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LiveKit Achieves $1B Valuation with $100M Series C for Real-Time AI Voice Platform

Posted on by Anurag Shukla

San Francisco, CA: Real-time communications and AI infrastructure provider LiveKit achieved unicorn status January 22, 2026 with $100 million in Series C funding at a $1 billion valuation, positioning the platform to scale voice-driven and computer vision applications.

Index Ventures led the round with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Hanabi Capital, Altimeter Capital Management, and Redpoint Ventures. The financing brings LiveKit’s total capital raised to $183 million since its 2021 founding.

Co-founder and CEO Russ d’Sa wrote, “Voice is the most natural interface we have, it’s the one we use with each other every day. And for the first time in history, we can interact with computers in the same way.”

LiveKit powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode, enabling low-latency streaming for conversational AI. Additional customers include xAI, Meta, Spotify, Tesla, 911 emergency service operators, and mental health providers.

The platform originated as an open-source project for building real-time audio and video applications without interruptions. LiveKit offers a WebRTC-based framework that routes audio, video, and data between participants with ultra-low latency, according to the company.

The funding will expand LiveKit’s compute, storage, and network services while scaling infrastructure for voice-driven and computer vision-driven applications. The company has grown from a free developer tool to a managed cloud platform serving thousands of development teams across industries.

LiveKit’s Agent Framework enables developers to attach Python or Node.js programs to LiveKit rooms as participants, creating interactive AI behaviors like voice assistants that process speech and respond in real time.

Salesforce Ventures said, “LiveKit doesn’t just make real-time AI possible; it makes it accessible, composable and scalable for teams of all sizes.”

The round comes ten months after LiveKit’s previous fundraise as the platform expands beyond communications infrastructure into multimodal AI applications combining voice, video, and data processing.

Claroty Secures $150M Series F at $3B Valuation for Industrial Cybersecurity Platform

Posted on by Yashika Aneja

NEW YORK: Industrial cybersecurity provider Claroty secured $150 million in Series F funding led by Golub Growth, with up to $50 million additional participation from existing investors, boosting the company’s valuation 80 percent to $3 billion since its March 2024 financing round.

The funding will accelerate global expansion through organic growth and acquisitions as Claroty builds what it describes as the industry’s most comprehensive cyber-physical systems protection platform for critical infrastructure.

While talking to Calcalist, CEO Yaniv Vardi said, “The market is ‘red hot’ driven by surging cyberattacks on hospitals, manufacturing facilities, and industrial companies. The company’s annual revenue has reached the hundreds of millions of dollars and Claroty expects to achieve profitability in the near term.”

Claroty’s platform secures cyber-physical systems, environments where digital networks connect with physical operations like factory production lines, utilities, and medical equipment. The company serves 24 of the Fortune 100 organizations and is deployed across thousands of sites globally.

Traditional cybersecurity monitoring faces unique challenges in industrial settings where sensitive systems are isolated from corporate networks. Claroty’s Project File Analysis feature collects cybersecurity data from isolated systems]] that cannot be queried directly due to network segmentation.

For network-accessible industrial hardware, Claroty’s software collects telemetry using queries that mimic normal inbound traffic the device expects, reducing the risk of bugs caused by unfamiliar requests.

Recent milestones include launching the CPS Library, a first-of-its-kind AI-powered asset catalog developed with Schneider Electric and Rockwell Automation that enhances visibility and accuracy in tracking asset specifications. The company appointed former Ford AI chief Gil Gur Arie as Chief Product Officer.

According to Techjockey’s cybersecurity analysis, ransomware and advanced cyber attacks are increasingly disrupting real-world operations, with incidents affecting healthcare systems, utilities, and other critical services, highlighting how digital attacks can directly impact physical infrastructure.

These incidents reflect the growing risk associated with cyber-physical systems (CPS), where cyber threats originating in digital networks can directly affect physical assets such as power grids, pipelines, water utilities, and industrial operations.

Claroty employs approximately 750 people, including 350 in Israel, with additional staff in New York, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America.

