Groww, India’s largest retail brokerage firm, is set to test the country’s public markets with a multi-billion-dollar IPO. The listing comes comes just over a year after the company restructured its corporate headquarters from Delaware back to India — a move that could make it the first Indian startup to list at home following a…
Humanoid robotics company Figure raised its largest round of funding yet, a sign of growing investor interest in robots designed to work alongside humans in warehouses, factories, and other settings. San Jose, California-based Figure announced on Tuesday that it raised a Series C funding round that values the company at $39 billion. The round, which…
Smartphone startup Nothing announced today that it closed its Series C round of $200 million, which was led by the investment firm Tiger Global. With this round, the consumer electronics company is now valued at $1.3 billion. Other investors in the round included existing backers such as venture outfits GV, Highland Europe, EQT, Latitude, I2BF,…
Back by overwhelming demand, we’ve added 10 more exhibit tables to TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — and this will be the final release before they sell out. This is your last chance to showcase your company in front of 10,000+ founders, VCs, and tech innovators from October 27-29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. Disrupt isn’t just…
Bret Taylor, board chair at OpenAI and CEO of AI agent startup Sierra, was asked in a recent interview with The Verge whether he agreed with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s declaration that “someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money in AI.” Taylor echoed Altman’s sentiments, suggesting that we are indeed in an…
Rainmaker Technology’s bid to deploy cloud-seeding flares on small drones is being met by resistance from the airline pilots union, which has urged the Federal Aviation Administration to consider denying the startup’s request unless it meets stricter safety guidelines. The FAA’s decision will signal how the regulator views weather modification by unmanned aerial systems going…
With Tesla shareholders set to vote on a proposed 10-year, $1 trillion compensation package for CEO Elon Musk in November, board chair Robyn Denholm spoke to The New York Times to defend what would be the largest pay package in corporate history. Denholm, who was also on the special committee that put the compensation proposal…
The all-electric Ram 1500 REV pickup truck is dead. Long live the extended-range Ram 1500 REV (once called the Ramcharger). Stellantis, the parent company of Ram, said Friday that it will no longer develop a battery-electric full-size pickup. The company cited low demand for full-size battery-electric trucks as the primary reason, according to a statement…
This week, OpenAI and Oracle shocked the markets with a surprise $300 billion, five-year agreement, part of a surge of new business that sent the cloud provider’s stock skyrocketing. But maybe the markets shouldn’t have been taken by surprise. The deal is a reminder that, despite Oracle’s legacy status, the company still plays a major…
California has taken a big step toward regulating AI. SB 243 — a bill that would regulate AI companion chatbots in order to protect minors and vulnerable users — passed both the State Assembly and Senate with bipartisan support and now heads to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. Newsom has until October 12 to either veto…
There’s plenty of uncertainty to go around this year, including a global trade war, shifting policy priorities, and an economy that’s starting to stumble. Breakthrough Energy, a climate tech organization founded by Bill Gates, has also been shifting in response. The group always placed long bets, though it appears to be reappraising some of them.…
There’s been great interest in what Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab is building with its $2 billion in seed funding and the all-star team of former OpenAI researchers who have joined the lab. In a blog post published on Wednesday, Murati’s research lab gave the world its first look into one of its projects: creating…
Jaguar Land Rover said on Wednesday that an unspecified amount of data was stolen during a cyberattack that has brought vehicle assembly lines to a standstill. In a statement on Wednesday, the U.K.-based maker of Land Rover and Range Rover vehicles said it was aware that “some data” was taken in the incident. Companies that…
Last year’s TechCrunch Disrupt Side Events drew hundreds of founders, investors, and operators after hours — from intimate roundtables to lively happy hours to full-on pitch competitions. Each event unlocked new opportunities for the hosts: investor deal flow, talent connections, and brand exposure with the startup community. This year, you can do the same. As…
OpenAI executives are discussing a potential relocation out of California as increasing political resistance threatens the company’s efforts to convert from nonprofit to for-profit status, according to The WSJ, though the company says it has no plans to leave. California’s attorney general is investigating whether OpenAI’s restructuring violates state charitable trust law, while a coalition…
Nuclear startup Deep Fission announced Monday that it has gone public in a reverse merger, netting the company $30 million. No, it’s not 2021. The startup is proposing to build small, cylindrical nuclear power plants and lower them into 30-inch diameter holes drilled one mile down into the Earth. By burying the reactors, the company…
InDrive, known for its bidding-based ride-hailing model across Asia and Latin America, is rolling out a “super-app” strategy aimed at frontier markets — expanding beyond cabs to deliver daily essentials to its users. Beginning with grocery deliveries in Kazakhstan, InDrive plans to expand into multiple verticals over the next 12 months across its top markets,…
Hyundai’s electric air taxi startup Supernal has paused work on its aircraft program after a rocky few months that saw staff cuts and the departure of its CEO and CTO, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The shakeup comes at a time when Supernal has barely gotten off the ground — literally. The…
On Friday, a startup called Fable announced an ambitious, if head-scratching, plan to recreate the lost 43 minutes of Orson Welles’ classic film “The Magnificent Ambersons.” Why is a startup that bills itself as the “Netflix of AI,” and that recently raised money from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, talking about remaking a movie that was first…
The European Commission announced this week that it’s fining Google €2.95 billion (just under $3.5 billion). The commission found that Google had violated European Union antitrust rules by favoring its own advertising services. Specifically, the commission said Google “abused” its “dominant positions” by favoring its ad exchange AdX in both its publisher ad server and…
Snapchat is launching a new Lens that lets users create and edit images using a text-to-image AI generator, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The new “Imagine Lens” is available to Snapchat+ Platinum and Lens+ subscribers. Imagine Lens allows users to create, edit, and recreate Snaps by entering their own prompts. They can then share the…
Stripe is funding a new blockchain company called Tempo, co-founder CEO Patrick Collison announced on Thursday. Tempo is aimed at high-volume processing of stablecoins — coins that help reduce crypto’s notorious volatility because they are pegged to a stable asset like the U.S. dollar. That’s not surprising given that Stripe acquired stablecoin company Bridge. What…
French AI startup Mistral AI is finalizing a €2 billion investment at a post-money valuation of $14 billion, reports Bloomberg, positioning the company as one of Europe’s most valuable tech startups. The two-year-old OpenAI rival, founded by former DeepMind and Meta researchers, develops open source language models and Le Chat, its AI chatbot built for…
The world’s most-flown rocket may start flying even more. U.S. regulators have completed a key environmental review that paves the way for SpaceX to more than double the number of Falcon 9 launches from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. In addition to the annual launch increase from 50 launches to up to 120, the…
