As Crypto Cools, A16z Crypto Raises a $2.2B Fund
Andreessen Horowitz's crypto division launched a $2.2 billion Fund 5, bringing its total capital raised to $9.8 billion. The fund promotion of CTO Eddy Lazzarin to general partner expands the GP team to four members. The announcement coincides with a market slowdown, marked by Coinbase cutting 14 percent of its workforce and the slowest trading volume since November 2023. Despite the dip, a16z vows the new fund will remain fully dedicated to crypto entrepreneurs.
ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet on His Company’s Monopoly: No One Is Coming for Us
ASML, the sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, remains a monopoly in the chip‑making ecosystem, with each system priced between $200 million and $400 million and a market value exceeding $530 billion. The surge in AI investment—over $600 billion this year from...
Volkswagen Becomes Rivian’s Top Shareholder, Displacing Amazon
Volkswagen has become Rivian’s largest shareholder, increasing its stake to 15.9% and overtaking Amazon. The German automaker pledged $5.8 billion, released in milestones, to fund a joint venture focused on EV architecture and software. Rivian secured an extra $1 billion after completing...
Threads Finally Brings Messaging to the Web
Meta has launched web-based direct messaging for Threads, bringing one‑on‑one and group chats to desktop browsers. The new “Messages” tab includes an inbox, request folder, search, and quick‑start features, aligning Threads with rivals like X and Bluesky. According to Meta,...
Image AI Models Now Drive App Growth, Beating Chatbot Upgrades
Image AI model releases are propelling mobile app growth, delivering 6.5 times more downloads than conventional text‑model updates, according to Appfigures. OpenAI’s GPT‑4o image model added over 12 million installs, while Google’s Gemini Nano Banana generated 22 million downloads in its first 28 days....
Elon Musk’s only AI Expert Witness at the OpenAI Trial Fears an AGI Arms Race
Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI brought in Stuart Russell, a UC‑Berkeley AI professor, as the sole technical expert witness. Russell warned jurors about cybersecurity, misalignment and the winner‑take‑all dynamics of artificial general intelligence, but the judge sharply curtailed his testimony. Musk’s...
US Healthcare Marketplaces Shared Citizenship and Race Data with Ad Tech Giants
An investigation by Bloomberg found that most of the 20 state‑run health insurance exchanges in the U.S. transmitted applicants' personal data—including citizenship, race, sex, and even information about incarcerated family members—to advertising platforms such as Google, Meta, LinkedIn, Snap, and...
Uber Wants to Turn Its Millions of Drivers Into a Sensor Grid for Self-Driving Companies
Uber is planning to turn its global fleet of human drivers into a massive sensor network that streams real‑world data to autonomous‑vehicle (AV) developers. CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga said the initiative builds on the AV Labs program, which currently uses...
Replit’s Amjad Masad on the Cursor Deal, Fighting Apple, and Why He’d Rather Not Sell
Replit’s CEO Amjad Masad said the AI coding platform is racing toward a $1 billion annual run rate after posting just $2.8 million in revenue for 2024. The company boasts net‑revenue retention as high as 300% and has been gross‑margin positive for...
Coatue Has a Plan to Buy up Land for Data Centers, Possibly for Anthropic
Coatue has launched Next Frontier, a venture to acquire land adjacent to large power sources for building AI‑focused data centers, a move that could directly support its stakes in Anthropic and other generative‑AI firms. The initiative already includes a joint...
People Are Finally Using Reddit’s Search
Reddit reported a 30% year‑over‑year increase in weekly search usage, signaling that recent investments in its search engine and AI‑enhanced features are paying off. CEO Steve Huffman said search is now a major driver of user acquisition and retention. The...
Legal AI Startup Legora Hits $5.6B Valuation and Its Battle with Harvey Just Got Hotter
Nvidia’s corporate venture arm NVentures led a $50 million Series D extension for Swedish‑born legal‑tech startup Legora, marking Nvidia’s first legal‑AI investment. The move follows Legora’s recent $550 million Series D and a milestone $100 million in annual recurring revenue, lifting its post‑money valuation to...
After Dissing Anthropic for Limiting Mythos, OpenAI Restricts Access to Cyber, Too
OpenAI announced that its upcoming GPT‑5.5 Cyber tool will be released only to vetted "critical cyber defenders" after Sam Altman publicly criticized Anthropic for limiting access to its Mythos product. Prospective users must complete an online application that verifies their...
Google Gains 25M Subscriptions in Q1, Driven by YouTube and Google One
Google added 25 million paid subscriptions in Q1, bringing its total to 350 million, driven primarily by YouTube Premium and Google One plans. The company bundled advanced Gemini AI features into Google One, reporting a 40% quarter‑over‑quarter rise in paid enterprise Gemini...
Google Photos Uses AI to Make the Iconic Closet From ‘Clueless’ a Reality
Google Photos unveiled an AI‑powered digital closet that scans users' photo libraries, identifies clothing items, and organizes them by category. The feature lets users mix and match pieces, create outfit mood boards, and virtually try on ensembles directly within the...
Bill Gurley, Jack Altman Back Startup Pursuit, Which Helps Companies Sell to Government
Pursuit, a startup that uses AI to surface government contract opportunities, announced a $22 million Series A round led by OpenGov co‑founder Mike Rosengarten. The round brings total funding to $25.5 million and includes investors such as Bill Gurley, Jack Altman and Sam...
Apple Loses Bid to Pause App Store Fee Changes as Case Heads to Supreme Court
Apple’s attempt to pause its new App Store fee reforms was rejected by the Ninth Circuit, reinstating the requirement that developers may link to external payment options without Apple taking a commission. The court found Apple had not shown irreparable...
Earth AI Is Vertically Integrating the Search for Critical Minerals
Earth AI, a startup using artificial intelligence to locate critical minerals in Australia, is building its own laboratory facilities to process drill core samples. The move aims to shrink turnaround time from the industry‑standard two‑month backlog—now up to five months—to...
Otter’s New Feature Lets Users Search Across Their Enterprise Tools
Otter announced an enterprise search feature that lets users query data across Gmail, Google Drive, Notion, Jira and Salesforce from within the app. The AI assistant, now a persistent Model Context Protocol client, can answer context‑aware questions and push meeting...
Drizzle on Top: A New High-End Dog Food Brand Is Coming for the 1%
Golden Child, a new premium dog‑food brand co‑founded by former Hims & Hers executive Hillary Coles, announced its launch with a fresh frozen meal line and a novel $19.95 “drizzle” liquid topper. The company raised $37 million in seed and Series A...
Hacker Who Allegedly Carried Out Cyberattacks for China Is Extradited to US
The U.S. Justice Department has secured the extradition of Xu Zewei from Italy, accusing him of acting as a contractor for China’s Ministry of State Security. Prosecutors allege Xu participated in Hafnium‑linked attacks that stole COVID‑19 research from U.S. universities...
Investors Back Skye’s AI Home Screen App for iPhone Ahead of Launch
Skye, a pre‑launch iPhone app from Signull Labs, is building an “agentic homescreen” that embeds AI functionality into iOS widgets, delivering personalized weather, health and contextual recommendations. The startup has secured more than $3.58 million in pre‑seed funding, giving it a...
Data Center Demand Drives 66% Surge in Natural Gas Power Plant Costs
Tech giants Microsoft and Meta are increasingly building on‑site natural‑gas power plants to power data centers, but BloombergNEF shows construction costs have surged 66% to $2,157 per kilowatt since 2023. Build times have also lengthened by 23%, stretching projects into...
What’s Behind Europe’s Efforts to Ditch US Software in Favor of Sovereign Tech
European governments are accelerating a break with U.S. tech after the CLOUD Act exposed data‑access risks. France’s Health Data Hub has left Microsoft Azure for French‑owned Scaleway, while the European Commission awarded a €180 million (≈$211 million) sovereign‑cloud contract to four home‑grown...
The Stanford Freshmen Who Want to Rule the World . . . Will Probably Read This Book and Try Even...
Theo Baker, a Stanford senior, secured a book deal for *How to Rule the World*, an investigative look at the university’s startup‑centric culture. The excerpt in *The Atlantic* details how venture capitalists hand out pre‑idea funding worth hundreds of thousands...
