OpenAI could be valued at $1tn if it launches an initial public offering, Reuters said. OpenAI could be valued at $1tn if it launches an initial public offering, Reuters said. The year of the'hectocorn': the $100bn tech companies that could float in 2026 Y ou've probably heard of "unicorns" - technology startups valued at more than $1bn - but 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the " hectocorn ", with several US and European companies potentially floating on stock markets at valuations over $100bn (£75bn). OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX and Stripe are among the big names said to be considering an initial public offering (IPO) this year. The success of their flotations - whether the shares maintain their value, rise or fall - could shape concerns about the AI race and whether the resulting market mania is a bubble .

Octopus Energy to spin off $8.65bn tech arm Kraken Octopus Energy is set to spin off its Kraken Technologies arm as a standalone company after a deal to sell a stake in the platform valued it at $8.65bn (£6.4bn). The energy giant, Britain's biggest gas and electricity supplier, has sold a $1bn stake in the AI-based division to a group of investors led by New York-based D1 Capital Partners. The move paves the way for Kraken to be demerged from Octopus, and for a potential stock market flotation for the business in the future. Octopus founder and chief executive Greg Jackson told the BBC there was every chance Kraken would list its shares in the medium term, with the location of the flotation between London and the US. Kraken uses AI to automate customer service and billing for energy companies and can manage when customers use energy, rewarding them for reducing consumption at peak times. It was initially built for use by Octopus but has since picked up a raft of other utilities clients, including EDF, E.On Next, TalkTalk and National Grid US.

Poppy Gustafsson runs a cutting-edge and gender-diverse cybersecurity firm on the brink of a £3bn stock market debut, but she is happy to reference pop culture classic the Terminator to help describe what Darktrace actually does. Launched in Cambridge eight years ago by an unlikely alliance of mathematicians, former spies from GCHQ and the US and artificial intelligence (AI) experts, Darktrace provides protection, enabling businesses to stay one step ahead of increasingly smarter and dangerous hackers and viruses. Marketing its products as the digital equivalent of the human body's ability to fight illness, Darktrace's AI-security works as an "enterprise immune system", can "self-learn and self-heal" and has an "autonomous response capability" to tackle threats without instruction as they are detected. "It really does feel like we're in this new era of cybersecurity," says Gustafsson, the chief executive of Darktrace. "The arms race will absolutely continue, I really don't think it's very long until this [AI] innovation gets into the hands of attackers, and we will see these very highly targeted and specific attacks that humans won't necessarily be able to spot and defend themselves from. "It's not going to be these futuristic Terminator-style robots out shooting each other, it's going to be all these little pieces of code fighting in the background of our businesses.

US company Lyft has filed plans with the regulator in Washington for a flotation as it races for funding against Uber, the rival ride-hailing company. In a statement on Thursday, Lyft announced it had submitted a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in a move which sets it up to be one of the first large tech flotations of 2019. The number of shares on offer and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined, Lyft said. The company was valued at $15.1bn (£11.8bn) at its latest funding round in June, when investors led by Fidelity Investments poured $600m into the firm. Uber, by contrast, has been valued at $120bn in recent reports.

The founder of the Yorkshire-based video games company behind hits such as Worms is set for a £50m windfall from a stockmarket listing valuing the business at up to £230m. Debbie Bestwick, 48, founded Team17 in 1990 and her stake will be worth approximately £100m when the company floats on Aim this month. Bestwick, who received an MBE in 2016 for services to the video games industry, intends to sell up to 50% of her shareholding in the flotation. Bestwick has positioned the Wakefield-based business as a champion of independent games developers. In the "about us" section of Team17's website it describes itself as "a games label created by independent developers for independent developers".