Unauthorized SaaS Integrations Could Trigger Major Data Breaches: Obsidian Security

Posted on by Anurag Shukla

SAN FRANCISCO, California: Cybersecurity firm Obsidian Security is raising alarms about escalating security risks from unauthorized SaaS-to-SaaS application integrations, warning enterprises face massive breach exposure without continuous visibility across their software ecosystems.

Joseph Gothelf, Wyndham’s Vice President of Cybersecurity, stated, “In the absence of continuous visibility into the entire SaaS ecosystem, especially unauthorized activity between SaaS applications, we are looking at a huge data breach waiting to happen.”

The warning comes as Obsidian Security demonstrated its ability to detect the recent Salesloft breach in near real-time. Company CEO Hasan Imam stated Obsidian detected breach signs “earlier than anybody else,” operating in parallel with incident response firm Mandiant, adding “None of our customers lost any data due to this breach.”

The security challenge stems from the proliferation of SaaS application integrations that operate outside traditional security perimeters. Imam emphasized, “SaaS-to-SaaS security requires a new layer in enterprise defense and focused investment,” noting it is “architecturally separated from all the things we have been thinking about,” including endpoint protection, network security, and user access controls.

Traditional enterprise security architectures fail to address unauthorized data flows between connected SaaS applications, creating blind spots that attackers increasingly exploit. Imam stated the threat “requires a novel approach and focus to truly solve this problem,” as conventional security tools lack visibility into application-to-application communications.

The Salesloft breach highlighted how SaaS integrations can serve as attack vectors, with compromised applications potentially accessing data across entire connected ecosystems. Enterprises typically deploy dozens or hundreds of SaaS applications with complex integration patterns, creating extensive attack surfaces.

Obsidian Security’s platform provides continuous monitoring of SaaS application behavior, detecting anomalous integration activity and unauthorized data access patterns. The company’s early detection capability during the Salesloft incident demonstrates how real-time SaaS security monitoring can prevent data exfiltration even when breaches occur upstream.

India’s per capita income likely to touch $4,000 by 2030: SBI Report

Posted on by Shobhit Kalra

New Delhi: Better roads, more jobs, and better opportunities than before, this is the story of a modern and developing India. This progress has been now stamped by a recent SBI research that says India’s per capita income could reach $4,000 by 2030.

The research further highlights that if this happens, India would move into the upper-middle-income category, joining countries like China and Indonesia.

After Independence, it took nearly six decades for India to become a $1 trillion economy. But once that milestone was reached, growth picked up speed. India crossed $2 trillion in 2014, moved past $3 trillion in 2021, and entered the $4 trillion club in 2025, achieving this last jump in just four years.

Dr. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Advisor at the State Bank of India (SBI), said, “India could become a $5 trillion economy within the next two years, which would further strengthen its position on the global stage.”

Capturing the trends, the research report says that this growth is also visible in people’s incomes. In 2009, India’s per capita income reached $1,000. By 2019, it doubled to $2,000. If current trends hold, it is expected to rise to $3,000 by 2026 and $4,000 by 2030.

Over the past ten years, India has also improved its standing in global economic growth rankings, moving from the 92nd to the 95th percentile in real GDP growth, a sign that the country is growing faster than most others.

The research syncs with the government’s Viksit Bharat 2047 vision that aims to make India a high-income country by 2047. Today, a country is considered high-income if its per capita income crosses about $13,936. To reach this target, India would need steady and strong growth, better productivity, and consistent reforms.

If the global benchmark rises further to around $18,000, the challenge will be even bigger. India would need faster growth, smart policies, and continued investment in education, technology, and infrastructure.

SBI Research estimates that India must maintain around 11.5 per cent nominal GDP growth every year for the next 23 years to achieve its long-term goals.

Zoom, GitLab Release Critical Security Patches for Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities

Posted on by Anurag Shukla

New York: Zoom and GitLab issued urgent security updates on Wednesday to address critical vulnerabilities that could allow remote code execution and denial-of-service attacks, affecting millions of enterprise users worldwide.

The most severe flaw, ‘CVE-2026-22844 in Zoom Node Multimedia Routers, earned a severity score of 9.9 out of 10’, enabling any meeting participant to potentially execute remote code on enterprise network infrastructure, said a security analysis published by TechRepublic.