To Buy This Bay Area Home, You’ll Need Anthropic Equity
Investment banker Storm Duncan is offering his 13‑acre Mill Valley estate, bought for $4.75 million, in exchange for equity in Anthropic, the generative‑AI startup. The private deal would let the buyer retain 20% of the upside on the shares throughout the...
SpeakOn’s Dictation Device Is a Good Idea Marred by Platform Limitations
TechCrunch reviewed SpeakOn, a $129 magnetic dictation pebble that attaches to an iPhone via MagSafe and works through an iOS‑only keyboard app. The device claims 10 hours of continuous dictation and 20‑day standby, but real‑world tests show limited microphone range (about...
The Climate Tech IPO Window Could Finally Be Cracking Open
Public markets are finally warming to climate‑tech firms, highlighted by nuclear startup X‑energy's $1 billion IPO that jumped 25% on debut and geothermal player Fervo filing for a listing at a $3 billion valuation. Investors see nuclear fission and enhanced geothermal as...
Meta’s Loss Is Thinking Machines’ Gain
Thinking Machines Lab (TML) has secured a multibillion‑dollar cloud partnership with Google, giving it early access to Nvidia's GB300 chips and placing it alongside Anthropic and Meta in the top AI infrastructure tier. The startup, now valued at roughly $12 billion,...
ComfyUI Hits $500M Valuation as Creators Seek More Control over AI-Generated Media
ComfyUI secured a $30 million Series A round, valuing the startup at $500 million, with Craft Ventures leading the investment. The node‑based interface lets creators fine‑tune diffusion model outputs for image, video, and audio, overcoming the imprecision of pure prompt‑driven tools. Originating as...
X Launches Stand-Alone XChat App on iOS
Elon Musk’s X has released XChat, a stand‑alone iOS messaging app that separates chat from the main X feed. The app supports text, file sharing, audio and video calls, group chats, and privacy features such as end‑to‑end encryption and screenshot...
Meta Will Now Allow Parents to See the Topics Their Child Discussed with Meta AI
Meta added an “Insights” tab to its parental‑supervision hub, letting parents see the topics their teen queried Meta AI about in the past week on Facebook, Messenger or Instagram. The dashboard groups questions into categories such as School, Entertainment, Lifestyle,...
India’s App Market Is Booming — but Global Platforms Are Capturing Most of the Gains
India’s mobile app market posted a record $300 million in in‑app purchase revenue in Q1, a 33% year‑over‑year rise. Non‑gaming apps drove most of the growth, delivering over $200 million and expanding 44% YoY, led by utilities, video streaming and generative AI....
Tesla Just Increased Its Spending Plan to $25B — Here’s Where the Money Is Going
Tesla announced a $25 billion capital‑expenditure plan for 2026, roughly three times its recent annual spend. The budget will fund AI compute infrastructure, chip design, battery production, and the scaling of its Optimus humanoid robot and robotaxi operations. Tesla entered the...
Elon Musk Admits Millions of Tesla Owners Need Upgrades for True ‘Full Self-Driving’
Elon Musk announced that Tesla’s current Hardware 3 vehicles will require a new computer and upgraded cameras to run future Full Self‑Driving (FSD) software that operates without driver supervision. The upgrade could be costly and logistically complex, prompting Tesla to consider...
NASA’s Artemis II Moon Mission Shows Space-to-Earth Laser Comms Can Scale
NASA’s Artemis II mission used a low‑cost laser communications terminal in Australia to receive 4K video and telemetry from lunar orbit at 260 Mbps. The Observable Space and Quantum Opus system cost under $5 million, far cheaper than traditional deep‑space radio solutions that...
Unauthorized Group Has Gained Access to Anthropic’s Exclusive Cyber Tool Mythos, Report Claims
Anthropic’s newly announced AI cybersecurity tool, Mythos, was reportedly accessed by an unauthorized group through a third‑party vendor. The breach was uncovered after members of a Discord channel posted screenshots and a live demo of the tool. Anthropic says no...
