How Seattle

A 20-year overnight success: One of the hottest infrastructure companies in AI today traces its roots to work its founders were doing before the cloud was even a thing. Fresh off a funding round that cemented Temporal Technologies ’ position as one of the region’s most valuable startups, co-founders Samar Abbas and Maxim Fateev explain the decades of work behind their solution, and why AI agents make it even more relevant.

“Walter” powers AI news site from ex-Seattle tech founders: Lee and Lucas Brown, who co-founded the startup Tune (HasOffers) in 2009 and left Seattle around 2017, are behind Alaska News, a platform utilizing an AI agent named "Walter" to ingest public records and draft stories on local government, land use, and state notices. Operating out of their wilderness startup incubator "Geeks in the Woods," they pair the automated tool with a human editor to deliver what they insist is transparent, record-based reporting to underserved communities across the state.

Space startup aims to go public on Nasdaq: Marysville, Wash.-based Gravitics Inc , which is building spacecraft for government and commercial customers, plans to merge with a public shell company and raise $125 million in a stock offering. The startup hasn't put a spacecraft in orbit yet, but it has lined up work with Axiom Space, the Space Force and Lockheed Martin.

A roll for civic engagement: Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs worked a booth at PAX over Labor Day weekend, giving out 20-sided dice with the office's mascot and reminding gamers to vote. Also on his agenda: leading trade missions to help Washington state's board game makers break into overseas markets.

Fewer lab animals, better drugs: Seattle startup ModernVivo uses AI to help scientists design animal studies for new drugs, pulling the relevant details from millions of research papers. Customers say work that took a month now takes as little as an hour, and the company says better-designed studies mean fewer animal experiments. Next up: matching those studies with labs that can run them.

KEXP eyes a second physical home far from Seattle: The independent radio station is in talks to convert a historic house and storefronts in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood into a multifaceted cultural hub featuring broadcast facilities, a performance venue, and a community gathering space. The move comes three years after KEXP expanded its broadcast footprint to the Bay Area with the acquisition of 92.7 KREV FM.

Crusoe , the AI infrastructure company that opened a Bellevue engineering office last year, raised $3.9 billion at a $30.9 billion valuation as it bets on smaller, factory-built data centers that can be deployed wherever power is available. (The Wall Street Journal) Under a revised federal court order in Amazon 's $2.5 billion settlement with the FTC, millions of additional Prime members are now eligible for automatic refunds starting Oct. 1. (The Seattle Times) Microsoft employees debated whether OpenAI 's use of news articles to train AI was the "largest theft of labor in human history," according to court documents unsealed in the New York Times' copyright suit against the two companies. Microsoft says the memos, written by one researcher, don't represent its views. (NYT)

Sign up here to receive GeekWire's daily newsletter in your inbox each day at 11 a.m. PT.

SPONSOR MESSAGE: New Does Compute episode live: Explore how computer science is changing our world. Watch Does Compute now.

SPONSOR MESSAGE: BESIDE THE PARK, ABOVE IT ALL. Now selling, Park Row introduces a rare opportunity for park-front living. This boutique collection of elegant residences capture sweeping views, while nearly 25,000 sq. ft. of club-style wellness amenities elevate daily living. With early sales now over 20% sold, Park Row is quickly becoming one of Bellevue’s most sought-after addresses. Learn more at ParkRowBellevue.com.