TechCrunch Startup News
TechCrunch Startup News delivers curated audio versions of TechCrunch articles covering the startup ecosystem. Listeners get updates on funding rounds, acquisitions, and industry trends. The podcast focuses on who's raising capital, who's exiting, and who's changing the world through innovation.
Episodes
Apollo Atomics wants to make nuclear power cheaper by shrinking an overlooked part; plus, Detroit startup Grounded raises $5M to customize electric and gas-powered vans
Y Combinator alumnus Apollo Atomics is shrinking a key nuclear reactor part, which promises to slash the cost of electricity below natural gas.
Also, Grounded has shifted from making van-life builds to custom outfitting vehicles for small businesses, all while the EV landscape in the US changed dramatically.
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AI isn’t close to curing cancer. Vivodyne says it knows what it will take; plus, TerraPower’s nuclear reactor has a secret weapon for powering AI data centers
A handful of AI-designed drugs have proceeded into human trials — one as far as Phase III, widespread human testing — but the reality is that the roadblocks aren’t necessarily ones that AI can solve today.
Also, TerraPower's nuclear power plant possesses a strategic advantage over competitors, especially when chasing after data center deals.
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DOJ’s probe into Andreessen Horowitz over board seats baffles VCs; plus, Etched’s valuation doubles to $21B in a month
Since portfolio companies often pivot and expand into competing markets, investors view occasional conflicts of interest as unavoidable for large VC firms.
Also, Jane Street has installed Etched's first shipped AI cluster system, and was so impressed, it led another massive round, the startup says.
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Sound-powered fire protection startup gets $15M to snuff out fires before they turn catastrophic; plus, Wispr looks beyond dictation
Sonic Fire Protection raised its new funding to help get its sound-powered fire protection system into everything from commercial kitchens to apartment buildings.
Also, Wispr’s total funding is now over $361 million.
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SpaceX officially closes its Cursor acquisition; plus, Stripe will reportedly acquire AI gateway startup OpenRouter for $7B+
AI coding startup Cursor is now officially a part of SpaceX.
Also, OpenRouter's CEO recently described the startup as Stripe for AI.
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How a $250 million acquisition collapsed into allegations of fraud and forged signatures
Investors are still waiting for their share of the $250 million windfall, and VideoVerse co-founder Vinayak Shrivastav is now at the center of multiple legal cases.
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Reservoir raises $8M to make water heaters that people and the grid will actually want; plus, AI code-testing startup Blacksmith’s valuation jumps almost 10x
Reservoir has built an ultra-efficient water heater that can predict hot water demand, store energy, and detect plumbing leaks throughout a home.
Also, Blacksmith says revenue has grown more than tenfold over the past year.
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Tech industry is buzzing after a Claude agent hacked into a gym; plus, Kyoto Fusioneering starts work on key fusion power plant device
An OpenClaw agent hacked into a gym's reservation system to bump its human boss higher on a class's waitlist. And the tech industry took notice.
Also, fusion power startups are turning to Kyoto Fusioneering to supply components for future power plants. The Japan-based startup just received a grant to build a part of the fuel system.
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Discovered Materials is playing AI whack-a-mole to hunt cooler chips
Discovered Materials raised $9 million to fund the hunt for more novel materials to build more efficient chips.
Plus, embattled hedge fund Situational Awareness invests $400M in chip startup Source Foundry.
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This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs
More than 20 years ago, King's Cross was one of the seediest area's in London. Now it's sprouting something new.
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Naïve automates the grunt work of setting up and running a company, plus, Defense tech Hadrian raises $1.37B, and Omilia raises $67M to scale its customer support platform
-Taking vibe-coding a step further, Naive claims its infra can automate most of the work in setting up and running a business.
-Defense tech Hadrian raises $1.37B at $8B valuation
-Athens-based Omilia, which has been working on automating voice calls and customer support since 2002, throwing AI at every process can be wasteful.
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Can WindBorne make AI weather prediction lucrative? Plus, Hark previews its browser use agent for completing tasks
-WindBorne Systems has raised a $37 million Series B round to scale its weather balloons and AI forecasts.