The vulnerability affects Zoom Node Multimedia Routers before version 5.2.1716.0, creating what security researchers described as a ‘complete disaster’ scenario for enterprise security. The command injection flaw essentially grants meeting participants unauthorized administrative access to networking equipment.

GitLab simultaneously addressed multiple critical vulnerabilities spanning remote code execution, denial-of-service, and two-factor authentication bypass flaws. The standout threat, CVE-2025-13927, allows “completely unauthenticated attackers to crash GitLab instances by sending specially crafted requests with malformed authentication data,” according to the security bulletin.

The GitLab vulnerabilities affect Community and Enterprise Editions, with attack vectors ranging from resource exhaustion in event collection to JSON validation exploits in GraphQL requests. CVSS scores range from 6.5 to 8.5 across different vulnerability types, representing what researchers characterized as systemic security challenges across GitLab’s platform architecture.

Both platforms serve as backbone infrastructure for remote work and software development. Organizations are “heavily dependent on these tools for daily operations,” making the “window for exploitation” massive, security analysts warned.

GitLab’s patches address stored cross-site scripting flaws in GitLab Flavored Markdown, missing authorization bugs in the Duo Workflows API, and denial-of-service vulnerabilities in import functionality. The company deployed updated versions 18.7.1, 18.6.3, and 18.5.5 to GitLab.com on January 7, 2026, urging self-hosted customers to upgrade immediately.

Zoom released patches addressing the critical networking router vulnerability alongside fixes for denial-of-service flaws. Both companies credited security researchers and internal teams for discovering the vulnerabilities through bug bounty programs.

Apple Plans Makeover, Likely to Turn ‘Siri’ Into AI Chatbot

Posted on by Shobhit Kalra

New York: In a biggest makeover by Apple in a recent while, the tech giant is reportedly planning changes to its long-standing voice assistant, Siri, by transforming it into a full-fledged AI chatbot as part of the upcoming iOS 27 update later this year. The move is seen as Apple’s effort to catch up in the fast-moving generative AI space led by competitors like OpenAI and Google.

As per the recent reports, Apple is working on a new version of Siri, internally codenamed “Campos,” that will replace the current voice assistant interface with an advanced AI chatbot experience across iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices.

This new Siri is expected to support both voice and text interactions, allowing users to carry out longer, natural conversations rather than just short command-based requests.

The revamped assistant will be deeply embedded within Apple’s ecosystem, working across core apps such as Mail, Photos, Music, TV, and even development tools like Xcode. Users may soon be able to ask Siri to perform more complex tasks, from editing photos based on content to drafting emails using calendar details, all through conversational prompts.

Report also said that this new chatbot version of Siri will be powered by a custom variant of Google’s Gemini AI models, underlining the significance of Apple’s strategic shift in its AI roadmap.

The chatbot is expected to be a key highlight of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS 27, with the company previewing the feature at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, followed by a broader public rollout later in the year.

With iOS 27, Apple aims to introduce Siri that not only understands context better but can also search the web, generate content, analyse information, and interact more intelligently across apps.

Upscale AI Raises $200M Series A to Scale AI Data Center Networking Infrastructure

Posted on by Yashika Aneja

SANTA CLARA, California: Upscale AI announced a $200 million Series A funding round on January 21, bringing total capital raised to over $300 million as the startup positions itself to solve critical networking bottlenecks in AI infrastructure.

The oversubscribed round was led by Tiger Global, Premji Invest, and Xora Innovation, with participation from Maverick Silicon, StepStone Group, Mayfield, Prosperity7 Ventures, Intel Capital, and Qualcomm Ventures. The company previously secured a $100 million seed round.

Upscale AI develops the SkyHammer system, specialized data center networking hardware and software designed specifically for large-scale AI workloads. The company argues that “traditional network architectures are fundamentally unsuited for the AI era,” according to the funding announcement published on Tech Startups.

The capital will accelerate product development and commercial deployment of Upscale’s open AI networking platform as enterprises face mounting infrastructure challenges. Yesterday’s funding announcement was part of what industry observers described as a concentrated investment day focused on infrastructure and “execution-heavy categories where scale creates defensibility,” including AI compute, data center networking, and production-ready AI systems.

