Latest news with #Arc
Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
I Raised $150M With No Banker. What It Taught Me About Private Credit
Inefficient offline workflows destroying value for private market investors Good times are rolling in private credit. But try raising $150 million without a banker and you'll see just how broken the process still is. That was me. No advisor. No placement agent. Just a thesis, a spreadsheet trail, and a team crazy enough to take it on. What started as a founder-led fundraise turned into a case study in inefficiency. Weekslong gaps. Duplicate diligence requests. Disconnected timelines. It wasn't just painful—it was telling. Despite clean data and operator experience, the system buckled under its own weight. What should've been a streamlined capital deployment became a fragmented slog. And it drove one thing home: The private markets aren't short on capital. They're short on Process Is Broken Private credit isn't slowing down. Global AUM crossed $1.7 trillion in 2024 and is on pace to hit $2.8 trillion by 2028, according to Preqin. It's grown into a cornerstone of capital formation—across software, infrastructure, services, and beyond. But the tech stack hasn't kept up. Before founding Arc, I was on the other side—sitting on deal teams at a multi-billion dollar PE fund. Whether the check size was $50 million or $2 billion, it was always the same: three people, same templates, same war room drama. It worked—until it didn't. When I became a borrower, the inefficiencies were even more stark. Everything was offline, redundant, and painfully manual. I'd send over polished data rooms and still get follow-up requests asking for the same numbers in a different format. We'd tick and tie the same metrics across half a dozen spreadsheets—then walk through it all again on a diligence call. The back and forth was endless. And none of it made the underwriting smarter. It just made it slower. That's not just annoying. It's a fundamental the AI-Native Deal Team This model is finally starting to crack. We're seeing the rise of AI-native deal teams—leaner, faster, and infinitely more scalable. No headcount arms race. No marathon in data rooms. Just AI-powered execution. And in an increasingly competitive private credit market, speed and efficiency has never been more important. At Arc, we built infrastructure designed for this reality. Our system reads Excel models, calculates leverage, maps covenants, and flags inconsistencies—with ~3x the precision of general-purpose LLMs. No hallucinations. No skipped steps. Just auditable, compounding intelligence. It's the system I wish I had when I was in the bullpen—and what I desperately needed when raising. And now, a $10M deal and a $500M deal run on the same rails. Analysts focus on insights. Lenders get signal, not noise. Capital moves faster. Everyone Analyst, Reimagined This isn't just a workflow upgrade. It's a role redefinition. In the AI-native stack, analysts aren't note-takers. They're systems operators. The best ones today aren't necessarily ex-Ivy bankers. They're people who know how to translate messy data into clean judgment. Less clipboard. More command center. We've seen one great analyst, equipped with the right tools, outperform an entire deal team. They're not just working faster—they're delivering alpha. They're upstream of the Smart Firms Are Doing Now The most forward-thinking funds aren't talking about this. They're already doing it. Diligence cycles compressed from three weeks to three days. Post-close monitoring that flags borrower stress before it hits the financials. Less time spent spreading financials. More time spent structuring deals. And they're not overengineering it. They're deploying infrastructure that works. They're treating analysts like multipliers, not expense lines. They see data as a compounding asset, not a static Infrastructure Era My fundraise wasn't fun. But it was revealing. The friction wasn't a fluke. It was systemic. Private markets are sitting on trillions in dry powder—but they're bottlenecked by brittle workflows, disconnected systems, and diligence cycles stuck in 2012. The winners of this next chapter won't be defined by AUM. They'll be defined by how quickly and intelligently they move capital. This is the infrastructure era—and it's just getting started. At Arc, we're not just watching the shift happen. We're building the rails. We built Arc Capital Markets to address both sides of this problem: it's now the largest B2B debt marketplace for middle-market companies, giving borrowers a faster, more transparent way to access capital. And on the other side, we developed agentic AI systems to help private credit funds and banks underwrite with precision—so they can scale volume without sacrificing quality. It's the future of private markets—and it's already in motion.
Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Enable's half-sister disqualified after testing positive for ketamine traced to staff member
A female groom employed by John and Thady Gosden admitted using the drug three times a week when not at work in a case attributed to cross contamination A half-sister to dual Arc winner Enable has had her sole victory rubbed out after she tested positive for the recreational drug ketamine. Zilfee, trained by John & Thady Gosden and owned by Juddmonte, shares the same mother, Concentric, as the great Enable. Under Frankie Dettori, Enable earned more than £10 million, winning 11 Group 1 races including the Oaks, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes three times, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe twice, the Breeders' Cup Turf and Eclipse Stakes. Zilfee made her only start at Kempton in June 2024, winning a 1m4f maiden by a short head. The four-year-old filly has not raced since. However a post-race urine sample revealed the presence of ketamine, a prohibited substance on race day. Another sample taken from stablemate Morrophore after she finished sixth in a maiden at Yarmouth in July last year also gave an adverse finding for the drug. Subsequent out of competition hair samples taken from both horses in July demonstrated 'likely multiple low level exposures to ketamine over many months' in Zilfee's case and 'prolonged exposure' in respect of Morrophore, according to a BHA independent disciplinary panel report. The full details emerged after a BHA inspection of the Gosdens' stables in Newmarket in August found traces of ketamine in hair samples from four other horses. Morrophore's groom and work rider, employed at the yard between October 2023 and August 2024, admitted recreational ketamine use 'approximately three times a week", the report said. She did not look after Zilfee but that filly's groom had borrowed a kit bag used by Morrophore's handler to take her to the races at Kempton. The panel's report said the stable worker 'denied any direct administration of ketamine and believed that there was cross contamination as a result of not always washing her hands before coming to work'. She admitted that she had been taken through the induction procedure including the stable's substance misuse policy which highlighted the need to avoid cross contamination. The Gosdens both admitted breaches of the rules of racing though it was accepted they had no knowledge of the drug use in a yard and reasonable precautions were taken. A random drug and alcohol testing regime of staff has since been implemented at the yard. Panel chair Fiona Horlick KC imposed a £3,000 fine and ordered the disqualification of both horses.
Mint
5 days ago
- Mint
Lumio Arc 7 projector: The home theater on the go you've been looking for?
Tushar Kanwar Lumio's Arc 7 Projector is here to bring order to the chaotic world of budget projectors The projector is portable enough to move from room to room or be carried along on vacations Gift this article Picking a reasonably-priced home projector in India hasn't been easy—you're either paying big bucks for the big brands, or scouring through a glut of low-cost, white-label imports with ageing software and a non-existent support setup. Ergo, many consumers forgo the big-screen, take-anywhere experience in favour of smaller-screened TVs. Picking a reasonably-priced home projector in India hasn't been easy—you're either paying big bucks for the big brands, or scouring through a glut of low-cost, white-label imports with ageing software and a non-existent support setup. Ergo, many consumers forgo the big-screen, take-anywhere experience in favour of smaller-screened TVs. After impressing with their snappy as heck Vision TV lineup, Lumio is back with the Arc series of home media projectors, packed with a refined set of features at a compelling price point, but is it enough to bring order to the wild west of the affordable projector market? The Arc 7 ( ₹ 34,999) I have for review is the larger and more equipped of the two 1080p projectors in the portfolio, the other being the Arc 5 ( ₹ 19,999)—the Arc 7 gets brighter at 400 ANSI lumens (vs the 5's 200) and gets the louder dual 8-watt audio speakers with a massive passive radiator. The Arc series are designed in Bengaluru by Lumio and manufactured in Daman & Diu, so there's that going for the range. Design and build Pulling the projector out of its compact box, you'll notice two things pretty quickly. First, the Arc 7 looks rather well put together, with a sleek vertical design that takes up less space on a headboard or side table than a traditional horizontal form factor projector. Weighing in at 2.36kg, you could even call the Arc 7 'portable" enough to move from room to room or be carried along on vacations, although it does need to be plugged into a power source for operation. A built-in carry handle would have been a nice touch