June 29, 2024
HSA Bank acquires fintech startup SecureSave, providers of employee savings solutions
December 04, 2025
Devin Miller, co-founder and CEO of SecureSave, during the “Elevator Pitch” finale at the 2022 GeekWire Summit. (GeekWire File Photo / Dan DeLong) Fintech startup SecureSave, a 2020 spinout of Seattle’s Pioneer Square Labs, has been acquired by Wisconsin-based HSA Bank. SecureSave helps...
OpenAI CEO reportedly turned to a Seattle startup in quest to challenge SpaceX on the space data frontier
December 04, 2025
Stoke Space’s Zenith booster engine blazes during a hot-fire test in 2024. (Stoke Space Photo) OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is thinking about expanding into the final frontier for data centers, and his efforts to follow through on that thought reportedly turned into talks with Stoke Space, a rocket...
Tech Moves: Washington names broadband leader; Greater Seattle Partners gets interim president/CEO; Microsoft legal exec departs
December 04, 2025
Jordan Arnold. (LinkedIn Photo) — Jordan Arnold is the new director of the Washington State Broadband Office within the Department of Commerce, effective Jan. 2. Under the Biden administration, Arnold served as a senior policy advisor on the Infrastructure Implementation Team within the...
Otto, led by former Expedia exec, rolls out AI agent for business travelers that mimics an executive assistant
December 04, 2025
Examples of interactions with Otto the Agent, an AI-powered business travel assistant. (Otto Images) Seattle-based startup Otto announced the wide release Thursday of its AI-powered travel assistant — Otto the Agent — in a bid to bring a concierge-level experience and...
Crypto ATM startup Coinme hit with cease-and-desist order in Washington state
December 04, 2025
(Coinme Image) Washington state regulators ordered Seattle-based cryptocurrency company Coinme to stop transmitting money for customers in the state, alleging the startup improperly claimed more than $8 million in customer funds as its own income. The Washington State Department of Financial...
Seattle-area startup Govstream.ai raises $3.6M to improve city permitting processes using AI
December 04, 2025
Govstream.ai aims to drastically improve cities’ permitting processes and reduce costs and timelines associated with housing development. (Govstream.ai Illustration) Govstream.ai, a Seattle-area startup building AI-native permitting tools for local governments, raised $3.6 million in funding,...
Global health backslide: Gates Foundation report links funding cuts to rising child deaths
December 04, 2025
From left: Bill Gates, Dr. Bosede Afolabi and Dr. Opeyemi Akinajo at Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria in June 2025. (Photo via Gates Foundation / Light Oriye, Nigeria) Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation are raising the alarm over the deadly impacts of international funding...
Groceries in a flash: We tested ‘Amazon Now’ in Seattle — and got our delivery in 23 minutes
December 03, 2025
A bag of Amazon Now groceries, delivered in Seattle on Tuesday. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Amazon’s new “Amazon Now” ultra-fast delivery for household essentials and fresh groceries passed the speed test on Tuesday. During a trial of the newly launched service, it took 23 minutes from...
Seattle startup Gradial raises $35M to boost agentic tools that automate enterprise marketing
December 03, 2025
The Gradial team. (Gradial Photos) Seattle startup Gradial raised a $35 million Series B round to expand its AI platform that automates the behind-the-scenes work of enterprise marketing. VMG Partners led the round, with participation from existing backers Madrona and Pruven Capital. It’s the...
UW Nobel winner’s lab releases most powerful protein design tool yet
December 03, 2025
A protein created by RFdiffusion3, a newly released protein design tool from Nobel laureate David Baker’s lab, interacting with DNA. (UW Institute for Protein Design / Ian C. Haydon Image) David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington is announcing two major leaps in the field of AI-powered...
Amazon will pay $3.7M to settle labor claims in Seattle for alleged gig worker ordinance violations
December 03, 2025
Amazon Flex drivers deliver packages, food and grocery items for Amazon. (Amazon Photo) Amazon has agreed to pay more than $3.7 million to settle claims with the City of Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards (OLS) over allegations that it violated ordinances protecting gig and app-based workers...
