, marking one of the largest-ever in the United States. The class includes buyers in the United States who purchased five or more new goods from third-party sellers on Amazon since May 26, 2017. The consumers’ 2021 lawsuit said Amazon violated antitrust law by restricting third-party sellers from offering their products for lower prices elsewhere on rival platforms while they are also for sale on Amazon. Amazon’s policies have allowed the company to impose inflated fees on sellers, causing shoppers to pay higher prices for purchases, the lawsuit said. https://tinyurl.com/mcd2sen2

Polymarket set to launch in U.S.

Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market, is set to launch in the U.S. after getting a green light from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, its CEO and founder Shayne Coplan said in a tweet Wednesday. Founded in 2020, Polymarket banned U.S-based users in 2022 under a settlement with the CFTC, which had argued it was running an unregistered derivatives market. The CFTC on Wednesday said it issued a “no-action” letter to U.S.-registered exchange and clearinghouse QCEX, which Polymarket acquired for $112 million in July. The letter allows Polymarket to provide bets on events like elections while avoiding certain recordkeeping requirements. Polymarket didn’t specify a timeline for its U.S. launch. Last week, Polymarket said Donald Trump Jr has joined its advisory board, and that 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm that Trump Jr. joined as a partner last year, has made a strategic investment, without disclosing terms. https://tinyurl.com/3rmxwvru