Waymo announced Tuesday that it’s going to bring both of its vehicles — the Jaguar I-Pace SUV and the Zeekr van — to Denver and Seattle starting this week, the latest move in a continued expansion across the United States. The vehicles will be manually driven to start, before the company starts testing its autonomous…
OpenAI announced in a blog post on Tuesday that it agreed to acquire the product testing startup, Statsig, and bring on its founder and CEO, Vijaye Raji, as the company’s CTO of Applications. OpenAI is paying $1.1 billion for Statsig in an all-stock deal — one of the largest acquisitions ever for the ChatGPT maker…
I want to be clear from the outset. I’ve never been a car enthusiast. My driving history includes a hand-me-down Volvo with a hole in the floorboards and a series of aggressively practical vehicles, including a VW Golf and a Mazda SUV in which I hauled my family around for 12 years. Then I leased…
Every founder says they want visibility, traction, and growth. But with just 10 tables left and 5 days to grab one, the window to make that happen at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is closing fast. If you’ve been thinking about joining 10,000+ startup and VC leaders in San Francisco on October 27–29, this is your moment.…
A homicide investigation has rocked the final days of Burning Man after a man was found dead “lying in a pool of blood” Saturday night at the Nevada desert festival, according to the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office. According to the New York Times, the grim discovery occurred around 9:14 p.m. just as the festival’s iconic…
Andrew Ferguson, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission, recently expressed concern that “Alphabet’s administration of Gmail is designed to have partisan effects.” In a letter addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Ferguson pointed to a recent story in the New York Post describing complaints by Targeted Victory (a consulting and PR firm that’s…
Nearly 40% of Nvidia’s second quarter revenue came from just two customers, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. On Wednesday, the chipmaker reported record revenue of $46.7 billion during the quarter that ended on July 27 — a 56% year-over-year increase largely driven by the AI data center boom. However, subsequent…
Taco Bell’s chief digital officer says the company is having an “active conversation” about when to use and not to use AI. The company has apparently rolled out voice AI-powered ordering at more than 500 drive-throughs, leading to unflattering viral moments like someone ordering 18,000 water cups in order to “bypass” the AI and get…
It’s only been since June that Meta invested $14.3 billion in the data-labeling vendor Scale AI, bringing on CEO Alexandr Wang and several of the startup’s top executives to run Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). But the relationship between the two companies is already showing signs of fraying. At least one of the executives Wang brought…
Meta says it’s changing the way it trains AI chatbots to prioritize teen safety, a spokesperson exclusively told TechCrunch, following an investigative report on the company’s lack of AI safeguards for minors. The company says it will now train chatbots to no longer engage with teenage users on self-harm, suicide, disordered eating, or potentially inappropriate…
The Trump administration seems intent on controlling Intel’s ability to make key business decisions around its floundering foundry business unit. According to reporting from the Financial Times, at a Deutsche Bank conference on Thursday, Intel’s CFO David Zinsner shared new details about the company’s recent deal with the Trump administration, which gave the U.S. government…
Threads is testing a new feature that makes it easy to share long-form text on the social network, Meta confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. The feature lets users attach a block of text to a post instead of creating a thread of several different posts when looking to share more in-depth thoughts and ideas. App…
A staggering 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing, according to a recent report published by MIT’s NANDA initiative. But rather than giving up on the technology altogether, the most advanced organizations are experimenting with agentic AI systems that can learn and be supervised. That’s where Maisa AI comes in. The year-old startup…
Last year was monumental for the AI industry in the U.S. and beyond. There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch; three companies raised more than one “mega-round,” and seven companies raised rounds that were $1 billion in size or larger. How will…
SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket lifted off on its tenth test flight Tuesday evening, hitting two long sought milestones and putting an end to a string of failures. The 403-foot vehicle lifted off from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch facility and recently incorporated city, at 7:30 pm ET after two scrubs earlier in this week. The rocket ascended…
Two years ago, Apple announced its Watch Series 9 as its first carbon-neutral product. From cradle to grave, the company said the manufacturing, use, and disposal of the then-new model didn’t contribute to global warming. Now, a German court says that Apple has to recant the claim. Each aluminum Apple Watch Series 9 and Series…
Months before a jury awarded a $242.5 million verdict against Tesla over its culpability in a 2019 fatal crash, the automaker had a chance to settle for $60 million. Instead, Tesla rejected that offer, according to new legal filings that were first reported by Reuters. The settlement proposal, which was made in May, was disclosed…
Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman are among the Silicon Valley veterans putting more than $100 million into a network of political-action committees (PACs) that will advocate against strict AI regulations in next year’s midterm elections, reports The Wall Street Journal. The new pro-AI super-PAC network dubbed “Leading the Future” aims to use campaign…
Pintarnya, an Indonesian employment platform that goes beyond job matching by offering financial services along with full-time and side-gig opportunities, said it has raised a $16.7 million Series A round. The funding was led by Square Peg with participation from existing investors Vertex Venture Southeast Asia & India and East Ventures. Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari,…
Apple usually announces its new hardware in the fall, and this year is likely no different. The event is reported to be on September 9, and Apple is expected to release its iPhone 17 lineup, along with updates for the Apple Watch and AirPods. As always, there are many rumors circulating, including bigger screens and…
In a new blog post, OpenAI warns against “unauthorized opportunities to gain exposure to OpenAI through a variety of means,” including special purpose vehicles, known as SPVs. “We urge you to be careful if you are contacted by a firm that purports to have access to OpenAI, including through the sale of an SPV interest…
Intel officially announced an agreement with President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday afternoon, following Trump’s statement that the government would be taking a 10% stake in the struggling chipmaker. While Intel says the government is making an “$8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock,” the administration does not appear to be committing new funds. Instead,…
Meta is partnering with Midjourney to license the startup’s AI image and video generation technology, Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang announced Friday in a post on Threads. Wang says Meta’s research teams will collaborate with Midjourney to bring its technology into future AI models and products. “To ensure Meta is able to deliver the…
Thousands of semi trucks that cut across the U.S. highway system each day are harboring a secret: they’re only about half full. That inefficiency represents a multi-billion dollar opportunity. And one that a few companies like Uber Freight and Flock Freight are already chasing as part of broader business models that match truck drivers with…
OpenAI is asking Meta to produce evidence related to any coordinated plans with Elon Musk and xAI to acquire or invest in the ChatGPT-maker. The request was made public in a brief filed Thursday in Elon Musk’s ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI. Lawyers representing OpenAI said they subpoenaed Meta in June for documents related to its…