The hot new thing at AWS re:Invent has nothing to do with AI
December 02, 2025
AWS CEO Matt Garman unveils the crowd-pleasing Database Savings Plans with just two seconds remaining on the “lightning round” shot clock at the end of his re:Invent keynote Tuesday morning. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) LAS VEGAS — After spending nearly two hours trying to impress the crowd...
Bill Gates-backed Modern Hydrogen lays off most of its employees after decade-long pursuit of clean energy
December 02, 2025
Installation of a Modern Hydrogen methane pyrolysis device at NW Natural, a natural gas public utility in Portland, Ore. (Modern Hydrogen Photo) Modern Hydrogen — a clean energy startup with technology that at one time seemed to delight Bill Gates and attracted his investment — has now laid off...
Seattle biotech startup Curi Bio lands $10M to expand its R&D support for drug discovery
December 02, 2025
Curi Bio’s ribbon cutting in April 2025 for its new headquarters on Seattle’s waterfront. Elliot Fisher, co-founder and chief business officer, cuts the ribbon with a sword while CEO Nicholas Geisse holds a pair of scissors. (Curi Bio Photo) Seattle biotech startup Curi Bio, which enables the...
AI roleplay startup Yoodli raises $40M, reports 900% revenue growth
December 02, 2025
The Yoodli team in Seattle. (Yoodli Photo) Yoodli is on a roll. The Seattle startup, which sells AI-powered software to help people practice real-world conversations such as sales calls and feedback sessions, announced a $40 million Series B round on Tuesday to fuel growth. WestBridge...
Amazon unveils ‘frontier agents,’ new chips and private ‘AI factories’ in AWS re:Invent rollout
December 02, 2025
Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman opens the 2025 AWS re:Invent conference Tuesday in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) LAS VEGAS — Amazon is pitching a future where AI works while humans sleep, announcing a collection of what it calls “frontier agents” capable of handling complex,...
Uncommon Thinkers: Kiana Ehsani thrives on scrappy persistence at AI startup and in the outdoors
December 02, 2025
Kiana Ehsani skiing near Camp Muir on Mount Rainier in April. (Photo courtesy of Kiana Ehsani) Editor’s note: This series profiles six of the Seattle region’s “Uncommon Thinkers”: inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the...
Bill Gates’ TerraPower gets NRC green light for safety in construction of its first nuclear plant
December 01, 2025
A mockup of a fuel bundle for TerraPower’s Natrium reactor. (TerraPower Photo) Nuclear power company TerraPower has passed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s final safety evaluation for a permit to build a reactor in Wyoming. The Washington-based company backed by Bill Gates and NVIDIA...
Tech Moves: Ex-Payscale CEO Scott Torrey joins Smartsheet; Apple taps Microsoft VP to lead AI efforts
December 01, 2025
Scott Torrey. (Smartsheet Photo) — Smartsheet’s C-suite shuffle continues with the hiring of Scott Torrey as chief revenue officer. Torrey previously led salary data company Payscale as CEO from 2019 to 2021. He spent the past three years as executive chairman at finance software startup...
Amazon tests new ‘Amazon Now’ 30-minute delivery service in Seattle and Philadelphia
December 01, 2025
Amazon’s former Fresh Pickup site in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, which closed since early 2023, is slated to become a new rapid-dispatch delivery hub for Amazon Flex drivers, according to permit filings. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Amazon on Monday officially launched Amazon Now, a new...
Washington state AI task force lays out blueprint for regulation, suggests grant program for startups
December 01, 2025
The state Capitol Building in Olympia, Wash. (Photo by Nils Huenerfuerst on Unsplash) Washington state is moving to set its own regulatory framework for artificial intelligence in the absence of federal legislation, laying out recommendations for how lawmakers should regulate AI in healthcare,...
Anonymous donor gifts $50M to help University of Washington train ‘unsung heroes’ of healthcare
December 01, 2025
University of Washington Medical Laboratory Science Undergraduate Program seniors Lily Koplowitz-Fleming, left, and Keila Uchimura (center) speak with UW Medicine CEO Tim Dellit at an event Monday announcing a $50 million anonymous gift. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) In an unusual act of...
Zillow removes climate data from home listings — but it’s unclear why
December 01, 2025
(Zillow Photo) This story first appeared on Real Estate News. Home search leader Zillow has changed the way that it shares climate risk information — directing visitors to the website of data partner First Street rather than surfacing it on Zillow home detail pages. “This update ensures...
