Latest news with #Koala
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Cursor snaps up enterprise startup Koala in challenge to GitHub Copilot
The startup behind the viral AI coding app Cursor is snapping up top talent from AI enterprise startups in a bid to bolster its competition with Microsoft's GitHub Copilot and win over businesses looking to supercharge their employees with AI coding tools. In one recent case, Cursor maker Anysphere struck a deal to acquire the AI-powered customer relationship management (CRM) startup Koala, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. As part of the deal, Cursor will bring on several of Koala's top engineers to build out a dedicated enterprise-readiness team. However, the entire Koala team will not be joining Anysphere, and Cursor does not plan to integrate the startup's core CRM product, a source told TechCrunch. Koala plans to shut down in September, the company said in a blog post published on Friday. The announcement comes just five months after Koala raised a $15 million Series A led by CRV, with participation from HubSpot Ventures, Recall Capital and Afore. Koala was nearly four years old, had roughly 30 employees according to LinkedIn, and had worked with clients such as Vercel, Statsig, and Retool. Sources in this story requested anonymity to speak with TechCrunch about private matters. Koala and its founders did not respond to TechCrunch's request for comment. Cursor declined to comment. The Koala deal paints a picture of the two types of AI startups we're seeing in 2025. There's Cursor, a juggernaut of an AI tool that is growing so fast it's starting to encroach on the AI space's largest players, including Microsoft and Anthropic. At the same time, there's a growing number of startups like Koala: B2B AI startups that seemed promising — with a co-founder from Meta and advisors like Jack Altman — but have quickly run out of steam. Cursor is capitalizing on this disparity, leveraging middling AI startups as a means to build out its own enterprise offerings. Anysphere also recently hired the CEO of cybersecurity startup Resourcely, Travis McPeak, to lead the company's security teams, according to The Information. These deals look a lot like Big Tech's reverse-acquihires, such as Meta's recent deal to hire Scale AI's leaders. Much like in Meta and Scale's deal, Cursor can now move quickly to build out new business segments while leaving questionable businesses behind. Cursor hopes that Koala and Resourcely's talent will help it evolve from a personal developer tool that engineers quietly use at work and become an enterprise‑wide platform that companies pay large contracts to access. Most enterprises today that offer employees an AI tool choose Microsoft's GitHub Copilot, which works as an AI-powered extension to existing integrated development environments (IDEs) such as VS Code or JetBrains. Cursor, which is a standalone AI-powered IDE, needs to beat out GitHub Copilot to strike deals in many cases, and it often does in head-to-head tests. Still, Microsoft has the upper hand in the enterprise thanks to its long-standing relationships with legacy companies, as well as its large sales, security, and support teams. In the last year, Cursor has decisively built out its go-to-market and sales team — which now contains dozens of employees. Several Cursor employees now spend their days visiting the offices of Fortune 500 companies and showing them how they can integrate Cursor's AI tools into their business, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cursor's enterprise push seems to be gaining traction. Anysphere said it reached $500 million in ARR in June, and now works with more than half of the Fortune 500, including NVIDIA, Uber, and Adobe. A source familiar with the matter says that revenue has since grown, and an increasingly large share of that growth comes from enterprise deals. But as Cursor competes with Microsoft, it also needs to fend off a growing field of threats. The most pressing one is Anthropic, a crucial partner to Anysphere whose Claude Code product has grown rapidly in recent months. Cursor relies heavily on Anthropic's AI models to power its own coding products. (As one of its biggest customers, Cursor is also vital to Anthropic.) At the same time, Google just scooped up the leadership team of Windsurf, a major competitor to Cursor in the AI-powered IDE space. Cognition, the maker of the AI coding agent Devin, acquired the rest of Windsurf's team, potentially offering a significant lift to both businesses. It's worth noting that all of these are different types of AI tools, but employers tend to view the products similarly: as AI tools that can improve the productivity of software engineers. These employers might have the right idea. After all, Anthropic, Microsoft, Cursor, and Cognition are all developing AI coding agents which aim to automate workflows completely, which may be where the AI coding space converges. You might ask, why is everyone competing with everyone else to build AI coding products? Coding tools have become one of the first AI products to find 'product market fit' — the elusive goal that makes the ears of venture capitalists perk up. AI coding products are being used daily by millions of software engineers, and they have started to generate real revenue. Put another way, the race isn't just about building the best AI coding tool anymore. It's about who can scale their enterprise operations the fastest while the market is still up for grabs. With the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Anthropic all moving fast, Cursor's acquisition strategy may determine whether it joins their ranks or becomes another startup that couldn't scale fast enough.
