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Power Play

Finster AI secures investment from UBS to advance AI innovation in investment banking - Finster AI, the AI intelligence layer for financial professionals, today announced a strategic investment by UBS Investment Bank as part of Finster's Series B financing round, alongside FactSet. The investment relates to the development of AI-native workflows, secure enterprise systems, and trusted data infrastructure to support financial institutions in areas such as research, analysis, and client service. Read more

Sigma360 named to the 2026 Inc. 5000, ranking among the top 10% of America's fastest-growing private companies - The Inc. 5000 recognition follows a period of significant momentum for Sigma360. The company achieved 5x growth over the previous two years, reached profitability in 2025, and recently reported more than 50% growth, gross revenue retention in the high-90% range, and net revenue retention above 130%. Sigma360 also raised $17.3m in Series B funding in the first quarter of 2026 to accelerate product innovation, expand its global reach, and support continued investment in AI-powered financial crime compliance infrastructure. Read more

He tracked terrorist money after 9/11. Now his AI startup makes $10m fighting financial crime - After some hard lessons and a strategic decision to narrow its core offerings, Sigma360 has grown nearly 10-fold and generated nearly $10 million in revenue in 2025. The company has since onboarded major clients including Rippling, Fitch Ratings, Cushman & Wakefield, and PWC, and raised nearly $35 million in funding to date. Read more

CME takes NHL team performance into futures market - U.S. exchanges and prediction markets have looked to ​bring popular cultural and emerging economic themes ​into financial markets, creating new instruments for businesses ⁠and investors. The new contracts will track CME FutureSports ​Performance Indexes and are set to launch on September ​28, pending regulatory review, using real-time NHL statistics beginning with the 2026-2027 season. Read more

Wall Street giants partner with Nvidia on $500b AI financing deal - A consortium of groups including Apollo Global, Blackstone, BlackRock, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs and KKR is entering a partnership with Nvidia to invest in the AI build-out. The partnership underscores Nvidia’s growing efforts to cultivate ties with Wall Street as a source of capital for itself and its clients to continue assembling the chips, power production and data centres at the heart of the AI boom. Read more

Private equity is stuck with 33,575 unsold businesses - Even amid a booming deal-making environment, private equity firms are unable to exit a growing number of investments at values their investors require. Read more

OpenAI is hiring a power-trading lead for Its data center portfolio - The power trading role will execute a commodity hedging strategy across OpenAI's data center power portfolio, requiring a deep understanding of US power markets and related natural gas markets. Securing a steady supply of electricity has become an urgent challenge for technology companies, including OpenAI, pushing firms to build up expertise and trading capabilities in power markets. Read more

Reservation apps have made getting into a restaurant a nightmare - Reservation apps are competing to sign up restaurants with the goal of locking in tables exclusively for their top users. Then there are membership clubs popping up for people who are willing to pay extra to secure tables and cut the line. And credit-card companies are paying restaurants for blocks of early seats so they can offer coveted reservations as a perk for their cardholders. Read more UK regulator prepares framework for tokenized gold - The Financial Conduct Authority has talked to industry members, including big banks, about ways it could regulate tokenised gold in order to encourage growth in the market. The early discussions are part of the UK’s wider efforts to digitise wholesale financial markets and come as London’s gold market dominance is being challenged by China. Read more Apex Fintech Solutions and Kalshi power new era of prediction markets access - Through the collaboration, firms can now offer prediction market trading on real-world outcomes, including economic indicators, financial markets, weather, sports, and cultural events, without building their own Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) infrastructure or direct exchange connectivity. Apex handles clearing, custody, money movement, statements, and account management, while Kalshi provides the regulated marketplace and diverse event contract offerings. Read more AI agents just got their own company credit cards - More than half of businesses, 52%, already use AI to manage part of their expense process, most commonly fraud detection and receipt capture, according to an American Express Trendex survey. Another 40% plan to. That backdrop makes a dedicated agent card a logical next step: Companies are already comfortable letting AI touch expenses. Giving an agent its own card extends that from monitoring spending after the fact to authorizing it in real time. Read more

Kalshi adds Nasdaq market surveillance to monitor trading platform - The technology will help Kalshi detect market abuse and other misconduct across its current and future markets as the company expands. Kalshi says it will implement the technology in phases and share the data with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to meet agency requirements. Read more Francisco to buy payments firm Moneris from RBC, BMO for $1.4b - Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal will each record a large gain on the sale of the business, which provides point-of-sale machines and other payment services to thousands of businesses in Canada. The two Toronto-based banks will equally share the proceeds, according to a statement. Read more eToro agrees to buy TradeZero for up to $231m as equities drive Q2 growth - EToro has been on a bit of an investment kick. In July, the firm led a $12.5m strategic round in Extended, an onchain exchange for perpetual futures, and a few months earlier it acquired crypto wallet provider Zengo, reportedly for about $70m. It also bought Israel-based crypto exchange Bit2C. Read more Anthropic, Macquarie and GIC form venture for AI data centers - The new entity, called Theseus Infrastructure, will serve as a vehicle to develop artificial intelligence computing sites “with an initial focus” in the US, the companies said on Monday. Macquarie and GIC pledged to fund a bulk of the equity for each project, while Anthropic committed to covering any consumer electricity price hikes from the facilities. Read more