Latest news with #Truell
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Anysphere secures $900m funding
Anysphere, the developer of AI coding assistant Cursor, has closed a $900m funding round. Thrive Capital, an OpenAI backer, led the investment. The funding will primarily be used for research and development, focusing on enhancing Anysphere's AI models. Additionally, the company plans to expand its team, which has grown from 60 to more than 100 employees since April 2025. The funding round saw participation from several institutional investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and DST Global. With this investment, Bloomberg reports that Anysphere's valuation has reached $9.9bn, nearly quadrupling since its previous funding round in December 2024. This marks Anysphere's third fundraising event in less than a year. Founded in 2023, Anysphere's Cursor features an AI-powered code editor that analyses programmer actions and suggests additional code lines. It also includes a chatbot for code-related queries. The service operates on a subscription model, offering individual and business accounts at $20 and $40, respectively. Anysphere's revenue is largely driven by these subscriptions. However, the company has recently intensified its enterprise sales efforts, resulting in businesses becoming a significant portion of its revenue. Anysphere CEO Michael Truell noted that more than half of Fortune 500 companies now utilise Cursor, reported the media outlet. Truell stated, "I think a lot of the excitement comes from the value that this tech is giving to developers." Cursor has been integrated into daily routines at companies such as OpenAI, Spotify Technology, Major League Baseball, and Instacart. More than one million people use Cursor daily, according to Anysphere, according to the report. CNBC reported in April 2025 that OpenAI had expressed interest in Anysphere last year. "Anysphere secures $900m funding" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Brown, Truell receive huge awards in front of senior class
BLOOMINGDALE, Ga. (WSAV) — New Hampstead seniors Rashawn Truell and Gianna Brown recieved presitgeous awards for the athletic achievements in front of their senior class on Wednesday. Truell was presented with the 2025 Ashley Dearing Award. Truell also took home the Michael Finocchiaro Award. Truell had an amazing senior football season. He led the entire state of Georgia in passing yards for all classifications. He also set the single-game passing record with 635 yards against Perry on Sept. 28, 2024. 'I think I put a mark on the school,' Truell said. 'I think Gianna and I put a mark on a school to show that we have a lot of athletes out here that might get overlooked from being all the way out here in Bloomingdale and not in the city or at a private school. So I think we just shed light on that. I think it's great. I think it's great for the community of Bloomingdale. 'I think when you're talented and you should be recognized regardless,' Truell said. Like I said I think we show that year in and year out that talent is talent. You can't faze it. No matter what you are. You can't beat talent.' The Ashley Dearing award is presented to the most versatile athlete in Savannah. To win this award, the athlete must play football, basketball and a spring sport. Gianna Brown took home the Hollis Stacy award for the second consecutive year. It's only the sixth time a player has won the award in back-to-back years. The last player to achieve the honor won it three straight years: Islands alum Veronica Sierzant from 2021 to 2023. 'It means a lot,' Brown said. 'I know I worked hard for this and I put in the effort in and out of school, and I play on club teams for multiple sports. And I know I just worked hard and everything that I put in to it. It came out in the end.' The award says you have to play at least three sports. In basketball, Brown led the Lady Phoenix with 25 points a game, according to Leslie Moses who presented Brown with the award. Brown also played multiple positions on the flag football team that went to the quarterfinals. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘I can save Britain from Spain-style blackouts'
Power generated by Icelandic volcanoes and sent at hyper-speed down a 1,000-mile subsea high-voltage cable could help save Britain from Spain-style blackouts, one of the City's most prominent financiers has said. Edi Truell, a self-proclaimed 'disruptive capitalist', made the claims as he edges closer to a decade-long dream of building a £3.5bn subsea cable that will funnel geothermal power from the hot springs of Iceland to the UK. Such interconnectors – cables that enable the exchange of electricity between neighbouring countries – 'are vital' in the fight against the type of blackouts that unfolded across Spain and Portugal last month, Truell said. The precise cause of the Continent's biggest power cut in living memory is yet to be determined, but Truell believes it can be traced back to the failure of the Viking Link interconnector between the UK and Denmark, which occurred just hours before the incident. Truell, a former adviser to Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London, described a devastating cascade effect that swept across Europe before the lights went out. Surplus power should have been diverted from neighbouring France, but it had already had to step in with back-up supplies to help smooth the outage at Viking, leaving the country with insufficient capacity to rescue the Iberian peninsula. 'They needed gigawatts from France, but the French didn't have them,' he said. With Truell's Icelandic project up and running, it could have supported an existing interconnector between Britain and Norway to provide another 4,000 megawatts, Truell said, 'which would have then freed up French power to free up Spain's'. Truell expects construction to begin on his Atlantic Superconnection (ASC) scheme before the end of the year. The link will bring enough geothermal and hydroelectric electricity to the UK to power around 2m homes, while also pumping excess wind energy generated in the UK back to Iceland. 'It's what the National Grid calls 'flexible base load' – it's always there,' Truell said. 'Depending on the time of day, you get between nine and 15pc of Britain's electricity pretty much guaranteed always on. 