News

  • Databricks closes $15.3B financing at $62B valuation, Meta joins as ‘strategic investor’
    by Paul Sawers on January 22, 2025 at 2:39 pm

    Data analytics platform Databricks has confirmed that it has closed a previously announced $10 billion in Series J equity financing at a $62 billion valuation. The San Francisco-based company also added a further $5.25 billion in debt financing, funded by JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, among other “leading financial institutions and alternative […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • What PowerSchool isn’t saying about its ‘massive’ student data breach
    by Carly Page on January 22, 2025 at 2:20 pm

    The hack has the potential to be one of the biggest of the year, but the edtech giant is refusing to answer important questions © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • Postman launches an AI agent builder on top of its API platform
    by Frederic Lardinois on January 22, 2025 at 2:00 pm

    Since it was founded in 2014, India-based Postman has made a name for itself as one of the most popular platforms for building and using APIs, with 500,000 organizations now using the service. Like with so many other SaaS services, though, its valuation today is reportedly down from its $5.6 billion high in 2021. But […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • Ramp encroaches into digital bank territory with new treasury product
    by Mary Ann Azevedo on January 22, 2025 at 2:00 pm

    Over the years, Ramp has built a name for itself in the corporate card and expense management space. It’s branched out into travel, bill pay, and more, while raising over $1.2 billion in venture funding. Today, the six-year-old fintech startup is announcing a different kind of expansion — one that takes it into more of […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • Sales knowledge automation platform 1up gets a third of its customer leads from memes
    by Rebecca Szkutak on January 22, 2025 at 1:00 pm

    When George Avetisov was the founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup HYPR, he spent a lot of time in the trenches with the company’s sales team. He quickly realized that regardless of how good his sales team was, they were consistently pulling in other departments to answer customer questions or fill out technical questionnaires. “They […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • Doti gives enterprises a flexible AI-powered search experience to unlock their data silos
    by Frederic Lardinois on January 22, 2025 at 1:00 pm

    As enterprises look at how they can best leverage AI to increase their employees’ productivity, search is an obvious use case. In most companies, after all, data lives in multiple disconnected silos and the combination of large language models, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and enterprise-grade integration services now makes it easier than ever to not […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • Lindus Health raises $55M to ‘fix the broken clinical trial industry’
    by Paul Sawers on January 22, 2025 at 12:00 pm

    A four-year-old London startup backed by Peter Thiel has raised a $55 million Series B round as it sets about “fixing the broken clinical trial industry.” The announcement comes as artificial intelligence is shaping up to revolutionize drug discovery and development, in turn spurring demand for a streamlined clinical trial process to help get new […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • Google hit with $12.6M fine in Indonesia for monopolistic practices in payment system
    by Kate Park on January 22, 2025 at 10:29 am

    Indonesia’s antitrust agency KPPU fined Google 202.5 billion Rupiahs, equivalent to $12.6 million, on Wednesday for antitrust violation related to its payment system services for the Google Play Store. The KPPU ordered the search giant to cease the mandatory use of Google Play Billing in the Google Play Store. It also asked Google to let […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • Hindustan Unilever to acquire Peak XV-backed Minimalist for over $340M
    by Manish Singh on January 22, 2025 at 10:29 am

    Hindustan Unilever has agreed to acquire beauty startup Minimalist for about $342 million, as the consumer goods giant seeks to expand in India’s fast-growing premium skincare market. Hindustan Unilever will initially acquire a 90.5% stake in the direct-to-consumer brand through secondary buyouts and primary investment, with the remaining 9.5% to be purchased from founders in […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • UK appoints ex-Amazon executive Doug Gurr as interim chair of antitrust body
    by Paul Sawers on January 22, 2025 at 10:10 am

    The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has a new interim chairman: former Amazon executive Doug Gurr (pictured above). The announcement comes as the U.K. seeks to position itself as a pro-growth, pro-tech nation by cutting red-tape and bureaucracy, with artificial intelligence (AI) taking center stage. The country is also nearing the end of a […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. […]

  • Europe accelerates AI drug discovery as DeepMind spinoff targets trials this year
    by Siôn Geschwindt on January 21, 2025 at 3:48 pm

    Google DeepMind spinoff Isomorphic Labs expects testing on its first AI-designed drugs to begin this year, as tech startups race to turn algorithmic magic into actual treatments. “We’ll hopefully have some AI-designed drugs in clinical trials by the end of the year,” the firm’s Nobel Prize-winning CEO Demis Hassabis told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. “That’s the plan.”   The potential of AI-powered drug discovery is huge. Instead of spending years or even decades testing chemicals by hand, machine learning algorithms can sift through mountains of data to spot patterns and predict which molecules could…This story continues at The Next Web […]