Apple is raising the monthly price of its Apple TV+ streaming service to $12.99, marking a 30% increase from the previous $9.99 subscription price. The updated price takes effect for new customers starting Thursday and will impact current subscribers 30 days after their next renewal date. It’s worth noting that the yearly subscription rate remains…
The next era of the space economy isn’t just about rockets and satellites — it’s about infrastructure, autonomy, and entirely new models for building and defending off-Earth assets. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 this October 27–29 in San Francisco’s Moscone West, the Space Stage is where this shift gets real. If you’re ready to explore how…
Meta signed a deal yesterday with solar developer Silicon Range to develop a $100 million, 100-megawatt solar farm in South Carolina. The new renewable installation will power Meta’s planned AI data center in the state which is expected to cost $800 million. Both the data center and the solar plant are expected to begin operations…
A Florida judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed against embattled HR and payroll provider Deel. And while Deel described this as a “Rippling-aligned” and “Rippling-supported” lawsuit, this is not the infamous lawsuit filed by its rival earlier this year that involved an alleged corporate spy. Rippling CEO Parker Conrad even went so far as…
Nuclear startups have been soaking up attention from hyperscalers and cash from investors. Aalo Atomics is the latest beneficiary of the big tech-small nuclear love affair, raising $100 million in a Series B, the company announced today. The startup plans to flip the switch on its first reactor in the summer of 2026, CEO Matt…
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank has agreed to make a $2 billion investment in Intel in a deal described as a commitment to advanced technology and semiconductors in the United States. The agreement, in which SoftBank will buy Intel common stock, was announced Monday after markets closed. SoftBank will pay $23 per share of Intel common stock.…
Anna Monaco has been building AI agents since before the term “AI agents” was even a thing. After building numerous chatbots, she started looking for other types of interfaces that made sense for AI agents and landed on spreadsheets. “I had this personal pattern, and I noticed that a lot of other people had this…
OpenAI announced late Friday that it’s updating its latest model to be “warmer and friendlier.” The company recently launched the much-anticipated GPT-5 in a process that CEO Sam Altman admitted was “a little more bumpy than we’d hoped for,” with some users complaining that they preferred the previous model, GPT-4o. OpenAI is trying to address…
Do A.I. chatbots packaged inside cute-looking plushies offer a viable alternative to screen time for kids? That’s how the companies selling these A.I.-powered kiddie companions are marketing them, but The New York Times’ Amanda Hess has some reservations. She recounts a demonstration in which Grem, one of the offerings from startup Curio, tried to bond…
A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into left-leaning advocacy group Media Matters. Back in 2023, Media Matters published research showing ads from major companies had appeared alongside antisemitic and other offensive content on Elon Musk-owned X. When major advertisers subsequently pulled back from the platform, X sued…
I’m looking out at Alcatraz Island from a Mediterranean restaurant in San Francisco with hundred-dollar fish entrées on the menu. As I make small talk with other reporters, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman jumps through the door on my left. Altman’s looking down at his bare iPhone to show us all something, and an intrusive thought…
Another crypto company is headed for the public markets. This time, it’s Gemini Space Station Inc., the New York-based crypto exchange and custodian bank founded by billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The outfit, which plans to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol GEMI, was founded in 2014 and operates as…
The attorney general of Louisiana has filed a lawsuit against Roblox, accusing the platform of failing to implement basic safety controls and making the site the “perfect place for pedophiles.” The lawsuit, filed on Thursday by Attorney General Liz Murrill, alleges that Roblox “has and continues to facilitate the distribution of child sexual abuse material…
The Trump administration continues to meddle with semiconductor giant Intel. The U.S. government is reportedly in discussions to take a stake in Intel, according to reporting from Bloomberg. This deal would be structured to help the company expand its U.S. manufacturing efforts, including its much-delayed Ohio chip factory. This news comes less than a week…
One of Europe’s most prominent AI startups has released two AI models that are so tiny, they have named them after a chicken’s brain and a fly’s brain. Multiverse Computing claims these are the world’s smallest models that are still high performing and can handle chat, speech, and even reasoning in one case. These new…
Igor Babuschkin, a co-founder of Elon Musk’s xAI startup, announced his departure from the company on Wednesday in a post on X. Babuschkin led engineering teams at xAI and helped build the startup into one of Silicon Valley’s leading AI model developers just a few years after it was founded. “Today was my last day…
Eight years ago, orthopedic surgeon Dr. William Kapp attended a medical conference that changed his professional life. He had gone from a private practice doctor to co-founding a company that built critical care hospitals to then selling that company. It gave him an interest for both sides of healthcare: the medicine and business sides, he…
Sam Altman is in the process of co-founding a new brain-to-computer interface startup called Merge Labs and raising funds for it with the capital possibly coming largely from OpenAI’s ventures team, unnamed sources told the Financial Times. The startup is expected to be valued at $850 million. A source familiar with the deal tells TechCrunch…
Epic Games has just secured a win in its crusade against Apple and Google’s app store policies: The Federal Court of Australia on Tuesday ruled that Apple and Google’s engaged in anti-competitive conduct when it came to their respective app stores, ABC News reported. While Judge Jonathan Beach found that the two tech giants had…
In 2025, the average urban Indian no longer needs to wait very long for much (except at government offices and in traffic): They simply have to order what they need from an app, and it’ll be delivered within minutes. The explosion of quick-commerce in the country has meant that millions of Indians are getting increasingly…
The AI chip race narrative used to be about U.S. national security, but apparently now it’s about tariffs: Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the U.S. government 15% of the revenue they make from sales of high-end AI chips to China in exchange for licenses to sell to those chips in the country, the…
A security researcher said flaws in a carmaker’s online dealership portal exposed the private information and vehicle data of its customers, and could have allowed hackers to remotely break into any of its customers’ vehicles. Eaton Zveare, who works as a security researcher at software delivery company Harness, told TechCrunch the flaw he discovered allowed…
If you, like practically anyone else with a cell phone in the U.S. and beyond, have received a scam text message about an unpaid toll or undelivered mail item, there’s a good chance you have been targeted by a prolific scamming operation. The scam isn’t particularly complex, but it has been highly effective. By sending…
Sometimes it’s nice to have a simple app that does one thing well without a lot of fuss. Microsoft Lens was that type of app: a mobile document scanner that turned paper documents, business cards, receipts, and anything else into easily readable digital files. Now that app is being discontinued, Microsoft says, as it directs…
During a Reddit ask-me-anything session on Friday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and key members of the GPT-5 team were peppered with questions about the new model and requests to bring back its previous model, GPT-4o. They also asked Altman about the most embarrassing — and perhaps funniest — snafu in the presentation, the “chart crime.”…
