TechCrunch

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Mind Robotics, an industrial robotics lab spun out of the electric vehicle maker Rivian, has raised $500 million in a Series A funding round co-led by venture firms Accel and Andreessen Horowitz. The financing, announced Wednesday, follows a $115 million seed round that was led by Eclipse in late 20

EV startup Harbinger reveals a smaller work truck with electric and hybrid variants

Los Angeles-based EV startup Harbinger has revealed its second vehicle: a smaller, medium-duty work truck. Called the HC Series Cab, the new truck will be available as an all-electric vehicle, or as a hybrid (the latter has up to 500 miles of range). The company says the vehicle features easy entry

Meta didn’t buy Moltbook for bots — it bought into the agentic web

When news broke Tuesday morning that Meta bought Moltbook, the social network for AI agents, it may have left some people scratching their heads. What on earth would Meta — an ad-supported company — want with a social network where the users are bots? Bots, after all, are not the target audience of

WhatsApp is launching parent-linked accounts for pre-teens

WhatsApp launched a new set of parent-supervised accounts for users under the age of 13 on Wednesday. The company said that these accounts will only have access to messaging and calling, and won’t be targeted with any ads. While the company rates its apps 13+ on both the App Store and Play Store, ma

Amazon expands a program that lets customers shop from other retailers’ sites

Amazon is expanding access to a program called Shop Direct that lets U.S. customers discover and buy products not sold in its own online store. The retail giant on Wednesday said it will now support third-party product feeds, which merchants use to provide information about their inventory, pricing

Meta rolls out new scam detection tools to Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger

Meta announced on Wednesday that it’s bringing more scam detection tools to Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger. The tech giant says the new features are designed to alert users before they engage with something suspicious, noting that scammers try to avoid detection and may not immediately use accoun

Lucid Motors ships Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to Gravity SUV owners

3 hours ago

Lucid Motors will ship a software update to North American owners of its Gravity SUV on Thursday that will enable Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, the company announced Wednesday morning. Owners in Europe and the Middle East will receive the update in “late March.” The phone-mirroring features have

Canopii looks to succeed where past indoor farms have not

3 hours ago

David Ashton grew up outside of Sacramento, California, and went to college in San Luis Obispo during the historic drought of the late 2000s. He spent years driving the 300-mile stretch between Sacramento and San Luis Obispo, enthralled by the never-ending lettuce farms, acres of leafy green plants

Former Apple engineer raises $5M for a note-taking pendant that only records your voice

3 hours ago

Transcription and note-taking has emerged as one of the prime use cases for wearable gadgets as AI models advance voice-to-text tech. We’re even seeing some differentiation, with startups like Plaud and Pocket specializing on products that can record and summarize meetings. Others like Friend, Omi,

TikTok now lets Apple Music subscribers play full songs without leaving the app

4 hours ago

TikTok has partnered with Apple Music to allow subscribers of the streaming service play full songs without leaving its social network, the company announced on Wednesday. Apple Music subscribers who discover a song they like on their TikTok “For You” page or Sound Detail Page can tap the new “Play

Google wraps up $32B acquisition of cloud cybersecurity startup Wiz

4 hours ago

Google has officially acquired Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion in cash, a full year after the companies announced the deal. This marks Google’s biggest acquisition in its history. Wiz provides a security platform that protects major cloud environments by preventing and responding to c

Zoox plans to put its robotaxis on the Uber app in Vegas this year

5 hours ago

Amazon-owned Zoox plans to make its robotaxis available to hail on the Uber app in Las Vegas later this year, the two companies announced Wednesday. Before that happens, though, Zoox still needs approval from the federal government to commercially deploy its robotaxis, which don’t have a steering wh

Health insurance startup Alan reaches €5B valuation

7 hours ago

30% of European unicorns may have lost their billion-dollar status, but not Alan. The French health insurance startup is now valued at €5 billion — approximately $5.83 billion, up from $4.5 billion in 2024. Created in 2016, Alan has grown into a team of 740 people serving one million employees, free

Anduril snaps up space surveillance firm ExoAnalytic Solutions

10 hours ago

The first step to fighting a war in space is knowing what’s happening tens of thousands of miles above the planet. Toward that end, defense tech darling Anduril is buying boutique data firm ExoAnalytic Solutions. ExoAnalytic operates a network of 400 telescopes around the world, which it uses to tra

Google brings Gemini in Chrome to India

14 hours ago

Google announced Wednesday that it is bringing Gemini integration for Chrome to new regions, including India, Canada, and New Zealand. The rollout will let users use Gemini in Chrome through a sidebar on desktop, enabling them to ask Google’s AI chatbot questions about the content on the screen, get

In a vote of confidence for Meta’s Threads, Kalshi adds sharing feature

18 hours ago

Prediction market Kalshi is making it easier for its users to have conversations on Meta’s social network Threads. Kalshi now offers a share option that will automatically embed the relevant prediction market chart into a Threads post. Whether people want to discuss who’s going to win Best Picture o

Google and Tesla think we’re managing the electrical grid all wrong

20 hours ago

Google, Tesla, and data center developer Verrus are among a group of companies arguing that the electrical grid is being underutilized and they want everyone — especially politicians — to know about it. The three companies along with HVAC giant Carrier, virtual power plant company Renew Home, distri

Amazon launches its healthcare AI assistant on its website and app

21 hours ago

Amazon announced on Tuesday that it’s expanding access to its healthcare AI assistant to its website and app. The assistant, called Health AI, was previously only available on the app for One Medical, the healthcare company Amazon acquired for $3.9 billion in 2023. Health AI can answer questions, ex

DOGE employee stole Social Security data and put it on a thumb drive, report says

21 hours ago

A former employee of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly stole Americans’ personal data from the U.S. Social Security Administration and stored it on a thumb drive, according to a whistleblower complaint reported by The Washington Post. The former DOGE software engineer told c

‘Pokémon Pokopia’ is a game about rehabilitating a broken world — and I love it

21 hours ago

On Friday night, my boyfriend and I sat on the couch for a refreshing evening of doing nothing together. We tuned into a baseball game, he picked up my guitar, and I eagerly booted up “Pokémon Pokopia,” the 30-year-old franchise’s new cozy life simulator game, which is unlike anything we’ve seen fro

YouTube surpasses Disney, Paramount, WBD in 2025 ad revenue

YouTube has hit some impressive numbers in 2025. According to new estimates from research firm Moffett Nathanson — as reported by The Hollywood Reporter — the platform pulled in a staggering $40.4 billion in ad revenue, which is more than Disney, NBC, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD’s)

AI-powered apps struggle with long-term retention, new report shows

With the top app stores flooded with AI apps, developers may think the best bet for turning a profit is to integrate artificial intelligence technology into their own products. However, a new study focused on the subscription app ecosystem across iOS, Android, and web is calling that assumption into

AI-powered apps struggle with long-term retention, new report shows

Mandiant’s founder just raised $190M for his autonomous AI agent security startup

Kevin Mandia, who founded the cybersecurity startup Mandiant in 2004 and sold it to Google for $5.4 billion in 2022, has launched a new AI-native cybersecurity startup with what the company claims is a record-breaking funding round. The new outfit, called Armadin, has raised $189.9 million in combin

ChatGPT can now create interactive visuals to help you understand math and science concepts