-Hark claims that its browser use agent is faster and cheaper than competition.
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Texas halts new data centers as governor calls for audits; also, is the future of data centers portable?
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has paused new data center development until an audit has been completed.
Also, on Tuesday, AI infrastructure company Runware announced the launch of its own modular data center called Sonic Inference Pod.
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June thinks AI can solve the AI deployment problem; plus, Base Power raises another $1B to save the grid using backyard batteries
June emerged from stealth today with a $20 million pre-seed round to make AI adoption simpler.
Also, Base Power’s $1 billion round will help the startup ramp production of its home batteries.
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When will fusion power startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems go public?; plus, Okta buys AI security startup Permiso
There are fresh signs that fusion power startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems will list in the next two to three years.
Also, the Okta/Permiso deal gives Okta identity threat detection capabilities as enterprises seek to secure AI agents and other non-human identities across cloud environments.
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Dili raises $21.7M to bring AI compliance to the infrastructure boom; plus Fusion power darling Commonwealth Fusion Systems raises another $1B
Dili's Series A was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Allianz, Rebel Fund, Brick and Mortar Ventures’ Darren Bechtel, and Y Combinator’s Garry Tan.
Also, Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $1 billion as the startup moves toward its first commercial fusion power plant.
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As AI content floods the internet, Pangram raises $9M to detect it
Pangram has raised $9 million to scale its AI detection software. The startup has also released a new AI text detection model, Pangram 4, and an AI image detection model in research preview.
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MCP startup Runlayer accuses Rippling of stealing its product idea; plus, Ozlo’s Sleepbuds 2 build on Bose’s sleep earbud legacy
Runlayer is suing Rippling after Rippling evaluated the startup's MCP gateway product and then opted to build one itself.
Also, Ozlo unveiled Sleepbuds 2, an updated version of its original product that tackles key areas of improvement, including battery life, connectivity, and sound quality.
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Antares raises $470M to build nuclear reactors for the US military; plus, Thea Energy lands $20M federal grant to build its magnets for fusion reactors
Antares has raised $470 million to build small modular reactors — 100 kW to 1 MW — for U.S. Air Force bases.
Also, fusion power startup Thea Energy snagged a $20 million award from ARPA-E to scale production of its high-temperature superconducting magnets.
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AI chip startup Etched defies skeptics; plus, Imagi raises $4.5M to help teach students how to vibe code
Etched, founded by three Harvard dropouts, has created new chips and memory components that speed up inference on any AI model -- no GPUs required, it says.
Also, Imagi announced a $4.5 million seed round, with investors including Brighteye Ventures, Day One Capital, and artist Wil.i.am.
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Colossal Biosciences reportedly in talks to raise new capital at $20B–$30B valuation; plus, Passionfroot raises $15M to expand its B2B creator marketplace to the US
Colossal Biosciences is in talks to raise new funding at a $20 billion to $30 billion valuation, Axios reported.
Also, Passionfroot, a German startup building a marketplace connecting B2B creators with brands, has raised $15M in a Series A round led by Insight Partners.
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Gritt exits stealth with $34 million for robots to build solar plants; Bluecore Energy raises $10M to build portable nuclear reactors
Gritt is coming out of stealth with $34 million and plan to automate the hardest tasks on construction sites.
Also, maritime nuclear energy startup Bluecore Energy has raised $10 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Slauson & Co.
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Nuclear startup Valar Atomics in talks to raise new funding at $6B valuation; plus, Databricks hits $188B valuation, extending its run as AI’s favorite second act
The potential deal highlights a growing trend of complex, multi-stage funding rounds that mask true entry prices.
Also, Databricks has remade its image into an AI company and has published research on the cost savings of open weight AI models for coding.
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Applied Computing wants to give oil and gas operators an AI model for the entire plant, plus, AI-powered travel agency Fora hits unicorn status
Applied Computing has raised a $20M Series A to build a foundation AI model for the oil, gas and petrochemical industry.
