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Exclusive-Software firm CCC exploring sale, sources say

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Exclusive-Software firm CCC exploring sale, sources say


By Milana Vinn

NEW YORK, July 9 (Reuters) – CCC Intelligent Solutions, a provider of software and AI-powered workflow tools, is ‌exploring a sale of the company, according to three ‌people familiar with the matter.

The Chicago-based company has hired Morgan Stanley to advise on ​a sale process and has reached out to prospective buyers, including private equity firms, the sources said.

CCC and Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Shares rose 13% to $6.09 in after-hours ‌trading following the Reuters ⁠report on it exploring a sale.

CCC provides software used by auto insurers, collision repair shops, automakers and ⁠parts suppliers to manage accident claims, vehicle repairs and related workflows. The company says its platform connects more than 35,000 businesses across the ​property-and-casualty ​insurance ecosystem.

The company’s market value has ​fallen to roughly $3.3 billion ‌from about $6.4 billion a year ago as investors grew concerned about slowing growth, weaker industry claims volumes and slower-than-expected adoption of some of its newer software products. The company’s shares have declined about 44% over the past 12 months.

CCC has explored a sale previously. ‌Reuters reported in 2023 that the ​company was considering strategic options including ​a potential sale after attracting ​takeover interest, though no transaction materialized.

Advent International, which ‌acquired CCC in 2017 and took ​it public through ​a merger with a special purpose acquisition company in 2021, fully exited its investment in 2025 through a series ​of secondary share offerings, ‌including the sale of its remaining stake in November.

(Reporting ​by Milana Vinn in New York; Editing by Colin ​Barr, Nia Williams and Jamie Freed)



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Apple sues OpenAI, alleging it stole trade secrets

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Apple sues OpenAI, alleging it stole trade secrets

Apple sued OpenAI on Friday for allegedly stealing its trade secrets, an extraordinary move that pits the $4.6 trillion iPhone maker against the fast-growing AI startup as it prepares to release a new class of hardware products that have been shaped in large part by Apple’s former design boss.

In the lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California court, Apple accused two former employees now working at OpenAI of systematically stealing confidential data, including information about unreleased hardware products, technical specifications, and details about vendors and contractors in Apple’s supply chain. The complaint also listed OpenAI as a defendant, as well as io Products, a hardware design firm acquired by OpenAI last year that was co-founded by Apple’s former design boss, Jony Ive.

“At every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information,” Apple said in the 41-page complaint. “OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets.”

OpenAI told Fortune in a statement that “we have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”

The lawsuit marks a dramatic escalation between two companies that were once working together to bring OpenAI’s ChatGPT into Apple’s software platforms and Apple’s Siri digital assistant. The partnership between Apple and OpenAI faded over time, and in January Apple announced that it was turning to Google for its Apple Intelligence efforts.

An Apple spokeswoman added in a statement that the company’s teams “are constantly developing breakthrough technologies to create the best products and services in the world, and protecting their work and intellectual property is something we take very seriously.”

Apple accuses Tang Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and a former vice president at Apple, of systematically stealing secrets, including using confidential Apple codenames during OpenAI’s recruiting process, encouraging interviewers to share secrets from the iPhone maker, and directing them to physically bring Apple hardware parts into interviews. Tan left Apple to join io Products in 2024 after roughly 24 years at the company, where he had risen from product designer to vice president over iPhone and Apple Watch product design.

Chang Liu, a member of OpenAI’s technical staff, is accused of downloading dozens of confidential hardware files, including technical specifications, engineering presentations, and proprietary data for unreleased products. Liu is also accused of instructing an Apple employee on how to bypass security teams when copying files. OpenAI is accused of misappropriating knowledge of Apple’s supplier relationships and proprietary terminology to approach Apple’s supply chain partners. 

Apple’s allegations are all the more striking given the company’s reputation for fiercely safeguarding the secrecy of its products. 

