TechCrunch Startups – Spoken Edition

The ChatGPT maker is aiming to raise the funding by the end of the first quarter in 2026, and the company may ask sovereign wealth funds to invest in the round. Also, called the Unicorn Growth Fund, the investment vehicle is a collaboration between Krafton and South Korean internet conglomerate Naver, and investor Mirae Asset. It aims to deploy around $669.3 million over four years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lovable has seen its valuation more than triple just five months after the company's last funding round in July. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The deal valued MoEngage at "well over" $900 million post-money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Radiant Nuclear is developing a small modular reactor to replace diesel generators. The startup previously raised $165 million in May. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last Energy will use the funds to build its 5 megawatt pilot reactor in Texas, which it hopes to turn on next year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The next consumer tech revolution may require an introduction of a new personal device. Plus, the food waste startup founded by Nest alumnus Matt Rogers also received an investment from Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mirelo, a German startup that is building AI to add synced sound effects to videos, has raised a $41 million seed round led by Index Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Also, First Voyage has raised $2.5 million in a seed funding round from a16z speedrun, SignalFire, True Global, and other investors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thea Energy says that its planar-coil fusion power plant could be cheaper and easier to build thanks to AI-powered control software. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The biotech startup is betting that owners of abandoned oil wells will use the tech to squeeze energy out of their wells. Also, Spinny is set to be valued at about $1.8 billion post-money in its latest funding round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Goldman Sachs has led Harness's Series E round, with participation from IVP, Menlo Ventures, and Unusual Ventures. The new valuation is a 49% jump from its $3.7 billion valuation in a $230 million round in April 2022. With this funding, the startup has raised $570 million of equity to date. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spoor's computer vision software can help wind farms, and other industries, track bird populations and migration patterns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Me raises $6 million for its digital gift card platform that lets users purchase cards categorized by interests rather than being restricted to specific retailers. Also, Port offers a proprietary alternative to Spotify's popular devtool catalog Backstage, but with a valuable addition: it can be used to manage AI agents, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tavus has launched a new experience where you can chat with an AI Santa that asks personal questions and remembers your interests. Oboe has raised $16 million in funding for its learning app. The company now lets users generate unlimited courses for free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Crusoe will pay Boom $1.25 billion for more than a gigawatt of generating capacity with deliveries of the turbines starting in 2027. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Empromptu claims all a user has to do is tell the platform's AI chatbot what they want — like a new HTML or JavaScript app — and the AI will go ahead and build it. Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky is expanding his company's device lineup with a new smart wearable: an AI-powered smart ring known as Index 01. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tiger's last fund did well with investments in OpenAI, Waymo and Databricks. But it warns investors that AI valuations are already 'elevated.' Skild AI is developing a hardware-agnostic foundation model for robots that can be customized for various uses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Quilt has sold nearly 1,000 units in the U.S. and Canada, and the new funding should help expand sales operations to more states and provinces. Also, while OpenAI continues to insist that there are currently no ads — or tests for advertising — live in ChatGPT, the company's chief research officer also acknowledged that the company “fell short” with recent promotional messages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Limitless said it shares Meta's vision of bringing personal superintelligence to everyone. Also, sometimes, founding a startup just once isn't enough. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hamlet TV is a way to help keep citizens informed of what's happening inside local governments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nexus Venture Partners manages $3.2 billion in capital across its funds and has invested in more than 130 companies over the years. Also, can Kiro win the hearts of startup founders above the many AI coding tools they already have? Amazon hopes a free year will tempt them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While VCs have long used big investments to spur category winners, they are taking this strategy to new extremes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Antares is designing and building small modular reactors that it plans to deploy for commercial, space, and defense applications. The latest funding comes less than two months after Kalshi announced that it raised $300 million at a $5 billion valuation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Titan OS aims to expand its independent TV operating system in Europe and Latin America. Gradium, a startup spawned out of French AI lab Kyutai (backed by French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel), launched