'It also saves the taxpayer a lot of money, because instead of turning the wind turbines off when it's blowing too much, you can whizz the surplus electricity up to Iceland and store it. It makes much more sense.' It is one of several power links in the works that promise to bolster Britain's energy reserves by tapping into inexhaustible overseas renewable sources. Former Tesco boss Dave Lewis is spearheading the Xlinks scheme, which aims to bring solar and wind power from Morocco to the UK via a 4,000-mile-long subsea cable. Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest is working on a competing proposal that would send clean energy generated from North African solar farms through Europe to the UK. Truell's project is being financed through a mixture of his own capital, backing from private investors and money raised in the debt markets. He said a 'major investment bank' stands ready to provide the entire £3.5bn funding in case of any snags. It follows a protracted decade-long process in which he was forced to go it alone after failing to persuade successive UK governments to get behind his grand plans. At one stage, Truell was led to believe by Theresa May's government that he had secured the blessing of ministers in the form of a long-term inflation-linked contract that would guarantee his project could sell its electricity at a fixed price to British households, he said. 'I was told it was 'in the post',' he said. But Truell's long-awaited Whitehall approval never came. 'I was basically lied to,' he said. The current government had been more supportive, but in other crucial areas was proving to be 'catastrophically useless', he said. He described Labour's energy policy under net-zero evangelist Ed Miliband as 'very muddled'. 'I don't think the investments are being made in the right place,' Truell added. He pointed to the £22bn that has been set aside to invest in various carbon capture projects in the North West and North East of England, with three quarters of the outlay expected to be recovered via customer bills. 'You could have six or seven interconnectors to Iceland for that, and it would save a hell of a lot more carbon than sticking it underground,' he said. 'So I think that is just bonkers.' Truell estimates that seven new interconnectors would bring around 12GW of power into the UK - equivalent to between 20pc and 25pc of Britain's electricity usage. Truell is also concerned about the impact that some types of renewables are having on the landscape and rural areas. 'I love the countryside. Carpeting it with solar panels made in China, and overhead pylons, is just retrograde,' Truell said. Cables are cheaper and because they are generally buried underground, 'you don't spoil the countryside,' he said. His criticism relates to Labour's plans to build thousands of new pylons in rural areas to help meet its ambitious clean power targets. Miliband has called the intended rollout of new pylons, alongside wind turbines and solar panels, a matter of 'national security' as the Government seeks to make the energy grid carbon neutral by the end of the decade. The Energy Secretary has also promised to 'take on the blockers, the delayers, the obstructionists'. But the proposals have been met with widespread dismay by affected communities. Campaigners have accused the Government of using 'bullying tactics' to impose new green projects on local communities. Truell called on ministers to change tack and adopt the approach taken in Switzerland, where he owns hotels and property, and spends much of his time. 'In Switzerland ... there is no building on greenfield [land] – none, zero, nought,' he said. 'Don't even apply because you're not going to get it. The Swiss are very straightforward about it: 'What part of no don't you understand?'' When it comes to land that has already been developed, the opposite stance is needed, he argued. 'Derogate planning permission for brownfield – you want to put a solar panel on your roof, just put it on. You don't want to apply for planning – just get on with it, take all that planning cost out. Every new house should have solar panels on it,' he said. In an attack on the Chancellor's tax raid, Truell said the super-wealthy are 'fleeing Rachel Reeves'. 'It just seems so self-destructive. They're being driven out, mainly by changes in the tax regime. It's class envy, putting a tax on private schools and doubling taxes on second homes. The whole mood music is 'we don't want people',' he said. Similarly, over-zealous regulation is forcing businesses to abandon the City, he claims. Though a longstanding problem, the failure to tackle it is particularly short-sighted in the context of Donald Trump's trade war, he said. Truell is a serial entrepreneur who made his fortune as the founder of private equity house Duke Street Capital, before setting up several pension buyout vehicles. 'We've got a golden opportunity because financial services are not subject to tariffs and Britain's got the biggest trade surplus in the world on financial services – about £77bn the year before last, which is bigger than anybody. We're really doing extremely well,' he complained. 'But the Government, whether it's this one or the last one, just keeps allowing the regulators to again drive business away,' Truell added. Truell is able to speak from experience after mothballing one of his more recent ventures amid accusations of regulatory dithering. In 2023, he decided to wind down his Pension SuperFund – a consolidator of company pension schemes – blaming the regulator, government and the insurance industry for making the business model 'uninvestable'. Despite all the promises the Chancellor made to rip up red tape in her maiden Mansion House speech in the autumn, regulation is at risk of becoming more burdensome, not less, he said. 'I did a lot of work behind the scenes on the Mansion House reforms and it's all great until you actually go to talk to the FCA [Financial Conduct Authority] or the Pension Regulator or the PRA [Prudential Regulation Authority]. 'My God, it's almost worse rather than better, because they're now thinking of ways to block the changes,' he said. He almost gave up on his Icelandic power link, too, in the face of ministerial foot-dragging. 'I felt very depressed,' he said. But in the absence of government backing, Truell vowed to finance the entire venture privately. Yet even now he can't quite escape the dead hand of officialdom. All major infrastructure projects in Britain require the blessing of Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary, in the form of a Development Consent Order. Meanwhile, his plans to build a giant factory at the Port of Tyne to provide the hundreds of miles of cable needed for the scheme must pass an environmental assessment 'in case there are newts on the quayside' or 'a colony of badgers', he joked. Strip out 'old-fashioned bureaucracy' and you would speed up the process by 16 to 17 months, he estimated. Truell called on the Government to ask itself a simple question: 'Do you want critical national infrastructure or not?' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