OpenAI has been developing hardware devices to run ChatGPT on, part of a strategy to control its own physical products rather than rely on giants like Apple. OpenAI has recruited from Apple, including hiring some of its top product leaders, and in May 2025 it announced that it was buying Ive’s io Products for $6.4 billion. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has made no secret that he envisions a new class of AI gadgets that replace smartphones as the primary consumer tech device, and Ive’s move to OpenAI turned heads at the time. Ive is not named in the Apple lawsuit.

The lawsuit comes at a period of transition for both companies, with Apple CEO Tim Cook due to hand the reins to John Ternus in September, and OpenAI preparing for an initial public offering as it faces increasing competition from other AI model makers like Anthropic and Google.

Apple is seeking a combination of injunctive relief, monetary damages, and declaratory judgments to stop the alleged theft.

This isn’t the first time OpenAI has faced such accusations. In 2023, the New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the companies used its articles and other content to train their AI models without permission. In June, a California judge dismissed a lawsuit from xAI, the company run by Elon Musk, alleging that OpenAI recruited a former xAI engineer to share information about the Grok chatbot.



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Will Maple Finance [SYRUP] extend rally as TVL hits $2.2B? THESE metrics say…

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Will Maple Finance [SYRUP] extend rally as TVL hits $2.2B? THESE metrics say…


Maple Finance [SYRUP] has climbed over the past day, and much of that move traces back to the protocol’s strengthening fundamentals.

The altcoin rallied 14% as fresh partnerships and capital rotation flowed into the ecosystem, and that underlying performance could sustain the rally across the next several trading sessions.

Capital inflows power SYRUP’s fundamentals

Capital moving into Maple Finance has driven much of the token’s recent performance.

Assets under management reached $4.6 billion in the first half of 2026, up 81% year-on-year, while loans outstanding hit an all-time high of $1.9 billion, a 123% jump over the same period.

The flow reflects in the protocol’s total value locked (TVL), which measures the assets deposited and locked on the platform mostly by investors holding a long-term outlook, and which surged by more than $220 million over the past day to reach a high of $2.265 billion.

Maple finance total value locked.
Source: TradingView

Much of the inflow points to syrupUSDG, which recently launched on Robinhood and has seen its assets under management climb by more than $200 million according to Maple’s own data.

Sid Powell, co-founder and CEO of Maple Finance, tied much of the growth to demand from fintech and neobank users, noting that the comparable SyrupUSDT product took more than 18 months to reach $100 million in AUM.

How syrupUSDG demand translates to SYRUP growth

SyrupUSDG is an interest-bearing token issued by the decentralized credit protocol Maple Finance, and holders who deposit the Global Dollar (USDG) stablecoin earn returns generated through institutional lending.

Rising adoption of SyrupUSDG feeds activity back into Maple, and that in turn lifts demand for the native token.

The link shows up on-chain, with DeFiLlama data reporting roughly 18% of the token’s market capitalization already staked, worth $36.93 million at the time of reporting, tightening the supply available to the market.

Maple’s yields has played a major role too. The company’s recent report shows the protocol outperformed the industry benchmark by more than 117 basis points at an APY of 4.765% against a benchmark of roughly 3.590%.

SYRUP market outlook and buyback proposal

SYRUP carries a longer-term case beyond the current move, anchored by a proposal to introduce revenue-linked buybacks that scale with earnings.

The SYRUP Strategic fund released a plan for a tiered buyback tied to a share of monthly revenue, under which repurchases could rise to as much as 30% once revenue climbs above $2 million.

Maple Finance Revenue. Maple Finance Revenue.
Source: MapleFinance

That threshold is within reach given the protocol’s trajectory. Maple posted $4.4 million in second-quarter revenue, up 47% year-on-year, and now runs at $17.6 million in annualised recurring revenue, which works out to just under $1.5 million a month against June’s $1.29 million.

The framework would run for roughly six months if approved, landing at a point where the protocol’s revenue is closing in on the level that would unlock its steepest buyback tier.

Final Summary

  • Maple Finance’s SYRUP rallied 14% as H1 2026 assets under management reached $4.6 billion, up 81% year-on-year.
  • A proposed revenue-linked buyback could repurchase up to 30% of monthly revenue once it clears $2 million, and could contribute to shortterm outlook.



