On Monday, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, offered to buy the nonprofit that effectively governs OpenAI for $97.4 billion. The unsolicited buyout would be financed by Musk’s AI company, xAI, and a consortium of outside investors, per a letter sent to California and Delaware’s attorneys general. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly dismissed Musk’s bid,
Month: February 2025
The Army has granted upstart weapons maker Anduril control of one of its highest-profile and long-troubled projects known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, founder Palmer Luckey announced in a blog post Tuesday. IVAS was initially awarded to Microsoft in 2018 to develop augmented reality headsets for soldiers based on a ruggedized version of Hololens.
Microsoft has added another 389 megawatts of renewable power to its portfolio as the tech giant scrambles to meet the power demands required to match its AI ambitions. The additional renewable power spans three solar projects developed by EDP Renewables North America — two in southern Illinois and one outside Austin, Texas. Microsoft is buying
Apple Tuesday announced the long-awaited debut of Powerbeats Pro 2 earbuds. The new headphones arrive nearly six years after the original Powerbeats hit the market. The new model maintains the familiar ear hook for workouts, while delivering upgraded sound, better battery life, and a wireless charging case. The earbuds also mark a major next step
It’s no news that India is a huge market for entertainment businesses, but what often doesn’t get mentioned is that its people love to see content in their own languages. According to a recent survey by non-profit Internet and Mobile Association of India, more than 870 million Indians sought out videos, music and other content
As Africa’s tech ecosystem booms, more people from the region are landing remote jobs with big tech firms and global startups. But getting paid remains a challenge for many of these freelancers and remote workers — they struggle to open accounts that accept U.S. dollars, face slow invoicing and payment processes, and it doesn’t help
Escalating geopolitical tensions and a new administration with a hawkish defense agenda has led many startups to embrace dual-use strategies to secure revenue through military applications. And it’s a trend that is already heating up in aerospace. Just look at Archer Aviation, a California-based startup building eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles). Until very
We’ve officially experienced an AI Super Bowl, people. As everyone tuned in to watch the annual championship game, the biggest buzz wasn’t just about the Eagles’ blowout win and Kendrick Lamar performing his Grammy-winning diss track at the halftime show. It was also about AI being a consistent theme in several of the multi-million-dollar ad spots.
Cap table management firm Carta made headlines in 2020 when its former marketing VP Emily Kramer filed a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination and retaliation. That case was settled in 2023. But since then, Carta has settled two other lawsuits filed by women who worked at the firm and alleged sexual harassment and discrimination, legal filings
Zeta, a provider of banking software to banks and fintech startups, has raised $50 million from a strategic investor at a $2 billion valuation. The new investment from American healthcare company Optum marks a 70% increase in the Bengaluru-based startup’s valuation from the $1.15 billion price tag (pre-money) it earned in 2021, when it raised
If you want to relive Kendrick Lamar’s headline-making Super Bowl halftime show, Apple Music just dropped a replay of the performance in its surround sound-like Spatial Audio. Since Apple currently sponsors the Super Bowl halftime show, the company has permission to republish these musical spectacles — but this is better than just a YouTube video
Hundreds of heads of states, tech CEOs, and nonprofits have flocked to Paris for the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit. So far, the winner of this week’s diplomatic and business parade seems to be Mistral. In business lingo, we would say that the French AI unicorn is experiencing tailwinds. Mistral has been one of the leading
Cloud communication service Bird has cut 120 jobs — roughly one-third of its total workforce. The Amsterdam-based firm — formerly known as MessageBird — plans to realign its global operations amid the ongoing AI boom, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. Bird has since confirmed the news. The Dutch startup contacted impacted employees on Friday. The move
A report from The New York Times over the weekend highlights the small — but apparently growing — trend of users wearing their Apple Watches on their ankles. What’s becoming something of a viral sensation on social platforms like TikTok is the result of a pragmatic decision. Some Apple Watch owners’ wrists are simply too
