Category: Startups

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Barcelona-based business travel management platform TravelPerk has raised $200 million at a hefty $2.7 billion valuation — almost double the $1.4 billion valuation at its previous fundraise last year. Alongside the raise, TravelPerk also announced it has acquired Swiss startup Yokoy to bring native expenses management into the fray. With the travel and tourism industry…

Reid Hoffman’s Manas AI raises $24.6M, a fraction of other AI drug discovery startups

January 27, 2025

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Siddhartha Mukherjee, cancer researcher and author of the book “The Emperor of All Maladies,” have co-founded an AI-powered drug discovery startup, Manas AI. The company, which will initially focus on breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma, has raised $24.6 million in seed funding from Hoffman, General Catalyst, and Greylock. Manas…

Hackers are targeting machine identities. Token Security just raised $20M to stop them

January 27, 2025

The number of machine identities is booming thanks to the growth of cloud and AI – and it’s posing real security problems by giving hackers way more entry points than ever before. For example, a 2023 hack of authentication app Okta was caused by exploiting a service account while in 2024, Microsoft disclosed a major…

OpenAI-backed 1X acquires Kind Humanoid

January 27, 2025

1X has acquired Kind Humanoid, the Norwegian robotics startup told TechCrunch on Monday. The deal marks a small but key consolidation for a humanoid robotics industry on the brink of a major moment in 2025. TechCrunch spoke with Kind Humanoid in October, when the then-three-person startup announced that it had enlisted famed designer Yves Behar…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: 5 Days left to claim your 2 for 1 Passes at the lowest rate of the year

January 27, 2025

The clock is ticking for one of our Super Early Bird sales! You have just 5 days left to lock in your 2 for 1 Passes at the lowest rates of the year for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Save up to $1,400 on two of the same individual ticket type. This limited-time offer ends this Friday,…

Mistral’s origin story has an insuretech founder at its heart

January 27, 2025

If you’ve been following the AI industry, Mistral should be a familiar name by now. The French AI startup with a $6 billion valuation is arguably the biggest AI company working on foundation models in Europe. Alan, on the other hand, isn’t as well known. The health insurance unicorn has been quietly growing to become…

Perplexity submits a new bid for TikTok

January 26, 2025

Perplexity AI has submitted a revised proposal to merge with TikTok, in an arrangement that would give the U.S. government up to 50 percent ownership of the new entity. The Associated Press first reported on the new proposal. A source with knowledge of the bid confirmed to TechCrunch that the AP’s reporting is accurate. The…

2025 will likely be another brutal year of failed startups, data suggests

January 26, 2025

As demand for data centers soars, real estate companies look to become energy developers

January 25, 2025

Brendan Wallace has a lot on his mind lately. Wallace is the co-founder of Fifth Wall Ventures, a nine-year-old proptech venture firm with $3.2 billion in assets under management. He’s also a homeowner in L.A., which continues to battle raging wildfires. While his place remains intact, many of his friends haven’t been so lucky. Wallace…

Retro Biosciences, backed by Sam Altman, is raising $1 billion to extend human lifespan

January 24, 2025

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets now on sale: Lowest rates ever

January 24, 2025

We’re kicking things off earlier than ever! TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets are officially on sale. Don’t miss your chance to snag them at the lowest rates of the year! Immerse yourself in the epicenter of tech innovation at Disrupt 2025! From October 27 to 29, Moscone West in San Francisco transforms into the global hub…

French e-bike startup Angell nears bankruptcy

January 24, 2025

Angell, a French smart electric bike startup, has announced in an email to customers that the company is declaring insolvency and approaching a court to ask for judicial liquidation. “It’s over for Angell,” said company co-founder and CEO Marc Simoncini on Instagram. (He also happens to be a judge on the French version of “Shark…

Kodiak has made its first driverless truck deliveries to customer Atlas Energy

January 24, 2025

Kodiak Robotics has officially handed off two autonomous trucks to customer Atlas Energy Solutions, marking the startup’s first commercial launch. Atlas, a provider of proppant (i.e., sand) and oilfield logistics, received its first Kodiak-equipped trucks in December and began driverless operations in an off-road environment in West Texas’s remote Permian Basin shortly after. The company…