The funding arrives as AI infrastructure spending surges globally. According to Carta data, investors deployed approximately $20 billion in software funding rounds across Q2 and Q3 2025 combined, marking “the fastest rate of spending since the first half of 2022.” The SaaS sector captured 33% of all venture funding logged on Carta in Q3 2025.

The networking infrastructure segment has emerged as a critical bottleneck as enterprises scale AI deployments. As cloud and AI workloads grow exponentially, traditional networking solutions struggle to handle the unique demands of distributed AI training and inference at scale.

Upscale AI’s approach focuses on purpose-built networking solutions that optimize data movement between GPUs and across data center clusters, addressing latency and throughput challenges that conventional networking equipment cannot resolve efficiently.

The Santa Clara-based startup joins a wave of infrastructure companies attracting significant capital as the AI industry matures beyond model development into production-scale deployment challenges.

Techjockey Introduces Techjockey Advantage to Simplify Startup Software Procurement

Posted on by Yashika Aneja

New Delhi: Techjockey.com, India’s largest software marketplace, has officially launched “Techjockey Advantage,” a flagship program designed to solve the two biggest hurdles for early-stage companies: high technology costs and complex procurement.

As startups scale, the cost of essential software for HR, finance, and security can become a crippling expense. Techjockey Advantage addresses this by offering curated software bundles including industry leaders like Microsoft, Google Cloud, Keka HR, OpenVPN and many other software at exclusive discounts of up to 80% for startups.

tj-advantage

Beyond cost-cutting, the program provides expert-led technology roadmaps, helping founders avoid “shelfware” by selecting only the tools essential for their current growth stage.

Bridging the Tech Gap

Speaking on the launch, Akash Nangia, Co-Founder of Techjockey.com, emphasized the company’s mission to democratize technology.

He said, “Our goal is to simplify the IT journey for startups that lack internal IT teams. With Techjockey Advantage, we aren’t just selling software; we are providing a strategic growth engine. We want to ensure that every founder has access to the same high-quality tools as a Fortune 500 company, but at a price point that respects their seed-stage budget.”

A Launchpad for Growth

The program also doubles as a go-to-market channel. By listing on their Techjockey eSeller Hub, B2B startups can put their own products in front of over 500,000 monthly buyers across India, the Middle East, APAC and the US.

Arjun Mittal, Co-Founder of Techjockey.com, highlighted the operational ease the platform brings to the ecosystem.

 “Software buying is often an overwhelming and time-consuming task. We’ve built a platform that simplifies this process end-to-end, from need assessment and vendor comparison to purchase and onboarding. Through the Advantage program, we are enabling startups to focus on their core product while we handle the complexities of their digital infrastructure,” said Arjun.

With features like “Expert consultation and dedicated compliance resources, Techjockey Advantage is positioned to be a critical partner for India’s next wave of unicorns.

EV Startup Chargeup Plugs In INR 22 Cr Funding Led by IAN Group

Posted on by Shobhit Kalra

New Delhi: EV tech startup ‘Chargeup’ has bagged funding of INR 22 crore in a funding round led by IAN Group. The fresh round of funding also saw participation from Cap-A and existing investors. The funding will support the company’s expansion into high-demand EV markets and help scale its technology platform focused on last-mile drivers and lending partners.

Founded in 2019 by Varun Goenka and Satish Mittal, Chargeup is developing a driver-centric EV technology platform that brings together vehicle usage data, earnings insights, and financing support. The platform aims to help drivers earn more consistently while giving NBFCs greater confidence in lending to the EV segment.

Commenting on the investment, Varun Goenka, Co-founder & CEO, Chargeup, said, “Chargeup is building a high-growth, profitable company focused on empowering last-mile drivers with better earnings and financial security. The IAN Group’s investment will accelerate our journey toward our Mission Million milestone, enabling a million drivers to become financially independent.”

India’s electric three-wheeler drivers continue to struggle with rising ownership costs, battery-related expenses, and frequent vehicle downtime. Chargeup said many drivers earn less than ₹800 a day, with a significant share of income going toward EMIs, maintenance, and lost workdays. By improving visibility into vehicle performance and driver activity, the company aims to reduce these inefficiencies and improve overall earning stability.

