Electric trucking startup Nikola is hoping to sell what remains of its whole business as early as April, lawyers for the company told a judge Thursday during the first hearing of its bankruptcy case in Delaware. The lawyers claimed Nikola already has at least three interested buyers (who they did not name) and that the … Read more
A bug in the Android and iPhone monitoring operations allows anyone to access private data exfiltrated from a victim’s device. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Meta announced on Thursday that it’s now accepting sign-ups for its Community Notes program on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. The announcement follows Meta news last month that it’s going to end its third-party fact-checking program and is instead moving to a Community Notes model similar to the one at X. In a blog post, Meta … Read more
Road rage has been around for a while. A newer phenomenon that’s cropping up is EV charging rage — the feeling when a fellow EV owner cuts the line to grab one of the only working charge ports. It’s common enough that people posted altercations between EV drivers on social media and forums. In at … Read more
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Fifteen years ago, I started writing about a little EV startup that was trying to survive even as others failed in the clean tech boom-and-bust cycle. Back … Read more
On a cool morning last November, 800 people gathered before sunrise in a South Burlington hangar to witness the maiden flight of Beta Technologies’ first electric aircraft to be built on its new scaled production line. Kyle Clark, Beta’s enigmatic founder and CEO, piloted the Alia CX300 — one of the startup’s two aircraft models … Read more
The Federal Trade Commission announced on Thursday that it will launch a public inquiry into “censorship by tech platforms,” soliciting comments from people who feel they have been demonetized, banned, or otherwise censored due to their speech or affiliations. “Tech firms should not be bullying their users,” said FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson in a statement. … Read more
Amazon Chime, the tech giant’s underwhelming alternative to Zoom and Google Meet, is shutting down for good. The company on Wednesday confirmed it will end support for Chime, including its Business Calling features, on February 20, 2026. As part of this transition, Amazon stopped accepting new Chime accounts as of February 19, 2025. From now … Read more
Apple has brought the iPhone 16e to offer a more affordable option within the iPhone 16 lineup, targeting emerging markets including India. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Afore Capital, a firm that claims to be the largest dedicated pre-seed investor, was founded on the idea that the first check into a new startup should be larger than what most accelerators and early-stage investors were offering. When Afore raised its third $150 million fund in 2022, the firm wrote checks ranging from $1 … Read more
Hours after the acquisition was announced, several Humane employees received job offers. Others were not so lucky. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Cherryrock Capital, founded by ex-TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot, announced Wednesday the closing of its $172 million Fund I with an all-star limited partner list that includes JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, MassMutual, Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Reid Hoffman, Mellody Hobson, and Sheryl Sandberg. Brown-Philpot told Bloomberg that the fund actually closed in January. The firm launched … Read more
Figure founder and CEO Brett Adcock Thursday revealed a new machine learning model for humanoid robots. The news, which arrives two weeks after Adcock announced the Bay Area robotics firm’s decision to step away from an OpenAI collaboration, is centered around Helix, a “generalist” Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model. VLAs are a new phenomenon for robotics, leveraging … Read more
Instagram is introducing a new way for creators to work with brands to make money by recommending products. On Thursday, Meta introduced an addition to its Partnership Ads called Testimonials, which allows creators to get paid via written endorsements, shared as comments on the brand’s social media posts and advertisements. The new ad format is … Read more
On Thursday, Spotify announced that it now accepts audiobooks narrated using ElevenLabs’ AI voice technology. Given that ElevenLabs is currently among the most recognized AI audio providers, this new partnership is expected to boost the quantity of AI-narrated audiobooks on the platform. To upload an audiobook narrated by AI, authors need to download the file … Read more
The California agency said National Public Data failed to register in the state as a data broker. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
As TikTok’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain, Substack tries to lure creators to its platform by doubling down on video. The company announced on Wednesday that it’s now allowing creators to monetize their videos on the platform, and letting them publish video posts directly from the Substack app. Previously, creators have been able to … Read more
The AI observability platform has raised $70 million in Series C funding. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Twitch on Wednesday announced it will begin limiting streamers to 100 hours of highlights and uploads, and will delete content if a channel exceeds the limit. The company said it’s introducing the change because highlights haven’t been effective in driving discovery or engagement, and because storage is costly. The storage cap goes into effect on … Read more
OpenAI is increasingly looking like a consumer company, telling CNBC that it now has 400 million weekly active users. Usage is still growing at a rapid pace as the AI developer behind the AI chatbot, ChatGPT, “only” had 300 million users in December 2024. Though OpenAI has not revealed the number of paid customers with … Read more
The prolific Medusa ransomware group claims to have stolen troves of data from HCRG, including patients’ sensitive health data © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Mercor, the AI recruiting startup founded by three 21-year-old Thiel Fellows, has raised $100 million in a Series B round, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Menlo Park-based Felicis led the round, valuing Mercor at $2 billion—eight times its previous valuation, the Wall Street Journal previously reported. Existing investors Benchmark, General Catalyst, and DST Global also … Read more
Three founders who built out one of the bigger startups in risk management are scaling a new company to take on another pain point in the world of work. SmartSuite‘s platform lets teams collaborate on projects, build automations around that work, and search and access work across larger libraries of data spanning a disparate number … Read more
Amazon will discontinue its app store for Android on August 20 this year. The company sent a notice to developers indicating that they will no longer be able to submit new apps to the store. The company said on a support page that it will also discontinue its Coins digital currency, which could be used … Read more
Companies developing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) have raised more than $1.5 billion in the past year, as tech companies hunger for power to train AI models and governments decide to commit to the industry. For example, X-energy raised $700 million this month, and Paris-based Newcleo raised $151 million last year, and one would be … Read more
As payment companies increasingly explore stablecoins for cross-border payments and real-time settlement, some startups are tapping into the zeitgeist by providing liquidity via a revolving line of credit in stablecoins. One of them is Dubai-based but Africa-focused Mansa, whose offering allows payments companies to settle transactions and fund customer accounts instantly. The startup has raised … Read more
Recalls in the food and beverage industry due to contamination incidents can have catastrophic effects. Not only do companies have to pay fines and damages, but the impacts on the brand’s reputation can be long-lasting. That’s why Spore.Bio, a Paris-based deeptech startup, is trying to reinvent microbiology testing to avoid the next PR crisis in … Read more
Codeium, an AI-powered coding startup, is raising a new round of funding at a $2.85 billion valuation, including fresh capital, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. The round is being led by a returning investor Kleiner Perkins, the people said. The new round comes just six months after Silicon Valley-based Codeium announced … Read more
Patreon has continued on its crusade against algorithmic feeds with its latest State of Create report, a look at trends in the creator economy based on internal data, and it’s an effort creators can get behind. In its survey of 1,000 creators and 2,000 fans, the membership platform reported that 53% of creators think it … Read more
Austin-based defense startup Saronic has raised a $600 million Series C to build an autonomous ship factory called “Port Alpha,” it announced. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.