TechCrunch
6 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Cursor snaps up enterprise startup Koala in challenge to GitHub Copilot
The startup behind the viral AI coding app Cursor is snapping up top talent from AI enterprise startups in a bid to bolster its competition with Microsoft's GitHub Copilot and win over businesses looking to supercharge their employees with AI coding tools. In one recent case, Cursor maker Anysphere struck a deal to acquire the AI-powered customer relationship management (CRM) startup Koala, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. As part of the deal, Cursor will bring on several of Koala's top engineers to build out a dedicated enterprise-readiness team. However, the entire Koala team will not be joining Anysphere, and Cursor does not plan to integrate the startup's core CRM product, a source told TechCrunch. Koala plans to shut down in September, the company said in a blog post published on Friday. The announcement comes just five months after Koala raised a $15 million Series A led by CRV, with participation from HubSpot Ventures, Recall Capital and Afore. Koala was nearly four years old, had roughly 30 employees according to LinkedIn, and had worked with clients such as Vercel, Statsig, and Retool. Sources in this story requested anonymity to speak with TechCrunch about private matters. Koala and its founders did not respond to TechCrunch's request for comment. Cursor declined to comment. The Koala deal paints a picture of the two types of AI startups we're seeing in 2025. There's Cursor, a juggernaut of an AI tool that is growing so fast it's starting to encroach on the AI space's largest players, including Microsoft and Anthropic. At the same time, there's a growing number of startups like Koala: B2B AI startups that seemed promising — with a co-founder from Meta and advisors like Jack Altman — but have quickly run out of steam. Cursor is capitalizing on this disparity, leveraging middling AI startups as a means to build out its own enterprise offerings. Anysphere also recently hired the CEO of cybersecurity startup Resourcely, Travis McPeak, to lead the company's security teams, according to The Information. Techcrunch event Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. San Francisco | REGISTER NOW These deals look a lot like Big Tech's reverse-acquihires, such as Meta's recent deal to hire Scale AI's leaders. Much like in Meta and Scale's deal, Cursor can now move quickly to build out new business segments while leaving questionable businesses behind. Cursor hopes that Koala and Resourcely's talent will help it evolve from a personal developer tool that engineers quietly use at work and become an enterprise‑wide platform that companies pay large contracts to access. Most enterprises today that offer employees an AI tool choose Microsoft's GitHub Copilot, which works as an AI-powered extension to existing integrated development environments (IDEs) such as VS Code or JetBrains. Cursor, which is a standalone AI-powered IDE, needs to beat out GitHub Copilot to strike deals in many cases, and it often does in head-to-head tests. Still, Microsoft has the upper hand in the enterprise thanks to its long-standing relationships with legacy companies, as well as its large sales, security, and support teams. In the last year, Cursor has decisively built out its go-to-market and sales team — which now contains dozens of employees. Several Cursor employees now spend their days visiting the offices of Fortune 500 companies and showing them how they can integrate Cursor's AI tools into their business, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cursor's enterprise push seems to be gaining traction. Anysphere said it reached $500 million in ARR in June, and now works with more than half of the Fortune 500, including NVIDIA, Uber, and Adobe. A source familiar with the matter says that revenue has since grown, and an increasingly large share of that growth comes from enterprise deals. But as Cursor competes with Microsoft, it also needs to fend off a growing field of threats. The most pressing one is Anthropic, a crucial partner to Anysphere whose Claude Code product has grown rapidly in recent months. Cursor relies heavily on Anthropic's AI models to power its own coding products. (As one of its biggest customers, Cursor is also vital to Anthropic.) At the same time, Google just scooped up the leadership team of Windsurf, a major competitor to Cursor in the AI-powered IDE space. Cognition, the maker of the AI coding agent Devin, acquired the rest of Windsurf's team, potentially offering a significant lift to both businesses. It's worth noting that all of these are different types of AI tools, but employers tend to view the products similarly: as AI tools that can improve the productivity of software engineers. These employers might have the right idea. After all, Anthropic, Microsoft, Cursor, and Cognition are all developing AI coding agents which aim to automate workflows completely, which may be where the AI coding space converges. You might ask, why is everyone competing with everyone else to build AI coding products? Coding tools have become one of the first AI products to find 'product market fit' — the elusive goal that makes the ears of venture capitalists perk up. AI coding products are being used daily by millions of software engineers, and they have started to generate real revenue. Put another way, the race isn't just about building the best AI coding tool anymore. It's about who can scale their enterprise operations the fastest while the market is still up for grabs. With the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Anthropic all moving fast, Cursor's acquisition strategy may determine whether it joins their ranks or becomes another startup that couldn't scale fast enough.
