TheChek News Flow

CIA’s venture-capital arm is among the investors in Kela, a firm where ‘techno-warriors’ aim to sell directly to the Pentagon

Venture-capital firms that have been pouring money into American defense startups are setting their sights on Israel, investing in military tech companies that have emerged since the country went to war in Gaza and Lebanon.

Driving the investment is the belief that Israeli firms will increasingly compete for contracts in the U.S. and in European countries where military spending is expected to surge in coming years. One Israeli startup called Kela has recently scored investments from two of the biggest U.S. venture-capital firms involved in the defense market, as well as from the Central Intelligence Agency’s investment arm.

“This is the first big venture investment in Israel,” said David Cahn of Sequoia Capital, which funded Kela’s entire seed round. Lux Capital stepped in on the next round, the Series A. The funding from Lux and other investors brought the total amount raised for Kela to $39 million.

Kela’s product isn’t a specific weapon, such as a drone or missile, but software that integrates commercial and military technologies, for applications such as border defense. That product is just the first step for the company, which aims to compete for contracts to develop and integrate major weapons systems, said co-founder and President Hamutal Meridor.

“Outside of Israel, in the U.S. and Europe, we are going to go after big programs,” she said.

Israel is hoping there will be more of these large investments in the defense-tech sector, which is still dominated by established companies such as Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. In December, Israel’s Defense Ministry and Tel Aviv University hosted the country’s first defense-tech summit to bring together investors, companies and government officials.

“There is a renaissance now in defense tech that plays absolutely perfectly into this ecosystem that exists here in Israel,” said Lorne Abony of Texas Venture Partners in Austin, Texas, speaking at the summit. Abony’s venture company was launched last year with $50 million that it plans to invest in Israeli defense firms.

While Israeli defense startups are new to the market, Abony, who isn’t an investor in Kela, is betting on the country’s record in technology. “You’re five and a half times more likely to have a tech unicorn from an Israeli investment than a U.S. investment,” he said.

U.S. defense startups are already taking center stage in the Trump administration. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, a significant defense contractor, is leading the Department of Government Efficiency. The Pentagon’s focus on shifting money to new technologies is expected to boost Silicon Valley-supported companies such as Palantir Technologies, whose stock price soared after last year’s presidential election, and Anduril Industries, whose latest investment round is set to close at a $28 billion valuation.

‘A strategic bet’

American venture-capital firms aren’t new to the Israeli startup scene. Israeli cybersecurity firms, many of which have drawn their founders from Israel’s famed Unit 8200, have benefited from Silicon Valley investment. The country also has a number of drone startups, such as Xtend, whose unmanned aircraft have been used by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Startup Nation Central, a nonprofit based in Tel Aviv, is tracking more than 300 Israeli companies operating in the defense sector, up from 160 a year ago, according to the organization’s CEO, Avi Hasson. The relatively large investment in Kela reflects the confidence investors have in the potential of Israeli defense startups, he said.

“It’s a strategic bet on the market and on the entrepreneurs and on the sector,” he said.

U.S. startups, which have only captured about 1% of Defense Department contracts, face an uphill battle to compete with the five biggest American defense companies. The road for an Israeli company into the Pentagon market would likely prove even more challenging.

“You’ve got a large, growing pool of venture dollars chasing the fact that governments are increasing top-line defense spend and more importantly, shifting the mix of spend toward young startups,” said Raj Shah, managing partner of Shield Capital, a venture-capital firm that funds defense startups.

The question is whether the Pentagon will buy from non-U.S. startups. “I don’t know if we know the answer to that yet,” he said.

Kela’s approach takes a page from Palantir, which in its early days built its customer base using what it called “forward deployed software engineers,” who served alongside soldiers operating in places such as Afghanistan. Similarly, Kela is marketing its engineers as “techno-warriors” who combine technical expertise with combat experience and can share their battlefield insights with the U.S. and Europe.

Oct. 7 impact

The parallels to Palantir aren’t an accident. Meridor previously served as the general manager for Palantir in Israel. Her pitch even mirrors that of Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who frequently describes his company’s mission in messianic terms, as waging a battle to save the West.

“The founding of Kela really is very tied to October 7, obviously. And I think what we realize now is that the West is very much still living in October 6,” she said. “We feel like it’s our mission to prevent the West from having to go through an October 7.”

Alon Dror, Kela’s CEO and co-founder, says the company draws heavily on Israel’s post-Oct. 7 combat experience.

“On the eve of the ground maneuver into Lebanon with Hezbollah, I went between the different platoons and we did an equipment count and we saw that each platoon commander or each company had a few night-vision goggles,” he said.

Hezbollah’s forces, by contrast, had plenty of night-vision goggles that they bought online. “We realized that Hezbollah had one [pair of] night-vision goggles for each fighter, which is crazy,” Dror said.

Kela’s software platform, he said, is designed to allow the military to integrate commercial and military technology, whether night-vision goggles, sensors or artificial intelligence.

