Designing a complex electronic device like a delivery drone involves juggling many choices, such as selecting motors and batteries that minimize cost while maximizing the payload the drone can carry or the distance it can travel. Unraveling that conundrum is no easy task, but what happens if the designers don't know the exact specifications of each battery and motor' On top of that, the real-world performance of these components will likely be affected by unpredictable factors, like changing weather along the drone's route. MIT researchers developed a new framework that helps engineers design complex systems in a way that explicitly accounts for such uncertainty. The framework allows them to model the performance tradeoffs of a device with many interconnected parts, each of which could behave in unpredictable ways. Their technique captures the likelihood of many outcomes and tradeoffs, giving designers more information than many existing approaches which, at most, can usually only model best-case and worst-case scenarios....

The shift follows MHA's $98m listing on London's AIM exchange, the first by a UK accounting firm in over a decade. Instead of selling out to private equity like peers Grant Thornton UK and Evelyn Partners, MHA opted for a minority stake sale, retaining control and leveraging its stock to fund acquisitions in Cyprus and Greece. MHA CEO Rakesh Shaunak said the IPO route allows firms to escape the 'singular pressure' of earnings-driven private equity ownership. 'We didn't want to be totally motivated by EBITDA,' he told the Financial Times. The listing, he argued, offers greater autonomy and a broader investor base. That message is resonating across the sector. Julian Morse, Co-CEO of Cavendish ' the bank advising MHA ' said the deal has shifted market perception, with other firms 'actively considering the possibility of an IPO as a credible alternative to PE investment.' In the US, private equity now owns stakes in more than half of the country's mid-market firms. Blackstone's recent acquisition of Citrin Cooperman from New Mountain Capital marked the first PE-to-PE exit in the sector. Hellman & Friedman, the backer of Baker Tilly US, also sees public markets as the most likely exit route after expanding through its acquisition of Moss Adams....

In late 2022, Noah Pepper, a former Stripe business lead for the Asia Pacific region, founded Multiplier, a startup that aimed to sell software to tax accountants. But soon after ChatGPT was released, it occurred to him that AI can change how professional service firms use technology. It quickly became apparent that the strategy was working. By eliminating manual work, Multiplier's AI tools helped Citrine more than double its profit margins. So, Pepper decided that instead of building software for accounting firms, Multiplier would acquire existing professional service businesses and outfit them with its AI solution. Today, Multiplier, which is now called Multiplier Holdings, is announcing that it raised a total of $27.5 million in seed and Series A financing. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the Series A funding round for the startup, following Multiplier's seed round, which was led by Ribbit Capital with participation from SV Angel. Multiplier is part of a growing trend: startups acquiring existing service businesses and scaling them with AI. The PE-style roll-up strategy has recently gained popularity among VCs, with investors such as General Catalyst, Elad Gil, Thrive, and Khosla Ventures backing startups that develop AI solutions and integrate them into existing people-focused companies....

President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status, and some media outlets have reported that the Internal Revenue Service is taking steps in that direction. Harvard President Alan Garber says this would be 'highly illegal.' Several U.S. senators, all Democrats, have urged the IRS inspector general to see whether the IRS has begun auditing Harvard or any nonprofits in response to his administration's requests or whether Trump has violated any laws with his pressure campaign. The Conversation U.S. asked Philip Hackney, a nonprofit law professor who previously worked in the office of the chief counsel of the IRS, and Brian Mittendorf, an expert on nonprofit accounting, to explain what it would take for the federal government to revoke a university's tax-exempt status. Before the IRS can do that, tax law requires that it first audit that charity. And it's illegal for U.S. presidents or other officials to force the IRS to conduct an audit or stop one that's already begun. Even doing either of those things indirectly is a crime. The punishment can include fines and imprisonment....