News.com.au
17-07-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Koala Polar+ Mattress review: For the ultimate cool night's sleep
These products are hand-picked by our team to help make shopping easier. We may receive payments from third parties for sharing this content and when you purchase through links in this article. Product prices and offer details are not assured, and should be confirmed independently with the retailer. Learn more When it comes to getting the perfect night's sleep there's one factor that can make or break it: Temperature. If your bed is too hot you'll easily find yourself frustrated in sweaty sheets. Too cold and you'll suffer through a night of broken sleep. While your bedding can make a difference, a good base is key. Enter Koala's Polar+ Mattress *. Dubbed Koala 's 'coolest mattress ever' it features trademarked PolarBands technology that helps to remove body heat and keep hot sleepers cool. As someone who has struggled with night sweats since giving birth, I was excited to put the Polar+ Mattress to the test. But as I soon learnt to call this simply a cooling mattress would be reductive — the Polar+ comes also with two firmness options, plus a winter side of the topper to keep you cosy when the temperature drops. Read on for my honest review. WHAT IS THE KOALA POLAR+ MATTRESS? The Koala Polar+ has all the features of the Koala Plus mattress but with two extras the company claims will keep you up to five degrees cooler. Found in the top layer of the Polar+ mattress, PolarBands work to conduct body heat away from you. CoolThread fabric, a blend of cooling yarn, helps wick away sweat and feel comfortably cool on your skin. The Polar+ comes with a zippable seasonal topper which has a summer or winter side. You can choose between two flippable levels of firmness: firm or medium firm. It also has all the features Koala are known for in their mattresses — an eight centimetre Kloudcell layer and five-zone support core zero disturbance technology designed to keep bed movement to a minimum. KOALA POLAR+ MATTRESS: FIRST IMPRESSIONS The Polar+ was delivered to my apartment door in three boxes. First impressions were that it was much heavier and bigger than my current mattress, the Koala SE. But despite it being bulkier it was still easy enough to get unboxed and on my bed frame, although it doesn't hurt to have another person to help. Next I waited a few hours for the mattress to expand. While Koala says it can take up to 72 hours for the mattress to fully expand and for the foam to firm up, I found it was perfect to sleep on that night after unboxing it at 2pm that day. DOES IT KEEP YOU COOL? I tested this mattress in June-July, so I can't attest (yet) to how well it keeps you cool during summer. However the Polar+ has helped me regulate my body temperature and sleep more soundly as a result. I don't wake up feeling overheated anymore, but nor do I feel like I am too cold. Instead the mattress offers a level of breathability that I've never experienced with a mattress before, it's a true game changer. My husband also remarked that his sleep has improved drastically. Not too hot, not too cold, it's the Goldilocks of mattresses. WHAT'S IT LIKE TO SLEEP ON? It's always hard to believe that Koala's mattresses don't have springs because they're so supportive and the Polar+ is no different. I prefer a softer mattress and opted for the medium firm setting and while it's firmer than other mattresses from a box I've tried, it still has that dreamy, cloud-like support. This mattress helps me sleep like a baby and I can't recommend it enough.
Perth Now
14-07-2025
- Health
- Perth Now
Koalas dead after ‘cruel' NSW relocation project
More than half of the koalas moved from their natural habitat as part of a NSW Government reintroduction program have died. The project was undertaken to re-establish a koala population in an area of southern NSW where the species is extinct. A NSW environment department spokesperson told The Guardian that 13 koalas were selected for the move and were taken from the Upper Nepean state conservation area west of Wollongong to the South East Forest national park. Following the death of three of these koalas in April, the remaining ten were placed in a wildlife hospital, where four more later died. According to the spokesperson, two of the three koalas that died in April had likely died of septicaemia, a bloodstream infection. The team is investigating a 'potential link between septicaemia in koalas and adverse weather conditions' because the deaths occurred after a 'significant rainfall event'. The six remaining koalas have been returned home to their familiar Upper Nepean habitat. In a statement, the NSW Greens said the project has gone 'horribly wrong'. NSW Green MP Sue Higginson said the situation is 'deeply disturbing, tragic and cruel'. 'How this even passed muster as a Koala 'conservation program' is unfathomable, something has gone radically awry,' Ms Higginson said. 'This level of experimentation with our endangered koalas is cruel, was a catastrophic failure and should not have happened. The control settings around this translocation experiment were obviously fundamentally flawed and I don't think the public would find this level of experimentation with our endangered koalas at all acceptable.' She said that evidence of previous attempts of translocation has demonstrated that it process is 'fraught with risk and failure' for koalas. 'The Minns Labor Government promised to protect koalas, but it's been over 2 years, they haven't established the Great Koala National Park, changed any laws to better protect koalas, they haven't even completed the review of the NSW Koala Strategy'.
Miami Herald
23-06-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
Five times sea creatures captivated an audience. See the ‘phenomenal' sightings
World Five times sea creatures captivated an audience. See the 'phenomenal' sightings A days-old orca calf was spotted near San Juan Island, closely shadowing its mother as researchers monitored their health. A peachy-colored orca calf, J-62, showed playful energy while socializing with her J pod family in the Salish Sea. In Ireland, a rare sighting of a sperm whale navigating a shallow estuary ended safely, easing conservationists' fears. Read the stories below. File photo. An endangered baby whale was born recently. It has been spotted off San Juan Island. James Beheshti via Unsplash NO. 1: DAYS-OLD ENDANGERED SEA CREATURE SWIMS WITH MOM NEAR WASHINGTON ISLAND. SEE THE PAIR 'What a tiny miracle.' | Published September 18, 2024 | Read Full Story by Helena Wegner Two pairs of female North American right whales and calves were spotted near north Florida Dec. 30, the FWC said. Getty Images/iStockphoto NO. 2: ENDANGERED WHALES — ONE A FIRST-TIME MOM — SPOTTED WITH CALVES OFF FLORIDA. SEE THEM Fewer than 400 remain in the wild, biologists estimate. | Published January 2, 2025 | Read Full Story by Olivia Lloyd The calf was first spotted New Year's Eve. James Beheshti via Unsplash NO. 3: BABY KILLER WHALE WITH PEACHY COLORING SEEN BONDING WITH FAMILY OFF WA. 'PHENOMENAL' A video shows the endangered sea creature rolling and splashing. | Published March 4, 2025 | Read Full Story by Helena Wegner In a 'rare' sighting, a sperm whale was observed swimming into the mouth of a river in Ireland. Just a few dozen sperm whale sightings have been made off the coast of Ireland since 1990, according to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group. Photo from IWDG, Facebook NO. 4: DEEP WATER WHALE SEEN SWIMMING UP SHALLOW RIVER IN IRELAND, PHOTOS SHOW. 'RARE EVENT' The species has only been documented off the Emerald Isle about two dozen times since 1990. | Published March 28, 2025 | Read Full Story by Brendan Rascius The whales, named Koala and Curlew, 'appear to be in good health,' officials says. However, they face dangers from potentially deadly boat strikes due to being close to shore at a tourism hot spot, experts say. NOAA Fisheries photo NO. 5: TWO ENDANGERED WHALES MYSTERIOUSLY POP UP OFF UNEXPECTED US COASTLINE, NOAA SAYS The pair are 'out-of-habitat,' experts say. | Published April 9, 2025 | Read Full Story by Mark Price The summary above was drafted with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists in our News division. All stories listed were reported, written and edited by McClatchy journalists.
