Big Tech, startups, funding, earnings and regulation: the business side of tech.
Plaid reached $546 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025, marking a 40% increase driven by new product lines like Plaid Protect, which grew 400% year-over-year. The company is pivoting from data aggregation to an intelligence platform to offset bank API fees.
Helsing reached an $18 billion valuation following $1.8 billion in Series E funding to support autonomous systems like the HX-2 loitering munition. The company competes with Palantir for NATO intelligence dominance while expanding its hardware through strategic acquisitions.
Scale AI secured a $500 million Pentagon contract for defense decision-support systems, while Labelbox dominates the mid-market with rapid prototyping tools. The $8.5 billion data labeling market shows Scale AI leading in high-stakes defense and Labelbox leading in LLM fine-tuning.
Databricks manages over 100,000 agents processing a quadrillion tokens annually, but the Mosaic AI rollout faces operational hurdles in deployment and cost control. Managing DBU consumption and governance gaps remains critical as the company competes with Snowflake Cortex pricing.
Stripe reached a $159 billion valuation in 2026 after processing $1.9 trillion in total payment volume in 2025. The company transitioned from a developer-focused tool to an AI-driven commerce leader through strategic acquisitions like OpenRouter and Bridge.
Perplexity targets professional markets with Enterprise Pro and Max plans while facing significant legal scrutiny from media entities like CNN and The New York Times. The company competes against Google's Gemini intelligence and massive search volumes through specialized research tools.
Canva unified its Affinity acquisition into a single application combining Pixel, Vector, and Layout Studios, attracting over one million signups in four days. This integration offers professional tools to users while competing with Adobe Firefly through advanced AI capabilities.
Zapier Professional users face unexpected costs because Premium AI steps consume five tasks per run instead of one. Miscalculating task usage or ignoring error logs can lead to automation failures, especially when comparing the $29.99 Zapier plan to Make's more affordable operations model.
Notion AI utilizes an AI Gateway to manage multi-step workflows via Notion Agent, which can work autonomously for up to 20 minutes. Access to full AI features and agents requires a Business plan at $20 per member per month, as standalone add-ons are no longer available for new customers.
Glean solves SaaS sprawl by connecting to over 250 workplace tools using an enterprise knowledge graph. The platform reached a $4.6 billion valuation following a $260 million Series E round to address information friction for large organizations.
Klarna revenue reached $1.042 billion in the second quarter of 2026, marking a 27% increase despite a significant stock price correction from its post-IPO highs. The company is pivoting toward credit utility through the Apple Upgrade program and growing its membership base.
ElevenLabs offers various subscription tiers ranging from a free plan with 10,000 credits to a Scale plan for product teams. Users must navigate commercial usage rights, latency comparisons with Cartesia, and testing requirements to ensure reliable agent performance.
CoreWeave faces significant financial pressure due to Microsoft accounting for 67% of its 2025 revenue. The company must manage $21 billion in long-term debt while targeting up to $35 billion in capital expenditure for 2026.
Midjourney version 8.2 introduces the Edit Model and Retexture tool alongside a professional web interface featuring visual sliders. The platform offers various subscription tiers, including an Enterprise plan with SSO and API access for large-scale commercial workflows.
Stripe reached a $159 billion valuation in 2026 following massive revenue growth driven by AI users like OpenAI. The company's Stripe Capital offers up to $10 million in revenue-based advances as the financing market approaches a $21.10 billion valuation.
