US government sanctions tech company involved in cyber scams
The Treasury said FUNNULL was involved in providing infrastructure for pig butchering crypto scams.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/29/us-government-sanctions-tech-company-involved-in-cyber-scams/
DeepSeek’s updated R1 AI model is more censored, test finds
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s newest AI model, an updated version of the company’s R1 reasoning model, achieves impressive scores on benchmarks for coding, math, and general knowledge, nearly surpassing OpenAI’s flagship o3. But the upgraded R1, also known as “R1-0528,” might also be less willing to answer contentious questions, in particular questions about topics the […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/29/deepseeks-updated-r1-ai-model-is-more-censored-test-finds/
Buildots raises $45M to help companies track construction progress
In the construction industry, managers can easily become disconnected from what’s happening on-site. Among the many tasks to juggle are staying apprised of costs, communicating with all stakeholders, and assessing risk related to aspects like contractor billing and performance. Buildots wants to change all of that through AI and computer vision. Founded in 2018 by […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/29/buildots-raises-45m-to-help-companies-track-construction-progress/
Meet LoveJack, the dating app designed for users to find love using just five words
As Kevin Malone from “The Office” once said, “Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?” For Julia LeStage and Lisa Le, the creators of a new dating app called LoveJack, finding love online doesn’t have to feel like filling out a mountain of paperwork. Sometimes, all you need are a few […]
Karat Financial is bringing business banking to creators
Karat Financial, the company known for its credit cards for creators, is launching a creator-focused business banking product. Powered by digital bank Grasshopper, Karat’s banking product is a natural extension of its credit card offering with Visa. “Six years in, the problem we’re solving is still the same,” co-founder and co-CEO Eric Wei told TechCrunch. […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/28/karat-financial-is-bringing-business-banking-to-creators/
Anthropic launches a voice mode for Claude
Anthropic has begun to roll out a “voice mode” for its Claude chatbot apps. The voice mode allows Claude mobile app users to have “complete spoken conversations with Claude,” and will arrive in English over the next few weeks, according to Anthropic’s official account on X and updated documentation on the company’s website. At least […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/27/anthropic-launches-a-voice-mode-for-claude/
Report: TuSimple sent sensitive self-driving data to China after US national security agreement
Self-driving truck startup TuSimple sent a trove of sensitive data to a Beijing-owned firm after committing to the U.S. government that it would cease such transfers under a national security agreement
Week in Review: Notorious hacking group tied to the Spanish government
Welcome back to Week in Review! Tons of news from this week for you, including a hacking group that’s linked to the Spanish government; CEOs using AI avatars to deliver company earnings; Pocket shutting down — or is it?; and much more. Let’s get to it! More than 10 years in the making: Kaspersky first […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/24/notorious-hacking-group-tied-to-the-spanish-government/
Startups Weekly: Cutting through Google I/O noise
Google I/O didn't stop startups from taking their chances and announcing some big deals this week.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/23/startups-weekly-cutting-through-google-i-o-noise/
Microsoft says its Aurora AI can accurately predict air quality, typhoons, and more
One of Microsoft’s latest AI models can accurately predict air quality, hurricanes, typhoons, and other weather-related phenomena, the company claims. In a paper published in the journal Nature and an accompanying blog post this week, Microsoft detailed Aurora, which the tech giant says can forecast atmospheric events with greater precision and speed than traditional meteorological […]
California prepares to sue feds after Senate revokes the state’s EV rule
The state was to require increasing sales of zero-emissions cars and passenger trucks starting in 2026.
RevenueCat raises $50M as it expands beyond mobile app monetization
Key to the company's growth are the next products RevenueCat has on its roadmap, the company's founder says.
Field raises $17M to automate the drudgery of tax prep
There is a new accounting software in town, coming in with a fresh $17.2 million raise and a desire to shake things up. The company, Field, hopes to automate the grunt work. “The tax industry is facing a genuine crisis,” Leroy Kerry, Field’s co-founder CEO, told TechCrunch. Many CPAs are approaching retirement while a dwindling […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/21/field-raises-17m-to-automate-the-drudgery-of-tax-prep/
Meta launches program to encourage startups to use its Llama AI models
Meta is launching a new program to incentivize startups to adopt its Llama AI models. The program, Llama for Startups, provides companies “direct support” from Meta’s Llama team, as well as funding in certain cases. Any U.S.-based firm that is incorporated, has raised less than $10 million in funding, has at least one developer on […]
Trump administration may sell deep-sea mining leases at startup’s urging
Impossible Metals, a deep-sea mining startup, submitted a formal request to the Department of the Interior to sell leases to mine the ocean floor.