Foyer unlocks $6.2M to help people save up to buy homes

January 24, 2025

Landy Liu knows how hard it is to save for a home. While working at mortgage startup Better.com, he spent years dealing with first-home home buyers who felt overwhelmed when it came to shopping for homes. By the time it was his turn in 2022, mortgage rates had nearly doubled, and he found himself in…

Allara lands $26M to expand women’s hormone telehealth

January 24, 2025

Growing up with an OB-GYN father, Rachel Blank assumed that most women received excellent gynecological care. She regularly witnessed her dad’s patients thanking him for delivering their child when they would bump into him around town. But Blank realized that not all women’s health issues are treated equally when, at the age of 21, she…

Tom Brady’s Autograph merges with digital fitness company Future

January 23, 2025

Autograph, the $3.1 billion valuation NFT company co-founded by Tom Brady, is merging with the digital fitness company Future. As part of the merger, Brady will join the board of directors of Future and serve as co-chair of the company. Brady co-founded Autograph in 2021 to find ways to connect athletes and artists with fans,…

After pivoting from crypto to payroll, Rollfi gets acquired

January 23, 2025

Kirubha Perumalsamy co-founded Rollfi during crypto’s heyday in 2021 to help companies process digital payments. When crypto crashed, Rollfi pivoted to become an embedded payroll company, partnering with financial services companies to offer payroll and benefits services to their clients. The pivot was enough of a success for Rollfi to be acquired for an undisclosed…

Coval evaluates AI voice and chat agents like self-driving cars

January 23, 2025

What do AI voice agents and self-driving cars have in common? Their performance can be evaluated in the same way, argues Brooke Hopkins, a former tech lead at Waymo. Coval, Hopkins’ new startup, looks to do just that. “When I left Waymo, I realized a lot of these problems that we had at Waymo were…

Method is helping fintech companies like SoFi build repayment functionality into their apps

January 23, 2025

It can be challenging for developers of fintech apps to integrate repayment, balance transfer, and bill pay functionality. Devs often have to deal with a patchwork of brittle screen-scraping APIs to extract data from users’ financial institutions — or worse, tools to process mounds of physical checks and paperwork. Three friends and entrepreneurs — Jose…

Tive’s tools help companies track the status of their shipments in real time

January 23, 2025

The global supply chain is under strain, and one of the reasons is a lack of visibility into how shipments are being transported around the world. According to one recent survey, nearly half of the organizations polled reported having little-to-no visibility into their upstream supply chains. In search of a remedy, Krenar Komoni, who’d for…

Fundraise Up claims its AI can boost nonprofit donations

January 23, 2025

Many nonprofits are stuck with outdated, expensive, and limited tech that hinders their ability to fund their mission or cause. While most consider adopting tech to be a priority, they’re faced with a number of blockers, including siloed data and issues with integration. Peter Byrnes, the co-founder of Fundraise Up, a Brooklyn-based fundraising platform for…

Some shareholders of a16z-backed Divvy Homes may not see a dime from $1B sale

January 22, 2025

The $1 billion acquisition of rent-to-own startup Divvy Homes, which was announced Wednesday, is expected to leave some shareholders without a payout, according to sources familiar with the deal. The terms — and Divvy’s journey from buzzy startup to acquisition target — reflects the rollercoaster ride the proptech industry has endured over the past decade.…

Scale AI is facing a third worker lawsuit in about a month

January 22, 2025

Rent-to-own startup Divvy Homes selling to Brookfield for about $1 billion

January 22, 2025

After a turbulent few years for proptech, Divvy Homes announced Wednesday that it is selling to a division of Brookfield Properties for about $1 billion. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Livestream app Favorited, a new TikTok alternative, gets backing from a16z

January 22, 2025

This month, drama unfolded across mainstream social media platforms like TikTok, which briefly went dark in the U.S. before a rapid return. Instagram recently faced backlash after ending its third-party fact-checking program. At the same time, startups like Favorited are attracting attention from investors, creators, and viewers. On Wednesday, the livestream app announced its $1.3…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets now on sale: Lowest rates ever

January 22, 2025

We’re kicking things off earlier than ever! TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets are officially on sale. Don’t miss your chance to snag them at the lowest rates of the year! Immerse yourself in the epicenter of tech innovation at Disrupt 2025! From October 27–29, Moscone West in San Francisco transforms into the global hub for technology…

Ramp encroaches into digital bank territory with new treasury product

January 22, 2025

Over the years, Ramp has built a name for itself in the corporate card and expense management space. It’s branched out into travel, bill pay, and more, while raising over $1.2 billion in venture funding. Today, the six-year-old fintech startup is announcing a different kind of expansion — one that takes it into more of…

Sales knowledge automation platform 1up gets a third of its customer leads from memes

January 22, 2025

When George Avetisov was the founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup HYPR, he spent a lot of time in the trenches with the company’s sales team. He quickly realized that regardless of how good his sales team was, they were consistently pulling in other departments to answer customer questions or fill out technical questionnaires. “They…

Startup founders flooded inauguration parties hopeful for dealmaking

January 21, 2025

Mistral AI plans IPO

January 21, 2025

French AI lab, Mistral, is working toward an initial public offering, co-founder and CEO Arthur Mensch said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Mistral is “not for sale,” Mensch said, adding that the company plans to open an office in Singapore to focus on the Asia-Pacific region and…

Karmen secures $9.4 million for its revenue-based financing products

January 20, 2025

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. Financière Arbevel…

Friend delays shipments of its ‘AI companion’ pendant

January 20, 2025

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. “As much as I would liked to…

How African VC firm Oui Capital returned its first fund with Moniepoint’s unicorn exit

January 20, 2025

At a recent investor meeting, early-stage African investor Oui Capital informed limited partners that it had returned its $4 million debut fund following the sale of some shares in the business banking platform Moniepoint. The African fintech unicorn has so far proven to be a standout investment for five-year-old Oui Capital. When it launched its…

Trump says he will delay TikTok ban, suggests a joint venture with US ownership

January 19, 2025

TikTok went dark for users in the US on Saturday night, but it may not be gone for long. President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social this morning that he will issuing an executive order Monday that will “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a…

Employees of failed startups are at special risk of stolen personal data through old Google logins

January 19, 2025

As if losing your job when the startup you work for collapses isn’t bad enough, now a security researcher has found that employees at failed startups are at particular risk of having their data stolen. This ranges from their private Slack messages to Social Security numbers and, potentially, bank accounts. The researcher who discovered the…

Once high-flying proptech startups Divvy Homes and EasyKnock are the latest to struggle

January 18, 2025

Many proptech startups, born and funded during the low-interest-rate heydays, are in the throes of struggle. With investments into U.S.-based real estate startups falling from $11.1 billion in 2021 to $3.7 billion last year, according to PitchBook data, some are selling themselves off, while others are closing shop. The two most recent examples are the…

Netradyne snags $90M at $1.35B valuation to expand smart dashcams for commercial fleets

January 17, 2025

Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of car accidents and a major reason why auto insurance premiums are expected to increase in 2025. For commercial fleets, that’s a nightmare. But for California-based startup Netradyne, it’s a tailwind. Netradyne provides fleet owners, including big names like Amazon, with AI-enabled dashcams that collect vehicle data…

Perplexity acquires Read.cv, a social media platform for professionals

January 17, 2025

Read.cv, a social media platform for professionals that competed with LinkedIn, has been acquired by AI-powered search engine Perplexity. As part of the deal, Read.cv will begin to wind down operations Friday. Users will be able to export their data, including their profiles, posts, and messages, until May 16. “We’ve long admired Perplexity and believe…

Big Tech expands its reach with new startup acquisitions and investments

January 17, 2025

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week’s newsletter is about startups, but it is also about Big Tech companies expanding their reach, both through acquisitions and through investments. Most interesting startup stories…

Failed fintech startup Bench racked up over $65 million in debt, documents reveal

January 16, 2025

Mark Cuban is ready to fund a TikTok alternative built on Bluesky’s AT Protocol

January 16, 2025

Entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban is ready to fund a TikTok alternative built on Bluesky’s AT Protocol, he shared in a TikTok video posted on Wednesday. In anticipation of the coming U.S. TikTok ban, which will go through on Sunday unless paused by the Supreme Court, users have been fleeing to other video platforms, including…

Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon tells startups to reconsider going public

January 16, 2025

Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest investment banker “book runners” for IPOs – where banks are paid many millions of dollars for each listing they underwrite. Yet CEO David Solomon told attendees of the Cisco AI Summit in Palo Alto that startups should reconsider the idea of going public, reports the Financial Times. Solomon…

Anduril to build its billion-dollar weapons megafactory in Ohio

January 16, 2025

Today, Anduril announced it is building their massive weapons factory, Arsenal-1, in Columbus, Ohio, confirming TechCrunch’s earlier reporting. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Netradyne snags $90M at $1.25B valuation to expand smart dashcams for commercial fleets

January 16, 2025

Distracted driving is a leading cause of car crashes — and rising auto insurance premiums, which are expected to increase in 2025. For commercial fleets, that’s an expensive challenge to navigate. But for California-based startup Netradyne, it’s a tailwind. Netradyne provides fleet owners, including big names like Amazon, with AI-enabled dashcams that collect vehicle data…

Dub.co is an open-source URL shortener and link attribution engine packed into one

January 16, 2025

In the last few weeks, PayPal-owned Honey, which claims to find you the best coupon codes for a deal, has been at the center of controversy. Allegedly, the tool sneakily earned affiliate money by changing attributes of product links creators posted on their videos. At the center of it, the problem was how affiliate links…

Hyperline secures $10 million for its automated billing platform

January 16, 2025

French startup Hyperline wants to build the next-generation Chargebee. Over the past two years, the startup has built a new billing platform that can be used for recurring subscriptions, one-off purchases, usage-based billing and more. Hyperline raised an initial €4 million funding round from Index Ventures back in 2023 ($4.1 million at today’s exchange rate).…

Chinese AI company MiniMax releases new models it claims are competitive with the industry’s best

January 15, 2025

Chinese firms continue to release AI models that rival the capabilities of systems developed by OpenAI and other U.S.-based AI companies. This week, MiniMax, an Alibaba- and Tencent-backed startup that has raised around $850 million in venture capital and is valued at more than $2.5 billion, debuted three new models: MiniMax-Text-01, MiniMax-VL-01, and T2A-01-HD. MiniMax-Text-01…

Reusable rocket startup Stoke raised another massive round: $260M

January 15, 2025

AI researcher François Chollet founds a new AI lab focused on AGI

January 15, 2025

François Chollet, an influential AI researcher, is launching a new startup that aims to build frontier AI systems with novel designs. The startup, Ndea, will consist of an AI research and science lab. It’s looking to “develop and operationalize” AGI. AGI, which stands for “artificial general intelligence,” typically refers to AI that can perform any…

Colossal Biosciences raises $200M at $10.2B valuation to bring back woolly mammoths

January 15, 2025

Rockfish is helping enterprises leverage synthetic data

January 15, 2025

For years, Vyas Sekar would call up Muckai Girish, an old friend from undergrad, to talk through potential startup ideas and get Girish’s opinion. The two usually talked through an idea and ended the conversation at that. When Sekar called Girish with an idea involving synthetic data in early 2022, the conversation didn’t just end…

Nelly raises $51 million to digitalize medical practices across Europe

January 14, 2025

Nelly wants to become the biggest fintech startup in the healthcare industry. The Berlin-based startup is already working with more than 1,200 medical practices in a handful of European countries. But there are thousands more that could benefit from an upgrade for their administrative workflows. That’s why Nelly recently raised €50 million in funding (around…