SpaceX Is Working with Cursor and Has an Option to Buy the Startup for $60B
SpaceX announced a partnership with Cursor to build a next‑generation coding and knowledge‑work AI, leveraging its Colossus supercomputer. The deal includes a $10 billion development payment option or a $60 billion acquisition right later this year. Cursor, valued at $29.3 billion after a...
AI Research Lab NeoCognition Lands $40M Seed to Build Agents that Learn Like Humans
NeoCognition, an Ohio State spin‑out, announced emergence from stealth with a $40 million seed round. The funding, co‑led by Cambium Capital and Walden Catalyst Ventures and backed by Vista Equity Partners and notable angels, will fuel development of self‑learning AI agents...
ChatGPT’s New Images 2.0 Model Is Surprisingly Good at Generating Text
OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Images 2.0, an image‑generation model that can accurately render small text and complex layouts, a long‑standing weakness of diffusion‑based generators. The system combines autoregressive techniques with “thinking” capabilities such as web search, multi‑image prompts, and double‑checking to produce...
The 12-Month Window
AI investors Sarah Guo and Elad Gil say most companies enjoy a roughly 12‑month peak‑value window before valuations tumble. They point to Lotus, AOL and Broadcast.com as firms that timed exits at the top and captured generational returns. Gil advises founders to...
The App Store Is Booming Again, and AI May Be Why
App releases surged in Q1 2026, with a 60% year‑over‑year increase across Apple’s App Store and Google Play and an 80% jump on iOS alone. April 2026 saw a 104% rise in total launches versus last year, driven by AI‑powered development tools that...
Gigs Turns Your Concert History Into a Personal Live Music Archive
Gigs, a new iOS 26 concert‑tracking app, uses Apple’s on‑device AI to turn tickets, photos and videos into a personal live‑music archive. Users can import data from tickets, emails, or CSV files and sync shows to calendars, Siri and Spotlight. The...
Chef Robotics Escaped the Robot Cooking Graveyard and Says It’s Thriving — Here’s Why
Chef Robotics announced it has processed 100 million robot‑deposited servings, marking a key milestone in its pivot from fast‑casual restaurant automation to large‑scale food manufacturing. The company now serves enterprise clients such as Amy’s Kitchen, Chef Bombay, and a major school‑lunch...
Google’s AI Mode Can Now Help You Find Products in Stock Nearby
Google is expanding AI Mode to let users locate in‑stock products at nearby stores and track prices for specific hotels. The store‑check feature enables the AI to call local retailers based on natural‑language requests, rolling out in the United States...
Netflix Plans to Add a Vertical Video Feed, Use AI for Recommendations
Netflix will launch a TikTok‑style vertical video feed within its apps this month, expanding its short‑form content offering. The streaming giant is also deepening AI use for recommendations, search and advertising, building on its ChatGPT‑powered search and a recent acquisition...
Wait, Could They Still Actually Break up Live Nation?
A federal jury found Live Nation operating as an illegal monopoly, opening the door to a possible breakup of the entertainment conglomerate and its Ticketmaster unit. The verdict follows a 2024 DOJ and 40-state antitrust lawsuit alleging the company stifles...
OpenAI Updates Its Agents SDK to Help Enterprises Build Safer, More Capable Agents
OpenAI has refreshed its Agents SDK with two major upgrades: sandboxing, which runs agents inside isolated computer environments, and an in‑distribution harness that lets agents tap frontier models while safely accessing files and approved tools. The sandbox limits an agent’s...
Hightouch Reaches $100M ARR Fueled by Marketing Tools Powered by AI
Hightouch, a seven‑year‑old startup, announced it has reached $100 million in annualized recurring revenue after launching an AI‑powered marketing content service in late 2024. The platform integrates directly with brand assets in tools like Figma and CMSs to generate on‑brand images and...
LinkedIn Data Shows AI Isn’t to Blame for Hiring Decline… Yet
LinkedIn’s economic graph, covering over a billion members, shows hiring fell roughly 20% since 2022. The decline aligns with recent Federal Reserve rate hikes that raised borrowing costs and slowed corporate recruitment. Lawit emphasized that AI has not yet produced...