TechCrunch Startup News
3,807 episodes — Page 4 of 77
New streaming channel launches to give viewers a peek into city council meetings
Hamlet TV is a way to help keep citizens informed of what's happening inside local governments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nexus isn’t going all in on AI, keeping half of its new $700M fund for India startups; plus, Amazon hopes to jump-start its AI coding tool Kiro by giving it away to startups
Nexus Venture Partners manages $3.2 billion in capital across its funds and has invested in more than 130 companies over the years. Also, can Kiro win the hearts of startup founders above the many AI coding tools they already have? Amazon hopes a free year will tempt them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
VCs deploy ‘kingmaking’ strategy to crown AI winners in their infancy
While VCs have long used big investments to spur category winners, they are taking this strategy to new extremes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Microreactor startup Antares raises $96M for land, sea, and space-based nuclear power; plus Kalshi raises $1B at $11B valuation
Antares is designing and building small modular reactors that it plans to deploy for commercial, space, and defense applications. The latest funding comes less than two months after Kalshi announced that it raised $300 million at a $5 billion valuation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Titan OS raises $58 million from Highland Europe for its smart TV OS; also, Paris-based AI voice startup Gradium nabs $70M seed
Titan OS aims to expand its independent TV operating system in Europe and Latin America. Gradium, a startup spawned out of French AI lab Kyutai (backed by French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel), launched out of stealth on Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Black Forest Labs raises $300M at $3.25B valuation; plus, OpenAI’s investment into Thrive Holdings is its latest circular deal
The round was co-led by Salesforce Ventures and Anjney Midha (AMP), and saw participation from a16z, NVIDIA, Northzone, Creandum, Earlybird VC, BroadLight Capital, General Catalyst, Temasek, Bain Capital Ventures, Air Street Capital, Visionaries Club, Canva and Figma Ventures. Also, analysts will be watching to see if Thrive-owned firms actually succeed in building long-term profitable businesses using OpenAI’s tech, or if the result is really just pumped up valuations based on speculative market potential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
How AI PR startup Clipbook won Mark Cuban’s investment from a cold email
Adam Joseph was shocked when Mark Cuban replied to his email with an inquisition full of questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Are you balding? There’s an AI for that; plus, JustiGuide wants to use AI to help people navigate the US immigration system
MyHair AI examines photos of the scalp to help diagnose hair loss and suggest scientifically validated clinics and treatments. The startup uses AI to help immigrants understand the system, connect with lawyers and reduce associated costs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google teams up with Accel to hunt for India’s next AI breakouts
Google and Accel will jointly invest up to $2 million in each startup through their new partnership. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Find Your Grind raises $5M to grow platform empowering students to explore unique career paths; plus Fleet Space finds massive lithium deposit using AI and satellites
Career exploration platform Find Your Grind raises $5 million to help more students discover alternative professions. Also, the discovery of a massive lithium deposit suggests that a region in Quebec might hold even more lithium than originally suspected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
X-energy rides nuclear wave, raises $700M Series D
The small modular reactor startup is capitalizing on surging interest from tech companies and data center developers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This startup wants to build a fusion reactor — on a boat; plus, Momentic raises $15M to automate software testing
Startups are still racing to build the world's first commercial fusion power plant on land, but Maritime Fusion thinks the path will be easier out at sea. Also, AI testing startup Momentic has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Standard Capital, with participation from Dropbox Ventures. Existing investors at Y Combinator, FCVC, Transpose Platform and Karman Ventures also participated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bret Taylor’s Sierra reaches $100M ARR in under two years; also, Phictly’s new app brings people together over their favorite books and TV shows
Sierra’s rapid growth suggests that enerprises are embracing AI agents. Also, Phictly helps fans find niche clubs for their favorite books, shows, and movies, offering intimate, spoiler-safe communities with flexible pacing and tracker tools. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The European startup market is ready for the limelight
The region's startup market is hungry for its first trillion-dollar startup, and in many ways has set itself up to reach that goal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Source: Kalshi’s valuation jumps to $11B after raising massive $1B round ; plus, this startup can track objects within 3 cm
The quickly growing prediction betting market raised fresh capital from Sequoia and CapitalG, according to someone familiar with the deal. Also, Point One Navigation, now valued at $230 million, is building out well beyond automotive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
After SEC investigation, Curastory founder resigns, hires replacement
Curastory’s founder and CEO, Tiffany Kelly, has resigned from the role and replaced herself with Dave Dickman, former CEO of the influencer marketing platform Tagger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Cavela lands $6.6M to help brands beat pre-tariff manufacturing costs; plus Function Health raises $298M Series B at $2.5B valuation
When Anthony Sardain began developing Cavela in 2023, an AI startup that helps brands automate supplier sourcing, he did not foresee that new tariffs would drive customers to become increasingly wary of manufacturing products in China. Function Health, which offers a regular lab testing service to help people track their health, wants to change that by consolidating health data and making it usable for its customers by connecting that data to an AI model. To further that effort, the company recently raised $298 million in a Series B round led by Redpoint Ventures at a valuation of $2.5 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Onepot AI raises $13M to help make chemical drug creation easier
