LMArena Secures $100M in Seed Funding Led by A16z
Anastasios Angelopoulos, LMArena CEO and Wei-Lin Chiang, LMArena CTO join Ed Ludlow and Caroline Hyde to discuss the company's latest fundraise and launch of a new UI experience built by community feedback. They discuss the need for AI progress through competition live from the Bloomberg Tech Summit in San Francisco. (Source: Bloomberg)
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CNBC
16 minutes ago
- CNBC
OpenAI taps Google in unprecedented cloud deal despite AI rivalry, sources say: Reuters
OpenAI plans to add Alphabet'sGoogle cloud service to meet its growing needs for computing capacity, three sources told Reuters, marking a surprising collaboration between two prominent competitors in the artificial intelligence sector. The deal, which has been under discussion for a few months, was finalized in May, one of the sources added. It underscores how massive computing demands to train and deploy AI models are reshaping the competitive dynamics in AI, and marks OpenAI's latest move to diversify its compute sources beyond its major supporter Microsoft, including its high-profile Stargate data center project. It is a win for Google's cloud unit, which will supply additional computing capacity to OpenAI's existing infrastructure for training and running its AI models, sources said, who requested anonymity to discuss private matters. The move also comes as OpenAI's ChatGPT poses the biggest threat to Google's dominant search business in years, with Google executives recently saying that the AI race may not be winner-take-all. OpenAI, Google and Microsoft declined to comment. Alphabet's stock was up 2.1% on Tuesday afternoon following the news, while Microsoft shares were down 0.6%. Scotiabank analysts called the development "somewhat surprising" in a note on Tuesday, highlighting the growth opportunities for Google's Cloud unit, while expressing caution regarding competition from ChatGPT. "The deal ... underscores the fact that the two are willing to overlook heavy competition between them to meet the massive computing demands. Ultimately, we view this as a big win for Google's cloud unit, but ... there are continued worries that ChatGPT is becoming an incrementally larger threat to Google's search dominance," the analysts wrote. Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, OpenAI has dealt with increasing demand for computing capacity - known in the industry as compute - for training large language models, as well as for running inference, which involves processing information so people can use these models. OpenAI said on Monday that its annualized revenue run rate surged to $10 billion as of June, positioning the company to hit its full-year target amid booming adoption of AI. Earlier this year, OpenAI partnered with SoftBank and Oracle on the $500 billion Stargate infrastructure program, and signed deals worth billions with CoreWeave for more compute. It is on track this year to finalize the design of its first in-house chip that could reduce its dependency on external hardware providers, Reuters reported in February. The partnership with Google is the latest of several maneuvers made by OpenAI to reduce its dependency on Microsoft, whose Azure cloud service had served as the ChatGPT maker's exclusive data center infrastructure provider until January. Google and OpenAI discussed an arrangement for months but were previously blocked from signing a deal due to OpenAI's lock-in with Microsoft, a source told Reuters. Microsoft and OpenAI are also in negotiations to revise the terms of their multibillion-dollar investment, including the future equity stake Microsoft will hold in OpenAI. For Google, the deal comes as the tech giant is expanding external availability of its in-house chip known as tensor processing units, or TPUs, which were historically reserved for internal use. That helped Google win customers including Big Tech player Apple as well as startups like Anthropic and Safe Superintelligence, two OpenAI competitors launched by former OpenAI leaders. Google's addition of OpenAI to its customer list shows how the tech giant has capitalized on its in-house AI technology from hardware to software to accelerate the growth of its cloud business. Google Cloud, whose $43 billion in sales comprised 12% of Alphabet's 2024 revenue, has positioned itself as a neutral arbiter of computing resources in an effort to outflank Amazon and Microsoft as the cloud provider of choice for a rising legion of AI startups whose heavy infrastructure demands generate costly bills. Alphabet faces market pressure to demonstrate financial returns on its AI-related capital expenditures, which are expected to hit $75 billion this year, while maintaining its bottom line against the threat of competing AI offerings, as well as antitrust enforcement. Google's DeepMind AI unit also competes directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in a race to develop the best models and integrate those advances into consumer applications. Selling computing power reduces Google's own supply of chips while bolstering capacity-constrained rivals. The OpenAI deal will further complicate how Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai allocates the capacity between the competing interests of Google's enterprise and consumer business segments. Google already lacked sufficient capacity to meet its cloud customers' demands as of the last quarter, Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi told analysts in April. Although ChatGPT holds a large lead over Google's competing chatbot in terms of monthly users and analysts have predicted it could reduce Google's dominant search market share, Pichai has brushed aside concerns that OpenAI will usurp Google's business dominance.
