Lilium, once a darling in the nascent industry of electric aircraft that raised more than $1 billion before going public, has ceased operations and laid off about 1,000 workers after efforts to gain financing and exit insolvency failed. The publication Gründerszene was the first to report the layoffs. Lilium co-founder and CEO Patrick Nathen confirmed
Last month, AI founders and investors told TechCrunch that we’re now in the “second era of scaling laws,” noting how established methods of improving AI models were showing diminishing returns. One promising new method they suggested could keep gains was “test-time scaling,” which seems to be what’s behind the performance of OpenAI’s o3 model —
Coralogix, the well-funded observability platform, on Monday announced that it has acquired Aporia, a startup that focuses on giving businesses tools to observe and secure their AI workloads, as well as set guardrails for them to avoid hallucinations or unintended disclosures. As part of this acquisition, Coralogix will launch a dedicated AI research center, Coralogix
Venture funding into Europe is heading for a flat year, but this may obfuscate the fact that European AI startups are thriving. According to VC firm Balderton Capital and Dealroom, 25% of VC funding into the region — approximately $13.7 billion — went to AI startups this year, compared to 15% four years ago, resulting
There’s a mismatch in climate tech investing: Well over half of all dollars invested since 2020 have flowed into startups working on energy and transportation, according to Sightline Climate. “It’s awesome to see those solutions doing well,” Michael Luciani, founding partner at Juniper, told TechCrunch. But as he points out, those sectors represent less than
Autonomous vehicle technology and electrification startups were once the darlings of the VC and corporate world. The two technologies promised billions of dollars in revenue — and a new pathway for automakers to make money beyond building and selling cars. Those VC-money-printing days have been over for AVs for a while now, with a few
There’s been a lot of reporting in recent months around Apple’s efforts to expand its footprint in customers’ homes with in-development products like a wall-mounted smart home hub. According to a new report in Bloomberg, that strategy could also include a smart doorbell. This doorbell would use Apple’s FaceID technology to scan people’s faces as
On November 15, Peter Wang posted a message requesting ideas for a new incubator and fund to support experimental projects built on the burgeoning Bluesky/AT Protocol ecosystem. Four weeks later, Skyseed emerged with an initial commitment of $1 million. This turnaround, a speed underscored by the fact that the fund doesn’t even have a website
OpenAI’s efforts to develop its next major model, GPT-5, are running behind schedule, with results that don’t yet justify the enormous costs, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. This echoes an earlier report in The Information suggesting that OpenAI is looking to new strategies as GPT-5 might not represent as big
Humans have an innate desire to name things, but to be honest, we’re not always that good at it. Take climate tech: it’s a category of companies and technologies that, broadly speaking, seek to minimize or reverse our impact on the climate while also helping us adapt to its increasing changes. As terms go, climate
Anysphere, the developer of AI-powered coding assistant Cursor, raised $100 million Series B at a post-money valuation of $2.6 billion, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. The round is being led by returning investor Thrive Capital, the person said. This new funding comes just four months after Anysphere raised its $60 million Series
AI is everywhere. And increasingly it’s being described as defense tech. This week, the Equity pod gang — which included newcomer Max Zeff, Margaux MacColl, and Kirsten Korosec — noticed an emerging trend: The worlds of AI and defense tech are colliding. And that matters, for a few reasons. For one, venture money is flowing
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 was full of news, likely because it is also the last “real” week of 2024. Which is another way for us to say goodbye for
On the first day of Y Combinator’s winter 2024 session — right after orientation and a photo in front of the YC sign — the founders of PearAI got “canceled,” as founder Nang Ang described it to TechCrunch, receiving an outpouring of online hate. But they survived and graduated the YC’s winter 2024 cohort earlier this
For some, AI fatigue is real. But clearly venture investors haven’t grown tired of the category. AI deals continued to dominate venture funding during the third quarter. AI companies raised $19 billion in Q3, according to Crunchbase data. That figure represents 28% of all venture funding. The fourth quarter of 2024 has been no less
