AI search engine Exa isn’t one to follow the crowd. Founded in 2021, its main product is pioneering. It’s the engine under the hood for a host of AI developers: In layman’s terms, it’s Google Search for AI.

Training a technology with an insatiable appetite for knowledge is no small task; this is search infrastructure that needs to dive to unfathomable depths. Despite boasting such a powerful tool, Exa has reorganized itself to do without a product team. Instead, the company has created a hybrid sales and engineering team designed to build effective products led by consumer desire.

It recently raised a $85 million Series B, bringing its valuation up to $700 million.

The company spoke with Revenue Brew about why emphasizing sales is giving it an edge.

Creating a win-win situation: Vishal Khanna, Exa’s head of product and technical GTM, said that combining sales and product employees not only helps product understand what customers are asking for, but it helps sellers better understand product.

Keep reading here.—BS

Premier League fans won’t have missed Manchester United’s precarious season start. One of soccer’s most valuable brands, it finished a lowly 15th place in the league table in May and will miss out on Europe-wide competition for the second time since 1990. The current campaign isn’t signaling an imminent turnaround.

But despite the doom and gloom on the pitch, it’s worth remembering that sports clubs can still display incredible financial resilience, and in the era of clubs as businesses, that matters. Mature global brands like Man United can reach even further beyond their grasp, even amid the steady decline in performance on the field.

The club reported record revenue of £666.5 million for fiscal 2025 (roughly $896 million at the time of writing), driven by increases in commercial and match day revenue. Though it still recorded a net loss of £33m for the financial year, it narrowed from £113.2 million the year prior. For a club mired in debt since a controversial 2005 takeover, that’s progress.

The business of soccer: Manchester United’s commercial revenue—made up of sponsorships and retail, merchandising, apparel and product licensing—increased 10% YoY to a record £333.3 million (roughly $448 million). Much of this growth came from the start of a five-year front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon brand. Shirt sponsorships are incredibly lucrative for soccer clubs—just ask Chelsea FC, which still doesn’t have one this year.

Keep reading here.—LI

With so many tools promising to transform sales, how do you know which are worth the hype? At our event on Oct. 22, Sam McKenna (founder and CEO, #samsales) and Angela Bushway (senior revenue operations manager, Vimeo) will cut through the noise and share how to make emerging tech work for your team, not overwhelm it.

It’s not often that two competitors exit the market at around the same time. But that’s the situation Michaels faced earlier this year when both Party City and Joann Fabrics declared bankruptcy, leaving two specialized marketplaces wide open and giving the arts and crafts chain a boost at a difficult time for specialized brick-and-mortar retailers.

The challenge now facing the company is how to fill the gap in a way that satisfies customers left behind by its former rivals, while also putting its own stamp on these categories. The recent announcement of two new shop-in-shops for party balloons and fabrics is a step in that direction.

Retail Brew spoke with Michaels CEO David Boone about how it turned these disruptions into opportunities.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Can you walk us through Michaels’s initial response to the closure of Joann and Party City and how it’s tried to turn those disruptions into opportunities?

No. 1: Myself and the entire senior team were committed to this. We knew the opportunity was available, and what we committed to do was to take risks and go fast to get products in store because we knew those customers were going to find homes over the next six months as those retailers exited the market. I don’t think any retailer has operated as fast as we have over the past six months to put together a unique value proposition for those customers.

Keep reading here.—AV

Think of our little crosswords like espresso shots: They go down quick and give you a lift. Test your wits with our Brew Mini crosswords, designed to sharpen your mind in five minutes or less.