tech:

taffy

Facebook IPO Makes Graffiti Artist $200M Rich

[By Sudarshana Banerjee]

“… I get up and see my picture on the cover of the new york times and I find out that I’m the most highest paid decorator alive…….,” writes David Choe in his blog. Back when Facebook was a fledgeling company, it had hired graphiti artist David Choe in 2005 to do a mural. Mr. Choe had the option of being paid in cash or stock options, and he opted for the latter.  Here is the  NYT story Mr. Choe is talking about.

Facebook’s IPO is expected to value the company in the range of $75 billion and up, and Mr. Choe’s stock options will be worth around $200 million once Facebook starts trading publicly. Astute decision on the part of Mr. Choe to opt for the options, and to hold on to them all this while. $200 million can buy a lot of spray paint, so it will be interesting to see what Mr. Choe’s next work of art will be once he rakes in the moolah.

 

Just in

Tembo raises $14M

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tembo, a Postgres managed service provider, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.

Raspberry Pi is now a public company — TC

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate, writes Romain Dillet. 

AlphaSense raises $650M

AlphaSense, a market intelligence and search platform, has raised $650 million in funding, co-led by Viking Global Investors and BDT & MSD Partners.

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B to take on OpenAI — VentureBeat

Confirming reports from April, the series B investment comes from the participation of multiple known venture capital firms and investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding, writes Shubham Sharma. 

Capgemini partners with DARPA to explore quantum computing for carbon capture

Capgemini Government Solutions has launched a new initiative with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate quantum computing's potential in carbon capture.