Harmonic, the math-focused AI startup founded by Robinhood’s CEO, has reached a $1.45B valuation after a major funding round to scale its provably correct AI models.
Harmonic, the math-focused AI startup founded by Robinhood’s CEO, has reached a $1.45B valuation after a major funding round to scale its provably correct AI models.
This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Jeff Bezos is back in startup mode (sort of) with Project Prometheus — a $6.2 billion AI-for-the-physical-world venture that instantly became one of the most talked-about new companies in tech. We dig into what this really means, why the company’s location is still a mystery, and how this echoes the era when Bezos was regularly launching big bets from Seattle.
Then we look at Amazon’s latest real-world experiment: package-return kiosks popping up inside Goodwill stores around the Seattle region. It’s a small pilot, but it brings back memories of the early days when Amazon’s oddball experiments seemed to appear out of nowhere.
And finally…Todd tries to justify his scheme to upgrade his beloved 2007 Toyota Camry with CarPlay, Android Auto, and a backup camera — while John questions the logic of sinking thousands of dollars into an old car.
All that, plus a mystery Microsoft shirt, a little Seattle nostalgia, and a look ahead to next week’s podcast collaboration with Me, Myself and AI from MIT Sloan Management Review.
With GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop.
Cisco plans to acquire NeuralFabric, a Seattle-area startup founded by a group of Microsoft veterans that makes back-end software for companies to build and run their own generative AI models. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The Silicon Valley enterprise tech mainstay said the deal will bolster its AI Canvas initiative, a generative UI and collaboration environment announced earlier this year.
In its announcement Thursday morning, Cisco highlighted NeuralFabric’s expertise in distributed systems, model training, and flexible deployment as a complement to its existing AI assistant, cybersecurity models, and data fabric strategy.
DJ Sampath, senior vice president for AI software and platforms, said in the announcement that the startup has “cracked a crucial part of this puzzle” by building technology that lets companies develop their own domain-specific small language models using proprietary data across cloud or on-premises environments.
NeuralFabric, based in Redmond, was founded in 2023 by former Microsoft Azure engineering veteran Weijie Lin (CEO), longtime Microsoft executive John deVadoss, AI entrepreneur Jesus Rodriguez (president), and cloud and security veteran Mark Baciak (CTO), with former Microsoft director Drew Gude (chief revenue officer) also listed as an early exec.
The startup employs about nine people, according to LinkedIn. Cisco said the acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of its 2026 fiscal year (by the end of January), after which NeuralFabric’s team will join the company’s AI Software and Platform organization.
NeuralFabric had raised at least $5 million in funding as of February 2024 announcement. PitchBook lists investors including Collab+Currency, CMT Digital, and New Form Capital.
The opening panel at Seattle AI Week 2025, from left: Randa Minkarah, WTIA chief operating executive; Joe Nguyen, Washington commerce director; Rep. Cindy Ryu; Nathan Lambert, Allen Institute for AI; and Brittany Jarnot, Salesforce. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
Seattle is looking to celebrate and accelerate its leadership in artificial intelligence at the very moment the first wave of the AI economy is crashing down on the region’s tech workforce.
That contrast was hard to miss Monday evening at the opening reception for Seattle AI Week 2025 at Pier 70. On stage, panels offered a healthy dose of optimism about building the AI future. In the crowd, buzz about Amazon’s impending layoffs brought the reality of the moment back to earth.
A region that rose with Microsoft and then Amazon is now dealing with the consequences of Big Tech’s AI-era restructuring. Companies that hired by the thousands are now thinning their ranks in the name of efficiency and focus — a dose of corporate realism for the local tech economy.
The double-edged nature of this shift is not lost on Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson.
“AI, and the future of AI, and what that means for our state and the world — each day I do this job, the more that moves up in my mind in terms of the challenges and the opportunities we have,” Ferguson told the AI Week crowd. He touted Washington’s concentration of AI jobs, saying his goal is to maximize the benefits of AI while minimizing its downsides.
Gov. Bob Ferguson addresses the AI Week opening reception. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)
Seattle AI Week, led by the Washington Technology Industry Association, was started last year after a Forbes list of the nation’s top 50 AI startups included none from Seattle, said the WTIA’s Nick Ellingson, opening this year’s event. That didn’t seem right. Was it a messaging problem?
“A bunch of us got together and said, let’s talk about all the cool things happening around AI in Seattle, and let’s expand the tent beyond just tech things that are happening,” Ellingson explained.
So maybe that’s the best measuring stick: how many startups will this latest shakeout spark, and how can the Seattle region’s startup and tech leaders make it happen? Can the region become less dependent on the whims of the Microsoft and Amazon C-suites in the process?
“Washington has so much opportunity. It’s one of the few capitals of AI in the world,” said WTIA’s Arry Yu in her opening remarks. “People talk about China, people talk about Silicon Valley — there are a few contenders, but really, it’s here in Seattle. … The future is built on data, on powerful technology, but also on community. That’s what makes this place different.”
And yet, “AI is a sleepy scene in Seattle, where people work at their companies, but there’s very little activity and cross-pollinating outside of this,” said Nathan Lambert, senior research scientist with the Allen Institute for AI, during the opening panel discussion.
No, we don’t want to become San Francisco or Silicon Valley, Lambert added. But that doesn’t mean the region can’t cherry-pick some of the ingredients that put Bay Area tech on top.
Whether laid-off tech workers will start their own companies is a common question after layoffs like this. In the Seattle region at least, that outcome has been more fantasy than reality.
This is where AI could change things, if not with the fabled one-person unicorn then with a bigger wave of new companies born of this employment downturn. Who knows, maybe one will even land on that elusive Forbes AI 50 list. (Hey, a region can dream!)
But as the new AI reality unfolds in the regional workforce, maybe the best question to ask is whether Seattle’s next big thing can come from its own backyard again.
Login