Hi, thanks as always for reading TechCrunch. We want to talk with you quickly about something important. We’ve discovered that scammers are impersonating TechCrunch reporters and event leads and reaching out to companies, pretending to be our staff when they absolutely are not. These bad actors are using our name and reputation to try to…
Openvibe, an app that allows you to follow open social networks like Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, and Nostr in one place, is now expanding its functionality so you can follow your favorite news sites and blogs, too. To do so, the startup is adding support for RSS (aka Really Simple Syndication or news feeds), an open…
Tesla is breaking up the team behind its Dojo supercomputer, ending the automaker’s play at developing in-house chips for driverless technology, according to Bloomberg. Dojo’s lead, Peter Bannon, is leaving the company, and the remaining team members will be reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, per Bloomberg’s reporting, which cited anonymous…
Amidst heightening tensions with China, U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday insisted that Intel’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, must step down, accusing Tan of harboring conflicts of interest. “The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!” Trump…
Two 15-year-olds have been charged with unarmed carjacking after allegedly attacking Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, the teenage software engineer and former Neuralink intern who became a prominent figure in the Trump administration’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to reports citing local authorities, Coristine — who left DOGE in June but returned to federal…
Google has confirmed that some customers’ information has been stolen in a recent breach of one of its databases. In a blog post late on Tuesday, Google’s Threat Intelligence Group said one of its Salesforce database systems, used to store contact information and related notes for small and medium businesses, was breached by a hacking…
Sales automation startup Clay has raised a $100 million Series C at a $3.1 billion valuation in a round led by CapitalG, confirming TechCrunch’s report from June. The financing follows a $1.25 billion Series B round from six months ago and a $1.5 billion Sequoia-led tender offer announced a couple of months ago, which allowed…
When Parthi Duraisamy was a consultant at McKinsey’s Dubai office, he discovered that the American Express cards his company relied on for corporate expenses were rarely accepted in the Middle East. This forced Duraisamy to cover significant travel expenses out of pocket and file endless expense reports. “It was a constant pain,” Duraisamy explained on…
Dribbble has permanently banned dozens of designers from its platform following a new effort to pivot to a marketplace and chase monetization. This includes one of the platform’s most well-known designers, Gleb Kuznetsov, founder of the San Francisco-based design studio Milkinside. Dribbble deleted his account with its over 210 million followers because he shared his contact information with prospective clients through…
Electric air taxi developer Joby Aviation has agreed to buy Blade Air Mobility’s helicopter ride-share business for as much as $125 million. Joby is buying the Blade brand and the company’s passenger business, which includes operations in the United States and Europe. Blade founder and CEO Rob Wiesenthal will continue to lead the business, which…
Apple has formed a new team to build a ChatGPT-like app, according to according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. This team — reportedly called Answers, Knowledge, and Information — is working to build an “answer engine” that can respond to questions using information from across the web. This could be a standalone app or provide search…
A surprising figure is celebrating Figma’s successful IPO: Lina Khan, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission. In a Friday afternoon post on X, Khan linked to an article about Figma’s impressive first day of trading and argued the IPO is “a great reminder that letting startups grow into independently successful businesses, rather than be…
Apple CEO Tim Cook held an hourlong all-hands meeting in which he told employees that the company needs to win in AI, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The meeting came after an earnings call in which Cook told investors and analysts that Apple would “significantly” increase its AI investments. It seems he had a similar…
CRV has secured $750 million toward the 55-year-old venture firm’s twentieth flagship fund, it announced on Friday. The new fund is smaller than the $1 billion early-stage fund CRV closed in the fall of 2022. At that time, the firm also announced a $500 million second Select fund, a capital pool for backing late-stage rounds…
Earlier in July, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick gave chipmakers like Nvidia the green light to start selling certain AI chips in China again, but his department is said to be holding things up. According to reporting from Reuters, Nvidia has yet to receive a license to sell its H20 AI chips. The U.S.…
Paying with a handwave once sounded like science fiction, but contactless palm recognition service Amazon One has already been used more than 8 million times, according to the company. That’s Amazon, though, which explains why it has been deployed in Amazon stores and more than 500 Whole Foods Market stores in the U.S., but only…
Apple on Thursday signaled that it’s getting more serious about its plans to catch up in the AI race. “We see AI as one of the most profound technologies of our lifetime. We are embedding it across our devices and platforms and across the company. We are also significantly growing our investments,” CEO Tim Cook…
GitHub Copilot, an AI coding tool offered by Microsoft-owned GitHub, has now reached more than 20 million users, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on the company’s earnings call Wednesday. A GitHub spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that this number represents “all-time users.” That means five million people have tried out GitHub Copilot for the first time…
Google has proposed sweeping changes to its Play Store and advertising policies in India, aiming to allow more real-money gaming apps onto its platforms in a bid to settle an ongoing antitrust case with a local online gaming platform WinZO. On Wednesday, India’s competition watchdog issued a public notice (PDF) inviting comments on a “commitment…
American warfighters need jam-proof communications, and the Space Force is planning to spend hundreds of millions to ensure they have them. As part of that effort, the service established the Protected Tactical Satcom program to build out secure battlefield communications via satellites. The Space Force has already awarded contracts to defense primes Boeing and Northrop…
AI video-generating startups Luma and Runway are looking beyond movie studios. These video-generating AI companies have their sights set on other markets for future revenue streams and have been in talks with both robotics and self-driving car companies, according to reporting from The Information. The report didn’t identify which companies Luma and Runway are in…
Julius AI, a startup that describes itself as an AI data analyst, announced it has raised a $10 million seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Horizon VC, 8VC, Y Combinator, and the AI Grant accelerator participated in the round, along with several high-profile angel investors, including Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch,…
With demand for AI-powered browsers on the rise, Microsoft on Monday launched a new feature in its Edge browser called Copilot Mode, which allows users to browse the web while being assisted by AI. The idea is that the AI can become a helper that can understand what the user is researching, predict what they…
The massive Las Vegas venue known as Sphere will be screening its first classic movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” starting on August 28. And as detailed in a segment on CBS Sunday Morning, this isn’t just a matter of taking the existing movie and projecting it on Sphere’s 160,000 square foot, wraparound LED screen. Instead,…
Indie video game marketplace Itch.io announced this week that it has “deindexed” adult and not-safe-for-work games, removing them from its browse and search pages. The move, the company said, was in response to a campaign by Collective Shout (an advocacy group that has previously criticized video games, rap music, and lingerie commercials) targeting both Itch.io…
