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Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny
A surprising figure is celebrating Figma’s successful IPO: Lina Khan, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission. In a Friday afternoon post on X, Khan linked to an article about Figma’s impressive first day of trading and argued the IPO is “a great reminder that letting startups grow into independently successful businesses, rather than be…
Tim Cook reportedly tells employees Apple ‘must’ win in AI
Apple CEO Tim Cook held an hourlong all-hands meeting in which he told employees that the company needs to win in AI, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The meeting came after an earnings call in which Cook told investors and analysts that Apple would “significantly” increase its AI investments. It seems he had a similar…
What founders should think about if looking to raise a Series C
Startup founders face a perplexing and even contradictory capital market in 2025, according to Sapphire Ventures partner Cathy Gao. “Capital isn’t scarce. But access to that capital is harder than ever,” she said. Gao, who spoke at TechCrunch’s All Stage conference in July, said it’s possible for startup founders, especially those in later Series C…
Anthropic cuts off OpenAI’s access to its Claude models
Anthropic has revoked OpenAI’s access to its Claude family of AI models, according to a report in Wired. Sources told Wired that OpenAI was connecting Claude to internal tools that allowed the company to compare Claude’s performance to its own models in categories like coding, writing, and safety. TechCrunch has reached out to Anthropic for…
Kleiner Perkins is having a very good week
Even while the tech industry is still fanning its face over Figma’s hot IPO on Thursday, another significant tech IPO occurred this week: Ambiq Micro. On Wednesday, the chip maker for wearable devices saw its shares climb from the initial price of $24 to over $42 on Friday. There’s one thing both companies have in…
Venture firm CRV raises $750M, downsizing after returning capital to investors
CRV has secured $750 million toward the 55-year-old venture firm’s twentieth flagship fund, it announced on Friday. The new fund is smaller than the $1 billion early-stage fund CRV closed in the fall of 2022. At that time, the firm also announced a $500 million second Select fund, a capital pool for backing late-stage rounds…
Google bets on STAN, an Indian social gaming platform
Google has backed STAN, an Indian social gaming platform that connects gamers with creators, communities, and publishers. Google’s investment comes as part of an $8.5 million equity funding round, which also saw investment from Japanese gaming giants Bandai Namco Entertainment, Square Enix, and Reazon Holdings. Aptos Labs and King River Capital, as well as existing…
Tesla partly liable in Florida Autopilot trial, jury awards $329M in damages
A jury in federal court in Miami has found Tesla partly to blame for a fatal 2019 crash that involved the use of the company’s Autopilot driver assistance system. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $329 million in punitive and compensatory damages. Neither the driver of the car nor the Autopilot system braked in time to…
Female-founded semiconductor AI startup SixSense raises $8.5M
A Singapore-based deep tech startup called SixSense has developed an AI-powered platform that helps semiconductor manufacturers predict and detect potential chip defects on production lines in real time. It has raised $8.5 million in Series A bringing its total funding to around $12 million. The round was led by Peak XV’s Surge (formerly Sequoia India…
Handwave lends a hand to retailers with its European alternative to Amazon’s palm payments
Paying with a handwave once sounded like science fiction, but contactless palm recognition service Amazon One has already been used more than 8 million times, according to the company. That’s Amazon, though, which explains why it has been deployed in Amazon stores and more than 500 Whole Foods Market stores in the U.S., but only…
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