Together AI — a neocloud specialized in AI that leases Nvidia GPU clusters and other dedicated AI infrastructure — has secured an $800 million Series C at an $8.3 billion valuation, as announced by the company on Wednesday. Established in 2022, the firm has grown rapidly.

This funding round was spearheaded by Aramco Ventures, with contributions from Vista Equity Partners, General Catalyst, Emergence Capital, Nvidia, March Capital, Pegatron, SentinelOne’s S Ventures, among others.

Previously, Together AI completed a $305 million Series B at a $3.3 billion valuation approximately 16 months ago. The company entered the market with substantial funding, having raised $102.5 million in a Series A financing round led by Kleiner Perkins, joined by Nvidia and Emergence Capital in 2023.  

Speculations about this round emerged in March when The Information reported the company was aiming for $1 billion in funding at a $7.5 billion valuation. If that report’s figures were correct, it indicates that Together AI opted for a smaller investment but possibly secured a more favorable deal from venture capitalists compared to its earlier aspirations.

This significant capital influx arrives as Together AI declares annual bookings exceeding $1.15 billion in its latest quarter, with businesses increasingly opting for capable yet significantly cheaper open-source models through neocloud providers like Together AI. They are shifting towards this choice rather than incurring high costs for tokens associated with proprietary frontier models for all their AI needs.

According to Together AI, the usage of open-source models across the sector has tripled in the past year, supported by research from another entity benefiting from this trend, AI gateway OpenRouter. The company claims to have thousands of paying customers, including Cursor, Cognition, and Decagon.

Neocloud services have become highly sought-after for VC investments beyond just Together AI. Upscale AI recently raised a Series A plus in an extension amounting to $500 million at a $2 billion valuation; likewise, TensorWave — which specializes in GPU clusters from AMD — secured a $350 million Series B at a $1.55 billion valuation last month, among other recent cases.

Together AI was co-founded by Vipul Ved Prakash (shown above, center) following his sale of the social media search platform Topsy to Apple in 2013 for a reported sum exceeding $200 million. His co-founders at Together AI include Stanford professor Percy Liang (above, left) and associate professor Ce Zhang from ETH Zürich/University of Chicago (above, right).

Lime, a micromobility firm, has secured $167 million from its IPO, concluding nearly ten years as a privately-held entity marked by significant valuation fluctuations as it navigated several major hype cycles and a worldwide pandemic.

The scooter and bike enterprise, which is supported by Uber, offered 6.68 million shares at $25 each, aligning with the mid-point of its price spectrum between $24 to $26. Its shares commenced trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker “LIME” on Wednesday afternoon, experiencing an approximate 9% increase within the first hour.

This anticipated IPO establishes Lime’s market value at roughly $1.66 billion, just below the valuation attained by fellow micromobility firm Bird during its merger with a special purpose acquisition company in 2021.

“Maintaining resilience, patience, belief, and optimism about overcoming challenging periods [has] truly yielded long-term benefits, especially during numerous days, weeks, and months when I wasn’t certain if Lime could survive the next three or four months,” CEO Wayne Ting conveyed to TechCrunch in a Wednesday interview. “Being here today as a public entity feels immensely rewarding, and it required considerable heart, effort, and perseverance to reach this milestone.”

Lime has been contemplating an IPO for several years. Following a $523 million funding round in 2021, Ting indicated to TechCrunch that the company was targeting an IPO in 2022. He reiterated this ambition in 2023, mentioning that Lime was still awaiting favorable market conditions.

Ultimately, however, Ting asserted that he wished to go public only when he could demonstrate to the market that Lime was a significantly more robust company compared to Bird.

“We believed it was essential to show that we would operate as a self-sustaining, profitable business generating positive free cash flow, which only materialized over the past three years, resulting in three years of positive free cash flow results,” he stated. “I believe the timing is opportune, as the business is strong. We still have considerable growth potential ahead.”

Lime is in need of the funding. In its IPO filing from May, the company expressed “substantial doubt” regarding its ability to persist as a viable entity. Lime noted that it requires the proceeds from its IPO to address approximately $1 billion in liabilities, with over half due by the end of this year, although some of this debt can be converted. Without an IPO, Lime informed prospective investors that it would need to seek alternative financing sources.

Lime is operating on that financial precipice, as the micromobility sector has proven fairly ruthless in recent years, even during prosperous times. Bird was compelled to seek bankruptcy protection and restructure after going public, while other competitors have either merged (Tier with Dott), been delisted from major exchanges (Micromobility.com), or ceased operations altogether (Superpedestrian).

In the midst of the turmoil, Lime has been able to enhance its revenue in recent years. It reported $521 million in 2023, $686.6 million in 2024, and $886.7 million in the previous year. The company also reduced its losses from $122.3 million in 2023 to merely $33.9 million in 2024, although that figure rose again in 2025 to $59.3 million. (The firm announced an adjusted gross profit of over $400 million in 2025, excluding costs like depreciation.)

This growth mainly stems from Lime’s capacity to expand globally. It currently operates in 230 cities across 29 nations. However, the company is also somewhat reliant on Uber, which owns 24% of Lime and contributed over 14% to its revenue last year. (Uber allows users to book Lime rides via its app in select cities.)

Ting mentioned that Lime’s emphasis on reducing unit costs and utilizing software and machine learning to optimize operations city by city have been instrumental in fostering a more financially sustainable enterprise. He anticipates that these advantages will only improve now that Lime has entered the public markets.

“This provides us with more capital to invest in growth and expand Lime, reinvesting in our technology. I believe many of the advantages we have as the sole skilled operator and profitable operator will only amplify now that we are public,” he remarked. “It’s a matter of incremental progress, and we’re continuously seeking that 1% to 2% enhancement.”