Also, travel agency Fora announced a $60 million Series D round led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures, valuing the company at $1 billion.
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Why AMI Labs’ Alexandre LeBrun won’t call his AI ‘AGI’ or ‘superintelligence’; plus, Lululemon backs nylon recycling startup Syntetica
While everyone in AI is chasing "superintelligence." Alexandre LeBrun, CEO of Yann LeCun’s world model startup, AMI Labs, dismisses the word.
Also, Syntetica, a French startup that has developed a novel approach to recycling nylon, has already obtained big-name partners and investors.
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Rime picks up $24M Series A to help enterprises field customer calls; plus, the next trillion-dollar AI business is implementation, not models
Rime is handling over 100 million calls each month across multiple companies
Also, Anthropic-backed Ode launches as AI labs bet that embedding forward-deployed engineers inside enterprises is the key to accelerating enterprise AI adoption.
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Hermes agent maker Nous Research in talks for new funding at $1.5B valuation; plus, Pinwheel launches a retro-inspired landline phone for kids
The company is raising at least $75 million, led by Robot, with significant participation from USV and other prominent investors.
Also, kid-friendly tech company Pinwheel announced the launch of a new landline phone designed to let children stay connected without the distractions of a smartphone.
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Phia accused of ‘cookie stuffing,’ an AI agent startup just let its agent run its $100 million fundraise, plus, Oratomic to build a viable quantum computer that needs only 20K qubits
Phia, the shopping startup founded by Bill Gates’ daughter, Phoebe, and her friend, Sophia Kianni, is under fire for a practice known as “cookie stuffing,” which helped the product receive commissions and credit for sales it did not actually generate, per a Bloomberg investigation.
Also, Lyzr, a startup that builds AI agents for enterprises, used its own AI agent to raise a $100 million round —
AI chip maker SambaNova raises $1B at $11B valuation, 5 months after last mega round; plus, popular open source AI developer tool Ollama raises $65M
AI chip maker SambaNova has raised at an $11 billion valuation months after Intel was rumored to be trying to buy it for about $1.6 billion.
Plus, Benchmark-backed Ollama has amassed 176,000 stars, and nearly 17,000 forks on Github by helping developers easily run AI on their PCs.
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Venus Aerospace raises $90M Series B to build a new kind of rocket engine; plus, Blue Origin reportedly raising $10B at $130B valuation
Build a new kind of rocket engine, and the world will beat a path to your door.
Also, Blue Origin is raising $10 billion at a $130 billion pre-money valuation from Coatue Asset Management, Bezos himself and other big-name investors, the New York Times reported.
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Bidbus pits dealerships against each other to bid on your used car; Savi’s app aims to protect consumers from realistic AI scams like kidnappers demanding ransom
Bidbus, which lets dealerships bid on used cars, has raised $15 million in a Series A round that was led by early-stage mobility fund Ibex Investors.
Also, Savi just raised $7 million in seed funding, and is launching its app for iPhone and Android on Tuesday.
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Station F ramps up as a launchpad for Europe’s hottest AI startups; plus, Smart glasses maker Even Realities hits $1B valuation
Station F, the Paris-based startup hub founded by French billionaire Xavier Niel in 2017, is gearing up for a new edition of its selective acceleration F/ai program that will cement its role as a stepping stone for AI startups.
Also, Even Realities, an ex-Apple team building camera-free smart glasses, raised $150M from Meituan and Tencent at a $1B valuation.
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Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage; plus, Thiel Capital’s Jack Selby nabs stakes in hot startups
As part of an ongoing legal dispute with three Hollywood studios, Midjourney is seeking to compel those studios to reveal how they use AI themselves.
Also, Selby's VC firm Copper Sky Capital is currently raising a $300 million second fund, according to a regulatory filing.
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Nvidia competitor Etched hits $5B valuation, $1B in sales for AI chip; plus, Indian tech tycoon bets $30M of his own money to build AI alternative to Microsoft Office
Nvidia AI chip competitor Etched says it has already booked $1 billion under contract for the inference systems powered by its chip.
