That tension was explored at the London Private Equity Insights Conference by senior investors from AVP (formerly AXA Venture Partners), EQT, and Ardian, in a discussion moderated by Jerome Pottier. The recurring theme was focused on behaviour and how decisions are justified within the wider organization. Imran Akram, General Partner at AVP started by explaining that for much of his career, value creation involved 'spending a lot of time going through lists of companies and conferences and checking data and doing all the sort of low-level work.' AI's first impact has been to remove that burden. Feeding large volumes of information into a machine and asking it to surface risks or priorities is now a routine exercise. 'It makes so much more sense to feed it to a machine to go and read it and tell you 'look, actually, here are the five things you should look at',' said Akram. What is more revealing is what happened when these systems started working well. Akram described internal tools that identified relevant opportunities with a hit rate of around 30%, which is unusually high by private equity standards. Yet many professionals ignored them. 'People are not spending their time in the CRM,' he said. 'They just go back and do it their own way.'...

Anthropic has doubled the amount of VC funding it aims to raise, the FT reports, increasing the target from $10 billion to $20 billion. The round, expected to close soon, will give the company a valuation of $350 billion, sources told the FT. Anthropic, which makes the popular AI Claude and the equally popular Claude Code, decided to double its funding target due to booming investor interest. Backers in this round are expected to include Sequoia Capital (which also invests in its rival OpenAI), Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, and investment management firm Coatue, per the FT. Late last year, it was reported that Anthropic hired lawyers as a step toward prepping for an IPO that could come sometime this year. The company announced a $13 billion raise in September, making it one of the industry's most valuable private companies, valued at $183 billion. Tickets are live at the lowest rates of the year. Save up to $680 on your pass ' and if you're among the first 500 registrants, score a +1 pass at 50% off.Meet investors. Discover your next portfolio company. Hear from 250+ tech leaders, dive into 200+ sessions, and explore 300+ startups building what's next. Don't miss these one-time savings....

Real-time businesses are able to make quick, data-driven decisions, enabling them to dramatically outperform competitors. Research points to four key capabilities that the most successful RTBs have: real-time data availability and decision-making, empowered employees, better business agility, and a more integrated customer experience. Case studies of United Airlines, Ikea Retail, and Vanguard illustrate how those companies have engaged in the four capabilities to become successful real-time businesses. Unprecedented volatility and hypercompetitiveness are current pressures across almost all industries. While generative and agentic AI technologies dominate headlines, the true competitive advantage lies not in the technologies themselves but in fundamentally reimagining how organizations operate. Our research reveals a critical insight: The ability to operate as a real-time business (RTB) ' that is, have the data available to allow employees to make decisions and take action in real time ' has become a defining characteristic of market leaders. In our global study, we found that companies operating in the top versus the bottom quartile of 'real-time-ness' achieved a remarkable performance premium ' more than 50% higher revenue growth and net margins. We defined real-time-ness as the organizational capability to immediately respond to changing conditions through a combination of digitized operations, empowered employees, and real-time data access, all operating within appropriate governance guardrails....

This is a drone flying contest with a twist. Rather than humans operating drones, the drones must operate autonomously. The humans will be tested on their software-writing skills that cause the drones to outfly their competition. Someone suggested sponsoring a drone racing tournament, which was somewhat in line with the company's previous marketing tactics. For instance, Anduril sponsors the NASCAR Cup Series race known as the Anduril 250. Luckey generally liked the idea but then said, ''Guys, that would be a really dumb thing for Anduril to sponsor. The whole point, our entire impetus and reason for being, is this pitch that autonomy has finally advanced to where you don't have to have a person micromanaging each drone,'' he recalled, then adding, ''What we should really do is sponsor a race that's about how well programmers and engineers can make a drone fly itself.'' After discovering that such an event didn't exist, the company opted to create it themselves. Interestingly, though, Luckey pointed out that the teams in the AI Grand Prix will not be flying Anduril's drones, but those built by another defense tech startup: Neros Technologies. According to Luckey, Anduril's drones are too physically big to run in the contained course in Ohio where the finals will take place....