Plaid, a company that connects financial applications to users’ bank accounts, enabling payments and data verification, has allowed employees to sell some of their shares at an $8 billion valuation, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday.

The valuation represents a 31% increase from the $6.1 billion valuation the 13-year-old company achieved in April of last year, when it raised a $575 million round led by Franklin Templeton for partly the same purpose: purchasing shares from employees, including to help them cover the taxes associated with converting expiring restricted stock units (RSUs, a form of equity compensation) into shares.

Despite its new, bigger headline number, Plaid is still valued at 40% below its $13.4 billion peak in 2021, when ultra-low interest rates drove a massive surge in fintech valuations.

Such transactions have become increasingly common among private companies using liquidity as a retention tool. Recent examples include Stripe, which this week said it would allow employees to sell shares at a $159 billion valuation, as well as Clay, ElevenLabs, and Linear.

Beyond retention and to help staff cover tax bills triggered when RSUs vest, they relieve pressure on management to pursue an IPO before the company is ready.

After years of appeals, Google has finally received conditional approval to export high-precision geographic information out of South Korea, a move that opens the door to let the company provide proper Google Maps services in the country, such as walking and real-time driving directions.

The move reverses a long-standing policy on data restrictions that had essentially made Google Maps and Apple Maps non-functional in the country. Google has so far provided maps services in South Korea using high-resolution, 1:5,000 scale map data, but without the ability to export that data to its servers, the company couldn’t offer features like turn-by-turn navigation or detailed listings for businesses.

South Korea has resisted Google’s appeals since 2011, arguing that the company’s precise satellite maps could endanger national security by exposing sensitive military sites when combined with commercial imagery and online data. Given that South Korea remains technically at war with North Korea, the government is cautious about exposing such locations, and had until now demanded Google set up a data center in the country and obscure sensitive locations.

The green light comes with strict rules designed to protect sensitive military and infrastructure sites. The South Korean government will verify compliance before any data leaves the country; any images of South Korean territory used in Google Maps and Google Earth must comply with national security regulations; and historical imagery in Google Earth and Street View must obscure sensitive military sites. Google is also required to either remove or limit coordinate data for South Korean locations, and only essential data for navigation and routing can be exported.

The government also requires all data processing to be done on servers operated by Google’s local partners. Sensitive topographic and military data remain off-limits, and any updates to military or security sites must be carried out promptly on domestic servers at the government’s request.

Google did not immediately return a request for comment.

The move will no doubt send ripples through Korea’s domestic maps market, which has seen local navigation apps such as Naver Map, T Map, and Kakao Map thrive in the relative absence of providers like Google or Apple.

In its announcement, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said the decision was influenced by its intention to boost tourism in the country — because Google Maps has until now proved a bit useless in Korea, tourists have had to rely on local apps, whether or not they offer English language support.

The ministry said the move is also aimed at strengthening the country’s geospatial industry by supporting the development of high-precision, 3D infrastructure and geo AI technologies. The government is urging Google to help grow South Korea’s geospatial industry so that exporting the data benefits not just the tech giant, but also domestic innovation and economic growth.

Google has not yet said if it would set up a data center in South Korea. The company operates an array of data centers in Asia, including in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and Malaysia.

The government also outlined new measures to handle potential security incidents related to the export of high-resolution maps. The ministry said it would work with Google to set up a “security incident prevention and response framework” to manage potential risks before any data leaves the country. For situations involving imminent threats to national security, a technical “red button” mechanism will be implemented, allowing for rapid emergency response.

In addition, South Korea will require a local officer to be stationed in-country to maintain constant communication with the government and ensure smooth handling of any security incidents.

OpenAI has raised $110 billion in private funding, the company announced Friday morning, commencing one of the largest private funding rounds in history. The new funding consists of a $50 billion investment from Amazon as well as $30 billion each from Nvidia and SoftBank, against a $730 billion pre-money valuation.

Notably, the round remains open, and OpenAI expects more investors to join as it proceeds.

“We are entering a new phase where frontier AI moves from research into daily use at global scale,” OpenAI said. “Leadership will be defined by who can scale infrastructure fast enough to meet demand, and turn that capacity into products people rely on.”

As part of the investment, OpenAI is launching significant infrastructure partnerships with both Amazon and Nvidia. As in previous rounds, it is likely that a significant portion of the dollar amount comes in the form of services rather than cash, although the precise split was not disclosed.

The company’s previous round closed in March 2025, raising $40 billion against a $300 billion valuation. At the time, it was the largest private funding round on record.

As part of its Amazon partnership, OpenAI plans to develop a new “stateful runtime environment” where OpenAI models will run on Amazon’s Bedrock platform. The company will also expand its previously announced AWS partnership, which committed $38 billion in compute services, by $100 billion. OpenAI has committed to consuming at least 2GW of AWS Trainium compute as part of the deal, and also plans to build custom models to support Amazon consumer products.

“We have lots of developers and companies eager to run services powered by OpenAI models on AWS,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in a statement, “and our unique collaboration with OpenAI to provide stateful runtime environments will change what’s possible for customers building AI apps and agents.”

The Information had previously reported that $35 billion of Amazon’s investment could be contingent on the company either achieving AGI or making its IPO by the end of the year. OpenAI’s announcement confirms the funding split, but says only that the additional $35 billion will arrive “in the coming months when certain conditions are met.”

OpenAI gave fewer details on the Nvidia partnership, but said it had committed to using “3GW of dedicated inference capacity and 2GW of training on Vera Rubin systems” as part of the deal.

Nvidia’s participation in the round has been the subject of intense speculation, particularly as reports of a $100 billion investment in September gave way to reports of a smaller investment in the months that followed.

In January, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed the idea that Nvidia was backing away from OpenAI, saying, “we will invest a great deal of money. I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible.”