A U.K. law requiring that pornography websites verify the age of their users took effect Friday. The BBC reports that around 6,000 porn sites have said they will start verifying users’ ages to comply with the Online Safety Act, although at least one major site was not requiring age checks as of Friday morning. The…
Tea, an app that allows women to post anonymous comments about men they’ve supposedly dated, announced Friday that it has suffered a data breach, with hackers gaining access to 72,000 images. That number includes 13,000 selfies and photo IDs submitted for account verification, as well as 59,000 images from posts, comments, and direct messages, the…
Tesla is launching an even-more-limited version of its early robotaxi service in San Francisco this weekend, according to Business Insider, after an initial rollout began last month in Austin, Texas. The company plans to send invites to Tesla owners to test the service, according to the report. Depending on how and if Tesla proceeds, its…
ChatGPT users may want to think twice before turning to their AI app for therapy or other kinds of emotional support. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the AI industry hasn’t yet figured out how to protect user privacy when it comes to these more sensitive conversations, because there’s no doctor-patient confidentiality when your doc…
Two years after securing $1 billion in commitments from over 20 countries, the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) is entering a new chapter, marked by the arrival of two new partners and the departure of its penultimate founding team partner. In a context of increased military spending across NATO members, investment in dual-use technology has skyrocketed…
Google on Thursday is launching a new AI-powered feature called Web Guide for organizing Google Search results. Web Guide is a Search Labs experiment that leverages AI technology to organize the search results page by grouping pages related to specific aspects of the search query. Search Labs experiments are a way for Google to test…
A new AI coding challenge has revealed its first winner — and set a new bar for AI-powered software engineers. On Wednesday at 5pm PST, the nonprofit Laude Institute announced the first winner of the K Prize, a multi-round AI coding challenge launched by Databricks and Perplexity co-founder Andy Konwinski. The winner was a Brazilian…
The Trump administration published its much-anticipated AI Action Plan on Wednesday, a document that takes a sharp shift away from former President Biden’s cautious approach to addressing the risks of AI, and instead barrels ahead with plans to build out AI infrastructure, cut red tape for tech companies, shore up national security, and compete with China. …
PayPal announced Wednesday it has partnered with global wallet companies to create a platform called PayPal World that is designed to make cross-border commerce easier. The platform will allow users to pay others using their local wallets and payment systems. The company said the launch partners include India’s NPCI International Payments Limited, which operates mobile…
Lux Capital-backed Cloaked, a consumer app for user identity protection, launched an AI-powered caller screening and dark web monitoring feature today. Cloaked’s caller screening feature, named Call Guard, takes a call from an unknown number and converses with the caller to understand the intent. The tool automatically filters out spam or potentially scammy calls instead…
The Tesla Diner & Drive-In, a long-awaited and hyped facility that combines retro nostalgia and futurism with the automaker’s fast-charging network, officially opened at 4:20 p.m. Monday in Hollywood, California. The Tesla Diner & Drive-In is technically a place for Tesla drivers to charge their EVs and maybe get hamburger, hot dog, or other classic…
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin If it wasn’t obvious before, it is now. Uber wants a big piece of the autonomous vehicle technology pie. The ride-hailing company…
Few companies have grown as quickly as Tesla, especially just before and after the company launched the Model 3, its first affordable EV. “We scaled Tesla in 30 months from $2 billion in revenue to $20 billion in revenue,” Jon McNeil, the former president of Tesla who is now co-founder and CEO of DVx Ventures,…
Tesla opened the doors to its first showroom in India this week, and among the first visitors was Vishal Gondal — a longtime Tesla and Elon Musk loyalist who pre-booked a Model 3 in April 2016, just hours after reservations went live. But despite showing up on day one, Gondal says he has no plans…
Following a Pro Publica report that Microsoft was using engineers in China to help maintain cloud computing systems for the U.S. Department of Defense, the company said it’s made changes to ensure this will no longer happen. The existing system reportedly relied on “digital escorts” to supervise the China-based engineers. But according to Pro Publica,…
AI is being forced on us in pretty much every facet of life, from phones and apps to search engines and even drive-throughs, for some reason. The fact that we’re now getting web browsers with baked-in AI assistants and chatbots shows that the way some people are using the internet to seek out and consume…
Greptile, an AI-powered code review startup, is in the process of raising a Series A. Sources familiar with the deal tell TechCrunch it’s for $30 million at a $180 million valuation led by Benchmark partner Eric Vishria. But one person says that the deal hasn’t closed and terms may change. Founded by Dasksh Gupta after…
Meta has refused to sign the European Union’s code of practice for its AI Act, weeks before the bloc’s rules for providers of general-purpose AI models take effect. “Europe is heading down the wrong path on AI,” wrote Meta’s chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan in a post on LinkedIn. “We have carefully reviewed the…
Three weeks ago, an engineer named Calvin French-Owen, who worked on one of OpenAI’s most promising new products, resigned from the company. He just published a fascinating blog post on what it was like to work there for a year, including the sleepless sprint to build Codex. That’s OpenAI’s new coding agent that competes with…
Neighborhood social app Nextdoor is launching a redesigned version of its service that it’s calling the “new Nextdoor.” The app is adding local news, real-time alerts, and an AI-powered feature called “Faves” that’s designed for discovering local businesses and spots. Nextdoor has also updated its overall design to look more contemporary. Launched 15 years ago,…
Meta announced on Monday that it will take additional measures to crack down on accounts sharing “unoriginal” content to Facebook, meaning those that repeatedly reuse someone else’s text, photos, or videos. This year, Meta has already taken down around 10 million profiles that were impersonating large content producers, it said. Plus, it has taken action…
Meta has acquired Play AI, a startup that uses AI to generate human-sounding voices. A Meta spokesperson has confirmed the acquisition, according to Bloomberg, which also reports that an internal memo stated that the “entire PlayAI team” will be joining the company next week. (TechCrunch has also reached out to Meta for confirmation.) Meta’s memo…
Therapy chatbots powered by large language models may stigmatize users with mental health conditions and otherwise respond inappropriately or even dangerously, according to researchers at Stanford University. While recent coverage in The New York Times and elsewhere has highlighted the role that ChatGPT may play in reinforcing delusional or conspiratorial thinking, a new paper titled…
A research institute connected to the United Nations has created two AI-powered avatars designed to teach people about refugee issues. 404 Media wrote about an experiment conducted by a class at the United Nations University Center for Policy Research that resulted in the creation of two AI agents or avatars — Amina, a fictional woman…
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen sharply criticized universities including Stanford and MIT, along with the National Science Foundation, in a group chat with AI scientists and Trump administration officials, according to screenshots viewed by the Washington Post. According to the Post, Andreessen described MIT and Stanford (which I attended two decades ago) as “mainly political operations…