It is precisely the military experience of Kela’s employees that makes them attractive, said Brandon Reeves, a general partner at Lux Capital. The percentage of engineers at the five major U.S. defense companies who have been in combat is negligible, he said, “but if you take Kela, I would imagine it rounds to a hundred percent. It’s a different DNA.”

Clayton Williams, the managing director of the U.K. office of IQT, the CIA’s venture-capital arm, said his investment in Kela was precisely because of this sort of experience. “Companies that are learning from the battlefields and getting feedback from the front lines are developing their technology at a rate that I personally haven’t seen before,” he said.

IQT, formerly known as In-Q-Tel, has made other investments in Israel, but Kela is its first stake in an Israeli startup specifically in the military market. Its investment is much smaller than that of Sequoia and Lux—but the imprimatur of a CIA investment has helped other companies, including Palantir, break into the defense market.

“We open doors,” Williams said.

Even advocates of Israeli defense startups, such as Abony, say firms that have enjoyed success in areas such as cybersecurity and biotechnology are often unprepared to sell to the Pentagon. His firm works closely with Israeli companies to hone their pitches to the U.S. military.

“We came to that by watching some of our Israeli investee companies and potential investee companies try and pitch the DOD, and they were awful,” he said. “They were not to be seen again.”

Reeves to restrict UK competition watchdog’s merger investigations

Chancellor wants probes by the Competition and Markets Authority to be faster and more predictable

Rachel Reeves will on Monday pledge to change the law to restrict merger investigations by the UK competition watchdog, as part of her bid to boost corporate confidence and economic growth by easing business regulation.

The chancellor will say she plans to update the two main tests that determine whether the Competition and Markets Authority should probe a merger, according to government officials with knowledge of her plans. 

The move — which aims to make probes faster, more predictable and more proportionate — comes as Reeves prepares to haul regulators into Downing Street on Monday and unveil a “radical action plan” to cut red tape and help grow the economy.

One test, known as “share of supply”, allows the CMA to investigate deals that would result in a company controlling 25 per cent of the supply of goods and services in a market.

The second “material influence” test can give the antitrust regulator power over purchases of certain interests in a business, such as significant shareholdings, even if they fall short of total control.

Officials said Reeves wanted to “tighten” and “limit” the circumstances in which deals come under CMA scrutiny. The agency has been in the government’s crosshairs in recent months following complaints by business that it is too interventionist and stifling Britain’s attractiveness to investors.

The regulator — whose former chair was ousted by ministers in January — has already said it will shorten some merger consultations.

“The chancellor is promising to legislate to make it happen,” said one official. “This includes tightening and limiting which mergers the CMA can review under the share of supply and material influence tests.”

CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell last month said UK law gave it an “unusually broad jurisdiction” by international standards. She added that the agency would update how it interpreted and applied the “material influence” and “share of supply” tests, noting the changes could provide greater certainty over “whether we will review a particular deal or not”. 

In January the government installed former Amazon UK boss Doug Gurr as interim chair, giving him a mandate to help attract the “absolute maximum possible business investment”.

Soon afterwards the CMA provisionally cleared US-listed American Express Global Business Travel’s $570mn purchase of rival CWT, in an unusual reversal of an earlier decision.

The two tests will be examined as part of a broader review by the CMA into its approach to merger remedies, which was launched last week with a call for evidence open until May.

The CMA said in a statement that it “continues to work closely with government to ensure the UK merger control regime is effective and proportionate”.

Watchdogs including the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority have been summoned to Downing Street on Monday to discuss the chancellor’s plans. 

Ahead of the meeting Reeves said the measures — including a commitment to reduce the administrative cost of regulation by 25 per cent — would “free businesses from the shackles of regulation”. 

Under the action plan, the FCA will issue more notices of likely authorisation approvals to help start-ups secure funding and the Regulator for Community Interest Companies will be folded into Companies House to reduce overlapping disclosure requirements.

A review into the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is under way now, will seek to curb its freedom to interpret rules when adjudicating on unresolved consumer complaints about the sector in order to stop it acting as “a quasi-regulator”, the Treasury said.

Meanwhile the Civil Aviation Authority, the aviation regulator, will authorise at least two more large drone-flying trials in the coming months. 

Reeves also aims to streamline the objectives given to financial regulators by reducing the 25-plus additional targets for which they must have “have regard” — an area watchdogs have asked the Treasury to address.

She said cabinet ministers would be asked to suggest more of the roughly 130 regulators that could be abolished by this summer, after the Payment Systems Regulator was axed last week.

Markets rise on hopes of fiscal spending to spur demand as economy battles deflationary pressure

China has announced a plan to revitalise domestic consumption as President Xi Jinping’s government battles to reverse weak confidence and deflationary pressures in the world’s second-largest economy.

The government will “vigorously boost consumption” and “expand domestic demand in all directions”, according to Xinhua, China’s state news agency, echoing Xi’s exhortation late last year for policymakers’ to shift towards supporting demand following a sustained push to boost industry.

The plan from the state council, China’s cabinet, will focus on raising incomes, stabilising the real estate and stock markets and improving medical and pension services, though few details of planned fiscal expenditure were immediately available.

News of the “Special Action Plan to Boost Consumption” lifted stock markets on Monday, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rising 1.1 per cent, while futures for Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, climbed 1 per cent to $71.30 a barrel. Mainland China’s CSI 300 index was flat.

More details of the plan were expected at a government briefing on Monday afternoon. The CSI 300 gauge of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks on Friday turned positive for the year to date in anticipation of the consumption briefing.

The announcement of the plan, which came late on Sunday, followed last week’s “two sessions” meeting in Beijing, where lawmakers reasserted consumption as a top priority.

Domestic spending in China has been weak since the end of Covid-19 lockdowns more than two years ago as households exercised caution over expenditure. Consumer prices fell into deflation in February, though the reading was affected by the lunar new year holiday.

A slowdown in China’s vast property sector, partly driven by an official deleveraging drive and now into its fourth year, has also re-energised calls from economists to strengthen domestic demand.

Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday showed retail sales rose 4 per cent in January and February on the year before, beating a 3.7 per cent increase in December and in line with forecasts from a Reuters poll of analysts.

Policymakers last September unveiled a long-awaited package to support the economy, but the measures largely focused on stock markets and disappointed investors.

The new consumption plan includes a pledge to increase the minimum wage, strengthen support for education and establish a subsidy system for childcare — a particularly pressing issue as China’s population has declined for three consecutive years.

Lynn Song, ING chief economist for greater China, said the plan put “considerable focus on increasing both the capacity and willingness of households to consume”, and that if implemented correctly, could “help China’s economic transition towards a consumption-driven growth model”. 

Data released on Monday also showed industrial output grew 5.9 per cent year on year in the first two months of 2025, slowing from 6.2 per cent in December but beating analysts’ expectations of a 5.3 per cent rise.

The new package will also promote “inbound” consumption. Beijing has extended visa-free travel to dozens of countries in the past year to an effort to revive foreign tourism after the pandemic.

It also highlighted particular sectors such as “snow and ice”. China has built several indoor ski resorts in recent years, including the world’s largest in Shanghai, which opened in September.

Xu Chenggang, senior research scholar at Stanford University’s Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, said Beijing’s pivot to consumption betrayed an official ’ recognition that the economic situation is “severe”.

But policymakers were still struggling to take concrete steps to stimulate demand, he added.

“If we look at the publicly announced policy measures . . . we still don’t see much there in terms of supporting domestic demand,” Xu said. “Although on the one hand they admit that something is wrong due . . . they are still emphasising more on the supply side.”

Some people are shifting their investment strategies as the stock market sours on President Trump, despite advice to maintain their savings and wait out the angst.

After the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s, Lars Staack decided to play it safe and invest his retirement savings in S&P 500 index funds, which are diversified and carry lower risk than owning individual stocks.

It was a strategy that brought him peace of mind for more than two decades — until President Trump was elected in November. As he reviewed Mr. Trump’s comments in support of sweeping tariffs, Mr. Staack, 62, who retired two years ago, became increasingly uneasy about the savings he planned to use for the rest of his retirement.

Those nerves about how Mr. Trump’s economic policies might affect the stock market led him to start selling his index funds in January, moving them into bond and Treasury funds, which are seen as safe havens in times of volatility. About a third of his savings are still in stocks. The daily swings this past week, which included the market’s worst single day in months, have made him consider moving even more of his assets into safer bonds, he said.

“I’m fumbling about, trying to figure out what is going to be the best way to preserve my retirement savings from a volatile economy, and from upcoming inflation,” Mr. Staack said.

Many financial advisers are reiterating their usual advice during moments of angst: Do nothing and stay the course, assuming your financial plan is diversified and aligned with your goals. But the tumultuous rounds of trading have jolted people like Mr. Staack, who has an immediate need for his investments. The way he sees it, stock market index funds are no longer safe for people close to or in retirement — people who intend to use their assets in the near future and do not have the luxury of time to wait for the market to reverse course.

“What Trump and Musk have done is unprecedented, so it seems like nothing is safe anymore,” Mr. Staack said. He lives in Poway, Calif., outside San Diego, and was a Republican voter until 2016, when he started voting for Democrats.

Over the past few weeks, Wall Street has become increasingly pessimistic about whipsawing policies from Washington. By Thursday, the S&P 500 index had tumbled 10.1 percent from a peak that it had reached less than one month before, a sell-off fueled by investors’ fears that trade wars and mass layoffs of federal employees could prompt an economic slowdown. The S&P 500 correction underscored how the two-year-long bull market is running out of steam in the early days of the Trump administration.

Policy and politics have been the key driver of concern among clients, financial advisers said. But not everyone is taking action. In fact, advisers at some of the biggest wealth management firms said their clients were, for the most part, sticking with their existing financial plans.

