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By Jaspreet Singh (Reuters) -Payroll startup Deel said on Thursday it raised $300 million in a funding round, led by new investor Ribbit Capital alongside existing backers Andreessen Horowitz and Coatue Management, valuing the company at $17.3 billion. The San Francisco, California-based company said it plans to use the fresh capital for acquisitions and expand its payroll infrastructure with a goal of offering native payroll in more than 100 countries by 2029. The Series E fundraise comes amid its ongoing litigation with rival Rippling, which has sued Deel alleging racketeering, trade‑secret misappropriation and unfair competition, while Deel filed a defamation suit against Rippling in April, calling the claims a multi‑year smear campaign. Earlier this year, Rippling raised $450 million in a Series G funding round, valuing the company at $16.8 billion. Deel Chief Executive Alex Bouaziz declined to comment on the litigation but termed it as a "frivolous lawsuit". Bouaziz said Deel crossed $100 million monthly revenue for the first time in September and it generates roughly $15 million to $17 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Founded in 2019, Deel provides services to help companies hire international employees and contractors while ensuring compliance with local labor laws. It also automates payroll processing for businesses operating across multiple countries. Deel was earlier valued at $12.6 billion after a $300 million secondary purchase by General Catalyst and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala earlier this year. The company recently acquired its London-based competitor Omnipresent in a deal worth around $15 million, according to a person familiar with the matter. Deel had crossed $1 billion annual revenue run rate in the first quarter and earmarked up to $500 million for acquisitions this year to bolster growth, the company previously said. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)

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BENGALURU (Reuters) -India's Wipro reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter revenue on Thursday, driven by strong growth in Asia and Americas communications businesses and forecast revenue for the current quarter to be in line with some analysts' estimates. The country's fourth-largest IT services firm posted a 1.8% rise year-on-year in consolidated revenue to 226.97 billion rupees ($2.58 billion) for the July-September quarter, topping analysts' estimate of 226.90 billion rupees, per data compiled by LSEG. The company expects a 0.5% decline to 1.5% revenue growth for the third quarter, in line with expectations from brokerage Kotak Institutional Equities. That implies revenue will be in the range of $2.59 billion to $2.64 billion. Net profit rose 1.2% to 32.46 billion rupees for the quarter, below analysts' estimate of 33.01 billion rupees. Three of the four markets grew led by Asia Pacific's 3.1% and Americas One's 0.5% growth. The Bengaluru-based IT firm benefited from large contracts, including a $500 million-plus deal each with Phoenix Group and a U.S.-based telecom provider, making it the only top-five Indian IT company to secure two such mega deals this fiscal year. Earlier this month, peers Tata Consultancy Services and HCLTech beat revenue forecasts and flagged stronger demand in the second half of the year. Wipro's total deal bookings came in at $4.69 billion, down from $5 billion in the prior quarter but up from $3.6 billion a year earlier. ($1 = 87.8610 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Sai Ishwarbharath B; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)

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BENGALURU (Reuters) -India's second-largest software services exporter Infosys narrowed its revenue growth forecast for the year on Thursday to 2%-3% from 1%-3%, even amidst slowing demand in a challenging macroeconomic environment. The company reported second-quarter revenue that beat average analyst estimates on the back of strong performance in its financial services and manufacturing verticals. It's consolidated sales rose 8.5% on-year to 444.9 billion rupees ($5.06 billion) in the September quarter. Analysts, on average, expected 439.29 billion rupees, as per data compiled by LSEG. ($1 = 87.8590 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Haripriya Suresh; Editing by Savio D'Souza)

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By Wen-Yee Lee, Faith Hung and Ben Blanchard TAIPEI (Reuters) -TSMC, the world's biggest producer of advanced chips, raised its full-year revenue forecast on Thursday on a bullish outlook for spending on artificial intelligence, after posting a record profit that blew past market estimates. The strong results underscore the continued faith in AI, brushing off at least for now concerns about a bubble. U.S.-listed shares of the Taiwanese chipmaker were up 1.6% in pre-market trade in New York and boosted U.S. semiconductor stocks, including AI leader Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. TSMC said it expects robust artificial intelligence demand to continue, as it raised its 2025 revenue guidance to mid-30% growth in U.S. dollar terms from around 30%, and maintained its forecast for capital spending at up to $42 billion for 2025. "AI demand actually continues to be very strong – more strong than we thought three months ago," CEO C.C. Wei told an earnings call. "We are also happy to see a continuous strong outlook from our customers," he added. "In addition, we directly receive very strong signals from our customers requesting the capacity to support their business. Thus, our conviction in the AI megatrend is strengthening." There has been a flurry of mega deals between AI firms and chipmakers, notably by OpenAI with Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom, in the past month or so to build $1 trillion or more in data center capacity. That portends more demand for chips, which make up a significant portion of the cost of the data centers. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom all rely on TSMC for chip production. The multi-billion dollar investment announcements have raised concerns about the formation of a bubble reminiscent of the dotcom boom and bust, with securities investors on guard for signals that demand is tailing off or that the massive spending is not paying off as anticipated. Recent company announcements indicate demand is resilient. The head of Australia's Macquarie Asset Management (MAM), which sold its Aligned Data Centers business in a deal worth $40 billion, said on Thursday the sale was not a sign the global data center boom had peaked, while ABB's big increase in orders in the United States during the third quarter was due to demand from areas like data centers being built for AI. PROFIT BEATS ESTIMATES Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, whose customers also include iPhone maker Apple, posted a 39.1% jump in third-quarter net profit and said it would be prudent in its business planning going into 2026. Benefiting from surging demand for advanced chips used in AI applications, TSMC said net profit for July-September climbed to T$452.3 billion ($14.76 billion). That was well ahead of a T$417.7 billion LSEG SmartEstimate drawn from 20 analysts. SmartEstimates are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate. "We are still very comfortable that the demand on leading-edge semiconductors is real. And as I continue to say that we look at all the demand and look at our capacity expansion, TSMC needs to work very hard to narrow the gap," Wei said, referring to supply and demand. U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies and threats to put tariffs on semiconductors have created uncertainty for the global chip industry and TSMC. Still, Wei said even if the China market was "not available" to the company because of U.S. restrictions, then "I still think the AI's growth will be very dramatic". TSMC announced plans for a $100 billion U.S. investment with Trump at the White House in March, on top of $65 billion pledged for three plants in the state of Arizona, one of which is up and running. On Wednesday, top semiconductor equipment maker ASML, for which TSMC is a major customer, said third-quarter bookings beat market forecasts but that it expected a significant fall in demand from China next year. Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday it expected its biggest quarterly profit in over three years, also thanks to the AI boom. Taiwan-listed shares in TSMC have risen 38% this year, largely brushing off concerns about tariffs, and ahead of the 20% rise for the broader market. ($1 = 30.6450 Taiwan dollars) (Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee, Faith Hung and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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