Nvidia backs MetAI, a Taiwanese startup that creates AI-powered digital twins

January 14, 2025

Nvidia has been doubling down on the opportunity to build robotics and other industrial AI applications, with the launch of its Omniverse platform, and most recently Mega, an Omniverse Blueprint framework to create digital twins to operate these applications. It’s also investing in digital twin startups to get the effort off the ground. Taiwan’s MetAI…

A 24-year-old who exited his first company to Coinbase raises $3M for his next venture

January 14, 2025

At 24 years old, Pryce Yebesi already has one exit: selling his crypto invoicing company Utopia Labs to Coinbase for an undisclosed amount. Some founders don’t just have one company in them. On Monday, Yebesi announced the launch of his new company, Open Ledger, which embeds automated accounting software into products that enterprises and small…

With $30 million in new funding, SEEQC thinks chips are key to building useful quantum computing

January 14, 2025

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang may have said that “very useful quantum computers” are probably still 20 years away, but his company is also hedging its bets beyond classical chips with investments and partnerships in that very space. Now one of the companies that Nvidia partners with in quantum development is announcing funding. SEEQC, a quantum…

Thoras helps companies reach reliability without overspending on cloud costs

January 14, 2025

For years, twin sisters Nilo Rahmani and Jen Rahmani swapped stories — and commiserated — over the pain points they were facing in their respective engineering jobs. Nilo told TechCrunch that a frequent topic of conversation was about frustrations over the reliability platforms they were using at work. When they noticed the reliability landscape starting…

Venture funding remains stable in France thanks to AI startups

January 14, 2025

Alex Dewez, a partner at 20VC, just released its highly anticipated State of the French tech ecosystem report. This is a nice followup to Atomico’s State of European Tech report, with a more granular view on French startups in particular. As a reminder, the bottom line of Atomico’s report is that European startups raised $45…

How Barcelona became an unlikely hub for spyware startups

January 14, 2025

Barcelona’s mix of affordable cost of living and quality of life has helped create a vibrant startup community — and become a hotbed for the creation of surveillance technologies. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The first AI chip startup to go public in 2025 will be Blaize

January 13, 2025

Raspberry AI raises $24M from a16z to accelerate fashion design

January 13, 2025

The world of fashion is moving at a faster pace each year. Most retailers introduce new styles each season, and fast-fashion companies like Shein, H&M and Zara update their collections continuously. To keep pace with the rapid demand for new styles, brands and manufacturers have been turning to tech to accelerate their design process. Raspberry…

A 24-year-old who exited his first company to Coinbase, raises $3M for his next venture

January 13, 2025

At 24 years old, Pryce Yebesi already has one exit: selling his crypto invoicing company Utopia Labs to Coinbase for an undisclosed amount. Some founders don’t just have one company in them. On Monday, Yebesi announced the launch of his new company, OpenLedger, which embeds automated accounting software into products enterprises and small businesses already…

Moody’s agrees to acquire Cape Analytics, which develops geospatial AI for insurance providers

January 13, 2025

Financial services firm Moody’s announced on Monday that it has agreed to acquire Cape Analytics, a geospatial AI startup, for an undisclosed sum. The deal, which is expected to close in Q1, subject to customary closing conditions, will give Moody’s access to Cape’s geospatial AI analytics technology for insurance underwriting. With the tech, Moody’s plans…

eBay acquires Caramel to reduce risk and complexity of online car sales

January 13, 2025

E-commerce giant eBay has announced plans to acquire Caramel, a startup that helps car sellers and buyers complete the final steps of the transaction — including verification, financing, paperwork, ownership transfer, insurance, and more. Founded out of Los Angeles in 2021, Caramel formally launched last year with some $19 million in funding behind it, from…

Float Financial, which aims to be the Brex of Canada, lands US$48.5M Series B

January 13, 2025

Float Financial, an expense management and corporate card startup focused on the Canadian market, has raised $48.5 million in a Series B funding round. The Toronto-based fintech likens itself to U.S.-based fintech giants Brex and Ramp but says it is different in that its sole focus is on Canadian SMBs, which CEO and co-founder Rob…

