TechCrunch Startups – Spoken Edition

Nuclear startup X-energy hit the road today to sell prospective investors on its initial public offering. Also, Antioch raised a $8.5 million seed round to create simulation tools for a new generation of robot builders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Objection, a Thiel-backed startup, aims to use AI to judge journalism, letting users pay to challenge stories. Critics warn it could chill whistleblowers and reshape how media accountability works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fundraising is reportedly flowing for Fluidstack after it secured a $50 billion deal to build data centers for Anthropic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The acquisition indicates a capability that OpenAI is building into ChatGPT: financial planning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Slate Auto's latest funding round was led by existing investor TWG Global, a firm run by LA Dodgers owner Mark Walter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pronto's autonomous haulage trucks are about to start operating at Mariana Minerals's Utah copper mine -- the first such deal since Pronto got acquired by Travis Kalanick's Atoms Inc. Also, Collide Capital, founded by Brian Hollins and Aaron Samuels, announced Thursday the close of a $95 million Fund II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Arcee is a tiny 26-person U.S. startup that built a high-performing, massive, open source LLM. And it's gaining popularity with OpenClaw users. Also, Matei Zaharia has won the top honor from the Association for Computing Machinery. Now he's working on AI for research and says AGI is simply misunderstood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rocket's new AI platform combines strategy, product building, and competitive intelligence, aiming to move beyond code generation. Also, the defense aviation startup is coming off two successful flight demonstrations, and with the next one, it's aiming to go supersonic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The company is also announcing a deal with L3Harris to build the sensors for Xoople's spacecraft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why did Founders Fund invest $220 million in cattle management startup Halter? Also, Anthropic has purchased the stealth biotech AI startup Coefficient Bio in a $400 million stock deal, according to The Information and Eric Newcomer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One way Beehiiv is convincing creators to switch from rivals like Substack and Patreon is by not taking a cut of revenue. Plus, Gateway Capital Partners, the venture firm founded by Dana Guthrie, announced the first close for its $25 million target Fund II earlier this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Realta Fusion is buying magnets from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, providing a revenue stopgap. Also, the merger is a sign that the fitness industry is continuing to move toward consolidation to compete at a larger scale. Recent moves include MyFitnessPal acquiring Cal AI, an AI calorie counting app, and Strava buying two apps: cycling app The Breakaway and running app Runna. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Runway is launching a $10 million fund and startup program to back companies building with its AI video models, as it pushes toward interactive, real-time “video intelligence” applications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ScaleOps just raised $130M to tackle GPU shortages and soaring AI cloud costs by automating infrastructure in real time. Plus, as AI floods software development with code, Qodo is betting the real challenge is making sure it actually works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In one year, Shield AI's value has leaped 140%. This after it won a contract to be the software provider to Anduril's Fury fighter jet for the U.S. Air Force. Also, Index Ventures is said to be leading a $250 million to $350 million round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Conntour uses AI models to let security teams query camera feeds using natural language to find any object, person, or situation. Also, Lucid Bots has seen demand accelerate over the last year for its window cleaning drones and power washing robots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brinc launched its newest 911 response drone this week, as the company seeks to expand its prominence in the public safety industry. Also, Arinna builds solar cells specifically for spacecraft and has developed an ultrathin new material that it expects to be far more flexible and more efficient than current technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gimlet Labs just raised an $80 million Series A for tech that lets AI run across NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, ARM, Cerebras and d-Matrix chips, simultaneously. Also, Flighty's new feature will give users real-time updates about why operations at an airport are disrupted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Helion is reportedly negotiating a deal that would see it sell 12.5% of its power output to OpenAI. Also, after four years, and multiple subpoenas and depositions, the beleaguered EV startup, Faraday Futures, has dodged yet another bullet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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