Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week confirmed that even when current events cloud the outlook, some startups still manage to raise significant amounts of funding, with those tied to security and sovereignty finding tailwinds. Most interesting startup stories from the … [Read more...]
Meta confirms ‘Project Waterworth,’ a global subsea cable project spanning 50,000 kilometers
Back in November, we broke the news that Meta — owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with billions of users accounting for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic — was close to announcing work on a major new, $10 billion+ subsea cable project to connect up the globe. The aim was to give Meta more control over how it runs its own services. Today, Meta confirmed details of our … [Read more...]
Mastodon is working to add the controversial ‘quote posts’ feature
Mastodon, the decentralized alternative to X, is going to adopt a controversial feature from the platform formerly known as Twitter: quote posts. The company on Friday shared the progress it’s making on the implementation of the feature, which has divided users over its potential to be used for online abuse and bullying. Critics have long argued that the addition of quote tweets helped to ruin … [Read more...]
Instagram tests a ‘dislike’ button for comments
After users noticed a new button on Instagram to downvote or dislike comments, the company confirmed that it is testing a way for users to signal that they either didn’t like the comment or don’t think it’s relevant. The feature will appear across both Feed posts and Reels. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a post on Threads that the company won’t show a dislike count, and no one will … [Read more...]
Call for Speakers: TechCrunch All Stage 2025
Founders, VCs, and startup experts—This is your moment! Got scaling insights? Now’s your chance to share them with 1,200 founders, investors, and entrepreneurs at TechCrunch All Stage 2025 presented by Fidelity, on July 17 in Boston! We’re gathering leading experts from the startup and VC communities to host engaging sessions, interactive roundtables, and dynamic breakouts. Come share your … [Read more...]
Apply to Speak at TechCrunch Sessions: AI
AI Innovators, this Is your moment! Have insights to share with 1,200 AI founders, investors, and enthusiasts eager to push the boundaries of innovation? Take the stage, shape the AI conversation, and exchange ideas at TechCrunch Sessions: AI on June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall! We’re bringing together top AI minds from the startup world to lead insightful sessions and … [Read more...]
Airbnb CEO says it’s still too early for AI trip planning
Airbnb says it’s poised to roll out AI technology — but not in the way consumers may have initially wanted. Instead of offering tools to help travelers plan or book their trips with the help of AI agents, Airbnb is planning to first introduce AI to its customer support system. This update will roll out later this summer, the company told investors during its Q4 2024 earnings call on … [Read more...]
ICON, a pioneer in 3D home printing, raises $56M led by Norwest, Tiger Global
ICON, which builds homes using 3D printing, has closed on $56 million in Series C funding co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Tiger Global, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch exclusively. The raise represents a first close for the Austin-based ICON, according to a spokesperson. Existing backers CAZ Investments, LENX, Moderne Ventures, Oakhouse Partners and Overmatch Ventures also … [Read more...]
Europe denies dropping AI liability rules under pressure from Trump
The European Union has denied that recent moves to row back on some planned tech regulation — principally by ditching the AI Liability Directive, a 2022 draft law which had been aimed at making it easier for consumers to sue over harms caused by AI-enabled products and services — were made in response to pressure from the Trump administration to deregulate around AI. In an interview with the … [Read more...]
Plain pulls in $15M to agregate B2B customer services chats into one platform
Internal customer support platforms are moving from platforms like email ticketing systems and chat to channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and even Discord. But with Slack, for instance, able to host hundreds of channels, the whole thing can become quite unwieldy. Plain, out of the UK, thinks it has the answer. Its API-first platform consolidates all these communication channels, allowing … [Read more...]
TikTok is back on the App Store and the Play Store in the U.S.
After more than 25 days, Apple and Google restored TikTok in the U.S Thrusday evening. Both companies removed the app from the App Store and the Play Store on January 18 in response to a national security law. Other ByteDance apps such as video editor CapCut and social app Lemon8 were also restored on these app stores. Apple, which published a rare support document detailing these removals, has … [Read more...]
Hotstar and JioCinema merge into JioHotstar as Reliance tightens grip on streaming in India
Hotstar and JioCinema, two widely used video streaming apps in India, have merged into JioHotstar. JioStar, a joint venture between Reliance-owned Viacom18 and Star India, said Friday it had integrated JioCinema’s vast library of content into a revamped version of Disney’s Hotstar platform. The merged app, live as of early Friday local India time, will feature hundreds of thousands of … [Read more...]
Turo scraps plans for an IPO
Turo on Thursday withdrew its plans for an IPO, ending a three-year wait to bring the online car-sharing network to the public marketplace, according to a regulatory filing. Turo, which was founded in 2010, allows private car owners to rent out their vehicles through the startup’s website or app. The company — sometimes described as the Airbnb for cars — publicly filed in January 2022 for an … [Read more...]
UK drops ‘safety’ from its AI body, now called AI Security Institute, inks MOU with Anthropic
The U.K. government wants to make a hard pivot into boosting its economy and industry with AI, and as part of that, it’s pivoting an institution that it founded a little over a year ago for a very different purpose. Today the Department of Science, Industry and Technology announced that it would be renaming the AI Safety Institute to the “AI Security Institute.” With that, it will shift from … [Read more...]
Meta CTO says staff should quit if they don’t like Meta’s new policies
Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth has choice words for Meta employees frustrated with the tech giant’s latest policies: they are free to quit, Business Insider reported. The report cites an internal chat where an employee criticized Meta for cutting DEI programs and allegedly silencing internal dissent, among other issues. Bosworth responded that any staffer who thinks it’s OK to leak to the … [Read more...]
Google Gemini now brings receipts to your AI chats
Google’s Gemini AI chatbot can now tailor answers based on the contents of previous conversations, the company announced in a blog post on Thursday. Gemini can summarize a previous conversation you’ve had with it, or recall info you shared in another conversation thread. This means you won’t have to repeat information you’ve already shared with Gemini or comb through old threads for additional … [Read more...]
Arm is launching its own chip this year with Meta as a customer
Public semiconductor company Arm will start making its own chips this year after landing a high-profile enterprise customer. Arm, which is majorly owned by SoftBank, will start making its own chips now that Meta has signed on as a customer, according to the Financial Times. The chip is expected to be a CPU for servers in large data centers and can be customized for various customers. Arm will … [Read more...]
OpenAI removes certain content warnings from ChatGPT
OpenAI says it has removed the “warning” messages in its AI-powered chatbot platform, ChatGPT, that indicated when content might violate its terms of service. Laurentia Romaniuk, a member of OpenAI’s AI model behavior team, said in a post on X that the change was intended to cut down on “gratuitous/unexplainable denials.” Nick Turley, head of product for ChatGPT, said in a separate post that … [Read more...]
Elon Musk’s full offer letter to buy OpenAI reveals five key details
A consortium of investors led by Elon Musk’s x.AI offered to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion last week. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has dismissed the proposal, which would gum up OpenAI’s planned conversion from a non-profit, something Musk is attempting to block in a lawsuit. Altman’s lawyers argued in a Wednesday filing that Musk can’t have it both ways: attempt to buy OpenAI’s assets and also try … [Read more...]
Tim Cook teases Apple product news for February 19 — likely the iPhone SE
Apple CEO Tim Cook took to X Thursday to tease “the newest member of the family,” set to arrive February 19. The safe money is on a fourth-generation iPhone SE. The budget-minded handset had previously been tipped for a potential release a week prior, but we got new Beats headphones instead. It’s been three years since Apple released the last iPhone SE at $429. It’s an oversight for a product … [Read more...]
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