Also, Neo is Bhavin Turakhia’s fifth venture and his latest involving enterprise software. This time he's taking on Microsoft Office, Google Apps with AI.
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Arena, the AI leaderboard everyone uses, is now a $100M business
The startup, which runs a popular free AI leaderboard, launched its commercial service just last September.
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Corgi says it didn’t steal an open source product; plus, Omen AI’s plan to optimize data centers is all wet
Corgi became embroiled in controversy when Papermark accused it of stealing its software. Corgi says it did not, raising new questions about vibe coding.
Also, Omen AI raised a $31 million Series A to monitor chip coolant and stop bacterial outbreaks in data centers.
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Robotaxis drive miles just to get cleaned and charged; Aseon Labs wants to fix that; plus, General Intuition bets that video games can train AI agents for the real world
Aseon Labs, which came out of Y Combinator's 2026 spring cohort, has raised $10 million from Crane Venture Partners and others.
Also, General Intuition has raised $320 million to scale AI trained on millions of hours of gameplay, betting action data can help AI develop something closer to human intuition.
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Slate Auto’s radically simple electric truck starts at $24,950; also, Valor Equity Partners looks to raise a $2.5B Fund VII
The Jeff Bezos-backed startup finally revealed more pricing details for its debut EV, including a $29,950 starting price for the SUV variant, and boosted the base range to 205 miles.
Plus, new details have emerged about Valor's latest fund, which last year announced it was raising an unspecified amount of capital.
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Fika Jobs raises $4M to build a video-first hiring platform where AI agents interview candidates
Fika Jobs announced on Tuesday a $4 million pre-seed round, which will be used to continue developing the platform, grow the team, and prepare for a wider launch later this year.
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Seedcamp raises $320M for its new fund to expand its US footprint
After 18 years of focusing on Europe, early-stage investor Seedcamp said that it has raised $320 million for its latest fund which will see it expanding its presence in the United States.
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He made your free video player run smoothly. Now he’s doing that for robots.
French serial entrepreneur and open-source legend Jean-Baptiste Kempf has been building Kyber, an infrastructure layer to control remote devices in real time.
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World model maker Odyssey nabs $1.45B valuation backed by Amazon and other big names; plus, General Intuition in talks to raise $300M at around $2B valuation
World models are the next big thing in AI beyond LLMs and, with this round, Odyssey has cemented itself as one of the startups to watch.
Also, General Intuition is in talks to raise around $300 million at a roughly $2 billion valuation from backers including Jeff Bezos. The startup trains AI agents on spatial-temporal reasoning.
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SpaceX alum nabs $22M to turn rocket engines into geothermal power plants
Critical Energy is turning rocket engines into geothermal power plants, and it wants to build 300 GW per year by 2045.
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Startup Foundation Alloy developed a new alloying technique; plus, Probably raises $9M to build a more reliable kind of AI
Instead of heating metals, Foundation Alloy beats them into submission. The startup has raised $22 million to scale up production of its alloys.
Also, the company Probably wants to prevent hallucinations and factual errors from reaching users, and achieve accuracy on par with deterministic systems.
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Jeff Bezos’s Prometheus raises $12B to build an ‘artificial general engineer’ for the physical world; plus, Theker building a factory robot that doesn’t specialize in anything
The new round values the physical AI startup that aims to automate heavy engineering and drug design at $41 billion.
Also, unlike humanoid robots designed around a fixed form — think Boston Dynamics — Theker's machines are built to be reconfigured.
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Endurance Energy raises $54M to harness a massive untapped energy source; Jedify raises $24M to help companies arm AI agents with context on their businessplus,
SpaceX alumni Andrew Redd is betting the ocean has vast amounts of untapped geothermal energy.
Also, the funding round was led by Norwest, with participation from S Capital VC, Cerca Partners, and Oceans Ventures. Snowflake Ventures also participated as a strategic investor.
