Meta and Anduril, the defense-tech startup founded by Palmer Luckey, announced Thursday that they’ve formed a partnership to create virtual and augmented reality devices intended for use by the U.S. army.

The partnership represents a major step by Meta to supply cutting-edge technology to the government in addition to working once again with Luckey, who sold his Oculus VR startup to the social media company for $2 billion in 2014.

Luckey and Meta had an acrimonious split, with the Anduril founder telling CNBC in 2019 that he “got fired” from the company formerly known as Facebook “for no reason at all,” suggesting that a $10,000 donation to a pro-Donald Trump group ahead of the 2016 U.S. election could have contributed to the decision.

With Trump winning the U.S. presidency in November for the second time, Zuckerberg and other tech executives have since courted favor with the White House by making sweeping policy changes like relaxing content-moderation guidelines.

Meta has also been pitching its open-source Llama family of AI models to government agencies and in November said it would make the those tools available to government units “working on defense and national security applications, and private sector partners supporting their work.”

“Meta has spent the last decade building AI and AR to enable the computing platform of the future,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We’re proud to partner with Anduril to help bring these technologies to the American service members that protect our interests at home and abroad.”

In February, Anduril and Microsoft said that the defense tech startup would take over the enterprise giant’s AR headset program with the U.S. army.

Meta and Anduril have placed a joint bid on an Army contract for VR devices that is worth up to $100 million, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The two companies are working on EagleEye, a system that carries sensors that enhance soldiers’ hearing and vision, according to the report. Meta and Anduril will move forward on their partnership whether or not they win the Army contract, per the Journal.

The two companies pitched their partnership as helping the U.S. maintain a “technical edge” while aiding national security and saving the military “billions of dollars by utilizing high-performance components and technology originally built for commercial use.”

“I am glad to be working with Meta once again.” Luckey said in a statement. “Of all the areas where dual-use technology can make a difference for America, this is the one I am most excited about.”

Anduril also announced in December that it partnered with OpenAI on an artificial-intelligence initiative related to “national security missions.”

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Amazon‘s devices unit has a new team tasked with inventing “breakthrough” consumer products that’s being led by a former Microsoft executive who helped create the Xbox.

The ZeroOne team is spread across Seattle, San Francisco and Sunnyvale, California, and is focused on both hardware and software projects, according to job postings from the past month. The name is a nod to its mission of developing emerging product ideas from conception to launch, or “zero to one.”

Amazon has a checkered history in hardware, with hits including the Kindle e-reader, Echo smart speaker and Fire streaming sticks, as well as flops like the Fire Phone, Halo fitness tracker and Glow kids teleconferencing device.

Many of the products emerged from Lab126, Amazon’s hardware research and development unit, which is based in Silicon Valley.

The new group is being led by J Allard, who spent 19 years at Microsoft, most recently as technology chief of consumer products, a role he left in 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was a key architect of the Xbox game console, as well as the Zune, a failed iPod competitor.

Allard joined Amazon in September, and the company confirmed at the time that he would be part of the devices and services team under Panos Panay, who left Microsoft for Amazon in 2023 to lead the group.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed Allard oversees ZeroOne but declined to comment further on the group’s work.

The job postings provide few specific details about what ZeroOne is building, though one listing references working on “conceiving, designing, and bringing to market computer vision techniques for a new smart-home product.”

Another post for a senior customer insights manager in San Francisco says the job entails owning “the methodology and execution of concept testing and early feedback for ZeroOne programs.”

“You’ll be part of a team that embraces design thinking, rapid experimentation, and building to learn,” the description says. “If you’re excited about working in small, nimble teams to create entirely new product categories and thrive in the ambiguity of breakthrough innovation, we want to talk to you.”

Amazon has pulled in staffers from other business units that have experience developing innovative technologies, including its Alexa voice assistant, Luna cloud gaming service and Halo sleep tracker, according to Linkedin profiles of ZeroOne employees. The head of a projection mapping startup called Lightform that Amazon acquired is helping lead the group.

While Amazon is expanding this particular corner of its devices group, the company is scaling back other areas of the sprawling devices and services division.

Earlier this month, Amazon laid off about 100 of the group’s employees. The job cuts included staffers working on Alexa and Amazon Kids, which develops services for children, as well as Lab126, according to public filings and people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. More than 50 employees were laid off at Amazon’s Lab126 facilities in Sunnyvale, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filings in California.

Amazon said the job cuts affected a fraction of a percent of the devices and services organization, which has tens of thousands of employees.

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Omada Health plans to raise up to $158 million in its up coming IPO, attaining a market cap of about $1.1 billion at the top end of its expected range, according to a filing on Thursday.

The virtual chronic care company filed its prospectus earlier this month, and has just updated the filing with an expected pricing range of $18 to $20 per share. Omada said it plans to sell 7.9 million shares in the offering.

The size of the offering and share price could change, and the market cap could be higher on a fully diluted bases. The IPO is expected to take place next week.

Omada, which offers virtual care programs to support patients with chronic conditions like prediabetes, diabetes and hypertension, will be the second digital health company to hit the market in a matter of weeks after an extended drought. Digital physical therapy startup Hinge Health debuted on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month.

Omada, based in San Francisco, describes its approach as a “between-visit care model” that is complementary to the broader health-care ecosystem, according to its prospectus.

Sean Duffy, Omada’s CEO, co-founded the company in 2012 with Andrew DiMichele and Adrian James, who have both moved on to other ventures.

Omada’s revenue increased 57% in its first quarter to $55 million from $35.1 million a year earlier, the filing said. For 2024, revenue rose 38% to $169.8 million from $122.8 million the previous year.

The company’s net loss narrowed to $9.4 million in the first quarter from $19 million a year ago.

“To our prospective shareholders, thank you for learning more about Omada,” Duffy said in the prospectus. I invite you to join our journey.”

The company will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “OMDA.”

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are leading the offering. Omada’s top shareholders are U.S. Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity.

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