US student agrees to plead guilty to hack affecting tens of millions of students
Prosecutors say the hacker stole information on 60 million students, an incident that matches the data breach at PowerSchool.
Uber Freight bets big on AI tools to grow its business
Three years ago, as the pandemic caused chaos for companies big and small, Colgate-Palmolive’s chief supply chain officer Luciano Sieber orchestrated a “logistics blitz.” The result gave Sieber a better understanding of how Colgate-Palmolive moves its products around the world. But it stuck Sieber with another problem: too much data. About a year ago, Sieber […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/21/uber-freight-bets-big-on-ai-tools-to-grow-its-business/
Twelve Labs CEO Jae Lee is coming to TechCrunch Sessions: AI
When you claim to have the world’s most powerful video intelligence platform, you probably know a thing or two about foundational models. We’re pleased to announce that Twelve Labs’ CEO, Jae Lee, will be joining us on the main stage at TechCrunch Sessions: AI, happening June 5th at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. One of the […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/20/twelve-labs-ceo-jae-lee-is-coming-to-techcrunch-sessions-ai/
Amazon’s Zoox to start testing AVs in Atlanta, following Waymo
Amazon’s autonomous vehicle unit Zoox is about to start mapping and gathering data in Atlanta, Georgia, a precursor to testing its self-driving vehicles and eventually offering public rides in the city. Atlanta will become the seventh city in the U.S. where Zoox is testing its vehicles. The company announced its testing plans just one day […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/20/amazons-zoox-to-start-testing-avs-in-atlanta-following-waymo/
SparkCharge raises $30M to help fleets electrify without commitments
SparkCharge raised $15.5 million in equity and secured a $15 million loan to expand its fleet charging operations.
Affiniti’s 20- and 22-year-old founders raise $17M led by SignalFire just 6 months after an $11M seed
Affiniti founders Aaron Bai and Sahil Phadnis are building the kind of expense management software for main street small businesses that tech startups have enjoyed for years.
AMD strikes a deal to sell ZT Systems’ server-manufacturing business for $3B
Semiconductor giant AMD followed through with its plan to spin out ZT Systems’ server-manufacturing business. AMD announced on Monday that it was selling ZT Systems’ server-manufacturing business to electronic manufacturing services company Sanmina. The $3 billion deal is a mix of cash and stock: $2.25 billion in cash, a $300 million premium including 50% cash […]
AI dev tools for Windows get a fresh coat of paint
Microsoft wants to make it easier for developers to build AI-powered apps on Windows devices. On Monday during its Build 2025 conference, Microsoft announced Windows AI Foundry, a rebranding and expansion of the Windows Copilot Runtime service the company launched last May. Microsoft describes Windows AI Foundry as a “unified platform for local AI development” — […]
TechCrunch Week in Review: Coinbase gets hacked
Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got tons of news for you this week, including a hack at Coinbase; YC thinks Google is a ‘monopolist’; layoffs at Microsoft; and much more. Have a great weekend! Uh-oh: Coinbase says that customers’ personal information, including government-issued IDs, was stolen in a data breach. The hackers demanded […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/17/techcrunch-week-in-review-coinbase-gets-hacked/
xAI blames Grok’s obsession with white genocide on an ‘unauthorized modification’
xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” for a bug in its AI-powered Grok chatbot that caused Grok to repeatedly refer to “white genocide in South Africa” when invoked in certain contexts on X. On Wednesday, Grok began replying to dozens of posts on X with information about white genocide in South Africa, even in response to […]
Sprinter Health raises $55M to expand its at-home healthcare service
The Series B was led by General Catalyst, with Andreessen Horowitz, Regents of the University of California, Google Ventures, and Accel also investing.