Business Wire
21 minutes ago
- Business Wire
AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Laurel, the world's first AI Time platform, today announced it has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by IVP, with participation from GV (Google Ventures). Laurel will leverage this investment to scale its AI time platform and accelerate to solve what it calls the 'time intelligence challenge"—the inability for knowledge industries to accurately map time to business outcomes. In the age of AI, quantifying and understanding human capital goes from a 'nice to have' to a 'cannot exist without' for enterprises. In addition to IVP and GV, new investors in the round, which consists of primary and secondary funding, also include: 01.a (created by former CEO and COO of Twitter & CRO of Facebook), DST Global, Kevin Weil (CPO @ OpenAI), Alexis Ohanian, Vladimir Fedorov (CTO @ GitHub), Arash Ferdowsi (co-founder of Dropbox), and Hans Tung. These investors join returning investors ACME, Anthos, Gokul Rajaram, AIX Ventures, and Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures. The funding comes as Laurel experiences rapid adoption among enterprise professional services firms like Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, Freshfields, and Crowell & Moring. Over the last 12 months, Laurel grew ARR +300% at double-digit scale, increased usage by +500%, and works with +100 of the top legal, accounting, and consulting firms across US, UK, EU, Australia, and Canada. Laurel's AI Time platform, now leveraged by hundreds of the world's top enterprise professional service firms, uses AI to automatically categorize, describe, and analyze how professionals spend their time on admin work. The platform's ability to connect time data with business outcomes has proven transformative for firms looking to maximize profits, allocate their resources effectively, and understand exactly what workflows to apply AI to and what agents to automate. Customers using the company's AI-native time platform report profit increases between 4-11%—driven by an additional 28 billable minutes per day per professional, and increased realization of 1-4%. Laurel's ROI methodology has been independently audited and validated by a Big-4 Firm. The platform currently processes over $5B in gross market value for its customers, and +$360M of that amount is net-new value attributable to Laurel. In addition, Laurel saves its professionals up to 80% in time recording, freeing them to work on high-leverage work. 'Laurel uniquely delivers value across lawyers, clients, finance, and marketing by streamlining time capture, enriching narratives, and accelerating accurate billing,' says Reed Cunningham, Chief Innovation Officer at global law firm Reed Smith. 'As firms assess the impact of AI and fixed fees, gaining granular intelligence with less effort is essential to redefining value within a firm and for its clients.' 'I've seen first-hand how Laurel can transform our approach to time intelligence. What used to be a manual process of time-keeping and entry is now significantly technology enabled,' says Matt Newnes, Partner and Tax Transformation leader at Ernst & Young. 'Laurel doesn't just help our people to capture time that they spend on work more comprehensively; it helps us to understand much more about how our teams work allowing us to identify best practices to help ensure we always drive the best outcomes for our clients. It has proven to be one of our most impactful AI investments, delivering measurable results while laying the foundation for broader transformation initiatives.' Automating time is Laurel's first step. Laurel's AI platform turns its proprietary data around work and time to address the #1 business problem impacting knowledge industries: operating without visibility into their supply chain. 'Nobody has ever mapped the input of time to the output of outcomes. Industries like legal and accounting are best at understanding their input (time), but still struggle to price value. On the flip side, industries like consulting and financial services understand value, but operate blind to the true cost of creation. While all other industries have been obsessed about optimizing their supply chain, the supply chain of knowledge work—which represents over 50% of Global GDP—has never been surfaced. This funding helps us solve this fundamental challenge while giving firms the data foundation they need to deploy AI strategically. We're not just automating time—we're creating the time intelligence layer that will transform how all knowledge industries operate," says Ryan Alshak, founder and CEO of Laurel. "Laurel has identified one of the largest efficiency gaps in the modern economy, one I understand deeply as a former CFO of a public company. Professional services represent trillions in global economic activity, yet these firms operate without basic visibility into their core resource – time. By solving the time intelligence challenge, Laurel creates a platform for broader AI transformation. As these industries invest heavily in AI over the next five years, Laurel's data foundation becomes essential infrastructure that truly tracks the ROI of AI. The market opportunity is massive, and Laurel's unique position makes them the clear leader in this space," says Ajay Vashee, General Partner at IVP. 'Laurel is creating the enterprise intelligence layer for knowledge work that leverages timekeeping as a product wedge,' said Frederique Dame, General Partner at GV. 'By capturing and organizing the full lifecycle of how professionals spend their time, Laurel unlocks a new class of data that makes work itself measurable, optimizable, and automatable. The goal isn't just better time tracking, it's building the data foundation for AI-powered workflows, predictive resourcing, and strategic insights.' Transforming How Knowledge Industries Understand and Optimize Work While manufacturing companies know exactly how much it costs to produce a car down to the penny, and retail businesses track inventory with precision, professional services firms have historically operated without understanding their most critical resource: human capital. Both the outcomes of the work itself and the time it takes to produce it. As a result, organizations are operating blind on what the biggest impact for AI is across their companies, and how to point people to highest value tasks (like Business Development, Relationship Management, and first principles strategic thinking). As knowledge industries plan to spend over $1 trillion on AI in the next five years, Laurel's time intelligence platform ensures these investments target the highest-impact opportunities. Key customer results include: Average recovery of 28+ billable minutes per professional per day 4-11% increase in overall firm profitability 80%+ reduction in time spent on manual time entry Real-time visibility into project profitability and resource utilization 'While Laurel is unique in that it is AI that generates profits, the reason everyone at Laurel cares so much about solving this problem is because people waste so much time at work, and the only way to solve this at scale is to deeply understand where that time is going,' says Alshak. 'And we're starting with professional services because that will give us the human-in-the-loop required to create the world's first-ever agentic timesheet. The average knowledge worker works 9 hours a day, but only adds leverage for 3. That is 3 hours a day we're doing work that should be done by agents, and 3 hours a day we're doing work that nobody should do. That is our opportunity set – 6.4 billion years currently being spent by knowledge workers on tasks humans no longer need to do. That is our opportunity.' About Laurel Laurel is the world's first AI Time platform for professional services firms. The company's AI transforms how organizations track, analyze, describe, and optimize their most valuable resource: time. By automating work time and connecting time data to business outcomes, Laurel enables firms to increase profitability, improve client delivery, and make data-driven strategic decisions. Founded in 2018, Laurel serves many of the world's largest accounting, consulting and law firms. For more information, visit About IVP IVP supercharges growth in breakout companies, converting momentum into market dominance. One of the original venture firms on Sand Hill Road, IVP partners with companies that define their eras—from Slack, Crowdstrike and Coinbase to Perplexity, Abridge, Glean and Chainguard—before the world truly appreciated them. Each year, IVP invests in just a dozen breakout founders ready to scale from millions to hundreds of millions in revenue and expand from one market to many. We've guided market leaders through cycles and storms, unlocking pivotal growth by activating the right expertise at the moments founders need it. With 130+ IPOs out of 400 investments, IVP helps ambitious founders defy limits, command industries and cement their place at the top.
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry
IVP leads and GV joins Series C as Laurel reshapes how professional services firms keep time and optimize work using AI SAN FRANCISCO, June 10, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Laurel, the world's first AI Time platform, today announced it has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by IVP, with participation from GV (Google Ventures). Laurel will leverage this investment to scale its AI time platform and accelerate to solve what it calls the "time intelligence challenge"—the inability for knowledge industries to accurately map time to business outcomes. In the age of AI, quantifying and understanding human capital goes from a "nice to have" to a "cannot exist without" for enterprises. In addition to IVP and GV, new investors in the round, which consists of primary and secondary funding, also include: 01.a (created by former CEO and COO of Twitter & CRO of Facebook), DST Global, Kevin Weil (CPO @ OpenAI), Alexis Ohanian, Vladimir Fedorov (CTO @ GitHub), Arash Ferdowsi (co-founder of Dropbox), and Hans Tung. These investors join returning investors ACME, Anthos, Gokul Rajaram, AIX Ventures, and Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures. The funding comes as Laurel experiences rapid adoption among enterprise professional services firms like Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, Freshfields, and Crowell & Moring. Over the last 12 months, Laurel grew ARR +300% at double-digit scale, increased usage by +500%, and works with +100 of the top legal, accounting, and consulting firms across US, UK, EU, Australia, and Canada. Laurel's AI Time platform, now leveraged by hundreds of the world's top enterprise professional service firms, uses AI to automatically categorize, describe, and analyze how professionals spend their time on admin work. The platform's ability to connect time data with business outcomes has proven transformative for firms looking to maximize profits, allocate their resources effectively, and understand exactly what workflows to apply AI to and what agents to automate. Customers using the company's AI-native time platform report profit increases between 4-11%—driven by an additional 28 billable minutes per day per professional, and increased realization of 1-4%. Laurel's ROI methodology has been independently audited and validated by a Big-4 Firm. The platform currently processes over $5B in gross market value for its customers, and +$360M of that amount is net-new value attributable to Laurel. In addition, Laurel saves its professionals up to 80% in time recording, freeing them to work on high-leverage work. "Laurel uniquely delivers value across lawyers, clients, finance, and marketing by streamlining time capture, enriching narratives, and accelerating accurate billing," says David Cunningham, Chief Innovation Officer at global law firm Reed Smith. "As firms assess the impact of AI and fixed fees, gaining granular intelligence with less effort is essential to redefining value within a firm and for its clients." "I've seen first-hand how Laurel can transform our approach to time intelligence. What used to be a manual process of time-keeping and entry is now significantly technology enabled," says Matt Newnes, Partner and Tax Transformation leader at Ernst & Young. "Laurel doesn't just help our people to capture time that they spend on work more comprehensively; it helps us to understand much more about how our teams work allowing us to identify best practices to help ensure we always drive the best outcomes for our clients. It has proven to be one of our most impactful AI investments, delivering measurable results while laying the foundation for broader transformation initiatives." Automating time is Laurel's first step. Laurel's AI platform turns its proprietary data around work and time to address the #1 business problem impacting knowledge industries: operating without visibility into their supply chain. "Nobody has ever mapped the input of time to the output of outcomes. Industries like legal and accounting are best at understanding their input (time), but still struggle to price value. On the flip side, industries like consulting and financial services understand value, but operate blind to the true cost of creation. While all other industries have been obsessed about optimizing their supply chain, the supply chain of knowledge work—which represents over 50% of Global GDP—has never been surfaced. This funding helps us solve this fundamental challenge while giving firms the data foundation they need to deploy AI strategically. We're not just automating time—we're creating the time intelligence layer that will transform how all knowledge industries operate," says Ryan Alshak, founder and CEO of Laurel. "Laurel has identified one of the largest efficiency gaps in the modern economy, one I understand deeply as a former CFO of a public company. Professional services represent trillions in global economic activity, yet these firms operate without basic visibility into their core resource – time. By solving the time intelligence challenge, Laurel creates a platform for broader AI transformation. As these industries invest heavily in AI over the next five years, Laurel's data foundation becomes essential infrastructure that truly tracks the ROI of AI. The market opportunity is massive, and Laurel's unique position makes them the clear leader in this space," says Ajay Vashee, General Partner at IVP. "Laurel is creating the enterprise intelligence layer for knowledge work that leverages timekeeping as a product wedge," said Frederique Dame, General Partner at GV. "By capturing and organizing the full lifecycle of how professionals spend their time, Laurel unlocks a new class of data that makes work itself measurable, optimizable, and automatable. The goal isn't just better time tracking, it's building the data foundation for AI-powered workflows, predictive resourcing, and strategic insights." Transforming How Knowledge Industries Understand and Optimize Work While manufacturing companies know exactly how much it costs to produce a car down to the penny, and retail businesses track inventory with precision, professional services firms have historically operated without understanding their most critical resource: human capital. Both the outcomes of the work itself and the time it takes to produce it. As a result, organizations are operating blind on what the biggest impact for AI is across their companies, and how to point people to highest value tasks (like Business Development, Relationship Management, and first principles strategic thinking). As knowledge industries plan to spend over $1 trillion on AI in the next five years, Laurel's time intelligence platform ensures these investments target the highest-impact opportunities. Key customer results include: Average recovery of 28+ billable minutes per professional per day 4-11% increase in overall firm profitability 80%+ reduction in time spent on manual time entry Real-time visibility into project profitability and resource utilization "While Laurel is unique in that it is AI that generates profits, the reason everyone at Laurel cares so much about solving this problem is because people waste so much time at work, and the only way to solve this at scale is to deeply understand where that time is going," says Alshak. "And we're starting with professional services because that will give us the human-in-the-loop required to create the world's first-ever agentic timesheet. The average knowledge worker works 9 hours a day, but only adds leverage for 3. That is 3 hours a day we're doing work that should be done by agents, and 3 hours a day we're doing work that nobody should do. That is our opportunity set – 6.4 billion years currently being spent by knowledge workers on tasks humans no longer need to do. That is our opportunity." About Laurel Laurel is the world's first AI Time platform for professional services firms. The company's AI transforms how organizations track, analyze, describe, and optimize their most valuable resource: time. By automating work time and connecting time data to business outcomes, Laurel enables firms to increase profitability, improve client delivery, and make data-driven strategic decisions. Founded in 2018, Laurel serves many of the world's largest accounting, consulting and law firms. For more information, visit About IVP IVP supercharges growth in breakout companies, converting momentum into market dominance. One of the original venture firms on Sand Hill Road, IVP partners with companies that define their eras—from Slack, Crowdstrike and Coinbase to Perplexity, Abridge, Glean and Chainguard—before the world truly appreciated them. Each year, IVP invests in just a dozen breakout founders ready to scale from millions to hundreds of millions in revenue and expand from one market to many. We've guided market leaders through cycles and storms, unlocking pivotal growth by activating the right expertise at the moments founders need it. With 130+ IPOs out of 400 investments, IVP helps ambitious founders defy limits, command industries and cement their place at the top. View source version on Contacts Media Contact: Alexa Guerra, Head of Marketing | marketing@ Sign in to access your portfolio