too, given that grabbing the device to carry it around leaves an array of fingerprints all over the matte finish body. The other thing you immediately cotton onto is the small considerations made to the design to allow for a multitude of usage scenarios—starting with the sassily labelled 'UnderStand" kickstand which gives the Arc 7 an upward tilt towards a screen or an empty wall, to a standard screw-type tripod mount on the bottom for ceiling mounting or hoisting atop a stable projector. As long as you're not way off center, the trapezoidal recalibration adjusts the image automatically using the dedicated Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor to measure the distance to the wall/screen and the projection angle. Anytime you move the projector, the autofocus and auto-keystone correction kicks in, ensuring that the image is recalibrated for the new position, and there's even an obstacle avoidance feature, which detects obstructions like switchboards or photo frames and downsizes the image to avoid projecting on top of them. Understandably, most of us might not have a 100-inch wall to spare, so an external screen comes highly recommended if you want to make the most of the setup. Just keep in mind that while Lumio has sealed off the lens to prevent dust from settling on the optical element, the external lens surface will gather dust—a lens cover, however simple, should have been included in the box, Lumio. Setup and control Setting up the Arc 7 is pretty much just a matter of plugging it in, finding a wall and switching it on, and the rest is akin to setting up any Google TV television, as the Arc 7 comes with Google TV on board, with official Netflix certification, no less. There's just the single button on the projector body, and the rest of the controls—including finetuning focusing around the corners occasionally, adjusting brightness etc—are via the Minion remote, with hotkeys for Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube and Lumio's own TLDR sports and music curation app. No backlight on the remote, though. Aside from WiFi and Bluetooth, you can connect the projector to your soundbar or home theater system via Dolby Atmos passthrough via the HDMI ARC port or via a 3.5mm headphone jack, and there's provision to Google Cast your music directly to the projector and have the video projection switch off for audio-only consumption. Performance So, what does the ₹ 34,999 outlay get you with the Arc 7? This is a Full HD 1080p (1920×1080) resolution, with 400ANSI lumens brightness as measured on the screen (not at source) and HDR (HDR10 and HLG) support. What this translates to is an edge-to-edge sharp, vibrant image across a sizable 100-inch canvas (from about 9 feet away) that's bright enough for a room with some amount of ambient light. Dim the lights, switch to some HDR content, with the higher contrast levels and richer colors, and the Arc 7 shows off what it can do, with none of those tinting issues that plague HDR content on budget projectors. There's a unique pleasure in watching cinematic experiences such as Top Gun: Maverick on a larger-than-life screen, and I'm here for sensibly priced offerings that bring big-screen entertainment to the masses. And while the brand suggests that a plain white wall would suffice, get that 120-inch 16:9-aspect ratio pull-down screen, you won't regret it. The Dolby Audio speaker setup is loud enough for a medium sized room, allowing you to carry the Arc 7 for meetings or vacations and not need a Bluetooth speaker for most content consumption. No 120Hz support, and while the Full HD resolution will work for most at this price point, I'm hoping for a competitively priced Lumio Arc (maybe a Lumio Arc 9?) somewhere in the future that offers a strong 4K projection experience. The best part is that since it runs the Google TV platform natively and not a retrofitted version of Android, there's no issues with app compatibility, including full HD/HDR playback on Netflix, a rarity in most budget picks. Coming off the brand's Vision TVs, the Arc 7 doesn't feel quite as hyper-snappy—to be fair, neither does it claim projector speed records like the TVs do, but it does seem to have ensured there are no rough edges to the software experience. Verdict For its price, particularly if you can avail the introductory offers that bring the overall price down to ₹ 29,999, the Lumio Arc 7 checks off a few boxes solidly—a refined software experience including a bunch of automatic setup adjustments, good audio and a strong plug-and-play home media setup, backed by a network of 200+ service centers—all of which will undoubtedly encourage folks to take the plunge…or at least consider this strongly against an anchored-in-place 42-inch smart television. Also Read | The hottest sneakers of 2025 Topics You May Be Interested In
Mint
5 days ago
- Mint
Lumio Arc 7 projector: The home theatre on the go you've been looking for?
Picking a reasonably-priced home projector in India hasn't been easy—you're either paying big bucks for the big brands, or scouring through a glut of low-cost, white-label imports with ageing software and a non-existent support setup. Ergo, many consumers forgo the big-screen, take-anywhere experience in favour of smaller-screened TVs. After impressing with their snappy as heck Vision TV lineup, Lumio is back with the Arc series of home media projectors, packed with a refined set of features at a compelling price point, but is it enough to bring order to the wild west of the affordable projector market? The Arc 7 ( ₹34,999) I have for review is the larger and more equipped of the two 1080p projectors in the portfolio, the other being the Arc 5 ( ₹19,999)—the Arc 7 gets brighter at 400 ANSI lumens (vs the 5's 200) and gets the louder dual 8-watt audio speakers with a massive passive radiator. The Arc series are designed in Bengaluru by Lumio and manufactured in Daman & Diu, so there's that going for the range. Design and build Pulling the projector out of its compact box, you'll notice two things pretty quickly. First, the Arc 7 looks rather well put together, with a sleek vertical design that takes up less space on a headboard or side table than a traditional horizontal form factor projector. Weighing in at 2.36kg, you could even call the Arc 7 'portable" enough to move from room to room or be carried along on vacations, although it does need to be plugged into a power source for operation. A built-in carry handle would have been a nice touch too, given that grabbing the device to carry it around leaves an array of fingerprints all over the matte finish body. The other thing you immediately cotton onto is the small considerations made to the design to allow for a multitude of usage scenarios—starting with the sassily labelled 'UnderStand" kickstand which gives the Arc 7 an upward tilt towards a screen or an empty wall, to a standard screw-type tripod mount on the bottom for ceiling mounting or hoisting atop a stable projector. As long as you're not way off center, the trapezoidal recalibration adjusts the image automatically using the dedicated Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor to measure the distance to the wall/screen and the projection angle. Anytime you move the projector, the autofocus and auto-keystone correction kicks in, ensuring that the image is recalibrated for the new position, and there's even an obstacle avoidance feature, which detects obstructions like switchboards or photo frames and downsizes the image to avoid projecting on top of them. Understandably, most of us might not have a 100-inch wall to spare, so an external screen comes highly recommended if you want to make the most of the setup. Just keep in mind that while Lumio has sealed off the lens to prevent dust from settling on the optical element, the external lens surface will gather dust—a lens cover, however simple, should have been included in the box, Lumio. Setup and control Setting up the Arc 7 is pretty much just a matter of plugging it in, finding a wall and switching it on, and the rest is akin to setting up any Google TV television, as the Arc 7 comes with Google TV on board, with official Netflix certification, no less. There's just the single button on the projector body, and the rest of the controls—including finetuning focusing around the corners occasionally, adjusting brightness etc—are via the Minion remote, with hotkeys for Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube and Lumio's own TLDR sports and music curation app. No backlight on the remote, though. Aside from WiFi and Bluetooth, you can connect the projector to your soundbar or home theater system via Dolby Atmos passthrough via the HDMI ARC port or via a 3.5mm headphone jack, and there's provision to Google Cast your music directly to the projector and have the video projection switch off for audio-only consumption. Performance So, what does the ₹34,999 outlay get you with the Arc 7? This is a Full HD 1080p (1920×1080) resolution, with 400ANSI lumens brightness as measured on the screen (not at source) and HDR (HDR10 and HLG) support. What this translates to is an edge-to-edge sharp, vibrant image across a sizable 100-inch canvas (from about 9 feet away) that's bright enough for a room with some amount of ambient light. Dim the lights, switch to some HDR content, with the higher contrast levels and richer colors, and the Arc 7 shows off what it can do, with none of those tinting issues that plague HDR content on budget projectors. There's a unique pleasure in watching cinematic experiences such as Top Gun: Maverick on a larger-than-life screen, and I'm here for sensibly priced offerings that bring big-screen entertainment to the masses. And while the brand suggests that a plain white wall would suffice, get that 120-inch 16:9-aspect ratio pull-down screen, you won't regret it. The Dolby Audio speaker setup is loud enough for a medium sized room, allowing you to carry the Arc 7 for meetings or vacations and not need a Bluetooth speaker for most content consumption. No 120Hz support, and while the Full HD resolution will work for most at this price point, I'm hoping for a competitively priced Lumio Arc (maybe a Lumio Arc 9?) somewhere in the future that offers a strong 4K projection experience. The best part is that since it runs the Google TV platform natively and not a retrofitted version of Android, there's no issues with app compatibility, including full HD/HDR playback on Netflix, a rarity in most budget picks. Coming off the brand's Vision TVs, the Arc 7 doesn't feel quite as hyper-snappy—to be fair, neither does it claim projector speed records like the TVs do, but it does seem to have ensured there are no rough edges to the software experience. Verdict For its price, particularly if you can avail the introductory offers that bring the overall price down to ₹29,999, the Lumio Arc 7 checks off a few boxes solidly—a refined software experience including a bunch of automatic setup adjustments, good audio and a strong plug-and-play home media setup, backed by a network of 200+ service centers—all of which will undoubtedly encourage folks to take the plunge…or at least consider this strongly against an anchored-in-place 42-inch smart television.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