Tech Moves: Expedia names first AI chief; Textio founder joins Microsoft; T-Mobile exec departs
December 01, 2025
Xavier Amatriain. (Expedia Photo) — Expedia Group appointed Xavier Amatriain as its first chief artificial intelligence officer and data officer. He joins the Seattle-based travel giant from Google where he served as vice president of product in AI and Compute Enablement. Other past employers...
AWS re:Invent preview: What’s at stake for Amazon at its big cloud confab this year
December 01, 2025
Amazon re:Invent is the company’s annual cloud conference, drawing thousands of business leaders and developers to Las Vegas. (GeekWire File Photo) As we make our way to AWS re:Invent today in Las Vegas, these are some of the questions on our mind: Will Amazon CEO Andy Jassy make another...
Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Nov. 23, 2025
November 30, 2025
Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Nov. 23, 2025. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...
Former Kraken exec Todd Humphrey launches firm to improve customer experiences in sports and beyond
November 28, 2025
Less than five minutes after meeting with Todd Humphrey at a Seattle coffee shop, the longtime tech exec is already sizing up the customer. He quickly assesses how coffee drinkers interact with each other and their technology devices, and wonders why they’ve come to this particular...
Here’s why there’s a solar canopy in a sprawling parking lot at the University of Washington
November 26, 2025
The new solar canopies and EV charging at a University of Washington parking lot alongside Husky Stadium. (Trinity Energy) The University of Washington is powering up its vision for a brighter, more sustainable future with a newly completed solar canopy installed in a sprawling...
‘No chatbot energy here’: Armoire weaves AI into its clothing rental service after a decade of pivots
November 26, 2025
Armoire CEO Ambika Singh, right, at the company’s second annual South Asian Fashion Show in September 2025. (Marcellus Manier Photo) When Ambika Singh, the CEO and founder of the online clothing rental company Armoire, began exploring AI applications, she had to thread the needle between...
‘Not a squeak’: Veteran tech workers face new reality amid layoffs and tough job market
November 26, 2025
Jonathan Duncan spent 21 years at Microsoft in various leadership roles. (Photo courtesy of Duncan) Jonathan Duncan was laid off from Microsoft in May after more than two decades at the tech giant. Since then, he’s applied to roughly 200 jobs. The response has been silence. “Not a squeak,”...
‘Product won’t win. Distribution will.’ Tips for startup founders raising cash right now
November 25, 2025
From left: Avante CEO Rohan D’Souza, Fuse founding general partner Kellan Carter, and GeekWire editor Taylor Soper at a Seattle AI Week panel discussion last month. (Photo courtesy of Jen Haller) If you’re building an early-stage startup and trying to raise venture capital dollars to fuel your...
Uncommon Thinkers: How Portal’s Jeff Thornburg plans to harness the heat of the sun in the cold of space
November 25, 2025
Portal Space Systems CEO Jeff Thornburg checks out the vacuum chamber where space hardware is tested. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Editor’s note: This series profiles six of the Seattle region’s “Uncommon Thinkers”: inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries...
‘Me, Myself and AI’ host Sam Ransbotham on finding the real value in AI — even when it’s wrong
November 25, 2025
Sam Ransbotham, host of “Me, Myself and AI,” from MIT Sloan Management Review. (Boston College Photo) Sam Ransbotham teaches a class in machine learning as a professor of business analytics at Boston College, and what he’s witnessing in the classroom both excites and terrifies him. Some...
Verizon layoffs impact 165 workers in Washington state
November 24, 2025
Analysts, engineers, and retail workers are impacted by Verizon layoffs in Washington. (Verizon Photo) Verizon is laying off approximately 165 employees in Washington state, including analysts, engineers and retail workers. The layoffs were disclosed in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining...
Rad Power Bikes hits another roadblock as U.S. safety commission issues product safety warning
November 24, 2025
Rad Power Bikes says the batteries on its e-bikes comply with the highest industry standards. (Rad Power Bikes Photo) Embattled electric bike maker Rad Power Bikes is facing another challenge as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning to consumers Monday to stop using...
