Tech
Quantexa nabs $175M at a $2.6B valuation to double down on data analytics for AI
London startup Quantexa has made its name over the years with an enterprise platform that employs AI and data analytics to fight money laundering and fraud. Today, it is announcing new funding of $175 million to double down on that business while also moving deeper into another hot area: using its technology to help organizations understand and better use data across various silos to build and run AI services.
The funding, a Series F, values Quantexa at $2.6 billion post-money — a significant jump on Quantexa’s last valuation of $1.8 billion in 2023. Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), division of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan in Canada, with participation also from previous backers British Patient Capital. The startup has raised just under $550 million to date, per PitchBook data.
The funding is coming at a flush moment for the nine year-old startup. The company says it has “thousands of users” on its platform (an imprecise number that hasn’t changed in years), and its list large enterprise customers includes the likes of Prudential, Vodafone, the U.K. government, HSBC, ABN-AMRO, and Accenture. License revenue is up 40% in the last year, and it now has 16 offices globally with some 800 employees.
Quantexa’s funding is also coming at a key moment in the world of enterprise.
Organizations across both the private and public sectors are collectively making a big drive to adopt more AI services — the hope being that this will help them cut costs, speed up how people work, and take on new kinds of work.
There is a small hitch, however. In many cases, those same organizations are sitting on huge troves of legacy, unstructured data that need to be identified and sorted to train and run those new services.
Quantexa’s tooling was built to tap into unstructured data troves in aid of anti-money laundering efforts. But it turns out to be equally useful for data curation for AI applications. Quantexa has been building out the latter business for a few years; and now with the huge demand for AI, it becoming a growing focus for the company.
“To make AI technology work, you must get the data right. You must be able to trust the data. You must be able to curate the data. And that’s what we do,” founder and CEO Vishal Marria said in an interview.
The company continues to see a lot of business in AML and fraud identification, but it will be growing that business in tandem with larger efforts to expand its presence in a wider variety of AI projects.
In line with that, Quantexa said it would “fast track” a partnership it inked with Microsoft in November: it is building an AI-powered workload for the Microsoft Fabric data analytics platform; and it will build an AML solution for U.S. mid-market banks that will be distributed through the Azure Marketplace.
For those opting for Databricks, Marria said the plan is to do more work in that environment, too, building on a partnership announced in June 2024 between the companies to use Quantexa’s technology to organise billions of data records to build and power generative AI apps.
Another area where it will be expanding its reach is in the public sector, specifically with an enlarged dedicated business unit that will help government bodies use “structured and unstructured data” to build AI services. In its home market of the U.K.,
Marria would not comment on what work it is doing around the government’s big AI push (dubbed “Plan for Change”). But he pointed out that the company was involved in several projects beyond those that have been made public (such as this anti-fraud project it undertook with the Cabinet Office).
It’s that traction plus Marria’s convincing push for growth at a time when so much is changing in the industry and the world, which have driven this particular round.
“Vish himself is quite extraordinary,” said Avid Larizadeh Duggan, the senior MD who runs TVG in EMEA, said in an interview. “He is a founder who comes with a vision but is also a talent magnet, surrounded by exceptional people. Selling into regulated industries is not easy. You can tell he’s incredibly personable but also knows what he’s talking about. At the back of it, he has a clear understanding of the customer and product. All of these attributes incredibly important when you invest, but for me I feel a sense that it’s even more important when the sands are shifting so quickly.”
Tech
ElevenLabs lists BlackRock, Jamie Foxx, and Eva Longoria as new investors
Voice AI company ElevenLabs revealed new investors that are part of its $500 million Series D fundraise, which was first announced in February. The additions include institutions such as BlackRock, Wellington, D.E. Shaw, and Schroders; enterprises like Nvidia, Salesforce Ventures, Santander, KPN, and Deutsche Telekom; and individual investors such as Jamie Foxx, Eva Longoria, and Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk.
The startup also noted that it surpassed $500 million in ARR (annual recurring revenue), after ending last year with nearly $350 million in ARR. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Mati Staniszewski, said last month that ElevenLabs added $100 million in net new ARR in Q1 2026, ending the quarter at roughly $450 million in ARR.
The company has also accelerated its valuation rapidly, growing from $6.6 billion last September to $11 billion this February.
“Voice is the highest-stakes channel for any customer interaction, and the bar for quality, latency, and security is extremely high. ElevenLabs is not just a category leader – it is becoming a foundational enabler of Deutsche Telekom’s broader Industrial AI vision. From voice-as-a-service to multilingual automation and in-network AI agents, we believe the company is uniquely positioned to reshape how businesses interact with customers across all channels,” Karine Peters, managing director at Deutsche Telekom’s venture arm T.Capital, said in a statement.
In the past quarter, the voice AI company has signed enterprise contracts with the likes of Deutsche Telekom, Revolut, and Klarna.
ElevenLabs said that, besides the fundraising, it also closed a $100 million tender, a second in roughly six months after the company issued one last September. Staniszewski said in a blog post that the company will give an opportunity to retail investors to invest in ElevenLabs through Robinhood Ventures, but didn’t provide details about the program.
Staniszewski noted that consumers won’t trust systems that sound robotic or “interact strangely” and emphasized the importance of building “human-level AI voice models.” Last month, the company acquired the team from Polish voice AI startup Papla to bolster its research team.
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Tech
Kaspersky suspects Chinese hackers planted a backdoor into Daemon Tools in ‘widespread’ attack
Security researchers at Kaspersky say they have identified a malicious backdoor planted in the popular and long-running Windows disc imaging software, Daemon Tools.
The Russian cybersecurity company said on Tuesday that data collected from computers around the world running the Kaspersky antivirus software shows a “widespread” attack is under way, targeting thousands of Windows computers running Daemon Tools.
The hackers, whom Kaspersky has linked to a Chinese-language speaking group based on an analysis of the malware, used the backdoor in Daemon Tools to plant additional malware on a dozen computers across the retail, scientific and manufacturing sectors, as well as government systems. Kaspersky said the hacking of these specific computers implied a “targeted” effort.
The company said the targeted organizations are located in Russia, Belarus, and Thailand.
Kaspersky said the backdoor was first detected on April 8.
Kaspersky said it had contacted Disc Soft, the company that maintains Daemon Tools, but did not say if the developer responded or took action. Kaspersky said the supply chain attack is “still active,” suggesting that the hackers can still plant malware on thousands of computers running the disc imaging software.
This is the latest in a string of so-called “supply chain” attacks that have targeted developers of popular software in recent months. Hackers are increasingly taking aim at the accounts of developers who work on widely used code and software, and abusing that access to push malicious code to anyone who relies on the software. This approach lets the hackers break into a large number of computers at once when their malicious code is delivered as a software update.
Earlier this year, hackers associated with the Chinese government hijacked the popular text editing software Notepad++ to deliver malware to a number of organizations with interests in East Asia. Security researchers also warned of another attack last month targeting users who visited the website of CPUID, which makes the popular HWMonitor and CPU-Z tools.
TechCrunch downloaded the Windows installer from Daemon Tools’ website, and the file appeared to contain the backdoor when we checked it with the online malware scanner service VirusTotal.
It’s not known if the macOS version of Daemon Tools was compromised, or if other apps made by Disc Soft are affected.
When contacted for comment, a Disc Soft representative said they are “aware of the report and are currently investigating the situation.”
“Our team is treating this matter with the highest priority and is actively working to assess and address the issue. At this stage, we are not in a position to confirm specific details referenced in the report. However, we are taking all necessary steps to remediate any potential risks and to ensure the security of our users,” the representative said.
Do you know more about the cyberattack targeting Daemon Tools users? Did you receive an antivirus alert saying you were affected? We want to hear from you. To contact this reporter securely, reach out via Signal username zackwhittaker.1337.
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Tech
Etsy launches its app within ChatGPT as it continues its AI push
Etsy announced Tuesday the launch of its native app within ChatGPT, opening up a new way for shoppers to explore its catalog of over 100 million listings.
The new experience is designed to move beyond the limitations of traditional keyword queries. Instead of typing something like “wooden coffee table,” then scrolling and adjusting filters, users can now express what they’re looking for in natural language. For instance, “Help me find a Mother’s Day gift under $100 for my mom who loves gardening.”
Now live in beta, the feature allows users to tag @Etsy directly within a prompt. From there, the Etsy app in ChatGPT surfaces relevant product listings that users can browse, compare, and click through to Etsy for additional details or purchase.
This isn’t Etsy’s first experiment inside ChatGPT. Back in September, Etsy became an early partner in ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout integration, which let users buy products directly inside the chat interface. However, the initiative ended in March, suggesting it didn’t perform as OpenAI had hoped. It was reported that Etsy didn’t see a large volume of sales from the integration, leading Etsy to start building a native app within ChatGPT instead.
Alongside this launch, Etsy also revealed it’s testing a beta conversational search experience within its platform, specifically geared toward helping users find gifts. The gift assistant acts as a personal shopper, offering a guided, conversational way to discover ideas, narrow down preferences, and surface relevant products.
This builds on Etsy’s broader AI push, which includes an AI-powered discovery experience featuring curated collections and a suite of seller tools, including a tool that helps generate product titles and descriptions, as well as a writing assistant to help draft messages to buyers. In 2024, Etsy introduced a new “Designed” label to identify AI content, part of an effort to increase transparency as AI-generated artwork becomes more prevalent on the platform.
The news of a ChatGPT integration comes a week after Etsy reported its Q1 2026 earnings, surpassing revenue expectations with $631 million, and marketplace gross merchandise sales were up 6% year over year. Notably, active buyers increased for the first time in two years to 86.6 million. Etsy also touted 5.6 million active sellers on the platform.
In February, the company announced it was selling Depop to eBay for $1.2 billion in cash, a move aimed at doubling down on its core marketplace.
Etsy joins a growing list of companies building native apps within ChatGPT, including Angi, SeatGeek, Tubi, and Wix. Developers have been able to build apps within the chatbot since October.
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