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Bitcoin halving cycle history challenges $300,000–$500,000 moonshot forecasts

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Bitcoin price news: BTC declines to $60,000 area as investors turn to stocks for investment gains

Veteran trader Peter Brandt anticipates a peak between $300,000 and $500,000. Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra expect prices to hit $500,000 by 2029, citing booming demand for spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Reality check

However, while the four-year cycles have consistently produced new all-time highs, the reality of this cycle is different.

As bitcoin grows, matures, and becomes more valuable, it takes significantly more capital to push it meaningfully higher. The track record of cycle highs proves it:

  • 2013: $266
  • 2017: nearly ~$20,000 (75x from previous high)
  • 2021: ~$69,000 (3.5x from 2017)
  • 2025: $126,000 (just 1.8x from 2021)

What this means is that bull runs are getting steadier, with more measured gains rather than moonshots. If this trend continues, the next peak may fall well short of the anticipated $300,000 to $500,000 levels. (A rally to $300,000 or more requires over 2 times the jump from the 2025 high)

This is not necessarily bad news, however.

As noted earlier, the bigger the asset becomes, the more capital is required to move it higher. And with the institutionalization of the market and an ever-increasing array of advanced risk management products, such as bitcoin ETF futures, options, volatility bets, arbitrage funds, and structured products with embedded options, BTC is naturally becoming less volatile and more Wall Street-like.



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Semiconductor ETFs Roar Back: SOXX Pulls In $5.4 Billion in a Single Day

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Semiconductor ETFs Roar Back: SOXX Pulls In $5.4 Billion in a Single Day


etf.com

SOXX Inflows Top $5 Billion

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) recorded $5.43 billion in net creations, expanding its assets under management to roughly $46.3 billion—an 11.73% single-day jump in AUM. That kind of one-day move is rare for an established fund and signals a decisive rotation of investor capital back into chipmakers.

SOXX offers exposure to U.S.-listed semiconductor companies, tracking the NYSE Semiconductor Index. It holds the designers, manufacturers, and equipment suppliers that sit at the center of the artificial intelligence buildout, from advanced logic and memory to the tools that fabricate them. For investors looking to express a view on the chip cycle without picking individual winners, SOXX has long been one of the most liquid and widely held vehicles in the category.

The scale of the July 8 inflow suggests institutional demand rather than retail nibbling. When a fund adds more than a tenth of its asset base in a day, it typically reflects large allocators repositioning around a catalyst—earnings expectations, AI capital spending forecasts, or a shift in sentiment toward cyclical growth.

SMH Joins the Rally

SOXX was not alone. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) added $552 million on the same day, extending its lead as one of the largest semiconductor funds by assets at nearly $69.8 billion. While SMH’s inflow was a fraction of SOXX’s headline number, the two funds moving in the same direction underscores that the day’s demand was a genuine sector-wide bid, not a single-fund anomaly.

SMH is a close cousin to SOXX but not a carbon copy. It tracks the MVIS US Listed Semiconductor 25 Index and tends to run a more concentrated portfolio, with heavier weightings in its largest holdings. That concentration has historically made SMH a sharper play on the mega-cap chip leaders, while SOXX spreads exposure somewhat more broadly across the industry. Investors often choose between the two based on how much single-stock concentration they want in their semiconductor allocation.

The leveraged corner of the market echoed the theme as well: the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3x Shares (SOXL) took in more than $1.28 billion, a sign that traders were reaching for amplified upside exposure to the same rally.

What the Flows Signal

Taken together, the day’s numbers paint a clear picture. U.S. equity ETFs led all asset classes with nearly $12 billion in net inflows, but the story underneath was concentration in semiconductors. Money flowing simultaneously into a broad chip fund (SOXX), a concentrated chip fund (SMH), and a leveraged chip fund (SOXL) points to conviction across the risk spectrum.



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Bitcoin (BTC) price challenges Monday’s rejection level as ether (ETH) looks to break its streak of lower highs

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Bitcoin (BTC) price challenges Monday's rejection level as ether (ETH) looks to break its streak of lower highs

The crypto market took another leg higher on Friday with bitcoin BTC$64,022.65 trading at $64,400, up by 2% since midnight UTC.