“The best ideas in drug discovery were often blocked not by biology, but by synthesis,” Boiko told TechCrunch. Synthesis is the creation of new molecules by using chemical reactions. It’s like a recipe or Lego pieces, where small pieces, ingredients, molecules, come together to form a wider puzzle picture, a food dish, a larger molecule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Boop’s new app turns social recommendations into bookable itineraries
Instead of getting an AI-generated travel plan, Boop aims to give users access to itineraries from real people who went on real trips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Peec AI raises $21M to help brands adapt as consumers ditch Google for ChatGPT
With consumers increasingly asking questions to ChatGPT, not Google, product discovery is changing — and the promise to give brands visibility and control over this fast-growing search channel has made Peec AI one of Europe's hottest startups. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Luminal raises $5.3 million to build a better GPU code framework; plus Sakana AI raises $135M Series B at a $2.65B valuation to continue building AI models for Japan
On Monday, Luminal announced $5.3 million in seed funding, in a round led by Felicis Ventures with angel investment from Paul Graham, Guillermo Rauch, and Ben Porterfield. Also, as U.S. giants like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic race to develop the large language models that underpin their AI products, startups such as Sakana AI, Mistral AI, DeepSeek, and AI 21 Labs are carving out their own niche with specialized models designed for specific regions, industries, or unique features. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Is Jeff Bezos returning to the trenches with a new AI startup? Also, Bone AI raises $12M to challenge Asia’s defense giants with AI-powered robotics
Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos seems to be getting his hands dirty once again: the billionaire is partly backing a new AI startup called Project Prometheus that has raised $6.2 billion in funding, and will take on duties as co-chief executive. Plus, Bone AI, a South Korean startup, is combining AI and manufacturing to build next-gen defense robotics and challenge the region’s industry giants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Milestone raises $10M to make sure AI rhymes with ROI
Israeli startup Milestone raised a $10 million seed funding round to correlate AI tool usage with engineering metrics, including code quality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Exowatt wants to power AI data centers with billions of hot rocks
The solar-thermal startup wants to deliver electricity for as little as one cent per kWh. But first it has to scale production to 1 million units per year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
VCs abandon old rules for a ‘funky time’ of investing in AI startups
The goalposts are moving for AI startups when it comes to growth, product features and just about everything else. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AI data startup WisdomAI has raised another $50M, led by Kleiner, Nvidia
WisdomAI is offering AI-driven data analytics that can answer business questions from structured, unstructured, and even “dirty” data, meaning data not cleaned of typos or errors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Teradar raises $150M for a sensor it says beats lidar and radar
Teradar's sensor uses the terahertz part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and combines the best traits of radar and lidar sensors without some of the drawbacks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
How founders can prepare for their late-stage fundraises from the start
Startups should start forging connections with late-stage investors while they are still at the early stages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
6sense founder Amanda Kahlow raises $30 million for new human-replacement AI sales startup 1mind
Amanda Kahlow has been quietly been back in sales and marketing tech for about a year with agentic startup 1Mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Knicks player Miles McBride launches Mmotion, a location-sharing friendship app, also, Scribe hits $1.3B valuation as it moves to show where AI will actually pay off
Mmotion is a new friendship app that combines elements of location sharing with social discovery features to find nearby users with shared interests. Also, Scribe Optimize is the startup's next major offering to help organizations identify where AI will be most useful. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
How startups can lure good talent fairly without big tech bank accounts
Three industry insiders walk through how startups can set up an employee equity strategy that remains fair as a company grows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
How one founder plans to save cities from flooding with terraforming robots; plus Chris Sacca’s VC firm is raising a second nuclear fusion fund
Instead of building seawalls or dikes, Terranova has developed a new way to raise cities to protect them from sea-level rise. In addition, Chris Sacca’s venture firm Lowercarbon Capital is raising a second fund to back nuclear fusion energy hopefuls, the VC said at the SOSV Climate Tech Summit on Thursday, as reported by Bloomberg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Anker-backed hybrid RV startup Evotrex comes out of stealth; plus, Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models
Evotrex joins startups like Lightship, Pebble, and Grounded in trying to disrupt the RV market, which is skewing younger. Also, diffusion models already power AI image generators, but Inception thinks they can be even more powerful applied in software development. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Replika founder raises $20M pre-seed for Wabi, the ‘YouTube of apps’
Wabi, a startup from the founder of Replika, has just raised a $20 million pre-seed round. Wabi is like "YouTube for apps" -- a social platform where anyone can use prompts to instantly create mini apps and share them with friends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This startup’s metal stacks could help solve AI’s massive heat problem
Alloy Enterprises has developed a new additive manufacturing technique that can improve liquid cooling performance while bringing it to new parts of the server rack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Goldman Sachs doubles down on MoEngage in new round to fuel global expansion
