Category: info1
LangChain is about to become a unicorn, sources say
LangChain, an AI infrastructure startup providing tools to build and monitor LLM-powered applications, is raising a new round of funding at an approximate $1 billion valuation led by IVP, according to three sources with knowledge of the deal. LangChain began its life in late 2022 as an open-source project founded by Harrison Chase, who was…
Rivian spinoff Also raises another $200M to build e-bikes and more
Also Inc., the micromobility startup spun out of Rivian earlier this year, has raised $200 million from Greenoaks Capital, according to a new report from Bloomberg News. The funding round brings Also’s post-money valuation to $1 billion. The startup raised $105 million from Eclipse Ventures earlier this year when it was cleaved from Rivian. Also…
Why this LA-based VC firm was an early investor in Slate Auto
Slate Auto, which came out of stealth mode earlier this year with a surprising – and surprisingly affordable – customizable electric truck, has raised $700 million to date. But long before the EV startup broke cover, it quietly raised a Series A round of more than $100 million in 2023. And while Jeff Bezos was…
Frontier is helping Arbor build a “vegetarian rocket engine” to power data centers
Frontier, the organization backed by Stripe, Google, and Meta, announced Tuesday it is paying startup Arbor Energy to remove 116,000 tons of carbon dioxide by the end of the decade. The deal gives Arbor $41 million to help it build its first commercial-scale power plant in southern Louisiana that will burn waste biomass to generate…
Tulum Energy rediscovered a forgotten hydrogen tech and used it to raise $27M
It was a mistake that was ahead of its time. Between 2002 and 2005, engineers with the Techint Group were trying to dial in a new electric arc furnace for a steelmaker when they noticed something odd. The carbon electrodes, rather than breaking down, were growing larger. The team had inadvertently created what’s known as…
Meta reportedly recruits Apple’s head of AI models
Apple’s head of AI models, Ruoming Pang, is leaving the company to work at Meta, Bloomberg reported on Monday. This marks the latest high-ranking AI executive Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has scooped up to lead his new AI superintelligence unit. Pang previously ran Apple’s in-house team that trained the AI foundation models that underpin Apple…
Researchers seek to influence peer review with hidden AI prompts
Academics may be leaning on a novel strategy to influence peer review of their research papers — adding hidden prompts designed to coax AI tools to deliver positive feedback. Nikkei Asia reports that when examining English-language preprint papers available on the website arXiv, it found 17 papers that included some form of hidden AI prompt.…
X blocked Reuters accounts in India
The main Reuters news account, as well as the Reuters World account, became inaccessible to X users in India on Saturday evening. Access was subsequently restored on Sunday. Reuters reports that Indian users attempting to view the @Reuters account — which has 25 million followers — instead saw a message stating that the account “has…
At least 36 new tech unicorns were minted in 2025 so far
With AI igniting an investor frenzy, every month, more startups obtain unicorn status. Using data from Crunchbase and PitchBook, TechCrunch tracked down the VC-backed startups that became unicorns so far this year. While most are AI-related, a surprising number are focused in other industries like satellite space companies like Loft Orbital and blockchain-based trading site…
‘Improved’ Grok criticizes Democrats and Hollywood’s ‘Jewish executives’
On Friday morning, Elon Musk declared, “We have improved @Grok significantly. You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions.” While Musk didn’t say exactly what improvements to look for, he’d previously declared that xAI (which built Grok) would retrain the chatbot after it had been trained on “far too much garbage,” and he…
