TechCrunch Startups – Spoken Edition

AI startups accounted for 41% of the $128 billion in venture dollars raised by companies on Carta last year — a record-high annual share. Also, an anonymous Substack post accuses compliance startup Delve of “falsely” convincing “hundreds of customers they were compliant” with privacy and security regulations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fervo landed a large new loan with terms that strongly suggest the company's most turbulent days are behind it. Also, K2's Gravitas is an ambitious project that aims to demonstrate the tech needed to build data centers in space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rebel Audio is a new all-in-one podcasting tool that allows creators to record podcasts, edit, clip content for social, and publish episodes, all without ever leaving the platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rubi has developed an enzymatic process to turn carbon dioxide into cellulose that's ready to be spun into lyocell or viscose. Also, Niv-AI raised $12 million in seed funding to measure and manage GPU power surges. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The startup also announced a $5M 'rescue fund' to help credit unions ditch legacy software for its AI-native platform. Also, at Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's urging, Frore developed liquid-cooling tech for chips. That shift helped it just raise $143 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Written by TechCrunch's Amanda Siberling. The AI industry is constantly churning out news, like major acquisitions, indie developer successes, public outcry, and existentially dangerous contract negotiations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the largest early-stage funding in China's brain computer interface industry. Also, Benchmark's new patner Everett Randell, sees Gumloop's enterprise automation as the largest opportunity in AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The startup, which was created by Rivian founder RJ Scaringe, is looking to train on data from, and deploy in, Rivian's factory. Plus, Replit raised a new $400 million round and said it hopes to have $1B in ARR by year's end. And, Breakout Ventures is finding growing success by backing early-stage startups in scientific fields such as biology and chemistry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Canopii's robotic farms can autonomously grow 40,000 pounds of herbs and leafy greens a year while being the size of a basketball court. Also, Legora, an AI platform for lawyers, is now valued at $5.55 billion following a $550 million Series D led by Accel to fuel its growth in the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-The fund currently offers retail investors exposure to eight startups, including Mercor, Ramp, and Stripe, with plans to expand its portfolio. -Unlike a vibe-coded product built by a college dropout, Eridu's co-founder, Drew Perkins, has been inventing networking tech since the dawn of the internet. -The company launched its first product, a Game Boy-style handheld device called the Chromatic, in 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The startup, co-founded by Tesla and Apple alumni, has sold nearly 1,000 of its motorbikes so far. Also, AI procurement startup Lio announced a $30 million Series A in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A source close to the company says the round assigns Science a post-money valuation of $1.25 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The AI-powered customer support startup is the latest example of a fast-growing, young company that's providing employee liquidity. Also, Crunchbase data shows a record $189 billion of global venture capital flowed to startups last month, with AI startups nabbing 90% of the capital. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some AI founders are using a novel valuation mechanism to manufacture unicorn status. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fig traces data flows in the security stack and then alerts security teams when changes at any point affect detection or response capabilities. Also, the four-year-old startup Cursor saw its revenue run rate double over the past three months, according to one Bloomberg source. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After wooing Cal AI for months, MyFitnessPal has successfully acquired its up-and-coming rival, Cal AI, the app built by teens soaring on the apps stores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cami Tellez announces launch of new company, $4 million raise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As TechCrunch's Kate Park writes, China's push into humanoid robots is accelerating, with domestic firms shipping more units and iterating faster than U.S. competitors in a still-nascent market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zomato co-founder Deepinder Goyal's new wearable startup Temple has raised $54 million in a friends-and-family round at a post-money valuation of about $190 million. Plus, Ultrahuman's Ring Pro promises 15-day battery life and a $479 price tag as the wearables maker expands its health-tech push. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sophia Space's modular computer tiles offer a new vision for space data centers. Also, Trace is launching with $3 million in seed funding, including investment from Y Combinator, Zeno Ventures, Transpose Platform Management, Goodwater Capital, Formosa Capital, and WeFunder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jest, a marketplace for messaging games, emerged from stealth with $7 million in seed funding. Also, self-driving trucks startup Einride has raised an oversubscribed $113 million PIPE in advance of its SPAC merger scheduled for early 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Harper is an AI-native insurance brokerage that just raised a $45 million combined Series A and seed, after a member of YC's Winter 2025 cohort. Also, MatX, a chip startup founded by two former Google hardware engineers, has raised a $500 million Series B led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness, an investment fund formed by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the new acquisitions, the company wants to bolster its position as a marketing solution by potentially adding video creation and more granular measurement. Also, Stripe and PayPal Ventures have participated in Xflow's $16.6 million round that gives it a post-money valuation of $85 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the four years since Russia's full-scale invasion of their country, Ukrainian startups have done more than survive: they are still building and growing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI news app Particle can now pull in key moments from podcasts, letting readers instantly play short, relevant clips alongside related stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Quantonation Ventures, a venture firm investing in quantum and physics-based startups, has closed its oversubscribed second fund at €220 million, or approximately $260 million. That's more than twice the size of its inaugural fund, and comes in addition to other signals that the quantum winter isn't coming yet. Also, Neo's new Residency program invests $750,000 in an uncapped SAFE for startups and provides a $40,000 no-strings-attached grant for college students. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nvidia is working with investors, nonprofits, and venture firms to build earlier ties with India's fast-growing AI founder ecosystem. Also, General Catalyst's pledge marks a sharp jump from the company's earlier $500 million–$1 billion India earmark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social network Bluesky now offers private messaging by integrating the startup Germ's E2E encrypted messenger natively in its app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reload announces a $2.275 million raise in a round led by Anthemis and the launch of its first AI employee, Epic. Also, Mirai raised a $10 million seed to improve how AI models run on devices like smartphones and laptops. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kana, a new AI marketing startup from the founders of Rapt and Krux, has raised $15 million to build customizable, agent-based marketing tools. The partnership will see the two companies exploring how World Labs' models can work alongside Autodesk's tools, and vice versa, starting with a focus on entertainment use cases. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SpendRule, launched last summer, is an AI-powered platform that helps healthcare systems track their spending. Mistral AI has agreed to buy Koyeb, a Paris-based startup that simplifies AI app deployment at scale and manages the infrastructure behind it. Thrive Capital just raised $10 billion for its new fund-- nearly double the size of its last fund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Terra Industries, the African defense company, announced Monday that it had secured an additional $22 million in funding to further expand the business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Helion's Polaris device hit 150 million degrees C recently, a milestone that nudges the company toward its commercial power plant that will sell electricity to Microsoft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The San Francisco-based startup says its AI-first approach has allowed it to scale faster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two years ago, a controversial dating app was launched and quickly shuttered: for people with good-to-excellent credit. Now, the founder is relaunching it, open to anyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Didero functions as an agentic AI layer that sits on top of a company's existing ERP, acting as a coordinator that reads incoming communications and automatically executes the necessary updates and tasks. Also, General Catalyst is in talks to lead Modal Labs' next round for the four-year-old startup, according to our sources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Complyance raised a $20 million Series A led by GV for its AI-native compliance platform. Also, Integrate's round was led by FPV Ventures co-founder and managing partner Wesley Chan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apptronik has sold another $520 million in a Series A extension to existing and new investors like Google and Mercedes-Benz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Smart Bricks is an AI-powered proptech that helps investors find high-quality real estate investments Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hauler Hero has seen its customer base, revenue, and head count double since the company raised its seed round in 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic raised $13 billion in equity funding just five months ago, but intense competition between frontier labs and the ongoing cost of compute have made them eager to raise as quickly as possible. Also, after announcing $190 million in ARR in December, Harvey may be raising again a big leap in valuation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gather AI has closed funding from former Salesforce CEO's firm Smith Point Capital. Its warehouse AI system doesn't just scan. It seeks out specific data. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices