growth

OpenAI has appointed its second Chief Revenue Officer in less than a year, with Dali Rajic succeeding Dennis Dreiser. This move shows that the company is working to strengthen sales growth in preparation for a Wall Street listing.OpenAI President Greg Brockman stated that the revenue run rate in July increased by over 20% month-over-month, and the enterprise customer business grew by 32%.

According to Bloomberg, as a large number of high-growth startups emerge in fields such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology, private equity and Pre-IPO investment tools aimed at ordinary investors are rapidly increasing. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman's investment firm Pershing Square is preparing to launch a new fund to provide investors with the opportunity to participate in high-growth companies that are not yet publicly listed.Currently, Pershing Square has initiated the process to establish "Pershing Square Ventures." This fund will adopt a "permanent capital" model, allowing for long-term holding of investment targets and continuing to hold shares after the invested companies go public.Ackman and Pershing Square Chief Investment Officer Ryan Israel stated in a letter to shareholders that the new fund aims to capture investment opportunities in Pre-IPO companies and expand the company's investment scope beyond the public markets. At present, Pershing Square has not disclosed the target size of the fund, investment strategy details, or specific fundraising timeline.

Design software company Canva has lowered its annual revenue growth forecast by one-third to 20% due to AI feature delivery costs far exceeding expectations. CEO Melanie Perkins stated that user demand for AI features "significantly exceeded expectations," but the company has decided to postpone the large-scale launch of related products until it optimizes its architecture, reduces unit costs, and improves its business model. Since the release of Canva AI 2.0 in April, the cost per task has decreased by nearly 90%, but the volume of designs generated by AI users is three times that of previous versions, and economic pressures remain.This case reflects a common dilemma in the software industry: the cost of AI inference is breaking the traditional software "zero marginal cost" profit logic. Pitchbook analysts pointed out that Canva and Figma are the "most obvious signals" of this trend. Figma's free cash flow profit margin in the second quarter has dropped from 27% in the first quarter to 14%, and revenue growth in the third quarter is expected to slow from 48% to 36%. Canva previously sold employee shares at a valuation of $42 billion, and the market had anticipated its IPO in 2026, but analysts now believe the IPO may be delayed until next year.

Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan announced on August 12 on the X platform that Travis VanderZanden has joined Polymarket as Chief Growth Officer.It was reported that Travis V. previously served as the Head of Driver Growth at Uber, Chief Revenue Officer at Yammer, and founded and served as CEO of the bike-sharing company Bird.

Tencent Holdings released its Q2 2026 financial report, with revenue of 204.79 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11%, slightly exceeding market expectations; Non-IFRS net profit was 68.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9%; profit attributable to equity holders of the company was 56.022 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.7%. Capital expenditure was 52.78 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 176%, far exceeding the market expectation of 32.14 billion yuan, mainly used for AI infrastructure investment. The free cash flow for the quarter was negative 13.8 billion yuan; excluding prepayments for AI computing power purchases, free cash flow was 37.6 billion yuan.In terms of business, value-added services revenue was 98.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8%, with domestic game revenue at 47.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17%, significantly contributed by "Delta Action," "Valorant," and "Lock Kingdom: World"; international market game revenue was 18.6 billion yuan, down 0.8% year-on-year due to exchange rate effects, but up 4% year-on-year when calculated at constant exchange rates. Marketing services revenue was 43.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22%, making it the fastest-growing segment; financial technology and enterprise services revenue was 60.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9%.Regarding AI products, the report specifically mentioned that WorkBuddy achieved rapid user growth and a healthy user retention rate, with strong user willingness to pay. Its market-leading position is attributed to its strong harness engineering capabilities, a rich selection of models, and an industry-leading skill library. The official version of Hy3 saw a more than 68-fold increase in usage in the week following its launch compared to the previous generation, consistently ranking among the top three globally in terms of OpenRouter token consumption, with plans for a larger parameter scale Hy4 to be released soon. The AI agent Xiaowei within WeChat has initiated a small-scale gray testing. Excluding the contribution from new AI products, Non-IFRS operating profit increased by 19% year-on-year to 86.1 billion yuan. By the end of the quarter, the company's net cash decreased from 146.9 billion yuan at the end of March to 58.2 billion yuan.

Bitcoin Treasuries.NET posted on platform X that Strategy is celebrating its first purchase of Bitcoin's sixth anniversary.Since 2020, its Bitcoin holdings have increased year by year, from 70,470 coins to 840,447 coins.

Bitfinex's latest report indicates that Bitcoin buying is returning, but the current rebound still mainly relies on improvements in the macroeconomic environment rather than catalysts from the cryptocurrency market itself.

Intel stated that the progress of artificial intelligence represents a significant growth opportunity.

According to Bloomberg, citing Smart Analytics Global data, the global shipment of humanoid robots in the first half of 2026 is approximately 19,100 units, a year-on-year increase of over 200% (compared to about 5,100 units in the same period last year), with Chinese manufacturers accounting for over 97%. The agency expects the total shipment for the year 2026 to reach about 60,000 units, and it is anticipated to grow to 500,000 units by 2030.The report points out that China has formed an early leading advantage over American competitors in the field of humanoid robots. Previously, Morgan Stanley raised its forecast for China's humanoid robot shipments in 2026 to 50,000 units, and IDC data also shows that the top five companies in global humanoid robot shipments in 2025 will all be Chinese firms, while American companies Figure AI and Tesla rank seventh and ninth, respectively.

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan stated in an interview with CoinDesk that the price of Bitcoin could reach $1.3 million by 2035, primarily driven by large-scale inflows of institutional funds.Hougan pointed out that global institutions manage $100-200 trillion in assets, and even if just 1% is allocated to Bitcoin, it could bring in $1-2 trillion in funds, supporting the achievement of this price target. Retail investors have pushed the crypto market from zero to a $2 trillion market cap, while institutional capital will dominate growth in the next decade, driving the total market cap to higher levels.

Bitget's latest data shows that in July, the platform's stock perpetual contract monthly trading volume reached $85.445 billion, with a single-day highest trading volume of $6.674 billion. During the same period, the monthly trading volume increased by 30.6% month-on-month, the number of traders increased by 31.4% month-on-month, and the number of transactions increased by 130% month-on-month, with multiple trading indicators showing growth compared to the previous month.

Cyprus-based enterprise AI customer service company Omilia announced the completion of a $67 million Series B funding round, led by Expedition Growth Capital. The funds will be used to accelerate business expansion in North America and globally, with plans to open its first U.S. office in the second half of 2026.Omilia was founded in 2002 and focuses on providing self-learning agent CX solutions for enterprise call centers using its proprietary voice AI technology. The platform supports compliance standards such as FedRAMP, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR.

TrendForce's latest research shows that global capital expenditures of the top nine cloud service providers are expected to grow by approximately 90% year-on-year in 2026. The procurement willingness for NVIDIA's full rack AI servers has significantly increased among hyperscale CSPs and Tier-2 data centers. The new generation ASIC platforms from Google and AWS will gradually ramp up in the second half of 2026, prompting the year-on-year growth rate of AI server shipments to be revised from 28% to nearly 31%.

DraftKings announced its Q2 2026 financial report, with revenue of $1.443 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 5%, mainly affected by customer-friendly sports outcomes and increased customer acquisition promotional spending; net loss of $67.61 million, compared to a net profit of $158 million in the same period last year; adjusted EBITDA was $115 million, down from $301 million in the same period last year. The sports consumer transaction volume reached $13.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 15%, with monthly active paying users (MUP) of approximately 3.6 million, a year-on-year increase of 9%, and average revenue per monthly active paying user (ARPMUP) decreased by 13% to $132.CEO Jason Robins stated that the market business has exceeded expectations since its launch in December last year, with relevant customer metrics performing similarly to sports betting, showing strong user acquisition and retention, and the super app has been launched nationwide. The company maintains its guidance for full-year revenue of $6.5 to $6.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $700 to $900 million. DraftKings currently offers mobile sports betting services in 27 states and Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, covering approximately 53% of the U.S. population, with iGaming available in 5 states. The Canadian market has covered Alberta and Ontario, accounting for about 51% of the Canadian population.

Federal Reserve's Musalem stated that the future growth of AI productivity is highly uncertain, with risks leaning towards high inflation.

According to Dealstreetasia, Singapore-based AI infrastructure startup Acrab announced the completion of a $130 million Series B funding round, with participation from Vertex Growth and others. To date, the total funding raised has exceeded $480 million.The company has built a full-stack AI computing platform that includes self-developed chips, edge AI models, and software orchestration to support the real-time operation and task execution of AI Agents. The new funds will be used to expand product capacity, enhance the technology ecosystem, and accelerate the development of the next-generation AI computing platform.

As expectations for easing tensions in the Middle East rise, the market continues to focus on the progress of peace negotiations. Gold prices show resilience in their upward trend, which has also increased investors' attention to multi-asset CFD products. According to data from the Gate platform, the 24-hour increase for gold CFD (XAUUSD) is 0.13%, with today's highest price at $4304.09. At the same time, gold-related assets are performing actively, with GDX up 7.48% and GLD up 4.12%. Driven by popular targets, the trading activity of Gate CFD has also increased, with weekly trading volume surpassing $200 billion, ranking first across the network.

According to official data, the trading volume of Gate options maintained growth last week, with an overall trading volume increasing by 14.55% month-on-month. Among them, retail trading volume increased by 6.34% month-on-month, new user trading volume increased by 15.41% month-on-month, and the number of cumulative trading users increased by 2.80% month-on-month. In addition, Gate launched a simplified options monthly challenge event from July 31 at 16:00 to August 30 at 16:00 (UTC+8). New users who complete their first order can enjoy subsidies, and participating in weekly tasks has a chance to enjoy a prize pool of 50,000 USDT.