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Datadog veterans launch AI coding startup Niteshift on a bet against Big AI lock-in; plus, Zest launches a restaurant discovery app
AI coding agent startup Niteshift has raised a $7 million seed round from a who's who of angels. It's betting companies will want power over, not lock-in, with model makers.
Also, backed by Alexis Ohanian’s 776 and Kindred Ventures, Zest uses transaction data and AI to generate restaurant recommendations based on users’ real dining habits and the places they frequent.
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Evotrex raises $30M to build the RV that doesn’t need a charging station; plus, so long FAANG and hello to MANGOS
The startup is one of many entering the RV space, but it's banking on a hybrid power system that can go far beyond campsites.
Also, with SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI all eyeing massive public debuts, the tech industry may soon have a new class of corporate overlords — and a new acronym to match. Say goodbye to FAANG and hello to MANGOS.
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Helion, the Sam Altman-backed fusion startup, raises $465M to build a power plant for Microsoft
Fusion startup Helion is racing to complete a power plant for Microsoft by 2028. A fresh infusion of cash should help with that.
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Is Silicon Valley ready to put robots in people’s homes? Hello Robot is.
The California startup released the fourth-generation of its home assistance robot, Stretch.
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Brynn Putnam's Board raised $20M; plus, ZeroDrift raises $10M to protect AI models from themselves
Board, the startup building what it calls "together tech" designed to bring people into the same room, has closed a Series A led by Union Square Ventures.
Also, a new AI compliance service sits between AI models and end users to flag and replace any messages that might present a compliance problem.
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Pacific Fusion’s latest prototype packs 440 gigawatts into an 80-nanosecond burst; plus, Rocket engine startup Impulse raises $500 million to hire people, not AI
Pacific Fusion's sub-scale prototype delivered enormous amounts of power in a flash, setting the company up for its demonstration power plant.
Also, engineering physical systems still depends on human talent, according to Impulse Space president Eric Romo.
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Snap alums unveil Ghost Angels fund; Defense tech darling Mach Industries hits $1.8B valuation
A group of 20 Snap alumni has come together to launch a fund called Ghost Angels to back the next generation of social media.
Also, in a wild ride for 22-year-old founder and CEO Ethan Thornton, Mach Industries has raised another $300 million. It already has five autonomous vehicles in development and completed a major acquisition.
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This chip startup just raised $135M on a bet that AI’s biggest bottleneck isn’t compute — it’s memory; plus, Glean’s top line crosses $300M as AI budget-cutting becomes its major selling point
South Korean chip startup Xcena is betting that AI's real bottleneck is not compute, but memory.
Also, the enterprise AI search startup tripled its annual revenue even as tech giants entered the category.
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Corgi doubled in value in 3 weeks; plus, Anthropic raises $65 Billion, nears $1T valuation ahead of IPO
Insurance tech Corgi announced today an $106 million Series B1 raise, valuing the company at $2.6 billion, just three weeks after announcing a $160 million Series B.
Also, Anthropic has closed a $65 billion Series H round at a $965 billion post-money valuation, marking what could be the AI startup's final private fundraise before a highly anticipated IPO.
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SOND, a sleep tech startup, exits stealth with $7M; plus, Airbnb-backed WeRoad raises $58M
SOND, a startup led by Bose’s former head of sleep products, emerged from stealth with $7M in funding for its AI-powered sleep earbuds.
Also, WeRoad, the Milan-based group travel startup, has raised a $58 million Series C round led by Airbnb as it prepares for its first major expansion outside Europe
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Amazon fulfillment competitor Stord raises $250M at $3B valuation; OpenRouter more than doubles valuation to $1.3B in a year
Stord offers a network of physical warehouses and inventory management software for e-commerce. It bills itself as a sort of anti-Amazon, giving brands "the speed to compete" while still owning their customer relationships.
Also, OpenRouter has raised a $113 million Series B led by CapitalG. Its 5x growth in usage over six months indicates the multi-AI-model future is here.
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Maka Kids is redefining kids’ screen time with a streaming app; also, Peec, one of Berlin’s rising startups, more than doubled ARR
Maka Kids is building a streaming app for children ages zero to six featuring content designed for healthy development. The startup has now raised $3 million in seed funding to scale its platform.
