Franklin Templeton

Stord raises $250M at $3B valuation

E‑commerce logistics company Stord raised $250 million at a $3 billion valuation, TechCrunch reported on May 26, 2026. The round was led by Strike Capital with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Franklin Templeton, Baillie Gifford, G Squared and Bond. Founded in 2015 by Sean Henry (CEO) and Jacob Boudreau (CTO), Atlanta‑based Stord provides a network of physical warehouses plus inventory management software and has recently added an AI interface to its platform. The raise doubles its valuation from a 2025 mega round and brings its total funding to about $775 million to date. Stord positions itself as an alternative to Amazon’s fulfillment services and was recently showcased at Google Cloud Next.

High energy costs threaten Europe’s AI race

Experts told CNBC that Europe’s soaring energy prices risk undermining the continent’s ambitions to compete with the U.S. and China in AI. AI requires large, power-hungry data centers, making compute investments highly sensitive to electricity costs; investors and hyperscalers are likely to site new projects where power is cheapest. Reports cited by CNBC show data centers now consume about 2% of global electricity and community pushback intensifies once facilities exceed 5% of national consumption. The piece highlights migration toward lower-cost regions (Nordics, parts of France), major hyperscaler investments in the Nordics, OpenAI pausing a UK project partly over energy costs, and research forecasting higher data‑center development costs across Europe in 2026.

10-Q Financial Filing Analysis for Franklin Templeton

AI Analysis of 10-Q for period 2026-03-31.