11-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
‘I can save Britain from Spain-style blackouts'
He described Labour's energy policy under net-zero evangelist Ed Miliband as 'very muddled'. 'I don't think the investments are being made in the right place,' Truell added. He pointed to the £22bn that has been set aside to invest in various carbon capture projects in the North West and North East of England, with three quarters of the outlay expected to be recovered via customer bills. 'You could have six or seven interconnectors to Iceland for that, and it would save a hell of a lot more carbon than sticking it underground,' he said. 'So I think that is just bonkers.' Truell estimates that seven new interconnectors would bring around 12GW of power into the UK - equivalent to between 20pc and 25pc of Britain's electricity usage. Truell is also concerned about the impact that some types of renewables are having on the landscape and rural areas. 'I love the countryside. Carpeting it with solar panels made in China, and overhead pylons, is just retrograde,' Truell said. Cables are cheaper and because they are generally buried underground, 'you don't spoil the countryside,' he said. His criticism relates to Labour's plans to build thousands of new pylons in rural areas to help meet its ambitious clean power targets. Miliband has called the intended rollout of new pylons, alongside wind turbines and solar panels, a matter of 'national security' as the Government seeks to make the energy grid carbon neutral by the end of the decade. Pushing green projects The Energy Secretary has also promised to 'take on the blockers, the delayers, the obstructionists'. But the proposals have been met with widespread dismay by affected communities. Campaigners have accused the Government of using 'bullying tactics' to impose new green projects on local communities. Truell called on ministers to change tack and adopt the approach taken in Switzerland, where he owns hotels and property, and spends much of his time. 'In Switzerland ... there is no building on greenfield [land] – none, zero, nought,' he said. 'Don't even apply because you're not going to get it. The Swiss are very straightforward about it: 'What part of no don't you understand?'' When it comes to land that has already been developed, the opposite stance is needed, he argued. 'Derogate planning permission for brownfield – you want to put a solar panel on your roof, just put it on. You don't want to apply for planning – just get on with it, take all that planning cost out. Every new house should have solar panels on it,' he said. In an attack on the Chancellor's tax raid, Truell said the super-wealthy are 'fleeing Rachel Reeves'. 'It just seems so self-destructive. They're being driven out, mainly by changes in the tax regime. It's class envy, putting a tax on private schools and doubling taxes on second homes. The whole mood music is 'we don't want people',' he said.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The CEO behind the AI tool Cursor says he used to hire too slowly — and focus too much on brand-name schools
"Many people you hear hired too fast. I think we actually hired too slow," said Michael Truell, CEO and cofounder of Anysphere. Lenny's Podcast/YouTube Anysphere CEO Michael Truell said he took his time while hiring. "Many people you hear hired too fast. I think we actually hired too slow," he said. He also said he relied too heavily on conventional markers of talent like brand-name schools. Michael Truell said he made several early hiring mistakes at Anysphere. The CEO and cofounder of the startup behind Cursor, an AI-powered coding tool, said the team initially fussed over hiring in the hopes of assembling a high-performing team. "We tried to be incredibly patient on the hiring front," Truell said in an episode of Lenny's Podcast that aired Thursday. The goal was to build a world-class group of engineers and researchers — "a certain mix of intellectual curiosity and experimentation," he added. But looking back, Truell said they may have been too patient. "Many people you hear hired too fast. I think we actually hired too slow," he added. The San Francisco-based company is one of the leaders in vibe coding, or the practice of using AI to generate code quickly and build software. It has closed a new round of funding that more than triples its valuation to about $9 billion, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. OpenAI backer Thrive Capital led the round, with Andreessen Horowitz and Accel among the other investors, per the FT. The startup has been doubling its valuation every eight weeks since August, per PitchBook. Truell partnered with MIT classmates Sualeh Asif, Arvid Lunnemark, and Aman Sanger to start building Anysphere in 2022, according to TechCrunch. Cursor is Anysphere's first product. Truell said another one of his early hiring missteps was relying too heavily on conventional markers of talent, such as brand-name schools. The hiring team leaned toward people who fit the archetype of "well-known school, very young, had done the things that were high credential," Truell said. But the hires who stood out — and stuck around — didn't always fit that mold. Some were later in their careers or looked "slightly different from being straight out of central casting," he added. Truell said his early hiring lessons were "hard-won." It took time to refine what "greatness" looked like, how to spot it, and how to persuade someone to come on board. "We kind of spent a bunch of time on the wrong profile," he said. "We were lucky early on to find fantastic people willing to do this with us, who were later-careered." Read the original article on Business Insider