Also, Peec, which helps brands track their presence in AI searches, offers proof of a key trend among European startups.
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This young startup is taking on a fragrance industry that hasn’t changed in almost half a century
This young startup is taking on a fragrance industry that hasn’t changed in a almost half century
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Imperagen raises £5 million to use quantum physics, AI on enzyme engineering; plus, Beauty booking startup Fresha hits $1 billion valuation
Biotech company Imperagen announced on Thursday a £5 million ($6.7 million) seed round led by PXN Ventures, with participation from IQ Capital and Northern Gritstone.
Also, beauty and wellness booking marketplace Fresha says it has raised $80 million investment from KKR’s Next Generation Technology Growth fund, KKR's growth equity arm.
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Quartermaster is building a maritime hive mind; plus, NanoClaw creator turns down $20M buyout offer
The Arlington, Virginia-based startup has raised $42 million to equip ships with sensors that blow the current AIS tech out of the water.
Also, NanoCo, the company behind OpenClaw alternative NanoClaw, has raised a $12 million seed after a viral launch, the founders tell TechCrunch.
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Status AI raises $17M to turn social media into interactive entertainment; plus, Stilta helps companies rediscover the patents they forgot they had
Interactive social media site Status announced Tuesday $17 million in combined seed and Series A funding, with investors including General Catalyst, YC, LightShed Ventures, and Abstract.
Also, Stilta announced Tuesday a $10 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors in the round include YC and operators from companies like OpenAI, Legora, and Lovable.
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South Korea’s LetinAR is building optics behind AI glasses; plus, Marketing operating system Nectar Social raises $30M Series A led by Menlo
A lens the size of a thumbnail — and the South Korean startup that makes it could become the optical backbone of the AI glasses era.
Also, AI-powered marketing platform Nectar Social announced Thursday that it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund, which was created alongside Anthropic.
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Lovable just backed a company that’s looking to bring vibe coding to hardware; plus, Meridian Ventures launched $35M fund to back MBA-deferred founders
Hardware company Atech raised $800,000 in pre-seed funding, including from a16z’s scout fund, Sequoia Scout Fund, and Nordic Makers.
Plus, Meridian Ventures, the venture firm founded by Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney, announced on Friday the raise of a $35 million second fund to back pre-seed and seed-stage companies founded by those who have deferred MBAs.
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Khosla Ventures is betting $10M on Ian Crosby; plus, Cerebras raises $5.5B, then stock pops $108%
Crosby is building Synthetic, a fully autonomous AI bookkeeping service for other startups.
Also, a year ago, it looked like this day would never happen for Cerebras.
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Clio’s $500M milestone arrives just as Anthropic ups the ante; plus, Anduril raises $5B, doubles valuation to $61B
Legal tech startups, including Clio, which just hit $500 million in ARR, are seeing massive customer adoption.
After achieving $2.2 billion in revenue in 2025, the defense tech startup has raised another massive round, led by Thrive and a16z, it says.
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Exaforce raises $125M Series B to build AI for catching and stopping cyberattacks as they happen
The round valued the three-year-old startup at $725 million.
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Riding an AI rally, Robinhood preps second retail venture IPO; plus, Korea’s biggest manufacturers back Config, the TSMC of robot data
Robinhood files confidentially for its second venture fund, this time targeting growth as well as early-stage startups.
Also, Samsung, Hyundai and LG just bet on the startup that wants to be robotics' data backbone.
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Cowboy Space raised $275 million to build rockets for space data centers; plus what will the whisper-filled office of the future sound like
Cowboy Space Corporation wants to put data centers in orbit. First, it has to build the rockets to get them there.
Also, how will work setups change if we spend more and more time talking to our computers?
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A 20-minute pitch wins Indian startup Pronto backing from Lachy Groom; plus, Khosla-backed robotics startup Genesis AI has gone full stack
The investment comes as Pronto scales to 26,000 daily bookings and the market heads toward a potential $18 billion size.
