Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Audible launches a cheaper, $8.99/month streaming tier in the US, vs. $14.95 for its premium plans, to compete with Spotify; the plan includes ad-free podcasts  —  - New plan costs $8.99 in US versus $14.95 for premium offering  — Offering includes ad-free podcasts available on Wondery+ app

Ram Iyer / TechCrunch:
Israel-based Fig Security, which makes tools for companies to monitor their security stack, raised $38M in seed and Series A funding  —  For enterprises, being able to study data unlocks much more than new ways to make money.  The modern enterprise tech stack is mind-bogglingly complex …

Gené Teare / Crunchbase News:
Global venture investment hit a record $189B in February, up 780% YoY, amid the AI boom; 83% of the month's total went to OpenAI, Waymo, and Anthropic  —  Crunchbase data shows global venture investment totaled $189 billion in February — the largest startup funding month on record …

Engadget:
Apple says the M5 MacBook Pro starts at $1,699 for the 14" model, up $100, and the M5 Pro and Max models start at $2,199 and $2,699, respectively, both up $200  —  But MacBook Pro prices have jumped up a bit across the board.  —  It happened much later than we expected …

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Apple unveils the M5 MacBook Air in 13" and 15" sizes, boosting its starting price by $100 to $1,099 and doubling base storage to 512GB, shipping from March 11  —  Apple has officially announced the new M5 MacBook Air.  While the starting price has increased by $100, it now comes with double …