There is a time-honored crisis management strategy, wherein one says nothing and waits for the outrage to pass. For Sequoia Capital, the strategy worked pretty well this week. While partner Shaun Maguire initially weathered criticism over an inflammatory social media post, that initial indignation cooled quickly. Now, some seem to think that Maguire’s defiant stance…
Jio Platforms, the digital arm of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, has launched a virtual desktop service for set-top box users. This means that India’s richest man, Reliance’s chairman Mukesh Ambani, hopes to turn millions of TVs in the world’s most populous country into PCs. Called JioPC, the service offers a cloud-based PC experience through Jio’s…
During xAI’s launch of Grok 4 on Wednesday night, Elon Musk said — while livestreaming the event on his social media platform, X — that his AI company’s ultimate goal was to develop a “maximally truth-seeking AI.” But where exactly does Grok 4 seek out the truth when trying to answer controversial questions? The newest…
Pharmaceutical scientists come up against a hard limitations here on Earth: gravity. Varda Space wants to change that. The company has raised a massive new round to turn space into the “ultimate high ground” for the production of critical pharmaceutical components that can be brought back to Earth and used to make finished drugs. The…
Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, late on Wednesday released its latest flagship AI model, Grok 4, and unveiled a new $300-per-month AI subscription plan, SuperGrok Heavy. Grok is xAI’s answer to models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, and can analyze images and respond to questions. In recent months, Grok has become more deeply integrated into Musk’s social…
YouTube is preparing to update its policies to crack down on creators’ ability to generate revenue from “inauthentic” content, including mass-produced videos and other types of repetitive content — things that have become easier to generate with the help of AI technology. On July 15, the company will update its YouTube Partner Program (YPP) Monetization…
Defense tech has gone from a no-go zone for VCs to a hot investment sector. However, dual use — meaning that the technology must also have civilian applications — is still a requirement for most of them, including the NATO Innovation Fund. Estonian VC firm Darkstar breaks from this trend by investing in purely military…
Google announced on Tuesday that it’s launching a new Gmail feature that is designed to help users easily manage their subscriptions and declutter their inboxes. The new “Manage subscriptions” tool is rolling out on the web, Android, and iOS in select countries. With the new feature, users can view and manage their subscription emails in…
OpenAI has reportedly overhauled its security operations to protect against corporate espionage. According to the Financial Times, the company accelerated an existing security clampdown after Chinese startup DeepSeek released a competing model in January, with OpenAI alleging that DeepSeek improperly copied its models using “distillation” techniques. The beefed-up security includes “information tenting” policies that limit…
Instagram Threads is close to catching up to top competitor X in terms of mobile app users, according to new data from market intelligence provider Similarweb. In June 2025, Threads’ mobile app for iOS and Android saw 115.1 million daily active users, representing 127.8% year-over-year growth; X reached 132 million daily actives, as its year-over-year…
On Friday morning, Elon Musk declared, “We have improved @Grok significantly. You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions.” While Musk didn’t say exactly what improvements to look for, he’d previously declared that xAI (which built Grok) would retrain the chatbot after it had been trained on “far too much garbage,” and he…
Academics may be leaning on a novel strategy to influence peer review of their research papers — adding hidden prompts designed to coax AI tools to deliver positive feedback. Nikkei Asia reports that when examining English-language preprint papers available on the website arXiv, it found 17 papers that included some form of hidden AI prompt.…
The venture capital world has always had a hot-and-cold relationship with the Midwest. Investors rush in during boom times, then retreat to the coasts when markets turn sour. For Columbus, Ohio-based Drive Capital, this cycle of attention and disinterest played out against the backdrop of its own internal upheaval several years ago — a co-founder…
Microsoft is closing its operations in Pakistan, marking the end of a 25-year presence in the South Asian nation. The Redmond-based company on Friday told TechCrunch that it is changing its operational model in Pakistan and will now serve its customers through resellers and “other closely located Microsoft offices.” “Our customer agreements and service will…
Earlier this week, San Diego startup Gallant announced $18 million in funding to bring the first FDA-approved ready-to-use stem cell therapy to veterinary medicine. If it passes regulatory muster, it could create a whole new way to treat our fur babies. It’s still an experimental field, even though people have been researching stem cells for…
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! This week I’m publishing an abbreviated version of the newsletter because of the 4th of July holiday. If you’re driving, flying, or taking the train for the…
Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has stopped promoting that its upcoming pickup truck will start “under $20,000” following passage of President Trump’s tax cut bill. The bill, which is expected to be signed into law by Trump on July 4, will cause the federal EV tax credit to end in September — a $7,500…
As a parent, it can be daunting to hand over a smart device to their tween when a myriad of online dangers exist. Pinwheel, a kid-friendly tech company, is introducing a new solution for parents who want to stay connected with their children without giving them a phone. The Pinwheel Watch is a recently launched…
“Is Qonto a real bank?” is one of the top suggested questions in Google searches about the French fintech startup. The answer is no, but it could change: Qonto has filed for a banking license in France, CEO Alexandre Prot revealed. Qonto, which targets European freelancers and SMBs, currently operates with a payment institution license…
A security vulnerability in a stealthy Android spyware operation called Catwatchful has exposed thousands of its customers, including its administrator. The bug, which was discovered by security researcher Eric Daigle, spilled the spyware app’s full database of email addresses and plaintext passwords that Catwatchful customers use to access the data stolen from the phones of…
Founders are often told to chase product-market fit before anything else, but what if scaling too soon, too fast, is what’s really holding them back? At TechCrunch All Stage 2025 on July 15 in Boston, Jon McNeill, CEO and co-founder of DVx Ventures (and former president of Tesla and COO of Lyft), will take the…
Grammarly announced Tuesday the acquisition of email client Superhuman in a push to build out its AI for its productivity suite. Neither companies provided details about the financial terms of the deal. Superhuman was founded by Rahul Vohra, Vivek Sodera, and Conrad Irwin. The company raised more than $114 million in funding from backers including…
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership…
Join Tiffany Luck, partner from NEA, at TechCrunch All Stage as she unveils the art of pitching to venture capitalists. Luck will share insider tips on what VCs truly value, empowering you to tell your story with clarity and impact without falling prey to common pitfalls that derail pitches. The goal of this session: Deliver…
With Meta successfully poaching a number of its senior researchers, an OpenAI executive reportedly reassured team members Saturday that company leadership has not “been standing idly by.” “I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something,” Chief Research Officer Mark Chen wrote in a Slack memo…