Ting also expressed his belief that becoming a public entity will motivate more cities to collaborate with Lime.

“I understand many cities are frustrated when they bring an operator into the market, only for that operator to shut down within six to twelve months. They desire a sustainable long-term partnership, and now that we’re public, our financial information is accessible to any city regulator determining who will be a strong long-term partner,” he elaborated.

This article has been revised with details regarding Lime’s stock trading commencement and insights from CEO Wayne Ting’s interview.

Cloudflare has set a new deadline for the AI sector to differentiate between web crawlers utilized for traditional search functions, such as Google Search, and those employed for AI agents and training. Beginning on September 15, 2026, Cloudflare’s standard configurations will prevent “mixed-use” crawlers from accessing any pages that display advertisements, the company revealed on Wednesday.

This signifies that crawlers that integrate search, agent usage, and training will be barred from crawling these websites by default unless the website owner modifies the settings accordingly. These default changes will impact new Cloudflare clientele, new sites established by current users, and all pre-existing free customers, according to the company’s statement.

This initiative could influence how AI model developers access web material for training and support their agent-based services.

Cloudflare emphasizes that the majority of website proprietors desire their material to be easily found through search and often through AI services as well; however, they seek protection against their intellectual property being distributed freely.

Cloudflare explicitly mentions the “largest search engine in the world” (clearly a reference to Google!) as having access to roughly “twice the amount of information” compared to other AI firms because the search titan complicates discoverability for clients without incorporating AI usage.

Google has previously contested this assertion, highlighting that it offers a bot named Google Extended, which allows site owners to opt out of having their content utilized for training and AI applications like Gemini Apps and Vertex API. Utilizing it doesn’t affect a site’s presence in Google Search. Nonetheless, the tech behemoth’s primary Googlebot continues to crawl for Search, including AI capabilities such as AI Overviews and AI Mode.

“Given that the overwhelming majority of online traffic is now from non-human sources, we must accelerate our efforts so that a sustainable ecosystem can develop,” stated Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince in his announcement regarding the recent development, referencing the noteworthy moment when bot traffic exceeded human traffic online for the first time. This transition was not anticipated until the following year.

“Cloudflare’s latest tools and collaborations provide website owners with enhanced visibility and commercial opportunities, benefiting AI companies that possess bots with clear and transparent purposes. We anticipate that the proposed default modifications will prompt mixed-use crawlers to differentiate between search and agent usage as well as training,” Prince remarked.

While Cloudflare provides numerous products to assist users in launching their own AI systems, the company has also unveiled a variety of tools to give publishers more authority over their content in the AI landscape. In recent years, Cloudflare has introduced tools aimed at combating AI bots, including a marketplace that enables websites to charge AI bots for scraping, known as Pay Per Crawl.

This model is now evolving into “Pay Per Use,” the company disclosed, allowing publishers to charge AI firms when their content generates value, not merely when it is retrieved.

This alteration could also aid in conserving publishers’ bandwidth and computing resources for AI model providers, as Cloudflare’s data indicated that over 50% of crawling traffic from AI crawlers is utilized in re-fetching unchanged pages.

To execute this initiative, Cloudflare is initially collaborating with two partners, Ceramic.ai and You.com. When a publisher opts in, they receive compensation when their content is featured in Ceramic’s AI search results or when You.com retrieves a piece of their premium content.

Other AI organizations may tailor this model to fit their operational methods, claims Cloudflare.

This week, Honda commenced the manufacturing of batteries intended for energy storage solutions, as reported by Nikkei Asia. This achievement positions Honda as the most recent automotive manufacturer to enter the thriving energy sector.

The automaker’s transition towards energy storage follows the cancellation of its EV initiatives in the U.S. just three months ago. The batteries for these EVs were planned to be produced at an Ohio facility, run by Honda in partnership with LG Energy Solution. Now, these battery cells will serve data centers instead of residential driveways. 

Honda’s shift occurs amid waning demand for EVs in the U.S., attributed to the GOP’s termination of tax credits meant to boost EV and battery production domestically. Year-on-year sales of new EVs are declining, partly because consumers rushed to buy ahead of the tax credits, which were eliminated last September.

This uncertainty prompted Honda to make significant changes, scrapping three EV models set for the U.S. market. The automaker recorded a $15.7 billion write-down last fiscal year, partly to revise its EV strategy. The decline of its operations in China, a market where EV sales have surged, also contributed to the financial setback.

Nonetheless, despite the restructuring, Honda has not dissolved its joint venture with LG Energy. In common with other car manufacturers like Tesla, Ford, and GM, Honda has acknowledged that batteries represent a substantial business opportunity in their own right.

The stationary storage market has experienced remarkable growth, increasing by 32% year-over-year, according to findings by SEIA and Benchmark Minerals. In the initial quarter of this year, 9.7 gigawatt-hours of energy storage systems were installed, equating to enough batteries to produce approximately 120,000 EVs. 

This rapid expansion is anticipated to persist. By the decade’s end, the report forecasts that 110 gigawatt-hours of energy storage will be deployed annually, nearly tripling the market’s size. 

The market has proven to be lucrative as well. Tesla, which has captured the majority of current sales, generates 30% gross profits from its Megapacks and Powerwalls, roughly double its profit margin on vehicles. 

Although many stationary batteries have been installed at data centers, a significant proportion is linked to the grid. As battery costs have decreased, they have established a considerable niche in stabilizing the grid while enhancing the reliability of wind and solar energy sources, making them more consistent generators. 

While Honda may still be uncertain about its approach to the U.S. EV market, it is evident that the company aims to participate in the energy transition in some capacity.