Can a handful of engineers really do the work of an army of consultants? That’s the bet behind Ode with Anthropic — the joint venture dedicated to embedding forward-deployed engineers in enterprise firms, backed by Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs and others. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Ode’s leaders Chris Taylor and Eddie Siegel, who founded Fractional AI, […]
Livestream shopping platform Whatnot has acquired AI startup Shaped, a machine learning company focused on real-time recommendations and search. The deal will bolster Whatnot’s personalization and discovery features as it expands into new product categories.
Anthropic-backed Ode launches as AI labs bet that embedding forward-deployed engineers inside enterprises is the key to accelerating enterprise AI adoption.
Most robotics startups promise what factories might look like years from now. Walden Robotics says its robots are already on the job. The company emerged from stealth on Wednesday with a $300 million seed round, valuing the startup at $1.1 […]
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is seeking a 500 billion yuan ($74 billion) valuation in a new fundraising round as it quietly prepares for a mainland stock market debut, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions. The move comes only […]
It’s Tuesday, July 14, 2026, and the flow of capital today underscores familiar but intensifying trends: governments and venture firms are doubling down on AI infrastructure and sovereignty, as well as defense and related automation. In the past 16 hours, […]
Boards keep asking the same thing this year: hire internally or bring in people who’ve already done this elsewhere? AI rewrites roadmaps faster than most teams can staff, and budgets haven’t kept up with the hype. That’s the gap advisory firms […]
Artificial intelligence is creating a new problem for Wall Street. AI can generate emails, marketing campaigns, research, and trading activity in seconds. Compliance teams still have to review all of it. That gap is growing, and legacy compliance software was […]
New York became the first U.S. state on Tuesday to halt construction of large new AI data centers, imposing a one-year moratorium over concerns that the facilities are driving up electricity costs, straining water supplies, and burdening local communities, according […]
A group of 26 former Meta employees has sued the company, alleging that artificial intelligence played a central role in deciding who lost their jobs during the latest round of layoffs and that the system unfairly penalized workers with disabilities, […]
The race to build humanity’s future beyond Earth is creating a new generation of startups. TerraFirma, a construction tech startup founded by two former SpaceX engineers, has raised $115 million from a group of high-profile investors to bring SpaceX-style speed […]
DeepSeek, the Chinese large language model developer, is said to be preparing for a 2027 IPO debut as it also looks to raise around $1.5 billion in new funds at a $71 billion valuation.
Flex has raised $70 million in fresh funding at a valuation of about $1.2 billion, marking another big milestone for the AI fintech startup as it pushes to become the primary financial platform for mid-sized businesses. The funding arrives alongside […]
It’s Monday, July 13, 2026. The past 24 hours of venture news point to a clear focus on compute sovereignty, defense-edge technologies, and the continued ripple effects of the AI arms race. Investors are plowing capital into ventures that promise to advance […]
Artificial intelligence is creating a new challenge beyond chips and data centers. As AI systems generate larger volumes of data and satellite networks continue to grow, moving information through space is becoming a major infrastructure problem. Dayton, Ohio-based startup Ravee […]
Chicago Ventures leads the seed round as Guthrie AI expands its platform to recruit, train, and manage Virtual Bid Assistants, helping commercial glass contractors shorten bid cycles and take on more work without adding full-time estimating staff. Every missed bid […]
The stock has fallen from a post-IPO high of $225.64 to around its $135 offering price, wiping out roughly $1 trillion in market value as investors reassess the company’s heavy spending on Starship and Starlink. The market’s excitement over SpaceX’s […]
Citation Capital has closed its first private equity fund with $1.2 billion in investable capital, marking one of the largest first-time buyout funds raised in the past decade and setting a new record as the largest female-founded buyout fund ever […]
The German startup’s latest funding round underscores growing investor confidence in AI-powered defense companies as Europe ramps up spending on military technology and sovereign capabilities. European defense startup Helsing has raised $1.8 billion in fresh funding, pushing its valuation to […]
Kid-friendly tech company Pinwheel announced the launch of a new landline phone designed to let children stay connected without the distractions of a smartphone.
Recurring revenue, high margins, and unlimited scalability have made SaaS the dream startup for aspiring entrepreneurs. SaaS has produced some of the world’s most valuable companies. It has also produced thousands of startups that never reached meaningful revenue. Revenue data, […]
OpenAI and Anthropic are once again competing for the top spot in enterprise AI, with both companies unveiling their most advanced models within weeks of each other. On June 10, Anthropic introduced Claude Fable 5, bringing its once-restricted Mythos-class AI […]
Apple has sued OpenAI, accusing the ChatGPT maker of using its trade secrets to speed up its push into consumer hardware after hiring hundreds of former Apple employees. The lawsuit marks a sharp escalation in the rivalry between the two […]
A new analysis found Google’s AI Overviews answered factual questions correctly about 90% of the time, yet more than half of those correct responses weren’t fully supported by the sources Google cited. Google’s AI-powered search is getting better at answering […]
China’s intervention in Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus is opening the door for one of the country’s biggest technology companies to step in instead. Tencent is in talks to become the largest shareholder in Manus after Chinese […]
Circle has cleared a major regulatory hurdle that could reshape its role in digital finance. The company said Friday it received approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to operate as a national trust bank, […]
Meta has opened public developer access to Muse Spark 1.1 just days after OpenAI introduced GPT-5.6, intensifying the race among leading AI labs to win developers with more capable coding models, agentic AI, and lower-cost APIs. The release marks Meta’s clearest […]
Phia, the shopping startup founded by Bill Gates’ daughter, Phoebe, and her friend Sophia Kianni is under fire for a practice known as “cookie stuffing,” which helped the product receive commissions and credit for sales it did not actually generate, per a Bloomberg investigation.
It’s Thursday, July 9, 2026, and today’s dealmaking paints a clear picture: venture capital is pouring into AI infrastructure and frontier technologies, while strategic sectors like clean energy, biotech and national security quietly attract large infusions. The biggest rounds are […]
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