  • AI startup Sereact lands €25M to give dumb robots better brains
    by Siôn Geschwindt on January 20, 2025 at 10:57 am

    Stuttgart, Germany-based Sereact has secured €25mn to advance its embodied AI software that enables robots to carry out tasks they were never trained to do.  “With our technology, robots act situationally rather than following rigidly programmed sequences. They adapt to dynamic tasks in real-time, enabling an unprecedented level of autonomy,” said Ralf Gulde, CEO and co-founder of Sereact (short for “sense, reason, act”). Early Spotify and Klarna-backer Creandum led the Series A round. Existing investors Point Nine and Air Street Capital also chipped in as did several prominent angel investors. These include former Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg, ex-DeepMind…This story continues at The Next Web […]

  • Digital twins of cities to expand under plans from new Dutch startup Scenexus
    by Thomas Macaulay on January 17, 2025 at 2:48 pm

    A startup called Scenexus has unveiled plans to build digital twins of cities around the world. A spin-off from Dutch research organisation TNO, Scenexus launched this week with a new platform for urban planning. The software blends multiple datasets to clone entire cities and regions. Planners and engineers then use the replicas to precisely analyse the impacts of their ideas. According to Scenexus, the platform can accelerate their assessments from days to just minutes. They can then forecast the social, environmental, and economic impacts of developments. A host of factors can be reviewed, from traffic and safety to financial growth…This story continues at The Next Web […]

  • This robot worm digs for geothermal energy in your backyard
    by Siôn Geschwindt on January 17, 2025 at 11:19 am

    Four billion years ago, Earth was a fiery, tumultuous world of molten rock, volcanic eruptions, and toxic skies, with searing heat and the constant threat of asteroid impacts. Thankfully, our planet has cooled off a bit since then. Nevertheless, the Earth still radiates vast amounts of geothermal energy. It’s a clean, limitless, always-on power source lying beneath our feet — we just have to dig for it. Or get robots to do the hard work for us.  Borobotics, a startup from Switzerland, has developed an autonomous drilling machine — dubbed the “world’s most powerful worm” — that promises to make…This story continues at The Next Web […]

  • GenAI deals with news giants increase as Mistral partners with AFP
    by Thomas Macaulay on January 16, 2025 at 4:40 pm

    Yet another deal has been signed between a publisher and a GenAI leader. Paris startup Mistral and news outlet Agence France-Presse (AFP) announced today that they are combining their services to improve AI responses. The deal provides Mistral’s chatbot — imaginatively named Le Chat — with access to all of AFP’s text stories.  According to Mistral, the integration will bring “enhanced factuality” to the AI assistant. “Partnering with a globally trusted news agency like AFP allows Le Chat to offer reliable, factual, and up-to-date responses, verified by professional journalists,” said Arthur Mensch, the startup’s CEO and co-founder. Mistral also highlighted…This story continues at The Next Web […]

  • Quantum Brilliance secures $20M for portable diamond-based accelerators
    by Siôn Geschwindt on January 15, 2025 at 11:00 am

    Australian-German startup Quantum Brilliance has raised $20mn in Series A funding as it looks to deploy small, portable quantum accelerators that promise to supercharge the computational power of everything from data centres and robots to satellites. A quantum accelerator is a specialised hardware unit that speeds up specific quantum algorithms, or tasks. They act as co-processors to classical computers, such as CPUs or GPUs, taking on specific quantum calculations.   Austrian deep tech fund Main Sequence, In-Q-Tel (IQT) in the US, and Japan’s Intervalley Ventures led the funding round. “It represents a significant step forward as we advance the design, performance,…This story continues at The Next Web […]

  • TNW Conference 2025 is reborn — with a new startup mission
    by Thomas Macaulay on January 15, 2025 at 10:11 am

    TNW Conference will be born again this summer. Over 18 years of unforgettable events, countless future tech stars have used our stage as a springboard to success. We’ve driven vast investments, showcased endless innovations, and made friends along the way. We’ve also learnt from our mistakes. But don’t worry, fellow kids — we’re not getting old yet. We’re still mixing serious business with festival vibes. We are, however, shaking the party up a bit. To celebrate our coming of age, we’re going back to our roots. Today, we’re relaunching TNW Conference with a renewed focus on our founding mission: elevating…This story continues at The Next Web […]

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