Chip company Nvidia gets the green light from the European Union to complete its acquisition of Run:ai. The EU came to a unanimous decision today that Nvidia could go ahead with its acquisition of Israeli GPU orchestration platform Run:ai, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The European Commission determined that if the merger went through other
Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Twitch, is launching a new AI startup, TechCrunch has learned. The startup, called Stem AI, is currently in stealth. But public documents show it was incorporated in June 2023, and filed for a trademark in August 2023. Shear is listed as CEO on an incorporation document filed with the
AI creates a dilemma for companies: Don’t implement it yet, and you might miss out on productivity gains and other potential benefits; but do it wrong, and you might expose your business and clients to unmitigated risks. This is where a new wave of “security for AI” startups come in, with the premise that these
Accounting firms are struggling to adopt high-tech solutions. That’s according to a survey earlier this year from Rightsworks, which found that, while 88% of firms believe tech has had a positive impact on their efficiency, 60% are suffering from disconnected systems, inconsistent processes, and a lack of standardized workflows. Startups like Aiwyn are trying to
AI-powered search engine Perplexity has reportedly closed a $500 million funding round, valuing the startup at $9 billion. Bloomberg, citing sources familiar, reports that the round was led by Institutional Venture Partners and that it closed earlier in December. In an email to TechCrunch, a Perplexity spokesperson declined to comment. The mammoth tranche comes as
TuSimple has completed its pivot away from autonomous trucking to AI animation and gaming with a rebrand. The company shall henceforth be known as CreateAI. The rebrand comes as TuSimple is embroiled in controversy over the company’s plans to move its remaining U.S. assets to China to fund the new business, which it initially announced
As predicted, ServiceTitan’s wildly successful IPO is beckoning other fintechs to move forward on their own public debuts. Digital bank Chime has filed its confidential paperwork with the SEC, Bloomberg reports. It’s been prepping for this moment since it hired banker Morgan Stanley in September, with an eye to IPO in 2025. The IPO won’t
What if it were as easy to generate a usable 3D design as prompting ChatGPT? That’s the mission of Backflip, a startup founded by 3D printing veterans that’s just scored $30 million from Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates, and a host of other big names in tech. Designing physical objects often requires hours or days
Five years later sounds like a half-baked sequel to a well-known zombie flick franchise. But it’s a reference to how long it’s taken a data access complaint against Netflix to deliver a penalty decision in the European Union. The fine that’s — finally — been issued under the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is
Indian startups raised 32% fewer funding rounds in 2024 compared to last year, per new numbers from data intelligence platform Tracxn, signaling that investors are being more selective when striking deals. The number of startup funding rounds fell to 1,448 compared to 2,114 last year, but overall funding rose 6% to $11.3 billion — the
For many industries, lithium batteries just don’t cut it — they’re getting increasingly expensive, require too much space, and sometimes they are just overkill for many industrial use cases. Thermal batteries, on the other hand, can store energy in the form of heat for long periods, are often cheaper to invest in and deploy, and
A lot of YouTube videos have flashy, misleading titles and thumbnails, such as “BREAKING NEWS” or “The president steps down,” to bait the user into watching the video, which has non-related content. YouTube said Wednesday that it is now cracking down on such videos — especially if videos cover topics like breaking news or current
Once, not long ago, booking a table at a hot new restaurant didn’t entail a midnight dash to Resy. Truly, we didn’t know how good we had it then. Hours-long lines out the door are now the norm, not the exception, in major cities from New York to Los Angeles. One reason is that restaurants
Nuclear startup Oklo has signed a massive deal with data center operator Switch, but caveats abound. The new agreement would see Oklo building enough small modular reactors (SMR) by 2044 to generate 12 gigawatts of electricity for Switch’s data centers, which today serve a wide range of companies, including Google, Nvidia, Tesla, PayPal, JP Morgan
The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it will allow California to ban most sales of new gas- and diesel-powered cars and light trucks starting in 2035. California has long been able to set its own emissions standards under the Clean Air Act provided they are more stringent than federal regulations. Under that authority, the
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