Watch Duty was downloaded 2 million times during this week’s LA fires

January 12, 2025

Fire-tracking app Watch Duty has become a crucial source of information for Los Angeles residents threatened by the ongoing wildfires. As TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff explained, the app relies on a network of active and retired firefighters, first responders, official government reports, and volunteer reporters who monitor radio scanners to offer real-time updates on active wildfires.…

Here are the five best pieces of founder advice I learned as a host of Found

January 12, 2025

After more than two years — and nearly 100 episodes — as a host of TechCrunch’s recently ended Found podcast, I have learned a lot about how founders approach building their startups. I’ve heard stories about how founders know when it is the right time to expand from their core product, to how startups approach…

Nvidia’s AI empire: A look at its top startup investments

January 11, 2025

Over the last two years, Nvidia has used its ballooning fortunes to invest in over 80 AI startups. Here are the giant semiconductor’s largest investments. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Bench customers are now being forced to hand over their data or risk losing it, they say

January 10, 2025

After accounting startup Bench abruptly shut down on December 27 and was bought in a fire-sale by Employer.com, Bench customers are now learning they can’t easily just take their financial data and leave. And some are very unhappy about it, three customers told TechCrunch. To recap: When Bench, a startup based in Canada that raised…

January almost had its first pentacorn, and other startup news

January 10, 2025

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. The second week of the year is usually a busy one for startup news, and 2025 is no exception. From CES product launches to M&As and funding…

Overhaul raises another $55M to help companies like Dyson and Microsoft fight supply chain theft

January 10, 2025

Businesses dependent on the physical supply chain — the network of facilities and transportation systems used to move materials from one location to another — chain face a number of challenges, from staff shortages to increasing customer expectations. The pressures aren’t easing up. According to a survey from Prologis, a real estate investment trust, two-thirds…

Gumloop, founded in a bedroom in Vancouver, lets users automate tasks with drag-and-drop modules

January 10, 2025

Developers Max Brodeur-Urbas and Rahul Behal think that AI has the potential to automate lots of business-relevant tasks, but that many of the AI-powered automation tools on the market today are unreliable and costly. Part of the problem is that users expect too much of AI, Brodeur-Urbas told TechCrunch — for instance, they assume that…

Hippocratic AI raises $141M for creating patient-facing AI agents

January 9, 2025

Hippocratic AI, a startup building AI solutions that can handle non-diagnostic patient-facing tasks, secured a massive $141 million Series B at a valuation of $1.64 billion led by Kleiner Perkins, the company announced Thursday. The funding comes nine months after Hippocratic AI raised a $53 million round from General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz and five…

ICON, a builder of 3D printed homes last valued around $2 billion, cuts about 25% of staff

January 9, 2025

ICON Technologies Inc., which builds homes using 3D printing, is laying off 114 people, according to a WARN letter filed with the Texas Workforce Commission. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the news to TechCrunch, providing a statement that ICON had “recently made a difficult decision to re-align” its team and team size “to focus…

Scale AI hit by its second employee wage lawsuit in less than a month

January 9, 2025

DoorBox debuts its new and improved smart delivery box at CES 2025

January 9, 2025

Millions of packages stolen each year. DoorBox aims to change how packages are delivered with its smart package box that features a theft-proof design with live camera feeds and an alarm that activates automatically if the box is tampered with. After selling 2,000 units of its initial version, which offered manual functionality, the startup unveiled…

Innovaccer aims to become healthcare’s AI powerhouse with $275M Series F

January 9, 2025

Innovaccer has raised a $275M Series F from investors including B Capital Group, Banner Health, Danaher Ventures, Generation IM, Kaiser Permanente, and M12. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Rounded is an AI orchestration platform that lets anyone build an AI voice agent