Looks like Meta isn’t done poaching talent from OpenAI. Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported that Meta had hired influential OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal, and according to The Wall Street Journal, it also hired three other researchers from the company. Now The Information is reporting four more Meta hires from OpenAI: Researchers Shengjia Zhao, Jiahui Yu,…
An open letter from authors including Lauren Groff, Lev Grossman, R.F. Kuang, Dennis Lehane, and Geoffrey Maguire calls on book publishers to pledge to limit their use of AI tools, for example by committing to only hire human audiobook narrators. The letter argues that authors’ work has been “stolen” by AI companies: “Rather than paying…
The FBI and cybersecurity firms are warning that the prolific hacking group known as Scattered Spider is now targeting airlines and the transportation sector. In a brief statement on Friday shared with TechCrunch, the FBI said it had “recently observed” cyberattacks resembling Scattered Spider to include the airline sector. Executives from Google’s cybersecurity unit Mandiant…
If you’re a founder looking to grow your startup, chances are you’re wrestling with more than just product or capital. Talent, scale, and smart execution are the real battlegrounds. That’s exactly what TechCrunch All Stage 2025 is built to address on July 15 at Boston’s SoWa Power Station. Rob Biederman, managing partner at Asymmetric Capital…
We’re almost there, and ticket rates have officially rolled back with savings of up to $425. TechCrunch All Stage, the founder summit of the year, is just around the corner. On July 15, Boston becomes startup central. Are you ready to gain the insights and strategies you need to launch or scale? Now’s the moment…
TechCrunch All Stage — the ultimate founder summit — is shaping up to be a powerhouse event where 1,200 founders and VCs across all stages will come together to forge meaningful connections and gain practical insights they can immediately apply to scale their startups. Join us on July 15 at SoWa Power Station in Boston…
A federal judge sided with Meta on Wednesday in a lawsuit brought against the company by 13 book authors, including Sarah Silverman, that alleged the company had illegally trained its AI models on their copyrighted works. Federal Judge Vince Chhabria issued a summary judgment — meaning the judge was able to decide on the case…
Amazon-owned Ring announced on Wednesday that it’s introducing a new AI-powered feature to its doorbells and cameras, which offers users specific text descriptions of current motion activity. Now, when users receive real-time notifications about happenings at their property, the updates will be more descriptive. For instance, “A person is walking up the steps with a…
The conversational AI market has exploded since ChatGPT was released in November 2022 and is predicted to grow into a nearly $50 billion global industry by 2031, according to MarketsAndMarkets. Synthflow AI is just one of many companies building in this space that hopes to stand out from the pack because of its focus on…
Plastic has a recycling problem. Only about 9% of plastic gets recycled, and a majority of that waste comes from single use items like plastic grocery bags. It’s partly a design problem — they’re made to be discarded. But it’s also a technology problem because recycling such films isn’t easy, and the results usually aren’t great.…
Legal filings submitted earlier this month from lawyers representing OpenAI and Jony Ive’s io reveal new details about the companies’ efforts to build a mass-market AI hardware device. The filings are part of a trademark dispute lawsuit filed this month by iyO, a Google-backed hardware startup developing custom-molded earpieces that connect to other devices. Over…
While funding may be scarce for some, Europe’s fastest-growing startups still have their pick. The latest beneficiary of that investor appetite is Finom, a five-year-old, Amsterdam-based challenger bank that targets small and medium-size businesses across Europe. The company, which claims to have doubled its revenue in 2024, just closed a €115 million Series C equity…
OpenAI has pulled a much-discussed video promoting the friendship between CEO Sam Altman and legendary Apple designer Jony Ive (plus, incidentally, OpenAI’s $6.5 billion deal to acquire Ive and Altman’s device startup io) from its website and YouTube page. Does that suggest something is amiss with the acquisition, or with plans for Ive to lead…
Paul Pope has written and drawn some of the most gorgeous comics of the twenty-first century — from “Batman: Year 100,” in which Batman challenges a dystopian surveillance state, to “Battling Boy,” with its adolescent god proving his mettle by fighting giant monsters. But it’s been more than a decade since Pope’s last major comics…
European governments may be reconsidering their use of American technology and services, according to a new report in The New York Times. The flashpoint seems to come after President Donald Trump sanctioned Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, over the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin…
Thinking Machines Lab, the secretive AI startup founded by OpenAI’s former chief technology officer Mira Murati, has closed a $2 billion seed round, according to The Financial Times. The deal values the 6-month-old startup at $10 billion. The company’s work remains unclear. The startup has leveraged Murati’s reputation and other high-profile AI researchers who have…
If becoming a spy sounds like an exciting way to live like a le Carré character, let this newest affidavit from confessed Rippling spy Keith O’Brien serve as a warning. On Friday, an Irish judge granted O’Brien a restraining order against several men who have not yet been identified, according to the court order seen…
Over the last several years, fusion power has gone from the butt of jokes — always a decade away! — to an increasingly tangible and tantalizing technology that has drawn investors off the sidelines. The technology may be challenging to master and expensive to build today, but fusion promises to harness the nuclear reaction that…
When Baiju Bhatt stepped away from his role as Chief Creative Officer at Robinhood last year, only those close to him could have predicted his next move: launching a space company built around technology the aerospace industry has largely dismissed, and that might be more groundbreaking than anyone realizes. If people aren’t paying much attention,…
One of SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicles exploded on a test stand in Texas late on Wednesday night, as the company prepared for the tenth test flight of the heavy-lift rocket system. SpaceX said “all personnel are safe and accounted for” in a post on X, and claimed there are “no hazards to residents in surrounding…
For some tense minutes on Wednesday, X users were surprised to see one of those crypto “airdrop” posts on Andreessen Horowitz’s blue check-marked account. A second tweet said that $5 million had already been given away. That account has 851,000 followers. A member of a16z’s crypto team saw the tweet and immediately posted a warning…
U.S. President Donald Trump will issue another extension to decide the fate of TikTok, pushing it by 90 days, the White House said on Tuesday. The current extension, which was signed in April, was set to expire on Thursday, June 19. “President Trump will sign an additional Executive Order this week to keep TikTok up…
The latest San Francisco startup culture drama happened on Monday night. And it centered around “the most legendary party that never happened,” Cluely founder and CEO Roy Lee tells TechCrunch. Cluely had hoped to throw an after-party for a Y Combinator event occurring on Monday and Tuesday called AI Startup School. The event drew crowds…
Endeavor Catalyst, the co-investment fund affiliated with global entrepreneurial network Endeavor Global, is raising a new $300 million fund, its fifth and largest fund yet, as it looks to deepen its bet on high-growth startups across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, TechCrunch has learned. The new fund, according to sources, is…
OpenAI and Microsoft may be reaching an inflection point in their relationship, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The report, citing anonymous sources, says OpenAI executives have considered publicly accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior throughout their partnership. OpenAI executives also mulled whether to seek a federal regulatory review of their contract with…
India has been one of the top recipients of remittances in the world for more than a decade. Inward remittances jumped from $55.6 billion in 2010-11 to $118.7 billion in 2023-24, according to data from the country’s central bank. The bank projects that figure will reach $160 billion in 2029. This means there is an…
ChatGPT seems to have pushed some users towards delusional or conspiratorial thinking, or at least reinforced that kind of thinking, according to a recent feature in The New York Times. For example, a 42-year-old accountant named Eugene Torres described asking the chatbot about “simulation theory,” with the chatbot seeming to confirm the theory and tell…
DNA testing service 23andMe has undergone serious upheaval in recent months, creating concerns for the 15 million customers who entrusted the company with their personal biological information. After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, the company became the center of a bidding war that ended Friday when co-founder Anne Wojcicki said she’d successfully…
Meta’s big investment in Scale AI may be giving some of the startup’s customers pause. Reuters reports that Google had planned to pay Scale $200 million this year but is now having conversations with its competitors and planning to cut ties. Microsoft is also reportedly looking to pull back, and OpenAI supposedly made a similar…
Clay, a sales automation startup, has raised a Series C round at an approximate $3 billion valuation, led by CapitalG, according to three sources with knowledge of the deal. Clay and CapitalG didn’t respond to a request for comment. The new round comes just a month after the New York startup announced that it will…
New York state lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday that aims to prevent frontier AI models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic from contributing to disaster scenarios, including the death or injury of more than 100 people, or more than $1 billion in damages. The passage of the RAISE Act represents a win for the AI…
Data-labeling company Scale AI confirmed on Friday that it has received a “significant” investment from Meta that values the startup at $29 billion. The startup also said its co-founder and CEO Alexandr Wang is stepping down from his role to join Meta and help the bigger company with its AI work. Reports indicate that Meta…
Felicis founder Aydin Senkut is celebrating his 20th year as an institutional early-stage investor by announcing the firm’s biggest fund yet: a $900 million Fund X. This follows the $825 million Fund IX raised in 2023 and the $600 million Fund XIII raised in 2021. Felicis, a seed and Series A firm, is known for…
On Thursday, Spanish startup Multiverse Computing announced that it raised an enormous Series B round of €189 million (about $215 million) on the strength of a technology it calls “CompactifAI.” CompactifAI is a quantum-computing inspired compression technology that is capable of reducing the size of LLMs by up to 95% without impacting model performance, the…
When Apple unveiled Image Playground last year, the company touted it as a quick and easy way to generate personalized, original images with the help of Apple Intelligence. Upon launch, the app was met with skepticism, as some users were disappointed by its limitations and low-quality results. For example, one Reddit user was surprised to…
In a new essay published Tuesday called “The Gentle Singularity,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared his latest vision for how AI will change the human experience over the next 15 years. The essay is a classic example of Altman’s futurism: hyping up the promise of AGI — and arguing that his company is quite close…
Vast Data, which offers an AI-friendly data storage platform, is in the market to raise a new round at a giant leap in valuation. Earlier this year, the 9-year-old company was seeking a valuation of around $25 billion, according to a person familiar with the deal. Should it achieve that, it would be a massive…
At Monday’s WWDC conference, Apple announced the new macOS Tahoe, which comes with a series of updates related to Apple Intelligence, continuity features with the iPhone, and Spotlight search. Apple’s new “Liquid Glass” design is coming to macOS Tahoe, making for a sleek, customizable look — yes, at long last, you can make your folder…
At this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 25), Apple announced a slew of updates to its operating systems, services, and software, including a new look it dubbed “Liquid Glass” and a rebranded naming convention. Apple was notably quiet on one highly anticipated product: a more personalized, AI-powered Siri, which it first introduced at last year’s…
Meta is discussing a multi-billion dollar investment in Scale AI, according to Bloomberg. In fact, the deal value could reportedly exceed $10 billion, making it the largest external AI investment by Facebook’s parent company and one of the largest funding events ever for a private company. Scale AI (whose CEO Alexandr Wang is pictured above)…
As Apple prepares to unveil iOS 19 at WWDC 2025 on Monday, several rumors have surfaced, including a potential new name for the operating system, a dedicated gaming app, and a virtual health coach. This could be a big update, with a dramatic redesign design inspired by the Vision Pro — and more. Here’s…
As Apple prepares to unveil iOS 19 at WWDC 2025 on Monday, several rumors have surfaced, including a potential new name for the operating system, a dedicated gaming app, and a virtual health coach. This could be a big update, with a dramatic redesign design inspired by the Vision Pro — and more. Here’s…
The High Court of England and Wales says lawyers need to take stronger steps to prevent the misuse of artificial intelligence in their work. In a ruling tying together two recent cases, Judge Victoria Sharp wrote that generative AI tools like ChatGPT “are not capable of conducting reliable legal research.” “Such tools can produce apparently…
Indian grocery delivery startup KiranaPro’s recent data loss story has more holes than Swiss cheese, as the startup remains unclear whether the incident was an internal breach or an external hack. Last week, the Bengaluru-based startup discovered that it could not access its back-end servers and that all its data, including its app code, had…
Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, who was one of the company’s first 15 engineers, published a memo earlier this year forecasting that 2025 could be the year of greatness for Reality Labs, the company’s augmented and virtual reality unit. Or, it would be the year when the metaverse goes down as a “legendary misadventure.” These…
A U.S. court denied Apple a stay on a ruling that requires the company to stop charging developers for payments made outside the App Store through links in apps. This means in the U.S., Apple will no longer be able to charge developers a fee when customers click on a link within their app that…
Well, it finally happened. This town wasn’t big enough for the two towering egos of billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, and now they’re duking it out publicly, albeit from their own separate corners of the web. Musk is taking to his own social media platform, X, to take jabs at Trump, and Trump…
PalmPay, an African digital bank fintech, is in talks to raise between $50 million and $100 million in a Series B round, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. It’s unclear what valuation it hopes to get, but its last round, in 2021, ranked it among the continent’s most valuable startups, estimated just shy…
As Apple prepares to unveil iOS 19 at WWDC 2025 on Monday, several rumors have surfaced, including a potential new name for the operating system, an entirely new design inspired by the Vision Pro, and more. Here’s a roundup of the most notable features rumored to be coming to iOS 19. New name Sources…
In 2023, co-founders Karim Jouini and Jihed Othmani sold their expense management startup Expensya to Swedish procurement software firm Medius in what is widely considered to be one of the largest acquisitions of an African startup. Some sources say the sum was just over $120 million, although deal terms were not disclosed. Success achieved, both…
Anthropic has given its AI a blog. A week ago, Anthropic quietly launched Claude Explains, a new page on its website that’s generated mostly by the company’s AI model family, Claude. Populated by posts on technical topics related to various Claude use cases (e.g. “Simplify complex codebases with Claude”), the blog is intended to be…