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
Niobia takes the guesswork out of some of tech’s most expensive mistakes; Giraffe Bio aims its bespoke biomolecules at the looming copper shortage
The San Francisco startup aims to help battery and chip manufacturers identify defects on production lines, reducing downtime and costly mistakes.
Also, as AI data centers and EVs drive up demand for copper, Giraffe Bio has unearthed a $6.4 million seed round to help miners extract more of the mineral.
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Honeyjar offers AI tools to improve PR and comms at every company; plus, WindBorne wins a hefty US Air Force contract
Honeyjar believes AI can actually make PR better.
Also, WindBorne is a startup that uses weather balloons and AI to predict the weather won a US military contract worth almost $50 million.
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Efferon wants to eradicate the devastating toll of pediatric sepsis; plus, Petra Power looks to modernize energy for data centers
Efferon has developed blood-purification tech to save children. Sepsis, an acute inflammation triggered by infection, is a leading cause of childhood mortality, claiming roughly 3 million children under the age of five annually.
Also, Petra Power says its fuel cells are super efficient and cut fuel costs during a time when the tech industry can’t get enough electricity.
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A startup founder who served time in prison is looking to court an untapped market: ex-cons
Richard Bronson, a former Stratton Oakmont partner who served time in federal prison for securities violations, has launched Commissary Club, a startup that uses AI to help people leaving prison find jobs, housing, community and even dates.
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Greenairy is building smart plant towers to clean the air in your office; plus, Robot data startup Mecka AI nabs $60M from Sequoia
As it turns out, the cure for stuffy, chemical-infused office air might be a tower of leafy greenery.
Also, Mecka AI pays people to record everyday tasks.
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Silicon Valley’s AI wunderkind launches Underdog, the most private Instinct/Muse competitor yet; plus, name Ex-Ramp engineers raise $20M for platform Melius
Sigil Wen, backed by a Silicon Valley's who-who, has built an on-device AI assistant that promises to be free, fully private, and capable for everyday tasks.
Also, Melius crossed over $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of its post-pivot launch.
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Hot Girl Hotline is like ‘Dear Abby’ for the AI era; plus, after Factory’s public spat with Khosla, Menlo proudly invests
Founded by two sisters, Hot Girl Hotline uses AI to give young women personalized dating and relationship advice, with an emphasis on safety and avoiding emotional dependency.
Also, days after Vinod Khosla called Factory a struggling also-ran, Menlo has shown up with a check and a glowing blog post.
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Photon held a funeral for mobile apps; plus, Kevin Mandia’s new ‘agent swarm’ security startup
Photon helps developers build AI agents that work over iMessage, SMS/RCS, email, and other messaging platforms. It's a bet that consumers will increasingly use agents instead of downloading apps.
Also, Kevin Mandia, best known as the founder of Mandiant, has a new startup that is using agent swarms to test and protect enterprises.
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World’s first enhanced geothermal power plant completed in just 23 months; plus, turning idle car inventory into rental revenue
Fervo Energy completed its first power plant in less than two years. The next phases promise to connect to the grid even quicker.
Also, MyMonthlyCar is a platform that lets dealers rent out their idle used cars month to month (with an option to buy), and it's now one of the startups showing off at this year's TechCrunch Disrupt, running October 13 to 15 in San Francisco.
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Factory CEO just accused his VC board adviser of spying for Cognition
VC Chris Degnan and former board advisor to Factory AI has taken a job as chief revenue officer for Cognition.
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Ex-Tesla team raises $12.5M to put supply chains on autopilot; plus, EliseAI raises $350M, doubles valuation to $4B
Atomic's agentic supply chain software is now being used by companies like DoorDash and HelloFresh.
EliseAI raises $350M, doubles valuation in a year.
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AMD will acquire Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs for $8.2 billion; Physical AI chip developer SiMa AI hits $1.45B valuation
The acquisition will see World Labs founder Fei-Fei Li join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist.
Also, SiMa.AI, the edge computing startup, raised a $150 million Series C led by Fidelity and Amplify.
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Ocean surveillance startup Quartermaster raises another $140M
The tech enables real-time awareness for what Quartermaster calls the “largest blind spot on Earth.”
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Nexterity wants to automate the hard, dangerous part of pipefitting; plus, Feather is building the ‘Android of robotics’ for developers
Nexterity's robot can tighten or loosen four bolts at a time, and it fits in a Pelican case.
Feather is betting on a customizable, $30,000 platform built for software developers.
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Modal Motors is trying to cut China out of electric motors entirely; plus, PitPro’s first tire-changing robot goes live in Canada
Modal Motors is working on small, light motors with no rare earth magnets that are suited for drones, fans, and robots.
Also, PitPro says its automated system can change four tires in under 15 minutes.
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a16z is challenging Silicon Valley’s love for drop-outs by launching a school; plus, AstroForge is putting AI in command of its next spacecraft
This academy for promising high school grads is somewhere between a trade-school, Y Combinator and Peter Thiel's Fellowship Program.
Autonomy-1 will have a small, transformer-based AI model taking charge of a space probe.
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A small but growing number of founders are betting on bringing people together offline
Brynn Putnam and Tristan Walker have already done something that most founders only dream about: created companies so compelling that bigger outfits bought them. And now they're both at it again with the same north star; bringing people together, offline, in the same room.
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Comp AI sets eyes on a continuously agentic future for security and compliance
Comp AI, a cybersecurity and compliance startup, announced a $34 million Series A round led by Roo Capital and Grand Ventures.
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Clean tech startup Fluxnium found a way to tap 50,000 years’ worth of nuclear fuel; plus, Hang Ten Systems nabbed another $53m
Fluxnium's fibers can extract uranium directly from seawater, which has enough of the nuclear fuel to power thousands of generations.
Also, Hang Ten is a Palo Alto startup and says it has landed multiple seven-figure enterprise contracts within months of launch.
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Early Anthropic hire, former METR COO have found a way to rein in rogue AI agents; plus, health benefits platform Thatch reaches $1B valuation
Their startup, Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company (AIUC) has raised $40 million in a Series A round led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from First Harmonic.
Also, Thatch is a five-year-old startup and the company raised $108 million from The General Partnership, Index Ventures, General Catalyst, and Andreessen Horowitz.
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Superhuman acquired notetaker Fathom; plus, OpenAI bought smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging, and AI infrastructure company Cornelis raised $205M
Fathom said that it has over 400,000 monthly active users.
Also, Glass Imaging was founded by a pair of former Apple engineers who previously led the team that developed Apple's Portrait Mode.
And Cornelis, a company creating networking technology to help AI chips communicate more effectively, announced Monday that it has raised $205 million.
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Fusion power startups find new partners in the defense world; plus, Mecka AI nears $500M valuation amid rush for robot training data
Fusion startups are inking defense-related deals, reigniting the relationship between fusion and national security that might have gone dormant, but never completely disappeared.
Also, the round for Mecka is coming together months after Mecka announced its Series A.
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Defense tech Mach Industries doubled its valuation in 3 months; plus, Maven Robotics wants to steal your robot deployment deal
Mach Industries is a buzzy startup that raised $600 million in its Series C round.
AlsoMaven Robotics emerged from stealth Thursday with a $100 million Series A and active deployments.
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CloudNC raises $20M to automate manufacturing’s most pressing bottlenecks; plus, Sequoia doubles down on Cymphony
UK-based manufacturing software startup CloudNC announced Wednesday a $20 million B extension round, bringing its lifetime total raised amount to $128 million.
Also, Cymphony was valued at more than $100 million in a $25 million Series A co-led by Sequoia and SMBC Fin Atlas Beyond Fund.
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Nuclear startup Bluecore Energy raises $50M seed round, just two months after launch; plus, Poseidon Aerospace eyes first pilotless test flight, and Stoke Space raises another billion
-Founder Kofi Asante wasn’t planning on fundraising this year, but calls kept coming after their pre-seed launch.
-Poseidon is embracing autonomy and remote piloting, but it’s not bothering with the vertical takeoff and landing tech that is de rigueur among so many aviation startups.
-Stoke is one of a handful of startups attempting to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the low-cost
Travis Kalanick’s Atoms might be getting into the robotaxi business; plus, Krafton doubles down on India
-Atoms is reportedly preparing for a hiring spree, as well as acquisitions, that could make it a major player in the autonomous vehicle industry.
-Krafton is a South Korean gaming company behind titles including PUBG and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), plans to invest another $250 million in India over the next three to four years as it pushes beyond gaming into AI, robotics, and deep tech.
Le
Ollie is betting its focus on privacy can help it win the AI assistant race; plus, Qualcomm backs Ultrahuman
The family-focused AI assistant wants access to the details of your everyday life, but says it won’t use that data to train AI models or share it with others.
Ultrahuman is targeting a $200 million annual revenue run rate by January 2027 as it builds a new Qualcomm-powered smart ring.
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Volunteer at TechCrunch Founder Summit in Boston
Our rebranded Boston event, TechCrunch Founder Summit (formerly All Stage), is back on November 4th! And we are looking for some incredible volunteers to help us make this event happen. If you are interested in finding out what goes into building tech events, apply to volunteer.
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Volunteer at TechCrunch Founder Summit in Boston
Our rebranded Boston event, TechCrunch Founder Summit (formerly All Stage), is back on November 4th! And we are looking for some incredible volunteers to help us make this event happen. If you are interested in finding out what goes into building tech events, apply to volunteer.
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Wonderful more than doubles its valuation to $5B in under 6 months;plus, Volunteer at TechCrunch Founder Summit in Boston
Wonderful's $550M Series C was led by Insight Partners, with Salesforce, Index Ventures, IVP, Vine Ventures, 9Yards and Bessemer participating.
Also, Our rebranded Boston event, TechCrunch Founder Summit (formerly All Stage), is back on November 4th! And we are looking for some incredible volunteers to help us make this event happen. If you are interested in finding out what goes into b
HiddenLayer nabs $100M as enterprises rush to secure their AI deployments; plus, AfterQuery reportedly becomes Y Combinator’s fastest-ever unicorn
HiddenLayer has raised a $100M Series B from Delta-v Capital, Ten Eleven Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft's M12, Booz Allen Hamilton, and others.
Also, AI model-training startup AfterQuery has reportedly raised a round that valued it at $3.2 billion, just five months after announcing its $30 million Series A at a $300 million valuation in April.
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Fambot introduces an ‘AI chief of staff’ for families; plus, Newlight is fuel-injecting hydrogen to make cargo ships more efficient
Fambot is building an AI “chief of staff” to help families manage the emails, calendars, school updates, sports schedules, and other logistics of raising kids.
Also, Newlight has raised a $9 million seed round and completed an 8,500-nautical-mile test run from Singapore to Ghana.
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Harvard Law dropout raises $6M for Blue Voice to build a ‘Harvey for police officers’; plus, Clipto uses AI to search terabytes of video
The seed round for the app that provides real-time legal and policy guidance to officers was led by SignalFire and Las Olas VC.
Clipto is a three-year-old startup and reached $15 million in ARR and profitability before raising its latest $15 million round.
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Belgian electric motorcycle startup 'Any' bets on cargo space; plus, Liux’s Big microcar bets on sustainability
Launched by Belgian startup Any, LUV1 is a modular electric motorcycle with 120 liters of cargo space that can be used to carry bags, work equipment, or even pets.
Also, the Liux Big microcar is made in Spain. The startup thinks it can compete in a crowded market with its tiny electric car built around sustainability.
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This former PG&E engineer is building a ‘Google Maps for the underground; plus, Viral AI startup Instinct has raised $350M at a $2.5B valuation
The startup just raised a $26 million Series A to grow its customer base and help reduce red tape for utility and construction work.
Also, Instinct is only a year old but it has already generated a massive amount of hype (and money) while also spurring privacy concerns.
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Radar makes podcasts searchable — and usable by AI agents
On Wednesday, the company introduced Radar, a podcast search engine that not only transcribes podcast audio but also understands what it means, enabling it to pull out key quotes and highlights.
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Pacific Fusion’s next fusion machine could clear a key hurdle to commercial power; plus, Stability AI raises $76 million in fresh funding
Fusion startup Pacific Fusion broke ground on a demonstration facility in New Mexico that it says will generate enough energy to power itself.
Also, Stability AI's new fundraising total now stands at $232 million.
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AI data startup Micro1 reaches $500M gross run rate amid AI training boom; plus, Japanese space tech startup Letara expands beyond satellite thrusters
Surging demand for AI training data is driving rapid growth for the startup and its rivals.
Also, Japanese space startup Letara is betting its hybrid rocket technology can move beyond small satellite thrusters into a broader market for space, defense and security, after raising ¥2.6 billion ($16 million).
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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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