Super Bowl weekend is here with the Philadelphia Eagles set to take on the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans on Sunday evening. While many folks tune in to the Super Bowl for the actual football, others do so for the halftime performance, and some tune in just for the ads. The ad roster this
Apple could launch a new iPhone SE and PowerBeats Pro headphones as early as February 11, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The announcement is likely to be on the smaller side, given that the company has not yet issued invites for either an in-person or virtual event. A new iPhone SE would mark the fourth
Fine art auction house, Christie’s, has sold AI-generated art before. But soon, it plans to hold its first show dedicated solely to works created with AI, an announcement that has been met with mixed reviews. The auction, which Christie’s is calling ‘Augmented Intelligence,’ will feature artwork from artists including Mat Dryhurst, the founder of AI
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020 and schools transitioned to online learning, both Joe Titus and Paul Suhr were concerned about how to maintain their children’s activity levels in the absence of mandatory physical education classes and sports. The two friends’ solution was Hiveclass, a New York-based edtech platform that hosts online courses for
The GenAI boom of the last few years has unleashed a wave of startups promising to support the process of prompt engineering — i.e., coming up with instructions to precisely steer an AI chatbot to serve useful output. So think tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, which present the user with a blank field
Humanoid robotics company Figure raised eyebrows this week when it announced it would be stepping away from a partnership with OpenAI in favor of building its own in-house AI models. Figure CEO Brett Adcock alluded to a “major breakthrough” in their own process and plans to unveil “something no one has ever seen on a
Safe Superintelligence, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, is in talks to raise funding at a valuation of “at least” $20 billion, according to Reuters. It’s not clear how much Safe Superintelligence — which has yet to generate any revenue — is looking to secure, but it could be substantial.
Just six months after defense tech Anduril raised a massive $1.5 billion round that valued the company at $14 billion, it’s in talks to raise another $2.5 billion, at a valuation of up to $28 billion, sources told CNBC. The deal would, not surprisingly, be led by Founders Fund, which is reportedly writing a $1
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. Self Inspection, founded in 2021, is set to announce Thursday it’s raised $3 million in
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 first week of February was busy on the geopolitical front, as well as in the world of startups and VC news, with many announcements and significant
Nuclear startup X-Energy has added $200 million to an existing $500 million Series C round. The small module reactor specialist previously announced a deal with Amazon in October, which included an investment and development agreements to build 300 megawatts’ worth of nuclear power plants in the Pacific Northwest. New investors in the round include Ares
Supply chains have had a tumultuous few years, beginning in 2020, when COVID-19 upended legacy global supply chains. More recently, the “TikTok-ification” of retail has companies like Shein and Temu creating new products constantly as consumer demands change at the same rapid pace. Pendulum aims to help companies better plan for supply and demand in
Fizz, the college social app, is looking for ways to enhance and expand its platform, and a recent new hire is poised to help drive these ambitions. The company has brought on David Vasquez, who previously served as TikTok’s head of creator monetization and a product lead for TikTok Shop, as Fizz’s new head of
A group of more than 100 organizations has published an open letter calling on the AI industry and regulators to mitigate the tech’s harmful environmental impacts just days before leading industry CEOs, heads of state, academics, and nonprofits descend on Paris for a major AI conference. The letter, which bears the signatures of prominent advocacy
The mechanical keyboard maker Qwertykeys announced Wednesday that it has suspended all U.S. product shipments owing to new tariffs levied by the Trump administration. The Guangdong-based outfit cites a February 1 announcement of 10% tariffs on imported Chinese goods as the motivating factor. “This new policy replaces all previous tariff exemptions, including the exemption for
TrueFoundry, a startup run by a group of former Meta engineers to help enterprises deploy AI systems at scale, has raised $19 million in fresh investment led by Intel Capital. With GenAI’s emergence following the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, enterprises of all sizes have looked at ways they could embrace AI. But GenAI
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