MoEngage already has customers across 75 countries, with North America being its biggest business driver. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Elad Gil on which AI markets have winners and which are still wide open; also, Locket’s social app is picking up steam with Gen Alpha
Over the last year, certain AI markets appear to be nearly sewn up by startup market leaders. Plus, Locket's social app is using iOS Live Activities to reach Gen Alpha via the iPhone Lock Screen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
a16z pauses its famed TxO Fund for underserved founders, lays off staff
Andreessen Horowitz is pausing its Talent x Opportunity (TxO) fund and program, according to multiple sources. Several people who spoke to TechCrunch pointed out that its hiatus comes as top names in tech eliminate, cut, reframe, or completely walk back on prior public commitments related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Trump administration has threatened legal and political ramifications for businesses supporting anything that could be seen as DEI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Pine Labs aims to take Indian fintech global even as it cuts valuation for IPO
Pine Labs aims to take Indian fintech global even as it cuts valuation for IPO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sam Altman says ‘enough’ to questions about OpenAI’s revenue; plus, Bluesky hits 40 million users, introduces ‘dislikes’ beta
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said that the company is doing “well more” than $13 billion in annual revenue — and he sounded a little testy when pressed on how it will pay for its massive spending commitments. Also, Bluesky is looking to a new signal — "dislikes" — to personalize users' feeds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
YC alum Adam raises $4.1M to turn viral text-to-3D tool into AI copilot; also, Cluely’s Roy Lee on the ragebait strategy for startup marketing
After generating over 10 million social media impressions with the launch of its text-to-3D model app, Adam has raised a $4.1 million seed round to power its next steps. Plus, Cluely's Roy Lee has a message for startup founders: you should be thinking harder about how to go viral. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bevel raises $10M Series A from General Catalyst for its AI health companion; plus, IntrCity SmartBus lands $30M to deepen its grip on India’s intercity travel market
Most people tracking their health today end up with scattered clues. Their smartwatch shows sleep duration. A fitness app logs steps. A nutrition app counts calories. Yet few tools help people understand how all of this fits together. Bevel, a New York–based startup, believes that’s the missing piece in the shift toward proactive health. Also, IntrCity SmartBus, a tech-enabled intercity bus platform in India, has raised $30 million in funding to expand its network across smaller cities and towns in the South Asian nation. The all-equity Series D round, led by A91 Partners, values the Noida-based startup at $140 million post-money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Prompting Company snags $6.5M to help products get mentioned in ChatGPT and other AI apps, plus India’s Snabbit valuation doubled to $180M in 5 months
People are increasingly asking AI, not Google, to help them discover products. A recent shopping report says Americans, this holiday season, will likely turn to large language models this season to find gifts, deals, and sales instead of traditional search. Also, Snabbit has raised its third funding round in nine months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Phia’s founders on how AI is changing online shopping, plus, Grammarly rebrands to ‘Superhuman,’ launches a new AI assistant
Phia founders, Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, are building an AI assistant that aims to help you shop, and save. Also, Grammarly is renaming itself as Superhuman, after acquiring Superhuman email client in July Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AccessGrid raises $4.4M to help turn phones into key fobs; also, Mem0 raises $24M to build the memory layer for AI apps
Access Grid builds APIs that companies can use to manage digital key fobs directly within Apple and Google's wallet platforms. Plus, Taranjeet Singh has launched six companies, with some failing and others seeing varying degrees of success. His seventh, Mem0, could be his defining one. The startup starts with the premise that large language models can’t remember past interactions the way humans do Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Oxford spinout RADiCAIT uses AI to make diagnostic imaging more affordable and accessible
“What we really do is we took the most constrained, complex, and costly medical imaging solution in radiology, and we supplanted it with what is the most accessible, simple and affordable, which is CT,” Sean Walsh, RADiCAIT’s CEO told TechCrunch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Israeli intelligence vets raise $20M to track developer buying signals; plus, Mercor quintuples valuation to $10B with $350M Series C
Onfire, a vertical AI platform for IT revenue teams, is coming out of stealth with $20 million in funding, including a $14 million Series A co-led by Grove Ventures and TLV Partners. Also, Mercor, which connects AI labs with domain experts for training their foundational AI models, is close to raising $350 million at a $10 billion valuation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
India, the market BlaBlaCar once walked away from, is now its biggest
BlaBlaCar is seeing rapid growth in India, with 20 million passengers expected this year — up 50% from last year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tensormesh raises $4.5M to squeeze more inference out of AI server loads; also, Palantir enters $200M partnership with telco Lumen
Tensormesh uses an expanded form of KV Caching to make inference loads as much as ten times more efficient. Plus, Palantir said on Thursday it had struck a partnership with Lumen Technologies that will see the telecommunications company using the data management company's AI software to build capabilities to support enterprise AI services. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Redwood Materials raises another $350M to power up its energy storage business, also, Wonder raised $12M to bring AI content to Hollywood
The round was led by Eclipse and saw participation from Nvidia's venture capital arm, NVentures. Also, Wonder will use the fresh funds to double its engineering team and accelerate its push into IP ownership and original content production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices