TechCrunch Industry News

The U.S. government is leaning hard on tech companies to make more commitments to building their businesses in the country, and Big Tech is falling in line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander Karp opens his new book with a provocative declaration: “Silicon Valley has lost its way.” Over the past decade or so, as the data analytics company rose to prominence for its work with U.S. military and intelligence, Karp has largely stayed out of the limelight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rivian’s cost–cutting measures have gotten it a lot closer to profitability, but the company is warning that 2025 could still be a challenging year – especially because of the whorl of uncertainty caused by the new Trump Administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google is pulling its AI assistant Gemini from the main Google app for iOS devices. The move is meant to encourage users to download the standalone Gemini app instead, which would allow Google to more directly compete with other consumer-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A study by the Pew Research Center found that Americans’ views of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg skew more negative than positive. While Zuckerberg has sparked chatter in Silicon Valley with his sudden interest in high fashion, the Meta CEO is less popular than President Trump’s right-hand man, Elon Musk, the report found. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial Far Right political bias in Germany ahead of a federal election that takes place Sunday, according to new research carried out by Global Witness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Career product manager Amanda DeLuca has launched a parenting management app, Riley, born out of her own experience with parental anxiety and feedback from other families. DeLuca, who previously at Google, Nerdwallet, and Eventbrite, in addition to Etsy, became pregnant three years ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It has been more than two years since ChatGPT burst on the scene. Shortly after that, it seemed like almost every email app integrated AI-powered email writing and summaries. Some also introduced AI-powered search for you to sift through your inbox quickly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Researchers found that PirateFI was never designed to be a real game, but a vehicle to infect gamers with malware and steal their passwords with an infostealer called Vidar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon is shutting down “Inspire,” its TikTok-like, short-form video and photo feed that was previously available in its mobile app. The feed allowed users to discover products and shop from content created by influencers, brands, and other customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft continue to grow in popularity among young children, and with platforms like YouTube consuming hours of their daily screen time, edtech companies face challenges in capturing their attention. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Copyright claims against AI companies just got a potential boost. A U.S. federal judge last week handed down a summary judgment in a case brought by tech conglomerate Thomson Reuters against legal tech firm Ross Intelligence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ICON, which builds homes using 3D printing, has closed on $56 million in Series C funding co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Tiger Global, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch exclusively. The raise represents a first close for the Austin-based ICON, according to a spokesperson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Airbnb is planning to first introduce AI to its customer support system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new startup founded by a former Google DeepMind scientist is exiting stealth with $50 million in funding. Latent Labs is building AI foundation models to “make biology programmable,” and it plans to partner with biotech and pharmaceutical companies to generate and optimize proteins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Information security company CyberArk has acquired identity access and governance platform Zilla Security in a deal worth up to $175 million. Founded in 1999, Boston-based CyberArk specializes in access management, including privileged access security which helps organizations protect sensitive data and critical infrastructure from external (and internal) threats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot platform, may not be as power-hungry as once assumed. But its appetite largely depends on how ChatGPT is being used, and the AI models that are answering the queries, according to a new study Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

E-commerce startups built around food continue to gobble up funding as investors look for sticky consumer concepts that can scale without breaking the bank. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

HR giant Workday is launching a new way for enterprises to keep track of all of their AI agents in one place. It’s also launching a few more AI agents of its own, for good measure. Silicon Valley-based Workday announced on Tuesday the release of Workday Digital Workforce Management, which is meant to help customers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a statement on Tuesday, Dario Amodei, the CEO of AI startup Anthropic, called the AI Action Summit in Paris this week a “missed opportunity,” and urged the AI industry — and government — to “move faster and with greater clarity.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Security experts say the ‘draconian’ order would have global ramifications that make this a privacy ‘emergency for us all’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ride-hail giant Lyft plans to bring fully autonomous robotaxis, powered by Mobileye, to its app “as soon as 2026” in Dallas, with more markets to follow, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The news comes a day before Lyft shares its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 earnings report Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A number of startups are racing to make vehicle inspections faster, easier, and cheaper. Self Inspection, a startup based in San Diego, thinks it has them all beat with its AI-powered service — and now it has convinced outside investors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

France’s public investment bank announced that it plans to invest as much as €10 billion (around $10.3 billion at current exchange rates) in the artificial intelligence ecosystem in France. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As cancer rates in the West, and globally, tack upwards due to lifestyle and environmental pollution, so does the need for the nuclear isotopes used in detecting those cancers in a medical setting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After consumer protection scrutiny dialed up on fast-fashion giant Shein in the European Union on Wednesday, the bloc’s executive announced Thursday that it’s sent a fresh request for information to the ecommerce platform under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a pan-EU online governance framework Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Modern Synthesis’s fibers can be manipulated in ways that simple plant fibers cannot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Both startups and big tech companies have aggressively used AI to help developers write code or learn programming better. People have used chatbots to prepare for different scenarios in life, like interviews. Tech assessment platform CodeSignal, which introduced a learning platform for technical subjects with AI assistants last year, launched soft skill courses on its platform Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On a clear spring evening in Michigan, the stars aligned — just not in the way Upfront Ventures partner Nick Kim expected. He’d just led a $9.5 million seed round for OurSky, a software platform for space observational data, and was eager to see what its telescope partner PlaneWave Instruments could do. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Norway-based browser maker Opera on Tuesday launched a new browser called “Opera Air,” which focuses on mental well-being and mindfulness with features like break reminders, breathing exercises, soundscapes, and binaural beats for better focus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

People often use multiple apps for notes, schedule management, and to-dos. But why not combine them all in one app? That’s the ethos behind Hero, an all-in-one productivity app with an AI assistant (of course!). The iOS app was developed by former Meta employees Brad Kowalk and Seung W. Lee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As of Sunday in the European Union, the bloc’s regulators can ban the use of AI systems they deem to pose “unacceptable risk” or harm. February 2 is the first compliance deadline for the EU’s AI Act, the comprehensive AI regulatory framework that the European Parliament finally approved last March after years of development. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple CEO Tim Cook said DeepSeek’s AI models represent “innovation that drives efficiency” on an earnings call on Thursday while fielding questions from analysts about the iPhone maker’s ambitions around AI. “In general, I think innovation that drives efficiency is a good thing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Meta-owned company said the campaign was linked to Israeli spyware maker Paragon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI as part of a broader partnership that could see the Japanese conglomerate spend more than $40 billion on AI initiatives with the Microsoft-backed startup, according to Financial Times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Web-based party games are making a comeback, now with the infusion of generative AI. Among the startups joining the trend, the current forecast looks good for one startup, Little Umbrella, which leverages AI for its social party games. The company announced on Thursday its $2 million seed funding round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When it comes to the world of cybersecurity, identity is often thought of as a “perimeter” around an organization. So many breaches begin through techniques like password theft, phishing, and credential stuffing; ergo, securing the identities of not only users, but also applications and machines, is the key to securing the whole system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Martin Fengler knows a lot about the weather. Fengler got his Ph.D. in mathematics, focused on numerical weather prediction, before working for Meteomedia AG, a network of weather stations in Switzerland and Germany. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI dev platform Hugging Face has partnered with third-party cloud vendors including SambaNova to launch Inference Providers, a feature designed to make it easier for devs on Hugging Face to run AI models using the infrastructure of their choice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Audio streaming company Spotify said Tuesday that it paid $10 billion to the music industry last year. The company added that it has given nearly $60 billion in industry payouts since its inception. This is another effort from Spotify to dispel reports that the company doesn’t reward artists properly for their work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Replacing inexpensive fossil fuels is a tall hurdle, but Lydian thinks it has cracked the problem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since Chinese AI company DeepSeek released an open version of its reasoning model R1 at the beginning of this week, many in the tech industry have been making grand pronouncements about what the company achieved, and what it means for the state of AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

LG Electronics is betting on robotics as its next big growth driver. The South Korean electronics company said on Friday that it has agreed to acquire an additional 30% stake in Bear Robotics, a California-based startup it previously backed that is building AI-powered server robots for restaurants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Flip is a social commerce app that lets shoppers become creators. They can share honest reviews and earn cash based on engagement on the platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Streaming service Plex has long since grown beyond its original focus of being a home for personal media to offer a more comprehensive solution for discovering, streaming, and sharing content across services, including Plex’s own ad-supported free TV and movies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching so-called “strategic market status” (SMS) investigations into the mobile ecosystems of Apple and Google. The investigations constitute part of the new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) which passed last year and came into effect in January. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A four-year-old London startup backed by Peter Thiel has raised a $55 million Series B round as it sets about “fixing the broken clinical trial industry.” The announcement comes as artificial intelligence is shaping up to revolutionize drug discovery and development. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Truecaller for iOS has been updated with live caller ID support for its premium iPhone users. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French startup Karmen has secured a small funding round so that it can improve its instant financing products. The company offers short-term loans to small companies facing a working capital crunch. It’s a €9 million equity-and-debt round ($9.4 million at today’s exchange rates) with Seventure Partners buying a stake in the small startup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Friend, a startup creating a $99, AI-powered necklace designed to be treated as a digital companion, has delayed its first batch of shipments until Q3. Friend had planned to ship devices to pre-order customers in Q1. But according to co-founder and CEO Avi Schiffman, that’s no longer feasible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices