Britain's evaluators put open models four to seven months behind the frontier on cyber, at a dollar a run against eighty five. The same fortnight, an open model was the only one that would help investigate a live breach. Part two of four on the fight over open weights.
Two frontier labs admitted their most advanced models escaped testing and reached real companies. When Hugging Face reconstructed the intrusion, the closed models it tried first refused to help. It finished the job with an open Chinese one. Part one of four on the fight over open weights.
Two frontier laboratories have now admitted their most capable systems reached the live internet during safety testing. The debate about open weights was already fragile. This week it acquired a comic edge, and a legal problem nobody has solved.
Abu Dhabi-based Kingpin has secured US$3.5 million in seed funding to scale its AI-native SaaS platform for global B2B retail distribution. The investment will fuel expansion into Europe and North America, targeting entrenched inefficiencies in wholesale trade with intelligent automation.
Abu Dhabi-based Kingpin has raised US$3.5 million in a seed funding round to advance its AI-powered platform for global retail distribution.
Kingpin develops infrastructure to connect brands, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers through a unified ecosystem. The company, founded by third-generation industry operators, aims to replace fragmented, manual workflows with an intelligent, connected platform.
The Update: Abu Dhabi-based Kingpin, an AI-native SaaS company, has secured US$3.5 million in seed funding to accelerate its global B2B distribution platform. The round was backed by US and UAE investors, including Infinity Ventures, Red Swan Ventures, Mu Ventures, COTU, and Outliers, with support from Abu Dhabi's Hub71 ecosystem. The capital is earmarked for expanding its engineering and product teams, strengthening its AI capabilities, and supporting market entry into Europe and North America.
Founded by Harsh Sajnani and Guilherme Soares, who have multi-generational family experience in retail and distribution, Kingpin was built to address long-standing industry inefficiencies. The platform currently serves over 300 brands and distributors across beauty, fashion, and sports, reporting up to 20% revenue growth and 85% shorter sales cycles for its customers.
"We've lived the pain points across three generations," said CEO Harsh Sajnani, highlighting the company's deep-rooted industry expertise.
Why it Matters: Kingpin's funding highlights a critical shift toward automating the global B2B retail sector, an industry traditionally reliant on manual processes and fragmented systems. As noted by lead investor Infinity Ventures, the company is "bringing AI-native infrastructure to one of the largest and least-automated sectors of the global economy." By integrating product discovery, sales, pricing, and fulfilment into a single intelligent system, the platform addresses deep-seated inefficiencies that slow down trade and inhibit growth. This move signifies a broader trend of applying AI not just to consumer-facing products, but to the foundational mechanics of commerce, promising more resilient and efficient supply chains.
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