out of stealth on Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The round was co-led by Salesforce Ventures and Anjney Midha (AMP), and saw participation from a16z, NVIDIA, Northzone, Creandum, Earlybird VC, BroadLight Capital, General Catalyst, Temasek, Bain Capital Ventures, Air Street Capital, Visionaries Club, Canva and Figma Ventures. Also, analysts will be watching to see if Thrive-owned firms actually succeed in building long-term profitable businesses using OpenAI's tech, or if the result is really just pumped up valuations based on speculative market potential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Adam Joseph was shocked when Mark Cuban replied to his email with an inquisition full of questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MyHair AI examines photos of the scalp to help diagnose hair loss and suggest scientifically validated clinics and treatments. The startup uses AI to help immigrants understand the system, connect with lawyers and reduce associated costs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An investor explains the "buy, fix, and hold" model employed by Bending Spoons and similar companies that buy distressed startups. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google and Accel will jointly invest up to $2 million in each startup through their new partnership. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Career exploration platform Find Your Grind raises $5 million to help more students discover alternative professions. Also, the discovery of a massive lithium deposit suggests that a region in Quebec might hold even more lithium than originally suspected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The small modular reactor startup is capitalizing on surging interest from tech companies and data center developers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Startups are still racing to build the world's first commercial fusion power plant on land, but Maritime Fusion thinks the path will be easier out at sea. Also, AI testing startup Momentic has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Standard Capital, with participation from Dropbox Ventures. Existing investors at Y Combinator, FCVC, Transpose Platform and Karman Ventures also participated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sierra's rapid growth suggests that enerprises are embracing AI agents. Also, Phictly helps fans find niche clubs for their favorite books, shows, and movies, offering intimate, spoiler-safe communities with flexible pacing and tracker tools. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The region's startup market is hungry for its first trillion-dollar startup, and in many ways has set itself up to reach that goal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The quickly growing prediction betting market raised fresh capital from Sequoia and CapitalG, according to someone familiar with the deal. Also, Point One Navigation, now valued at $230 million, is building out well beyond automotive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Curastory's founder and CEO, Tiffany Kelly, has resigned from the role and replaced herself with Dave Dickman, former CEO of the influencer marketing platform Tagger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Anthony Sardain began developing Cavela in 2023, an AI startup that helps brands automate supplier sourcing, he did not foresee that new tariffs would drive customers to become increasingly wary of manufacturing products in China. Function Health, which offers a regular lab testing service to help people track their health, wants to change that by consolidating health data and making it usable for its customers by connecting that data to an AI model. To further that effort, the company recently raised $298 million in a Series B round led by Redpoint Ventures at a valuation of $2.5 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“The best ideas in drug discovery were often blocked not by biology, but by synthesis,” Boiko told TechCrunch. Synthesis is the creation of new molecules by using chemical reactions. It's like a recipe or Lego pieces, where small pieces, ingredients, molecules, come together to form a wider puzzle picture, a food dish, a larger molecule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Instead of getting an AI-generated travel plan, Boop aims to give users access to itineraries from real people who went on real trips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With consumers increasingly asking questions to ChatGPT, not Google, product discovery is changing — and the promise to give brands visibility and control over this fast-growing search channel has made Peec AI one of Europe's hottest startups. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Monday, Luminal announced $5.3 million in seed funding, in a round led by Felicis Ventures with angel investment from Paul Graham, Guillermo Rauch, and Ben Porterfield.  Also, as U.S. giants like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic race to develop the large language models that underpin their AI products, startups such as Sakana AI, Mistral AI, DeepSeek, and AI 21 Labs are carving out their own niche with specialized models designed for specific regions, industries, or unique features. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos seems to be getting his hands dirty once again: the billionaire is partly backing a new AI startup called Project Prometheus that has raised $6.2 billion in funding, and will take on duties as co-chief executive. Plus, Bone AI, a South Korean startup, is combining AI and manufacturing to build next-gen defense robotics and challenge the region's industry giants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Israeli startup Milestone raised a $10 million seed funding round to correlate AI tool usage with engineering metrics, including code quality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices