Shopify's pre-market gain widens to over 30% as second-quarter revenue exceeds expectations.

AI weather technology company WindBorne Systems has closed a $37 million Series B funding round, co-led by Khosla Ventures and Galvanize, with a post-money valuation of $250 million. Focused on serving government agencies, WindBorne uses long-endurance balloons to collect meteorological data, which is fed into its AI prediction models. The firm currently operates 20 launch sites worldwide and has approximately 600 balloons in operation.

Enterprise AI agent company HappyRobot has closed a $150 million Series C funding round led by Prysm Capital, with Eurazeo as co-lead. The round values the firm at $1.2 billion, pushing it into unicorn status, and brings its total raised to roughly $200 million. The round also saw the return of existing investors including a16z, Base10, and Y Combinator, alongside strategic backers such as Koch Disruptive Technologies, Orange, and Deutsche Telekom’s T.Capital. Founded in San Francisco in 2022 by three Spanish founders—Pablo Palafox (CEO), Javi Palafox (COO), and Luis Paarup (CTO)—HappyRobot initially focused on computer vision auto-labeling tools before pivoting to AI voice agents.

South Korea’s Korea Post (under the Ministry of Science and ICT) and the Korea Development Bank (KDB) signed a business cooperation agreement today at KDB’s Yeouido headquarters in Seoul, agreeing to jointly establish a 1 trillion won "AI Infrastructure Fund" to invest in next-generation AI data centers, energy infrastructure, and other national future strategic industries. The two sides plan to jointly source and invest in high-quality AI infrastructure projects to further expand financial cooperation. Park In-hwan, head of Korea Post, stated: "In this era, stable securing of AI infrastructure such as data centers and power grids is becoming a key determinant of national competitiveness. As an institution managing the public’s valuable assets, we will continue expanding infrastructure investment in national future growth drivers, balancing stability and profitability." This marks the two entities’ first joint investment in roughly 20 years; they previously set up an infrastructure fund together in 2006, backing national projects including Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Incheon International Airport Railroad, the New Bundang Line, and power plants. The partnership aligns with the South Korean government’s policy to invigorate productive finance, using policy funds to leverage private capital in core AI-era infrastructure sectors. Earlier, the South Korean government has already ramped up investment in AI and digital infrastructure via its "Won Internationalization Roadmap" and "Sovereign AI" initiative. The joint investment between Korea Post and KDB signals a further tilt of public funds toward this field.

Earlier today, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) disclosed that H&H International Investment, managed by Duan Yongping, reduced its long position in Pop Mart International Group Limited from 7.65% to 5.55% on July 30, 2026. A detailed interpretation of the announcement shows that the reduction was triggered by the exercise of call options sold by Duan Yongping. Duan holds Pop Mart’s underlying shares via H&H International Investment, while selling call options to earn option premiums. After some of these call options expired and were exercised on July 30, Duan was required to deliver shares at the agreed price, leading to a reduction in his physical share holdings and the disclosed long position ratio dropping from 7.65% to 5.55%. The exercise of these expiring call options required Duan to deliver a portion of his shares at a combined settlement price of approximately HKD 162.50, resulting in a net reduction of around 8.9328 million physical shares. Combined with the expiry or conversion of other option positions, this overall led to the decline in the disclosed total long position ratio. Duan Yongping is accustomed to selling options to boost returns or build positions, and has engaged in similar operations with stocks like Apple in the past. He previously publicly stated, “I’ve just started buying Pop Mart, and I’m unlikely to sell within the next 10 years.” This reduction in the ratio is mainly a passive share reduction due to option settlement, rather than an active sell-off in the market. The actual scale of physical share reduction is not as large as the disclosed ratio might suggest, as the disclosed long ratio also includes the impact of derivative-related positions.

According to Bloomberg, Binance-affiliated entities Nest Trading, Distributed Technologies, and Chaintecs Consulting Singapore have jointly filed a lawsuit in Hong Kong against RedotPay co-founders Gao Zhangpeng, Chan Wa Choi, and Yao Chao, accusing the trio of breaching agreements by diverting over 470,000 users from Binance Card to RedotPay and claiming $472.8 million in damages. Separately, Binance-related entity Chaintecs has also initiated a lawsuit against a RedotPay affiliate in Singapore, with a hearing scheduled for Friday. RedotPay previously sought an initial public offering (IPO) at a valuation of around $4 billion; the company states it currently has $14 billion in annualized payment volume, $180 million in annualized revenue, and over 8 million users.

Unitree announced that its application for initial public offering (IPO) and listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR Market has been approved by the exchange’s Listing Review Committee and registered with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). The offering will combine strategic placement, offline issuance, and online issuance, with 40,446,400 new shares to be issued publicly, accounting for 10.00% of the total share capital post-offering. The issuer and its sponsor (lead underwriter) CITIC Securities will host an online roadshow from 14:00 to 17:00 on Friday, August 7, 2026, attended by key members of the issuer’s management and relevant personnel from the sponsor. Unitree is set to launch its IPO and list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR Market, with the offline subscription date set for August 10, 2026.