Most of the roughly seven million investors on the Vanguard brokerage platform have “stayed disciplined,” in line with their behavior during market downturns in the past, said James Martielli, Vanguard’s head of investment and trading services. On Monday, when Wall Street suffered its steepest decline of the year, only 2.5 percent of Vanguard’s clients placed trades, and the majority of those trades were to buy equities, rather than sell them, Mr. Martielli said.

“Most clients right now are a little bit dazed, but still relatively comfortable where they’re at and where things are going,” said Mark Mirsberger, the chief executive of Dana Investment Advisors, which manages about $8.5 billion for institutions and individuals.

In conversations with clients, it is often retirees, and those closing in on retirement, who are paying the closest attention to the stock market and expressing nervousness, said Rob Williams, the managing director of financial planning and wealth management at Charles Schwab. The question, he said, is how they respond.

For people closer to retirement, “taking some risk off the table” might make sense, but when politics becomes a factor in decisions, which seems to be happening more, Mr. Williams said, he urges clients to stick to their plans and “not respond emotionally.”

Siegfried Lodwig is more than a decade into his retirement, and the recent volatility has not changed his mind about keeping about half of his savings in the stock market, managed by a financial services firm. He said he trusted that the market would bounce back, as it always had.

Still, Mr. Lodwig, 80, said he planned to leave his estate to Amherst College, where years ago he received a scholarship. He said he had some concern about how much would be left for the school if the market continued to fall in the short term.

Andy Smith, the executive director of financial planning at Edelman Financial Engines, is cautioning his clients not to overreact to news headlines about Wall Street’s jitters. Those with diversified portfolios and enough cash on hand for their short-term needs are able to calm their nerves with greater ease, he said.

“In times of volatility, everybody gets uneasy,” said Heather Knight, a national brokerage coach at Fidelity Investments. “Stay the course — that’s the best way to weather through some of those periods of volatility.”

But for some Americans — especially those who anticipate needing access to their savings in the near future — the current economic unease feels different from market dips they have experienced in the past, prompting them to rethink their investments.

Praisely McNamara, a single mother whose 16-year-old son is a junior in high school, decided in February to withdraw half of her 401(k), the maximum amount she could, despite having to pay thousands in tax penalties to do so. Employed in health care sales, she is still contributing to a Vanguard index fund. But with mortgage and college tuition payments on the horizon, the economic instability spurred by Mr. Trump’s policies was enough for her to feel that she needed cash on hand.

As someone without a stockpile of savings, Ms. McNamara, of Newington, Conn., said uncertainty about trade wars and the outlook for the U.S. job market had fueled her decision.

“This is absolutely the first time that I have felt in any way like I’m not secure in what I’ve been told is the most secure way to prepare for retirement,” said Ms. McNamara, 40, who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris.

The volatility has rattled even Americans who do not expect to use their savings in the near future.

Alison Greenlaw, 43, is still a couple of decades away from retiring. She and her husband bought their home in Bloomfield, Conn., a few years ago. (Ms. Greenlaw knows Ms. McNamara through a community organization.) Until three weeks ago, her 401(k) was in a Vanguard target date retirement fund, which had a pre-mixed blend of stocks and other holdings based on the assumption that she would retire around 2045.

But as economic concerns started to creep into the stock market in February, she decided to move all of her 401(k) savings into a Vanguard money market fund, which has lower-risk investments like government-backed securities.

“I know I won’t make any money there, but I’m not freaking out like everyone whose 401(k) is losing money every day,” Ms. Greenlaw said. “I’m feeling glad that I did what I did,” she added, pointing to the market’s tariff-induced swings this past week.

Ms. Greenlaw tried to make an informed decision by talking to people who work in finance and whose opinions she respects. Many of them advised her not to do anything. But she said she was not comfortable taking the traditional wait-and-see approach. She said she felt that the level of uncertainty in the United States right now was “existential.”

On Tuesday, Stephen Dinan, 55, whose children are 5 and 7 years old, moved their 529 college savings accounts from U.S. stocks and stock index funds into bonds and an international equities index fund. He also moved his 401(k), along with his wife’s, into bonds.

Mr. Trump’s unpredictable and aggressive approach to policy has stoked Mr. Dinan’s worries about instability in the stock market. A Democratic voter, he said he hoped to move his savings back into stocks when the economic outlook cleared, or when there was a change in administration down the line.

Financial experts are “focused on things that are moving within the game as it’s played,” he said. “But they’re not planning for if the board game itself is taken out from under.”

For years, the S&P 500 soared above the stock indexes of other countries. But since Trump’s inauguration, it has fallen 6 percent and is now trailing major markets in Europe and China.

President Trump has promised to create an age of American exceptionalism with policies that put the United States first, and ahead of other nations.

But Mr. Trump’s moves in the early days of his administration have had the opposite outcome for the American stock market.

The S&P 500, which for years had been soaring above the stock indexes of other countries, is now trailing major markets in Europe and China, as investors have started to pull money from the United States and reallocate it around the world.

Since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the S&P 500 has fallen 6 percent, while the Dax index in Germany has risen 10 percent and the Europe-wide Stoxx 600 index has gained more than 4 percent. Other U.S. indexes have fared even worse, as European markets have been buoyed by plans for military spending on the continent after Mr. Trump made it clear he wants those nations to do more to protect themselves.

The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong has soared further, rising more than 20 percent since Mr. Trump took office in January, driven by the Chinese government’s efforts to stimulate its economy. Mexico’s IPC index, which is domestically focused and proving resilient to Mr. Trump’s steep tariffs, is 5 percent higher.

With American markets being whipsawed by the uncertainties over Mr. Trump’s tariff policies and deep cuts to the federal government, investment advisers have started steering clients to other stock markets around the world.

“It is definitely time to be looking at ex-U.S.,” said Jitania Kandhari, deputy chief investment officer of the solutions and multi-asset group at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. She said she had noticed an uptick in conversations with clients looking to increase their exposure to international stocks.

Even global markets that have slumped have managed to outperform the S&P 500. The FTSE All-World index has dropped 2.9 percent since the inauguration, weighed down by U.S.-listed stocks. Canada’s TSX index has dropped 2 percent. And the Japanese Nikkei 225 has fallen 3.6 percent.

In recent weeks, Wall Street has sent out a raft of bank research notes, client presentations and trade ideas that recommend a pivot away from the United States.

“Respect resilience, fade U.S. exceptionalism, and worry about policy shocks,” read the title of one of those presentations from Bruce Kasman, chief economist and global head of economic research at J.P. Morgan.

Brad Rutan, a market strategist at MFS Investment Management, said he also saw opportunities outside the United States. “It’s safe to say that there is plenty of room now for international equities.”

Over the past week, investors pulled money from funds that buy U.S. stocks for the first time this year, according to weekly data that runs through Wednesday from EPFR Global. The withdrawal totaled a modest $2.5 billion, which compares with the roughly $100 billion inflow in the first nine weeks of 2025.

While some traders are exceptionally quick to react to new information in the market, others, especially those that expect to be invested for a long time like pension funds or university endowments, can take months to move their money around.

“After such a protracted outperformance of the U.S. versus Europe, these things can’t turn 180 degrees in a month,” said Greg Boutle, head of U.S. equity and derivative strategy at BNP Paribas. “There are probably many investors that have not reallocated yet.”

If investors continue to pull their money from U.S. stocks and invest in foreign markets, it could add to the selling pressure that last week dragged the S&P 500 into correction, defined as a fall of more than 10 percent from its peak.

U.S. markets are so large that a complete exodus by foreign investors is near impossible, Ms. Kandhari said, “but the shift can definitely create market moves.”

The recent withdrawal comes after years when the U.S. stock market was the envy of the world, attracting foreign investors looking for higher returns than their home markets could provide.

Roughly $420 billion flowed into funds that buy U.S. stocks in 2024, according to data from EPFR Global, helping lift major indexes higher and contributing to the growth of a handful of big technology companies. Roughly two-thirds of the valuation of the FTSE All-World Index comes from U.S. stocks, with nine of the top 10 stocks in the index by size coming from the United States.

In the year leading up to the presidential election, the S&P 500 outperformed many of the other indexes around the globe, rising 32 percent. The next best was Germany’s Dax, up 27 percent.

Many investors are still bullish on U.S. stocks over the long term and believe they will again outperform foreign stocks.

Europe may be ramping up government spending, potentially spurring growth. But that boom could be driven by a fear of war, not because of sustainable economic strength. And if the United States enters an economic downturn, the rest of the world is unlikely to be spared from the fallout.

“I think eventually all of this uncertainty settles down and we will still be left with a U.S. that has advantages that Europe and other countries don’t have,” said Paul Christopher, head of global market strategy at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

Other investors are wondering whether the current moment could be the beginning of an inflection point, upending the long-running trend of U.S. exceptionalism in financial markets.

“I think that discussion is happening,” Ms. Kandhari said.

North America's oldest corporation has struggled through decades of roller coaster business trends, management changes and repositionings.

Hudson’s Bay Company, Canada’s venerable department store chain and the oldest corporation in North America, will begin to liquidate its entire business next week.

The Toronto-based company said Saturday that it filed documents with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice indicating that it was only able to secure limited debtor-in-possession financing, necessitating the liquidation of the entire business. The company said it made “exhaustive efforts to secure sufficient financing” to keep operating, but was unable to.

“A store-by-store liquidation process will begin as soon as next week,” the company said Saturday.

While the liquidation appears inevitable, Hudson’s Bay is holding out some hope for a last-minute rescue. In its statement Saturday, the company said it “remains hopeful that key stakeholders, particularly its landlord partners, will engage to explore a viable alternative restructuring path that could preserve jobs, tenancy in retail locations, and a company with deep historic significance before it is too late. This alternative would necessitate significant capital and immediate and substantial cooperation from landlords and other critical partners.”