As the browser wars heat up, here are the hottest alternatives to Chrome and Safari in 2025
Google Chrome and Apple's Safari currently dominate the web browser market, with Chrome holding a significant share due to the tech giant's ongoing innovations, particularly in integrating generative AI into its search functionalities. However, users seeking alternatives will find a variety of browsers aiming to challenge these industry giants. To help navigate the competitive landscape of the browser wars, we've compiled an overview of some of the top alternative browsers available today. This includes browsers leveraging AI, open-source browsers that promote customization and privacy, and 'mindful browsers'—a new term that refers to browsers designed to enhance user well-being. Perplexity is the most recent startup in the space to launch an AI-powered web browser. Called Comet, the company's new product acts as a chatbot-based search engine, and can perform actions like summarizing emails, browsing web pages, and performing tasks such as sending calendar invites. It's currently only available to users with Perplexity's $200/month Max plan, but there's also a waitlist where people can sign up. The Browser Company, the startup behind the Arc browser, recently introduced Dia, its AI-centric browser that looks similar to Google Chrome but with an AI chat tool. Currently available as an invite-only beta, Dia is designed to help users navigate the web more easily. It's able to look at every website that a user has visited and every website they're logged into, enabling it to help you find information and perform tasks. For instance, Dia can provide information about the page a user is currently browsing, answer questions about a product, and summarize uploaded files. To get early access to Dia, users have to be an Arc member. Non-members can join the waitlist. Another recent entry into the AI agentic browser war is Opera's Neon, which has contextual awareness and can do things like researching, shopping, and writing snippets of code. Notably, it can even perform tasks while the user is offline. Neon has yet to become available, but people can join the waitlist. It will be a subscription product; however, Opera hasn't announced pricing yet. According to Reuters, OpenAI may also be releasing an AI-powered web browser as soon as July. The browser is reported to operate inside ChatGPT, letting users browse websites inside the chatbot instead of directing to outside links. Brave is among the more well-known privacy-first browsers, popular for its built-in ad and tracker blocking capabilities. It also has a gamified approach to browsing, rewarding users with its own cryptocurrency called Basic Attention Token (BAT). When users choose to opt in to view ads, supporting their favorite websites, they get a share of the ad revenue. Additional features include a VPN service, an AI assistant, and a video calling feature. DuckDuckGo is another browser that many people are probably already familiar with, thanks to its search engine by the same name. Launched in 2008, the company recently made significant investments in its browser to stay competitive by introducing generative AI features, such as a chatbot. It also enhanced its scam blocker to detect a wider range of scams, including fake cryptocurrency exchanges, scareware tactics, and fraudulent e-commerce websites. In addition to blocking scams, DuckDuckGo prevents trackers and ads, and it doesn't track user data, resulting in fewer pop-ups for users. Ladybird, led by GitHub co-founder and former CEO Chris Wanstrath, has an ambitious mission compared to other rivals: it aims to build an entirely new open-source browser from scratch. This means it will not rely on code from existing browsers, a feat that has rarely been accomplished. Most alternative web browsers depend on the Chromium open-source project maintained by Google, which is the most widely used base for many browsers. Like other privacy-focused browsers, Ladybird will offer features to minimize data collection, such as a built-in ad blocker and the ability to block third-party cookies. The browser has yet to be launched, with an alpha version scheduled for release in 2026 for early adopters, available on Linux and macOS. Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser created by one of the original developers of the Opera browser. Its biggest selling point is its customizable user interface, which allows users to change the appearance and enable or disable features. One unique feature is that the browser window changes color to match the website being viewed. Other key features include ad blocking, a password manager, no user data tracking, and productivity tools such as a calendar and notes. Opera launched the Air browser in February, becoming one of the first mindfulness-themed browsers in the space. While Opera Air functions like a typical web browser, it includes unique features designed to support mental well-being. These features consist of break reminders and breathing exercises. Another feature, called 'Boosts,' provides a selection of binaural beats to either help improve focus or relaxation. SigmaOS is a Mac-only browser featuring a workspace-style interface that emphasizes productivity. It displays tabs vertically, allowing users to treat them like a to-do list that can be marked as complete or snoozed for later. Users can create workspaces—essentially groups of tabs—to better organize different activities, such as separating work from entertainment. This Y Combinator-backed browser has been around for a few years now and has most recently begun introducing more AI features, including the ability to summarize various elements of a web page, such as ratings, reviews, and prices. It also has an AI assistant that can answer questions, translate text, and rewrite content. SigmaOS is free to use, but users who want more than three workspaces can subscribe to a plan for $8 per month, which provides unlimited workspaces. Zen Browser aims to create a 'calmer internet' with its open-source browser. Zen lets users organize tabs into Workspaces, offers Split View to view two tabs side by side, among other productivity-focused features. Users can also enhance their browsing experience with community-made plugins and themes, such as a mod that makes the tab background transparent.
