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Voyager Technologies raised $382.8 million in its U.S. initial public offering, the space and defense tech company said on Tuesday, amid a global rush to amp up military spending. The company, which provides mission-critical space and defense technology solutions, along with some investors sold roughly 12.35 million shares at $31 per share, above its marketed range of $26 to $29. The offering is the latest in recent weeks as the U.S. IPO market regained its footing after being restricted by tariff-driven volatility. The Denver, Coloradobased company’s IPO comes as President Donald Trump’s administration looks to sharply increase spending on defense and space projects. Trump last month selected a design for his $175 billion Golden Dome project, a next-generation U.S. missile defense shield. The stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday under the symbol “VOYG”. Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan are the lead underwriters on the listing. Ateev Bhandari and Manya Saini, Reuters
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Two crypto investors pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges they kidnapped and tortured an Italian man for his Bitcoin in an upscale Manhattan townhouse. William Duplessie and John Woeltz were ordered held in custody until their next court date on July 15 during their arraignment in Manhattan criminal court. Their lawyers had sought their release on $1 million bail and home confinement with their parents. They argued the victim wasn’t in distress during his time in New York, saying they had obtained video and photo evidence showing the accuser smiling and laughing during the time of his purported captivity. Among the evidence the lawyers said they have obtained are photos of the accuser moving freely in and out of the house, even taking a trip to an eyeglass store with one of the defendants. This narrative is entirely false,” said Sam Talkin, Duplessie’s lawyer. The story that he is selling doesnt make sense. Prosecutor Sania Khan argued that someone supporting the defendants was selectively leaking videos to present a counternarrative of the events Victims of abuse are not always going to act the way that we expect them to,” she added. Duplessie and Woeltz, who appeared in handcuffs and prison uniforms, didn’t speak in court other than to formally enter their pleas. They face charges of kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a weapon. Prosecutors say on May 6, the two men lured the victim, who they knew personally, to a posh townhouse in Manhattans Soho neighborhood by threatening to kill his family. The man, a 28-year-old Italian national who has not been named by officials, said he was held captive for 17 days. He said the two investors tormented him with electrical wires, forced him to smoke from a crack pipe and at one point dangled him from a staircase five stories high. The man said he eventually agreed to hand over his computer password, then managed to flee as his captors went to retrieve the device. Woeltz, 37, has described himself in interviews as a blockchain investor who spent time in Silicon Valley before returning to Kentuckys burgeoning crypto-mining industry. Duplessie, 32, is listed as a founder or investor at various blockchain-based companies. New York City police are also investigating two detectives who worked security at the townhouse where the man says he was tortured. The officers have been placed on modified leave pending the outcome of the inquiry, although their lawyer has said theres no indication either officer witnessed any of the alleged criminal activity. Philip Marcelo, Associated Press
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Disney and Universal have filed a copyright lawsuit against popular artificial intelligence image-generator Midjourney on Wednesday, marking the first time major Hollywood companies have enter the legal battle over generative AI. Filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, the complaint claims Midjourney pirated the libraries of the two Hollywood studios to generate and distribute endless unauthorized copies of their famed characters, such as Darth Vader from Star Wars and the Minions from Despicable Me. Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism. Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing,” the companies state in the complaint. The studios also claimed the San Francisco-based AI company ignored their requests to stop infringing on their copyrighted works and to take technological measures to halt such image generation. Midjourney didnt immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Midjourney CEO David Holz described his image-making service as kind of like a search engine pulling in a wide swath of images from across the internet. He compared copyright concerns about the technology with how such laws have adapted to human creativity. Can a person look at somebody elses picture and learn from it and make a similar picture? Holz said. Obviously, its allowed for people and if it wasnt, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. To the extent that AIs are learning like people, its sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like its fine. Major AI developers dont typically disclose their data sources but have argued that taking troves of publicly accessible online text, images and other media to train their AI systems is protected by the fair use doctrine of American copyright law. The studios case joins a growing number of lawsuits filed against developers of AI platformssuch as OpenAI, Anthropicin San Francisco and New York. Meanwhile, the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry is underway in London, pitting Getty Images against artificial intelligence company Stability AI. Shawn Chen, AP technology writer
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