Radiologists aren’t going anywhere
Nine years ago, AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton sent shockwaves through medicine by declaring it “just completely obvious” that AI would make radiologists extinct in short order. Fast forward and the specialists — who do more than analyze images — are thriving, observes The New York Times. In fact, the field is experiencing explosive growth amid […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/14/radiologists-arent-going-anywhere/
SoundCloud backtracks on AI-related terms of use updates
SoundCloud says it’s revising its terms after widespread backlash over a clause related to AI model training. Earlier this year, SoundCloud quietly updated its usage policies, adding wording that many users interpreted as legal cover to allow the company to train AI on audio uploaded to its platform. SoundCloud was quick to assert that it wasn’t […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/14/soundcloud-backtracks-on-ai-related-terms-of-use-updates/
Max to be renamed HBO Max. The name change nobody wanted
Two years after Warner Bros. Discovery rebranded its streaming service Max, the company is reverting back to its old name. The company announced the good news at its Upfront presentation on Wednesday. This story is developing
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/14/max-to-be-renamed-hbo-max-the-name-change-nobody-wanted/
TensorWave raises $100M to grow its AMD-powered cloud infrastructure
TensorWave, a data center provider building facilities primarily with AMD hardware, has raised $100 million as it seeks to further build out its data center infrastructure. The funding round was led by Magnetar and AMD Ventures, and brings the company’s total capital raised to $146.7 million, according to Crunchbase. Maverick Silicon, Nexus Venture Partners and […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/14/tensorwave-raises-100m-for-its-amd-powered-ai-cloud/
Y Combinator says Google is a ‘monopolist’ that has ‘stunted’ the startup ecosystem
Fabled startup investor and accelerator Y Combinator has some choice words for Google in an amicus brief it just submitted in the U.S.’s monopoly case against the search giant. In the brief, YC charged that Google is a “monopolist” that has “stunted” the U.S. startup ecosystem by making VC firms like itself hesitate to fund […]
UP.Labs-Porsche’s newest startup wants to be the Plaid of automotive retail
As serial entrepreneur Joel Milne founded, scaled, and then successfully sold mobile auto repair service startup RepairSmith to AutoNation, he was plagued by a persistent problem. The automotive retail industry has a communication problem. And it’s an expensive one. Thousands of dealerships and mechanic shops — each one with an array of software systems — […]
Google announces 1B+ RCS messages sent in the U.S. daily
During the Android Show leading up to Google I/O, Google on Tuesday offered a brief update on the adoption of the RCS (Rich Communication Services) protocol, an upgrade to SMS that offers high-resolution photos and videos, typing indicators, read receipts, improved group chat, and more. The company shared that the messaging standard now supports over […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/13/google-announces-1b-rcs-messages-sent-in-the-u-s-daily/
Aurora co-founder Sterling Anderson is leaving the self-driving truck startup
Sterling Anderson, a veteran of the nascent autonomous vehicle sector and co-founder of Aurora, is resigning just a week after the company launched its commercial self-driving truck service in Texas. Anderson held the chief product officer position at Aurora. The resignation was posted in a regulatory filing along with the company’s first-quarter earnings report. His […]
The web series is back – only this time, they’re TikToks
“Day 25 of starting over my whole entire life,” Raegan Lynch narrates over a short video. “Right now, I’m wandering around the city I just moved to, in a country I’d never seen, all by myself after my relationship ended, and I had to leave my old life behind.” It’s a pretty enticing hook, which […]
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/07/the-web-series-is-back-only-this-time-theyre-tiktoks/
Tesla sales continue to slump across Europe despite April EV sales swell
Tesla’s new car sales in Spain fell 36% in April to just 571 vehicles year-over-year, Reuters reports. That slump comes as sales of electric cars made by other brands rose in the Iberian country. Tesla sales in Spain mirror those in Europe generally, which plunged in the first four months of the year by 37.2%, […]
Apple and Anthropic reportedly partner to build an AI coding platform
Apple and Anthropic are teaming up to build a “vibe-coding” software platform that will use generative AI to write, edit, and test code for programmers, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The iPhone maker is planning to roll out the software internally, according to Bloomberg, but hasn’t decided if it will launch it publicly. The system is […]
Fivetran acquires Census to become end-to-end data movement platform
After nearly 13 years in business, Fivetran will now be able to offer its customers an end-to-end data movement solution. Fivetran, which helps enterprises move data from a variety of sources into cloud databases, announced on Thursday it has acquired Census, a reverse extract, transform, and load (ETL) platform that enables companies to transfer data […]
From tech pioneers to ‘extremists’: Belarusian founders face exile and statelessness
In 2013, Tatyana Marynich and Anastasiya Khamiankova opened the doors to Imaguru, a startup hub in Minsk, Belarus that would go on to launch some of Eastern Europe’s most prominent tech success stories. A decade later, they’ve been sentenced ‘in absentia’ to a combined 23 years in prison by Belarusian authorities. Their property has been […]
Hoofprint Biome boosts cow nutrition while slashing methane burps
The startup's enzymes modify a cow’s microbiome using enzymes, slashing methane while boosting the nutrients available to the cow.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/29/hoofprint-biome-boosts-cow-nutrition-while-slashing-methane-burps/