Also, Genesis AI, a startup that raised a $105 million seed round to build foundational AI for robotics, has unveiled its first model, GENE-26.5, but also a demo showcasing a set of robotic hands performing complex tasks.
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Ethos raises $22.75M from a16z for its expert network with voice onboarding; plus, Altara secures $7M to bridge the data gap that’s slowing down physical sciences
Ethos says it is onboarding 35,000 experts per week
Also, Altara’s AI aims to diagnose failures and help speed up R&D by unifying data siloed across spreadsheets and legacy systems.
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OpenAI’s cozy partner Cerebras is on track for a blockbuster IPO; plus, Katie Haun raises $1 billion for new venture funds
AI chip maker Cerebras is heading for a blockbuster IPO that could value it at $26.6 billion or more. It's relationship with OpenAI is deep and rich.
Also, Katie Haun announced on Monday that $1 billion has been raised across new funds to continue the firm’s thesis of backing crypto and blockchain startups.
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Musely secures $360M from General Catalyst without giving up equity; Meta buys robotics startup
The direct-to-consumer skin, hair, and and menopause care brand Musely will use the non-dilutive capital to super-charge customer acquisition.
Also, Meta bought humanoid startup Assured Robot Intelligence to beef up its AI models for robots, the company said.
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Legal AI startup Legora hits $5.6B valuation and its battle with Harvey just got hotter; also, Shapes brings humans and AI into the same group chats
The two wildly fast-growing rivals have raised massive sums, pushed into each other's home turf and now have dueling ad campaigns.
Plus, Shapes, an app where humans and AI characters chat together in shared group conversations, is emerging from stealth with $8 million in seed funding. Think Discord, but with AI characters alongside humans.
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Firestorm Labs raises $82M to take drone factories into the field; plus, BMW i Ventures has a new $300M fund
Ships and planes carrying parts to the front lines would be vulnerable to attack. Defense startup Firestorm Labs thinks the answer is a drone factory that fits inside a shipping container.
Also, BMW i Ventures has launched a new $300 million fund and will invest in early-stage through Series B startups in North America and Europe that are working on agentic AI and physical AI.
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BCI startup Neurable looks to license its ‘mind-reading’ tech for consumer wearables
The startup specializes in "non-invasive" "mind-reading" tech — a kind of neural data collection that, its CEO hopes, will have all sorts of consumer applications.
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Two college kids raise a $5.1 million pre-seed to build an AI social network in iMessage
Series, a social networking app that's grown popular on college campuses, announced a $5.1 million pre-seed round from some big names in tech.
Plus, Sierra, the AI customer service agent startup founded by technologist Bret Taylor, announced today that it has acquired the YC-backed French startup Fragment.
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Beehiiv rolls out new creator tools; Also, another customer of troubled startup Delve suffered a big security incident
Beehiiv is clearly done being just a newsletter platform based on today's launch of a new webinar feature, customizable paywalls, and more.
Plus, TechCrunch has confirmed that Delve was the compliance company that performed the security certifications for Context AI, the AI agent training startup that last week disclosed a security incident.
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Cathie Woods’ ARK makes its first lead investment in startup Lucra — and it isn’t AI; Esther and Anne Wojcicki join new healthcare accelerator
Lucra offers corporate loyalty programs reimagined as interactive eSports. But winning ARK as a lead wasn't easy.
Also, Mary Minno launches early-stage startup accelerator program, Treehub, and an early-stage firm, AI Health Fund, aimed at backing startups working at the intersection of healthcare and AI.
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SusHi Tech Tokyo isn’t a conference — it’s a deal room with 60,000 people; AI research lab NeoCognition lands $40M seed
When 60,000 attendees descend on Tokyo Big Sight April 27–29, the headline numbers are hard to ignore: 750 startup exhibitors, 151 sessions, city leaders from 49 countries. But the stat that tells you what kind of event this actually is? It's 10,000 facilitated business meetings — brokered, booked, and tracked before most attendees even land.
Here's the link to the article.
Also, founded by an
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