June 05, 2015
Tech Moves: Ascend promotes Nate Bek; Microsoft Word ‘Agent Mode’ architect exits; TAF names new exec
September 18, 2026
Nate Bek, left, with Ascend founding general partner Kirby Winfield at the firm’s Founders Bash event Thursday night. (GeekWire Photo / John Cook) — Seattle-based venture capital firm Ascend promoted Nate Bek to principal. Bek joined the firm as an associate in January 2024 and was most recently...
Space hardware startup plans $125M stock offering and Nasdaq listing through shell company merger
September 18, 2026
An artist’s conception shows Gravitics’ Diamondback orbital carrier, which is due to make its debut as early as 2027. (Gravitics Illustration) Marysville, Wash.-based Gravitics, which is developing orbital carriers for government and commercial customers, is getting ready for a reverse takeover...
Twin tech founders who left Seattle for Alaska bet on an AI agent named ‘Walter’ to cover local news
September 18, 2026
Twin brothers Lucas and Lee Brown co-founded Seattle’s HasOffers in 2009 and rebranded to Tune in 2014. (Instagram / Geeks in the Woods) Several years after leaving Seattle’s startup scene to build a “tech outpost” in the Alaskan wilderness, serial entrepreneurs and twin brothers Lee and Lucas...
From elections to board games: Washington’s secretary of state does double duty as a tabletop trade envoy
September 18, 2026
Steve Hobbs, secretary of state for Washington, poses at his booth during the 2026 Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo/Thomas Wilde) If you explore the main expo hall during the Penny Arcade Expo, you can often find some interesting booths around the edges of the room. These can offer...
Fewer lab animals, better drugs: This startup wants to fix how experiments get designed
September 18, 2026
ModernVivo co-founders Colin Small (left) and Ian Levine (right). Seattle-based ModernVivo is using AI to help scientists design preclinical studies for drug discovery. The goal: better experiments that are also faster, cheaper and less reliant on animals. “You’d be shocked at the way...
Inside Temporal’s journey to a $12.55B valuation, and its bet on building a backbone for AI agents
September 18, 2026
Temporal co-founders Maxim Fateev, CTO (left), and Samar Abbas, CEO. (Temporal Photo) One of the hottest infrastructure companies in AI today is a startup established nearly seven years ago, tracing its roots to work its founders were doing before the cloud was a thing. Temporal, based in...
Seattle’s KEXP eyes a second physical home — in San Francisco’s historic Haight-Ashbury
September 17, 2026
The Doolan-Larson House and Storefronts in San Francisco, a potential future KEXP location. (SF Heritage Photo / Alvis E. Hendley) Seattle independent radio station KEXP is exploring the possibility of building out a second physical home — far from its beloved base at Seattle Center — in San...
Startup Ravel raises $8.2M to help solve clothing recycling’s spandex problem
September 17, 2026
The Ravel team at its Seattle pilot facility in March 2025, from left: Forest Davis, process development scientist; John Goods, co-founder and chief technologist; Zahlen Titcomb, co-founder and CEO; Zack Wolford, research engineer; and Kristen Albrecht, chief sustainability officer and vice...
Startup Spotlight: Local Crew uses video and AI to cut out in-person home repair estimates
September 17, 2026
Saad Nadeem, co-founder of Seattle startup Local Crew. (Photo courtesy of Saad Nadeem) Saad Nadeem doesn’t have any professional background in home improvement. But like any self-respecting weekend warrior, his experiences as a homeowner have taught him some valuable lessons. The biggest...
Portland startup Antfly raises $2M to streamline data infrastructure for AI agents
September 17, 2026
Antfly co-founders James McDermott, left, and AJ Roetker. (Photos courtesy of Antfly) Antfly, a Portland startup building software to streamline how artificial intelligence systems access corporate data, announced Thursday that it has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led...
Oracle cuts 359 Washington jobs in latest AI-driven layoffs; Seattle offices ‘not closing’
September 16, 2026
Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk. (Oracle Photo) Oracle is laying off 359 employees in Washington state — its second significant job cuts this year — according to a filing Wednesday with the state Employment Security Department. The cuts affect remote employees across Washington state as well as...