The largest cryptocurrency is currently at the price it failed to penetrate on Monday. If it can break past this level, it will likely advance toward the June 15 high of $67,250.

Ether (ETH) outperformed bitcoin, rising 2.6% to $1,790 as it looks to snap a trend of sequential lower highs and lower lows.

There were also notable gains across the altcoin sector ahead of the weekend, typically a period of lower liquidity. Zcash (ZEC) and aave AAVE$94.93 both rose by around 5% as optimism is slowly crept back into more speculative bets after months of waning sentiment.

Crypto diverged from U.S. equities, with S&P 500 index futures and Nasdaq 100 futures falling 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively.

Derivatives positioning

  • Crypto derivatives markets are showing signs of stabilization, with speculation easing and longer-term positioning increasing.
  • Volume over 24 hours fell 7% to $140 billion, while open interest (OI) rose 3% to $110.52 billion. This shift suggests the recovery is being driven more by strategic positioning than by high‑frequency speculative activity.
  • Cumulative OI in bitcoin’s USD- and USDT-denominated futures on major exchanges has picked up slightly, from 262K to 272K, as the spot price topped $64,000. When read alongside positive funding rates and positive 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD), the OI increase indicates a growing bias for bullish bets.
  • Ether has yet to see a meaningful rise in futures OI, a sign that traders are still staying away from leverage.
  • In the broader market, most tokens have positive 24-hour CVDs, a sign that buyers are becoming more aggressive, trading market orders rather than passive limit orders. This set expectations for continued price rises ahead.
  • Confirmatory signals come from options-based implied volatility indexes tied to BTC and ETH, which continue to drop. It’s a sign of traders expecting market calm, a feature of rallies. BTC’s index, BVIV, fell to 38.5 early today, the lowest since June 6.
  • In the options market on Deribit, put skews continue to weaken as the price rally eases downside concerns. Calls at $62,000, $65,000, and $67,000 are among the most-traded instruments, along with the $56,000 put. A call represents a bullish bet on the market.



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Is Meta (META) One of the Top Stocks to Buy According to Whale Rock Capital Management?

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Is Meta (META) One of the Top Stocks to Buy According to Whale Rock Capital Management?


Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is one of the top stocks to buy according to Whale Rock Capital Management. On June 30, Reuters reported that a federal judge in Oakland, California, rejected Meta Platforms Inc.’s (NASDAQ:META) attempt to dismiss a lawsuit filed by dozens of US state attorneys general, who accuse the company of intentionally designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to children while hiding the resulting harm from the public.

Is Meta (META) One of the Top Stocks to Buy According to Whale Rock Despite a Child Addiction Lawsuit Heading to Trial?

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued the ruling late on Monday (June 29) night, said Reuters. It added that the judge denied Meta’s motion to dismiss claims tied to deception, unfair business practices, and violations of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). COPPA requires companies to get parental consent before collecting data from children under 13.

On the COPPA issue specifically, the judge found that it was undisputed that Meta failed to properly notify parents or obtain their consent as the law requires. The 38-page ruling stated that there remain real factual disagreements that a jury needs to resolve, including whether Meta’s platforms are actually addictive, whether the company falsely denied designing them that way, and whether it partly targeted children with these features, Reuters noted.

Reuters added that the judge pointed to internal Meta statements claiming its platforms were not built to cause compulsive use among teens. The judge said a jury could reasonably conclude those statements were misleading if evidence shows the platforms were in fact engineered that way.

This decision means the case will move forward toward trial. As such, both parties will get the chance to present evidence and expert testimony on how Facebook and Instagram’s design affects young users.

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is a technology company. It develops products that enable people to connect and share through mobile devices, personal computers, virtual reality headsets, and wearables. The company operates through the Family of Apps and Reality Labs segments.

While we acknowledge the potential of META as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you’re looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

READ NEXT: Top 10 AI Stocks to Buy According to Billionaire Philippe Laffont and 10 Best Dividend Stocks Yielding at Least 5% to Buy According to Hedge Funds.

Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News.



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