Microsoft Pulls Teams from Office Amidst EU Probe; AI21 Labs Secures Funding from Google, Nvidia
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on 4th Sep 2023 inIn today's ExchangeWire news digest: Microsoft unbundles Teams from Office; Israel's AI21 Labs raises £122m in a series C funding round; and Klarna reports it turned a profit in May this year.
Microsoft to cut Teams out of Office
Microsoft has stated it will unbundle Teams from its Office product, saying it will make it easier for competing products to work with its software. Rivals, however, have suggested that Microsoft is attempting to stave off regulators. The move comes a month after the European Commission launched a probe into Microsoft’s integration of Teams into Office.
AI start-up AI21 Labs surpasses $1bn valuation
Israel’s AI21 Labs has raised USD$155m (~£122m) in a series C round, including investments from Google, Nvidia, and Samsung Next. The OpenAI rival, which builds AI systems for natural language, is now valued at USD$1.4bn (~£1.1bn).
Klarna reports first profitable month in three years
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Klarna has reported it turned a profit in May of this year, marking its first profitable month in a three-year period. The Swedish company has struggled against reduced consumer confidence and debt in recent years, however CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the results show Klarna’s business model is “incredibly agile and sustainable”.
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Fact of the Day
150 million – the size of Klarna's global customer base.
Source: Statista
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