TechCrunch Startup News

Novoloop’s upcycled plastic takes a step closer to production; and Knapsack picks up $10M to help bridge the gap between design and engineering teams

Novoloop’s upcycled plastic takes a step closer to production; and Knapsack picks up $10M to help bridge the gap between design and engineering teams

Base Power raises $1B to deploy home batteries everywhere

Trump’s DOE proposes cutting billions in grants for GM, Ford, and lots of startups

One startup’s paper-thin stainless steel could change how bridges are built

Alternative app store AltStore raises $6M, connects with the fediverse; also, ÄIO invented a method to make edible fat from ag waste like sawdust

A 19-year-old nabs backing from Google execs for his AI memory startup, Supermemory

Heidi Health raises $65M Series B; also, Sugar Free Capital raises $32M inaugural fund

Event startup Partiful wasn’t stripping GPS locations from user-uploaded photos; plus, If you’re not an AI startup, good luck raising money from VCs

A new search engine raises $1.1M to let obsessive fans dive down internet rabbit holes; also, New deep tech fund Wave Function Ventures raises $15 million

How startups could be affected by a prolonged government shutdown, plus Oneleet raises $33M to shake up the world of security compliance

Kevin Hart’s VC firm led $35M Series B for weight-loss app Simple, also, Electroflow promises to make LFP material for 40% less than Chinese producers

Composite gets backing from NFDG for its cross-browser agent tool

Former OpenAI and DeepMind researchers raise whopping $300M seed to automate science, plus, Whoop opens blood-testing service to what it says is a 350,000-person waitlist

CommanderAI building Salesforce for the waste management industry, also, a year after filing to IPO, still-private Cerebras Systems raises $1.1B

Vibe-coding startup Anything nabs a $100M valuation after hitting $2M ARR in its first two weeks; also, AI recruiter Alex raises $17M to automate initial job interviews

The startup behind open source tool Polars raises $21M from Accel; plus, ComplexChaos thinks AI can help people find common ground

Paid, the AI agent ‘results-based billing’ startup, raised huge $21M seed; former Microsoft execs launch AI agents to end Excel-led finance

Steph Curry’s VC firm just backed an AI startup that wants to fix food supply chains, also Doorstep raises $8M seed to help find missing food deliveries

Starpath bets on mass-produced, space-rated solar

Nothing to spin off its affordable CMF brand; plus Y Combinator's ‘Early Decision’ is for students who want to graduate first, build later

Cohere hits $7B valuation a month after its last raise, partners with AMD; plus, Waymo is getting into the corporate travel business

Telo raises $20 million to build tiny electric trucks for cities; also, Sila opens U.S. factory to make silicon anodes for energy dense EV batteries

Tim Chen has quietly become of one the most sought-after solo investors; and AI company Superpanel raises $5.3M seed to automate legal intake

Bluesky says it’s getting more aggressive about moderation and enforcement, also, Oura ring maker raising $875M Series E

Nvidia eyes $500M investment into self-driving tech startup Wayve, also, UK fintech Tide becomes a TPG-backed unicorn

Indian fintech Jar turns profitable by enabling millions to save in gold

How AI startups are fueling Google’s booming cloud business, also, Numeral raises $35M to automate sales tax with AI

Airbuds is the music social network Apple and Spotify wish they had built

Google Ventures doubles down on dev tool startup Blacksmith just 4 months after its seed round; also, Icarus raises $6.1M to take on space’s “warehouse work” with embodied-AI robots

Same-day delivery comes to space, as Impulse promises satellite transport in hours, not months, and more

MicroFactory built a tabletop manufacturing kit the size of a s dog crate; also, Nothing closes $200M Series C led by Tiger Global

Robinhood plans to launch a startups fund open to all retail investors

Harvard Law to AI: MarqVision lands $48M to combat brand abuse ... and OpenAI's board chair says we’re in an AI bubble (but that’s okay)

Hike, once a unicorn, shuts down as India cracks down on real-money gaming

We are entering a golden age of robotics startups — and not just because of AI

The music industry is broken: OpenWav’s new app aims to change that

While US stalls, Australia and Anduril move to put XL undersea vehicle into service, plus Perplexity reportedly raised $200M

Arc gets its first major order for electric tugboats worth $160M, also Klarna’s IPO pops, raising $1.4B

AI gaming startup Born raises $15M to build ‘social’ AI companions that combat loneliness, plus another app just raised $14M to take on the loneliness epidemic

Why SpaceX made a $17B bet on the direct-to-cell market, also Ramp says it has hit $1B in annualized revenue

Nuclearn gets $10.5M to help the nuclear industry embrace AI, plus ReOrbit lands record funding to take on Musk’s Starlink from Europe

Nuclear startup Deep Fission goes public in a curious SPAC, Space DOTS raises $1.5M, and Cognition AI defied turbulence with a $400M raise at $10.2B valuation

Why is an Amazon-backed AI startup making Orson Welles fan fiction?

Koah raises $5M to bring ads into AI apps

Natron’s liquidation shows why the US isn’t ready to make its own batteries and more tech news

AI logistics startup Augment raised massive $85M Series A; plus Mark Zuckerberg sues Mark Zuckerberg

Atlassian to buy Arc developer The Browser Company for $610M; also, Madrid’s Orbital Paradigm aims to prove a cheaper path to orbital reentry

Orchard Robotics raises $22M for farm vision AI; also, Mistral on the cusp of securing a $14B valuation

Advanced geothermal startups are getting warmed up and Fizz expands into grocery delivery

Anthropic raises $13B Series F at $183 billion valuation, also OpenAI acquires product testing startup Statsig