Chargeup has already onboarded over 10,000 EV drivers and plans to add 20,000 more by FY27.

Operating in an Indian market estimated at $12 billion, the company sees a large opportunity to build the financial and operational backbone of India’s EV ecosystem through a single, data-driven platform.

Salesforce Introduces Flat-Fee AI Licensing Model as Alternative to Usage-Based Pricing

Posted on by Anurag Shukla

San Francisco, CA: Salesforce has introduced a new pricing model called the Agentic Enterprise License Agreement (AELA), offering customers unlimited access to its Agentforce AI agents and Data Cloud for a flat fee – addressing enterprise demand for predictable costs as companies scale artificial intelligence deployments.

The pricing innovation addresses a critical friction point that emerged as vendors rushed to adopt consumption-based models for AI features. While consumption pricing seemed logical for variable AI workloads, CIOs and CFOs found these models ‘unpredictable’ and demanded ‘predictability’ instead, according to Constellation Research analysis.

“AELA is for customers that have already experimented. They’re ready to scale. They want to go all in so we agree on a flat fee, and then it’s a shared risk,” said Miquel Milano, president and chief revenue officer at Salesforce, according to Constellation Research.

The strategic rationale reveals Salesforce’s long-term thinking about customer lifetime value. “If the customers are smart, they can rob the bank. They can really make a great deal out of that. We take the risk because we want our customers to be successful,” Milano explained. “I would love to have a customer where I price an AELA at $5 million incremental, and the customer has deployed so much that the deal is not profitable for me. If the deal isn’t profitable for me, it means that the customer is the happiest customer in the world. And then I have another 20 years to monetize that customer,” he states further.

Salesforce’s “new Agentic Enterprise License Agreement (AELA) gives customers unlimited use of consumption-based products such as Agentforce, Data 360/Data Cloud, and MuleSoft for a fixed fee over two or three years,” according to Forrester Research.

The company executed “16 AELAs in Q3” and “has roughly 100 in the pipeline,” according to Futurum Group analysis of Salesforce’s Q3 FY 2026 earnings, demonstrating enterprise appetite for pricing predictability in AI deployments.

“When we first started with Agentforce, we were talking about, oh, it’s going to be so much per conversation… but customers have pushed for more flexibility,” CEO Marc Benioff said during the company’s recent earnings call, according to TechRadar.

The AELA framework represents a significant departure from traditional SaaS economics. The model provides “unlimited Agentforce into your company, unlimited Data Cloud into your company,” as Benioff explained at Dreamforce 2025. “It’s clear, one pricing model is not right for every company in the era of the agentic enterprise, so we’ve had to radically shift our pricing.”

Industry observers suggest this approach may influence other enterprise software vendors. “In 2026, it’s highly likely you’ll see similar arrangements from SaaS providers,” according to Constellation Research predictions for enterprise technology trends.

The shift comes as enterprise software vendors grapple with a fundamental tension: AI agents can potentially replace user seats, undermining traditional per-seat pricing models. By offering unlimited usage within a flat-fee structure, Salesforce removes the disincentive for customers to deploy agents broadly across their organizations.

Salesforce’s Q3 FY 2026 results demonstrated the strategy’s early traction. The company reported that “Agentforce and Data 360 products” hit “nearly $1.4 billion in ARR – an explosive 114% year-over-year gain,” with “over 9,500 paid Agentforce deals and 3.2 trillion tokens processed,” according to CEO Marc Benioff.

The AELA model also includes flexibility for customers who prefer alternative approaches. “You might want to have an action-based model, you might want to have a flex credit model,” Benioff noted, giving enterprises options based on their specific deployment patterns and financial preferences.

Salesforce also offers “seat-based Agentforce SKUs” which have “gained traction for predictability,” according to Futurum Group analysis, showing that multiple pricing models can coexist as the market matures.

The broader trend reflects what analysts characterize as “agentic enterprise license agreements becoming the norm” as CxOs push back against unpredictable consumption models that complicate budgeting and financial planning.

For Salesforce competitors including Microsoft, ServiceNow, SAP, and Adobe, the AELA approach presents a new competitive consideration as enterprises evaluate AI platform investments and pricing structures.