How UW’s solar vehicle team harnessed the sun and hard work to shine on the national stage
September 16, 2026
Elijah Yan, left, and Rudy Heredia-Jantz, members of the Solar Vehicle Team at UW, with Sakura, the solar-powered vehicle the student-led team constructed in their shop at the University of Washington. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) In a cramped corner workspace in a mechanical engineering...
UW, Microsoft and E8 back climate tech incubator targeting data centers as AI energy concerns surge
September 16, 2026
Taylor Brugh, Microsoft sustainability markets partnerships & ops lead, at Tuesday’s CoMotion Labs Climate Tech Incubator Demo Day, where the data center-focused program was announced. (CoMotion Photo) As public concern grows about the environmental impact of AI data centers, the University of...
From school nuggets to insect kibble: How the next generation of faux meats aims to win over skeptics
September 16, 2026
Taoran Wang, senior food scientist at Rebellyous Foods, displays a tray of experimental chicken patties. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) Subscribe to Positive Charge: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, All Episodes More than 40 years ago, the first commercial veggie...
Interlune raises $5M for initiatives that go beyond mining the moon
September 16, 2026
An artist’s conception shows a mining operation on the moon, including harvesters and a solar power plant. (Interlune Illustration) Seattle-based Interlune has raised $5 million in fresh funding to support a business plan that involves building space infrastructure as well as mining the moon for...
Helion funding round grows to $500M amid uncertainty over fusion startup’s Microsoft timeline
September 15, 2026
An aerial view of Orion, Helion Energy’s planned fusion plant being built in Malaga, Wash. (Helion Photo) Helion Energy on Tuesday said that it added $35 million to a funding round initially announced in June. The Everett, Wash.-based fusion company originally shared news of a $465 million...
Terry Myerson retires as Truveta CEO, with co-founders stepping in to lead $1B health data startup
September 15, 2026
Terry Myerson, Truveta’s co-founder and CEO, will retire at the end of September. (Truveta Photo) Terry Myerson, the former Microsoft executive who co-founded Truveta during the pandemic, growing it to 500 employees and a valuation of more than $1 billion, is retiring as CEO of the Bellevue,...
Uncommon Thinkers 2026: Last call for nominations for Seattle’s boldest innovators
September 15, 2026
The 2025 “Uncommon Thinkers” award winners, from left: Anindya Roy, co-founder of Lila Biologics; Kiana Ehsani, co-founder of Vercept; Max Blumen of Tin Can representing winner Chet Kittleson, co-founder of Tin Can; Jeff Thornburg, co-founder of Portal Space Systems; Jay Graber of Bluesky; and...
Sen. Maria Cantwell warns of autonomous AI ‘swarms’ as she calls for federal guardrails
September 15, 2026
Pointing to recent security incidents where networked AI agents spontaneously formed “swarms” to hack computer systems, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) took to the Senate floor Monday to demand urgent federal guardrails and mandatory independent safety testing for frontier AI models before...
Goldman Sachs plants flag in Bellevue, opening hub for more than 125 AI and cloud engineers
September 15, 2026
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon Goldman Sachs is expanding its technology presence in the Seattle region, opening a new Bellevue engineering center that will accommodate more than 125 employees focused on artificial intelligence and cloud transformation. The New York-based financial giant...
Seattle’s Nuance Labs raises $50M to give AI models human expression and nuance
September 15, 2026
Nuance Labs co-founders, from left, Fangchang Ma, Edward Zhang, and Karren Yang. (Nuance Photo) Nuance Labs, a Seattle-based artificial intelligence startup developing a foundational AI model designed to perceive and respond to real-time human expression, raised $50 million in Series A...
Providence to receive $1.1B from Nike co-founder to build women’s health hospital in Oregon
September 15, 2026
Oregon’s first hospital focused on women’s health will be built on the campus of Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland. (Providence Illustration) Providence will receive $1.1 billion — one of the largest gifts ever pledged to a U.S. healthcare institution — from Nike co-founder Phil...
America’s machinists are retiring, and two startup founders in their 20s want to salvage what they know
September 15, 2026
Neuramill co-founders Nick Khormaei (COO) and Nistha Mitra (CEO) at the Reindustrialize summit in Detroit. (Photo courtesy of Neuramill) When machinists with decades of experience retire, everything they know about how metal behaves under a cutting tool — or anything else they learned through a...
BuyWander raises $21M as retail returns startup expands nationwide from new Seattle HQ
September 15, 2026
BuyWander co-founders Jordan Allen, left, and Brock Kowalchuk. (BuyWander Photo) BuyWander, an auction-based online marketplace for returned and overstocked retail items, announced Tuesday that it has raised $21 million in a Series A funding round led by Madrona Venture Group and Inspired...
Agility’s new Digit 5 robot lifts 50 pounds, works 20+ hours a day and operates alongside people
September 15, 2026
Two views of Agility Robotics’ new Digit 5, which is designed to work alongside people without safety barriers. (Agility Robotics Photo) Agility Robotics unveiled the next version of its Digit humanoid robot, which it says is designed to work safely alongside people in warehouses and factories...
Gates Foundation bets $1B on AI to boost global health, agriculture and education
September 15, 2026
“AI could be a great equalizer — or widen the gap,” Bill Gates writes in a new Gates Foundation report. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) The Gates Foundation is pledging to spend at least $1 billion over the next two years on artificial intelligence for health workers, farmers and teachers,...
‘The warning signs are flashing’: New regional partnership calls for cohesive Seattle-area tech strategy
September 15, 2026
“You should tax things you want to discourage, like cigarettes, not jobs.” Microsoft’s Brad Smith at Monday’s launch of the Partnership for a Competitive Puget Sound, with former Gov. Chris Gregoire at his left. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh each had their...
Monday-morning surprise: Valve Software suddenly launches its wireless VR headset Steam Frame for $1,059
September 14, 2026
Valve’s Steam Frame virtual reality gaming headset. (Valve Photo) In a sudden shadowdrop, Bellevue, Wash.-based Valve Software announced on Monday that it’s launched its new standalone virtual-reality headset the Steam Frame. Initially revealed in Nov. 2025 as part of the same initiative that...
Temporal raises $550M, hits $12.55B valuation as agentic AI wave fuels massive growth
September 14, 2026
Temporal co-founders Samar Abbas, left, CEO, and Maxim Fateev, CTO. (Temporal Photo) Temporal has raised $550 million in a Series E funding round that values the Bellevue, Wash.-based infrastructure startup at $12.55 billion, more than double its valuation from earlier this year as demand...
This software engineer is taking Google to the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify patent law
September 14, 2026
Jeff Kohler is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify patent law after courts sided with Google to invalidate his software patent. (Photo courtesy of Jeff Kohler) Jeff Kohler was working as a software engineer in 2005 when he started spending his nights and weekends on a side project: a web...
Tech Moves: Microsoft, Amazon and Kestra promotions; Gradial names CMO; Yoodli adds VP
September 14, 2026
Silvia Candiani. (LinkedIn Photo) — Silvia Candiani has been named corporate vice president of Worldwide Telco & Media within the Microsoft Frontier Company, a $2.5 billion initiative launched by the tech giant in July to embed engineers inside customers to build and run AI systems. In her new...
Microsoft floats rules for AI models as industry weighs slowdown
September 14, 2026
Satya Nadella says Microsoft welcomes the “deliberate pacing needed to get alignment right.” (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) “People matter more than AI.” That’s the premise of a draft code of conduct Microsoft published Monday morning for the AI models it’s developing in-house. The...
Sophia Space and SLI set the terms for a $300M deal that will finance an orbital computing constellation
September 14, 2026
An artist’s conception shows several Sophia Space satellites in orbit. (Sophia Space Illustration) Sophia Space and SLI, an aerospace leasing venture based in Washington, D.C., say they’ve agreed on a $300 million asset-financing framework that will support the creation of a 10-satellite...
Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 6, 2026
September 13, 2026
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 Sept. 6, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...
Study warns Seattle over-relies on Big Tech; Seattle Times v. Microsoft; Apple’s iPhone Duo echoes the past
September 12, 2026
This week on the GeekWire Podcast: A study commissioned by the City of Seattle says the city is not in decline but is in danger — finding that 10 companies, nine of them in tech, pay three-quarters of the payroll tax on large employers, and that the tax structure uniquely penalizes the hiring...
Comments(0)