The closure of Hudson’s Bay, given that it operates 80 stores across Canada – including some huge downtown locations in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal – would dramatically alter the country’s retail landscape and put thousands of people out of work. Hudson’s Bay employs 9,364 people.

The company also operates TheBay.com, as well as three Saks Fifth Avenue stores and 13 Saks Off 5th stores in Canada through a licensing agreement. The Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th stores in Canada are also expected to be liquidated.

“Our team has worked incredibly hard to identify a viable path forward, and our resolve is strengthened by the overwhelming support from customers and associates who have shared heartfelt stories about Hudson’s Bay and what our stores have meant to them, their families, and their communities across the generations,” Liz Rodbell, president and chief executive officer of Hudson’s Bay, said in a statement. “These powerful experiences remind us why we must continue to pursue every possible opportunity to secure the necessary support from key landlords and other stakeholders to save The Bay.”

During the liquidation process, Hudson’s Bay and its licensed Canadian Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th stores will remain open to serve customers in stores and, for a limited time, online at TheBay.com. The company will share additional details regarding impacted locations, closure timelines, and customer accommodations, including final sales events. Once the liquidation sales begin, all sales will be final, the company indicated.

The liquidation plans, while dramatic, are not surprising since last week HBC disclosed that it was restructuring and was granted protection from its creditors by a Canadian court. While pegging its financial difficulties on sector conditions and the trade war with the U.S., Hudson’s Bay has been struggling on and off for years. The company has undergone multiple restructurings, ownership changes, and strategic shifts to stay afloat. In addition, executives from Hudson’s Bay acknowledged to WWD last August that the company did not rebound after the pandemic the way U.S. retailers did. They also said that heavy investments in digital capabilities and inventory in Canada did not pay off, and that Hudson’s Bay had to clear merchandise more aggressively than it wanted, particularly when Nordstrom liquidated in Canada and Bed Bath & Beyond went bankrupt. The situation was further complicated when discretionary spending, even in the luxury sector, weakened. A few years ago, Hudson’s Bay split its store operations and e-commerce operation into separate companies. That apparently did not work out because about two years ago, the company reengineered back into a single entity.

Hudson’s Bay Co. is led by Richard Baker. While his track record running and turning around retail operations isn’t the best, his business has profited through divestitures, including some lucrative retail real estate selloffs.

In June 2006, HBC purchased Lord & Taylor from Federated Department Stores for $1.2 billion and in 2019 sold the Lord & Taylor flagship on Fifth Avenue to WeWork for $850 million, and later sold the remaining Lord & Taylor business to Le Tote. But Le Tote soon took Lord & Taylor into bankruptcy.

In 1978, HBC acquired the Zellers department store chain in Canada, and 33 years later sold off the Zeller leaseholds to Target which after some pricing and merchandising mistakes failed to resonate with customers and pulled out of Canada.

HBC in 2016 bought Kaufhof in Germany for 2.6 billion euros and sold it to René Benko’s Vienna-based Signa Group for 3.8 billion euros in 2019, leading to the merger of Kaufhof and Signa’s Karstadt retail business, forming Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof (Signa later dramatically collapsed after taking on too much debt as it attempted to build a Europeanwide department store chain). Subsequently, NRDC Equity Partners, the private investment firm controlled by Baker and his family, acquired Galeria when it was bankrupt.

In another unsuccessful retail venture, NRDC acquired Fortunoff, the jewelry and home furnishings chain, in 2008 but liquidated it in 2009 after it went bankrupt. The Fortunoff family bought the business back that year.

Baker is executive chairman of Saks Global, comprised of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. Saks has for months been unable to pay its bills, but last month Saks Global unveiled a new payment plan that includes 90-day terms, and eventually making good on past due bills. HBC acquired Saks Fifth Avenue in 2013, though as of December, with the formation of Saks Global through the $2.7 billion deal by Saks to buy the Neiman Marcus Group, Saks is no longer part of HBC.

March 15 (Reuters) - SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on Friday that Starship is set to depart for Mars at the end of next year, carrying Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab humanoid bot Optimus.

Musk suggested in a post on X that human landings could begin as early as 2029, though 2031 was more likely if the initial landings go well.

Musk told investors on a conference call in April last year that he expected Optimus would be able to perform tasks in the factory by the end of 2024.

In November, Reuters cited sources saying that Musk's dream of transporting humans to Mars would become a bigger national priority under U.S. President Donald Trump, signalling big changes for NASA's moon programme and a boost for SpaceX.

Starship is crucial to SpaceX's future satellite launch business, a sector it currently dominates with its partially reusable Falcon 9, as well as Musk's aspirations to colonise Mars.

No company has capitalized on the AI revolution more dramatically than Nvidia. Its revenue, profitability, and cash reserves have skyrocketed since the introduction of ChatGPT over two years ago — and the many competitive generative AI services that have launched since. And its stock price soared.

During that period, the world’s leading high-performance GPU maker has used its ballooning fortunes to significantly increase investments in all sorts of startups but particularly in AI startups.

The chip giant ramped up its venture capital activity in 2024, participating in 49 funding rounds for AI companies, a sharp increase from 34 in 2023, according to PitchBook data. It’s a dramatic surge in investment compared to the previous four years combined, during which Nvidia funded only 38 AI deals. Note that these investments exclude those made by its formal corporate VC fund, NVentures, which also significantly ramped up its investing in the last two years. (PitchBook says NVentures engaged in 24 deals in 2024, compared to just 2 in 2022.)

In 2025, Nvidia has already participated in seven rounds.

Nvidia has stated that the goal of its corporate investing is to expand the AI ecosystem by backing startups it considers to be “game changers and market makers.”

Below is a list of startups that raised rounds exceeding $100 million where Nvidia is a named participant since 2023, including new ones it has backed so far in 2025, organized from the highest amount to lowest raised in the round.

OpenAI: Nvidia backed the ChatGPT maker for the first time in October, reportedly writing a $100 million check toward a colossal $6.6 billion round that valued the company at $157 billion. The chipmaker’s investment was dwarfed by OpenAI’s other backers, notably Thrive, which according to the New York Times invested $1.3 billion.

xAI: Nvidia participated in the $6 billion round of Elon Musk’s xAI. The deal revealed that not all of OpenAI’s investors followed its request to refrain from backing any of its direct competitors. After investing in the ChatGPT maker in October, Nvidia joined xAI’s cap table a few months later.

Inflection: One of Nvidia’s first significant AI investments also had one of the most unusual outcomes. In June 2023, Nvidia was one of several lead investors in Inflection’s $1.3 billion round, a company founded by Mustafa Suleyman, who earlier founded DeepMind. Less than a year later, Microsoft hired Inflection AI’s founders, paying $620 million for a non-exclusive technology license, leaving the company with a significantly diminished workforce and a less defined future.

Wayve: In May, Nvidia participated in a $1.05 billion round for the U.K.-based startup, which is developing a self-learning system for autonomous driving. The company is testing its vehicles in the U.K. and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Scale AI: In May 2024, Nvidia joined Accel and other tech giants Amazon and Meta to invest $1 billion in Scale AI, which provides data-labeling services to companies for training AI models. The round valued the San Francisco-based company at nearly $14 billion.

Crusoe: A startup building data centers reportedly to be leased to Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI raised $686 million in late November, according to an SEC filing. The investment was led by Founders Fund, and the long list of other investors included Nvidia.

Figure AI: In February 2024, AI robotics startup Figure raised a $675 million Series B from Nvidia, OpenAI Startup Fund, Microsoft, and others. The round valued the company at $2.6 billion.

Mistral AI: Nvidia invested in Mistral for the second time when the French-based large language model developer raised a $640 million Series B at a $6 billion valuation in June.

Lambda: AI cloud provider Lambda, which provides services for model training, raised a $480 million Series D at a reported $2.5 billion valuation in February. The round was co-led by SGW and Andra Capital Lambda, and joined by Nvidia, ARK Invest and others. A significant part of Lambda’s business involves renting servers powered by Nvidia’s GPUs.

Cohere: In June, Nvidia invested in Cohere’s $500 million round, a large language model provider serving enterprises. The chipmaker first backed the Toronto-based startup in 2023.

Perplexity: Nvidia first invested in Perplexity in November of 2023 and has participated in every subsequent round of the AI search engine startup, including the $500 million round in December, which values the company at $9 billion, according to PitchBook data.

Poolside: In October, the AI coding assistant startup Poolside announced it raised $500 million led by Bain Capital Ventures. Nvidia participated in the round, which valued the AI startup at $3 billion.

CoreWeave: Nvidia invested in the AI cloud computing provider in April 2023, when CoreWeave raised $221 million in funding. Since then, CoreWeave’s valuation has jumped from about $2 billion to $19 billion, and the company has filed for an IPO. CoreWeave allows its customers to rent Nvidia GPUs on an hourly basis.

Together AI: In February, Nvidia participated in the $305 million Series B of this company, which offers cloud-based infrastructure for building AI models. The round valued TogetherAi at $3.3 billion, and was co-led by Prosperity7, a Saudi Arabian venture firm, and General Catalyst. Nvidia backed the company for the first time in 2023.

Sakana AI: In September, Nvidia invested in the Japan-based startup, which trains low-cost generative AI models using small datasets. The startup raised a massive Series A round of about $214 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion.

Imbue: The AI research lab that claims to be developing AI systems that can reason and code raised a $200 million round in September 2023 from investors, including Nvidia, Astera Institute, and former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt.

Waabi: In June, the autonomous trucking startup raised a $200 million Series B round co-led by existing investors Uber and Khosla Ventures. Other investors included Nvidia, Volvo Group Venture Capital, and Porsche Automobil Holding SE.

Ayar Labs: In December, Nvidia invested in the $155 million round of Ayar Labs, a company developing optical interconnects to improve AI compute and power efficiency. This was the third time Nvidia backed the startup.

Kore.ai: The startup developing enterprise-focused AI chatbots raised $150 million in December of 2023. In addition to Nvidia, investors participating in the funding included FTV Capital, Vistara Growth, and Sweetwater Private Equity.

Hippocratic AI: This startup, which is developing large language models for healthcare, announced in January that it raised a $141 million Series B at a valuation of $1.64 billion led by Kleiner Perkins. Nvidia participated in the round, along with returning investors Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and others. The company claims that its AI solutions can handle non-diagnostic patient-facing tasks such as pre-operating procedures, remote patient monitoring, and appointment preparation.

Weka: In May, Nvidia invested in a $140 million round for AI-native data management platform Weka. The round valued the Silicon Valley company at $1.6 billion.

Runway: In June of 2023, Runway, a startup building generative AI tools for multimedia content creators, raised a $141 million Series C extension from investors, including Nvidia, Google, and Salesforce.

Bright Machines: In June 2024, Nvidia participated in a $126 million Series C of Bright Machines, a smart robotics and AI-driven software startup.

Enfabrica: In September 2023, Nvidia invested in networking chips designer Enfabrica’s $125 million Series B. Although the startup raised another $115 million in November, Nvidia didn’t participate in the round.

After Warren Buffett sold $134 billion in equities in 2024 and is sitting on a $334 billion cash pile, one analyst said the “Oracle of Omaha” saw the current selloff coming. While it’s unlikely Buffett will make any big moves during the current market turmoil, some think he’ll look internationally or round out his insurance business.

Amid the stock market selloff, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett’s recent capital movements suggest he was preparing for it, according to an analyst.

After tumbling more than 10% from its last peak, the Nasdaq remains in correction territory. The S&P 500 also entered a correction, though Friday’s rally pared its decline to less than 10% from its all-time record.

That has highlighted Berkshire’s recent cash hoarding as especially prescient. When asked if Buffett saw the selloff coming, Armando Gonzalez, founder of AI-powered research platform Bigdata.com, said the evidence suggests he did.

“Buffett’s actions over the past year have been a textbook example of positioning for turbulence,” he said in an emailed response to questions from Fortune.

Berkshire sold $134 billion in equities in 2024, ending the year with a cash pile of $334.2 billion—nearly double from a year ago and more than its shrinking stock portfolio of $272 billion.

Gonzalez also noted that Buffett’s recent comments have been riddled with caution, emphasizing inflationary concerns and geopolitical uncertainty. For example, he warned that President Donald Trump’s tariffs will cause prices to rise.

“History shows when Buffett turns net seller, he often anticipates a period of subpar market performance,” Gonzalez said. “And once again, the Oracle of Omaha seems to have been ahead of the curve.”

With stocks well off their highs, that begs the question: will the famously value-conscious Buffett start deploying his cash by making some big purchases?

To be sure, Berkshire has made some moderate stock buys. But preferring bargains, Buffett historically looks to invest heavily in companies when valuations are low. During the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, for instance, Buffett deployed $3 billion into General Electric whose stock price had nosedived.

In his latest letter to Berkshire shareholders, Buffett reiterated his years-long view that valuations remained high.

Gonzalez said it’s possible Buffett could start buying but only if true bargains emerge, noting that his track record shows a deep aversion to haste, even when markets tumble.

“He has no interest in timing the market’s bottom, nor does he chase short-term rebounds,” he said. “Instead, he waits for moments when fear drives prices to levels where the risk-reward equation tilts decisively in his favor.”

If Buffett should choose to finally make a big purchase, Gonzalez expects his next move to be used with a scalpel rather than a “broad-market splash,” if any at all.

“In Buffett’s world, patience is more than a virtue, it’s a weapon,” he added.

While it’s uncertain if Buffett will go forward with a deal during the current market selloff, CFRA Research’s Cathy Seifert told Fortune she wouldn’t be surprised if Berkshire rounded out its insurance holdings.

She added that valuations are still not dirt cheap, while the cash Buffett has parked in Treasury bonds is yielding him a good return and the competitive environment for deals has changed.

Additionally, Buffett has shown keen interest in Japanese trading companies, suggesting “a growing appetite for international diversification,” Gonzalez said.

Since 2019, Berkshire has invested in the five biggest Japanese “sogo shosha,” which invest across sectors domestically and abroad. The trading houses—Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo—operate “in a manner somewhat similar to Berkshire itself,” Buffett wrote in his annual letter.

While Buffett sits on his pile of cash, his deployable funds may grow even more as rumors of a rare Berkshire sale circle.

The Wall Street Journal reported that real-estate brokerage Compass was in advanced talks to acquire Berkshire Hathaway’s HomeServices of America.

According to Berkshire’s annual report, HomeServices has 820 brokerage offices and 270 franchisees in 2024.

Berkshire Hathaway did not return Fortune’s request for comment.