Tech & Software · Week of Oct 26, 2026
Investcorp results and open-source OCR: the week in tech releases
A mixed week: Investcorp's nine-month figures, ModelBest's open-source OCR models, a mini-tender warning and two market forecasts.
There was no single thread running through this week's Tech & Software releases. The largest items were Investcorp's report of US$11.1 billion in aggregate activity for the first nine months of 2026, announced at Gateway Gulf 2026 in Bahrain, and the open-source release of the MiniCPM-OCR series by ModelBest and OpenBMB for document parsing and OCR quality assessment.
Elsewhere, Palo Alto Networks advised stockholders to reject an unsolicited mini-tender offer from Tutanota LLC, and Sohu.com set a date for its third quarter results. Wissen Research and MarketsandMarkets issued forecasts for the graphene and ESG reporting software markets. SMX publicized a TechCrunch profile of its material-tracing technology, and GoDaddy published a ranking of entrepreneurial college towns.
Bahrain EDB
Investcorp Announces Aggregate Financial Activity for 2026 at Gateway Gulf Investment Forum
Investcorp says it raised US$4.8 billion, deployed US$3.7 billion and recorded US$2.6 billion in exits between January and September 2026, with assets under management of US$65.2 billion as of September 2026. The company also says its Investcorp Wealth digital platform has enabled more than US$620 million in client capital raising since its 2024 launch, and that it launched an AI Investment Framework.
ModelBest
ModelBest and OpenBMB Open-Source MiniCPM-OCR Series, Delivering High-Performance Document Parsing and AI-Powered Quality Control
ModelBest and OpenBMB released MiniCPM-OCR 1.0 (1.3B), a document parsing model, and MiniCPM-OCR Jev (2B), which assigns confidence scores to OCR output, as open-source models on GitHub, Hugging Face and ModelScope. The companies say the models support vLLM, SGLang, llama.cpp and Ollama, and that Jev can be added to existing OCR workflows without replacing the OCR engine.
Palo Alto Networks, Inc.
Palo Alto Networks Recommends Stockholders Reject Mini-Tender Offer by Tutanota LLC
Palo Alto Networks says it received notice of an unsolicited mini-tender offer from Tutanota LLC to purchase up to 250,000 shares, and recommends that stockholders reject it. The notice is directed at PANW shareholders who may be approached with the offer.
Sohu.com Limited
Sohu.com to Report Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results on November 9, 2026
Sohu.com Limited says it will report unaudited third quarter 2026 financial results on Monday, November 9, 2026, before U.S. market hours. The company says its management team will host a call alongside the release.
SMX (Security Matters)
SMX Featured in TechCrunch Profile; Article Highlights Company's Technology
SMX says TechCrunch has published an article on its molecular marking technology and its Digital Material Passport Platform (DMPP), which links physical materials to digital records. According to SMX, the article covers the platform's use with plastics, metals and textiles to track provenance, composition and lifecycle history.
Wissen Research LLC
Graphene Market Set to Reach US$ 3.94 Billion by 2031 as Demand for Next-Generation Materials Accelerates
Wissen Research says the global graphene market is valued at USD 970 million in 2026 and projects it will reach USD 3.94 billion by 2031. The firm puts the compound annual growth rate at 32.4% over 2026–2031.
MarketsandMarkets
ESG Reporting Software Market worth $4.48 billion by 2031 - Report by MarketsandMarkets™
MarketsandMarkets projects the global ESG Reporting Software Market will reach USD 1.83 billion in 2026 and USD 4.48 billion by 2031. The firm puts the compound annual growth rate at 19.6%.
GoDaddy
GoDaddy Reveals America's Most Entrepreneurial College Towns
GoDaddy released an inaugural ranking of America's Most Entrepreneurial College Towns. The company says 80% of the ranked towns lie outside traditional startup hubs.
This roundup is written with AI assistance from the press releases listed above, using only what they state. The releases are the companies' own announcements, not The Amazing Web reporting.