January 9, 2025

French startup Rounded believes AI voice agents are going to become the default way customers interact with companies, so instead of building AI voice agents that are ready to use, the company is building an orchestration platform that lets companies build their own voice agent. Rounded started off working on a web3 product before shifting…

Xocean raises $119M to capture ocean data with uncrewed surface vessels

January 9, 2025

Xocean, an Irish marine robotics startup that provides ocean data to the energy and hydrography industries using uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), has raised €115 million ($119 million) as it looks to expand coverage to additional sectors. Founded in 2017, Xocean has built a fleet of remotely-controlled USVs that can remain offshore for long periods of…

Flock Safety quietly hired a sitting California mayor. Now he’s suing Flock

January 8, 2025

Last year, police surveillance startup Flock Safety hired the mayor of a California city with over 200,000 residents to promote its products. But the mayor, Ulises Cabrera of Moreno Valley, now claims Flock wrongfully terminated him, partly because he refused to use his position as mayor to benefit Flock, according to a lawsuit Cabrera filed…

Former Huami employees launch SATELLAI, a satellite pet tracker, at CES 2025

January 8, 2025

With the smart pet wearable market estimated at $1.72 million in 2024, a new startup in the pet tech space is entering the scene with a dog tracker and collar that can directly link with satellite tracking without needing an LTE signal. At CES 2025, SATELLAI presented its pet tracker and smart collar, which include…

Grove cuts clinical trial enrollment time with AI

January 8, 2025

Tran Le was an engineering student at Stanford University when she tried to enroll in a clinical trial for her chronic condition. Although she identified several promising trials, she found the sign-up process daunting — she had to have extensive email exchanges with clinical sites and complete lengthy 20-page forms. All that paperwork was so…

Former CEO of MoviePass’ parent company pleads guilty to fraud over ‘unlimited’ plan

January 8, 2025

The former chief executive of the parent company of MoviePass, Theodore Farnsworth, pleaded guilty to charges of securities fraud and conspiracy after being accused of misleading investors over the service’s “unlimited plan.” Farnsworth also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud as the chief executive of Vinco Ventures, a publicly traded company. Helios &…

Healthcare analytics platform H1 has acquired Ribbon, backed by a16Z and General Catalyst

January 8, 2025

H1, a healthcare data analytics platform serving the pharmaceutical industry with data on over 10 million healthcare professionals, has acquired Ribbon, a startup that helps patients find doctors that are supported by their insurance. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The last time that Ribbon — founded in 2016 and a Y…

Chinese VCs are hounding failed founders to claw back their investments

January 7, 2025

In the US, it’s accepted that most startups fail – and when that happens, VCs (generally) accept their losses and move on. But that’s not the case in China, where VCs are trying to claw back their investments in failed startups by pursuing the personal assets of their founders in court, The Financial Times reports.…

HR software startup OnPay was inspired by the founder’s family payroll business

January 7, 2025

In 2007, Jesse Burgess joined his family’s payroll business. He quickly noticed that the business’ six payroll clerks were getting bogged down by repetitive, monotonous tasks — and so he sought to streamline those tasks by creating workflow automation tools. Several years later, Burgess sensed an opportunity to bring the tools he developed for his…

Google puts $1M into 3D design app Rooms after more than 1 million ‘rooms’ created

January 7, 2025

3D design app Rooms just landed more funding. Launched into beta in 2023, the app from ex-Google employees allows users to build and code interactive 3D rooms and mini-games using a library of more than 10,000 items, which can be further edited using the programming language Lua. Now, Google itself has invested $1 million into…

Employer.com offers to buy failed fintech Level, a week after it makes offer for Bench

January 7, 2025

Employer.com has offered to acquire Level, a fintech startup that just last week abruptly shut down after failing to find a buyer, according to The Information. But Level is still mulling over the offer, its Employer.com CMO Matt Charney told TechCrunch. “It’s with legal,” he said. Founded in 2018 by early Square employee Paul Aaron,…

Fermata uses computer vision to detect diseases and pests in plants

January 7, 2025

When Valeria Kogan started her Ph.D. program in bioinformatics, the scientific field that uses computation and software to analyze biological data, in 2017, she imagined her career would always be within the fields of mathematics, medicine, or biology. But after the first AI boom in the late 2010s, she got an intriguing opportunity in a…

Kombu is changing the way we make our ‘booch’ with its modern kombucha brewer

January 7, 2025

Kombucha, a fermented tea that has been around for thousands of years and was once considered a niche health drink, is currently experiencing a surge in popularity as more consumers look for gut-friendly beverages. However, this fizzy drink isn’t exactly cheap, and home brewing can be messy, overly complicated, and time-consuming. Additionally, the supplies needed…

May Mobility reveals electric autonomous minibus at CES 2025

January 7, 2025

May Mobility, an autonomous vehicle technology startup, unveiled at CES 2025 the next vehicle in its portfolio: an electric, autonomous minibus made in partnership with European electric bus manufacturer Tecnobus. Ann Arbor-based May Mobility offers on-demand and fixed-route autonomous shuttles on campuses and in planned communities. Today its fleet consists of 40 Toyota Sienna minivans that…

NXP to buy automotive safety software firm TTTech Auto for $625M

January 7, 2025

Dutch semiconductor giant NXP on Tuesday said it plans to acquire TTTech Auto, an Austrian company specializing in safety software for autonomous vehicles, in an all-cash transaction valued at $625 million. TTTech Auto spun out of TTTech Group in 2018, with some $78 million in backing from the likes of AUDI, Samsung and GE Ventures.…

Toyota’s Woven City is open for business and looking for startups

January 6, 2025

Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda revealed Monday at CES 2025 his vision for a living laboratory chock full of startups and technology. His message: Woven City — a prototype city on a 175-acre site at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan — is open for business and searching for inventors. “Today, I say to…

Bluesky bump from X exodus is slowing down, data shows

January 6, 2025

Social network and X competitor Bluesky’s massive growth slowed in December in the U.S., after having surged from 9+ million in September to north of 20 million users in November. The slowdown is based on an analysis of web traffic and mobile app daily active users by analytics firm Similarweb, which found that Bluesky grew…

Pawport’s upgraded smart pet door debuts at CES

January 6, 2025

Pawport, a pet tech startup based in Phoenix, is back at CES 2025 to unveil its upgraded Smart Pet Door, which now features an additional exterior door for added security. If you’re tired of bugs or, worse, raccoons and other critters sneaking into your home through traditional pet doors, Pawport may have the solution. The…

Full Nature Farms launches smart irrigation system at CES 2025 to reduce agricultural water waste

January 6, 2025

Agriculture, which consumes about 70% of global freshwater, is grappling with increased water scarcity and inefficient irrigation systems. Traditional methods of irrigation not only lead to wasted water and nutrients, but also contribute to lower crop yields, food insecurity, and unnecessary carbon emissions. Hong-Kong based agriculture technology startup Full Nature Farms thinks there’s a better…

Disney to merge Hulu Live TV with Fubo in groundbreaking deal

January 6, 2025

In a surprising deal announced on Monday, Disney is set to combine its Hulu Live TV business with Fubo, the live TV streaming service known for its extensive sports coverage. Under the terms of the deal, Disney will own about 70% of Fubo, which will continue to be available to viewers as a separate offering. …

Timekettle’s new earbuds offer real-time translation on calls

January 5, 2025

Timekettle unveiled its latest earbuds, the W4 Pro, this week at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The product aims to up the ante on the startup’s focus by bringing real-time two-way translation to phone and video calls. The earbuds will automatically begin translating calls in 40 different languages, without any input from the user. Predictably, there…

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi resigns from self-driving truck startup Aurora’s board

January 3, 2025

Dara Khosrowshahi is resigning from the board of autonomous vehicle technology company Aurora Innovation, citing a desire to focus on his ongoing responsibilities as CEO of Uber and reduce external board commitments, according to a Friday regulatory filing. Khosrowshahi’s resignation was effective as of Tuesday. Aurora says Khosrowshahi’s decision to leave the board was not…

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