
Vista: European Investors Excited About US Opportunities
Vista Equity Partners Endeavor Fund Co-Head Rachel Arnold says "there is a lot of excitement around AI globally," with more focus on the innovation side of things rather than the "geographic focus" of the businesses. "I'm seeing European investors still being very excited about the opportunity to invest," Arnold tells Bloomberg's Kriti Gupta. They speak from the sidelines of the SuperReturn conference in Berlin. (Source: Bloomberg)
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Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Week in Review: Why Anthropic cut access to Windsurf
Welcome back to Week in Review! Got lots for you today, including why Windsurf lost access to Claude, ChatGPT's new features, WWDC 2025, Elon Musk's fight with Donald Trump, and lots more. Have a great weekend! Duh: During an interview at TC Sessions: AI 2025, Anthropic's co-founder had a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the company cut access to Windsurf: 'I think it would be odd for us to be selling Claude to OpenAI,' Chief Science Officer Jared Kaplan said, referring to rumors and reports that OpenAI, its largest competitor, is acquiring the AI coding assistant. Seems like a good reason to me! Everything is the same: Chinese lab DeepSeek released an updated version of its R1 reasoning AI model last week that performs well on a number of math and coding benchmarks. Now some AI researchers are speculating that at least some of the source data it trained on came from Google's Gemini family of AI. WWDC 2025: Apple's annual developers conference starts Monday. Beyond a newly designed operating system, here's what we're expecting to see at this year's event, including a dedicated gaming app and updates to Mac, Watch, TV, and more. This is TechCrunch's Week in Review, where we recap the week's biggest news. Want this delivered as a newsletter to your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Business in the front: ChatGPT is getting new features for business users, including connectors for Dropbox, Box, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Google Drive. This would let ChatGPT look for information across your own services to answer questions. Oh no: Indian grocery delivery startup KiranaPro was hacked, and all of its data was wiped. According to the company, it has 55,000 customers, with 30,000 to 35,000 active buyers across 50 cities, who collectively place 2,000 orders daily. Artsy people, rejoice! Photoshop is now coming to Android, so users of Google's operating system can gussy up their images, too. The app has a similar set of editing tools as the desktop version, including layering and masking. Let's try that again: Tesla filed new trademark applications for "Tesla Robotaxi" after previous attempts to trademark the terms 'Robotaxi' and 'Cybercab" failed. Rolling in dough: Tech startup Anduril just picked up a $1 billion investment as part of a new $2.5 billion raise led by Founders Fund, which means Anduril has doubled its valuation to $30.5 billion. On the road again: When Toma's founders realized car dealerships were drowning in missed calls, they hit the road to see the problem firsthand. That summer road trip turned into a $17 million a16z-backed fundraise that helped Toma get its AI phone agents into more than 100 dealerships across the U.S. Fighting season: All gloves were off on Thursday as Elon Musk and President Trump took to their respective social networks to throw jabs at each other. Though it might be exciting to watch rich men squabble in public, the fallout between the world's richest person and a sitting U.S. president promises to have broader implications for the tech industry. Money talks: Whether you use AI as a friend, a therapist, or even a girlfriend, chatbots are trained to keep you talking. For Big Tech companies, it's never been more competitive to attract users to their chatbot platforms — and keep them there. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at


Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
ECB Is in Good Position on Rates, Lagarde Tells Monaco Info
The latest interest-rate moves primes the European Central Bank to meet its medium-term inflation goal, President Christine Lagarde told television station Monaco Info. 'We think we have really reached a good position,' she said in an interview broadcast Saturday, adding that the latest olicy decision was 'well calibrated.'

Travel Weekly
an hour ago
- Travel Weekly
Cruise guests increasingly seek private, premier shore excursions
Amid record-high spending for onboard and shoreside experiences since the pandemic, demand for premier and private shore excursions has reached new heights. Guests are increasingly seeking to spend time on land in a comfortable setting with only their immediate travel companions. That often means a private car rather than a tour bus and an itinerary tailored to their particular needs and cravings. Shore Excursions Group CEO Paul Kiritsy said that trend is growing in Europe in particular. It doesn't matter the ship size or whether it's contemporary or luxury, said Rinat Glinert of Venture Ashore, another third-party shore excursion provider. But there are two groups she's noticed who are particularly drawn to private experiences: travelers with accessibility challenges and families. Those groups find the convenience of a private driver and a tailored itinerary to be worth the extra expense, Glinert said. Tim Harwood, owner of MyExcursions, which specializes in higher-end, personalized experiences, said last year was the company's best ever. "A lot of people are still just looking for the personal experience to cover some of the main sites, but they don't want to step on a coach or they may be a little less mobile, and they want to have that comfort of knowing they can proceed at their own pace," he said. Cruise lines are seeing similar shore excursion trends. Christine Manjencic, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings' vice president of destination services operations, said the company has noticed a shift over the past few years in its guests' shore excursion patterns. "We are seeing them interested in small-group tours and more immersive excursions such as Go Local experiences where they can truly dive into the culture and history of the destination they are visiting," she said. "Our classic shore excursions where guests can see highlights of the destination with a large group are still popular among first-time visitors, but we are also seeing an increase in guests who prefer a more intimate and exclusive experience that enables them to get that perfect picture for their social media." Cruise excursions with culinary elements are popular, such as this visit to a vineyard in France. Photo Credit: Venture Ashore Culinary tours in high demand One particular type of experience appears to be gaining popularity: anything related to food. Whether it's cooking classes or a stop at a restaurant with a particularly scenic vista, guests are looking to taste the flavor of a destination on their brief stop off of the ship, said Glinert of Venture Ashore and Harwood of MyExcursions. "I think that's one of the things that really connects you to a destination," Glinert said. "You have those core memories of something that you did that was speaking to more than just your sense of sight, so I think there's a lot there that's building in the culinary space. We've got requests for people who want to go truffle hunting. All kinds of stuff." Guests spending more on excursions The interest in more premium excursions, and excursions overall, coincides with continued increased spending. Sometimes guests spend more on excursions than the cruise itself, Glinert said. "They're really looking for something that is going to elevate their cruise experience, and they're willing to pay for that," she said. Shore Excursions Group, which recently sold its 5 millionth tour, has seen the average order value increase by nearly 40% since the pandemic, Kiritsy said. The company pays commissions and has tracked an increase in travel advisor sales after integrating its own marketing into popular booking platforms advisors use like Odysseus, Revelex and VacationPort. The group's sales are up 50% from such platforms, thanks to a 200% increase in advisors activating Shore Excursions Group offers, Kiritsy said. All of this means excursions are selling out more quickly and bookings are happening earlier, Kiritsy said. For Caribbean excursions, guests are booking an average of 10 weeks prior to sailing, and in destinations like Alaska and Europe, it's 14 weeks prior, he said. In Europe, new restrictions on vehicle sizes for accessing certain sites have also caused excursions to book up because they simply can't accommodate as many people as they previously could, Glinert said. Shore Excursions Group is suggesting that advisors book excursions early to ensure clients have the experiences they want, Kiritsy said. "Once the cruise is booked and you know where you're going, we definitely recommend securing the excursions," he said. "They definitely will sell out, and you don't want to miss out on the best excursions in each of those ports."