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Listen to select TechCrunch articles on startups coverage—who's raising, who's exiting, who's changing the world.
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Sodium-ion battery startup Natron ceased operations this week, ending the company’s 12-year quest to commercialize its technology in the U.S.
The company had $25 million worth of orders lined up for its Michigan factory, but it couldn’t deliver them until it had UL certification, according to Raleigh’s The News & Observer, which reported on the business’s closure because Natron had been planning to bring jobs to the state of North Carolina with its new factory.
Also, Acqui-hires feel like they’re here to stay: The team behind Alex Codes, a popular tool that lets developers use AI models within Apple’s development suite Xcode, is joining OpenAI.
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On Thursday, Augment announced that it raised an $85 million Series A led by Redpoint, with participation from 8VC, Autotech Ventures, and others. The massive round comes just five months after the startup launched out of stealth with a hefty $25 million seed round.
Also, Mark Zuckerberg, a bankruptcy lawyer from Indiana, has filed a lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta.
Mark Zuckerberg the lawyer uses a commercial Facebook page to advertise his legal practice and communicate with potential clients. But his page has been disabled five times in the last eight years, since Meta’s moderation systems flag his account as falsely impersonating Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of the platform.
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Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian’s CEO and co-founder, said, ‘today’s browsers weren’t built for work; they were built for browsing. This deal is a bold step forward in reimagining the browser for knowledge work in the AI era.’
Also, Francesco Cacciatore is a self-proclaimed skeptic. Yet after spending two decades in the European aerospace industry and hitting, as he put it, a “crisis,” he made an undeniably optimistic bet: he started a space company, saying ‘I wanted to try and build something myself.’
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On Wednesday, Orchard Robotics announced that it raised a $22 million Series A funding led by Quiet Capital and Shine Capital, and with participation from returning investors, including General Catalyst and Contrary. Although the idea of using computer vision for specialty crops isn’t new, Wu says that the largest farms in the U.S. still rely on manual sampling to make critical decisions about farm operations.
Also, French AI startup Mistral AI is finalizing a €2 billion investment at a post-money valuation of $14 billion, reports Bloomberg, positioning the company as one of Europe’s most valuable tech startups. The two-year-old OpenAI rival, founded by former DeepMind and Meta researchers, develops open source language models and Le Chat, its AI chatbot built for European audiences.
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When congressional Republicans took a sledgehammer to the Inflation Reduction Act last summer, advanced geothermal startups were largely spared. Drilling for renewable energy appears to be one of the few things that engenders bipartisan support. Now, with the uncertainty settled, geothermal companies are announcing deals that promise to pave the way for broader deployment of their technology.
Also, Fizz, the college social app, is expanding into grocery delivery thanks to a new partnership with Gopuff, the startup told TechCrunch exclusively. The partnership will allow students to order anything from late-night snacks to weekly groceries directly within the Fizz app in as fast as 15 minutes.
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AI firm Anthropic has raised a $13 billion Series F round that brings its post-money valuation up to $183 billion — funds the company says will be used to grow its enterprise adoption, deepen safety research, and support international expansion.
Also, OpenAI announced in a blog post on Tuesday that it agreed to acquire the product testing startup Statsig, and bring on its founder and CEO, Vijaye Raji, as the company’s CTO of Applications.
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Swedish buy-now, pay-later startup Klarna and its shareholders are reviving its initial public offering, hoping to raise as much as $1.27 billion in a listing that would value the company at up to $14 billion.
The company and some of its shareholders are together selling approximately 34.3 million shares between $35 and $37 each. That’s according to a company update earlier this week. Klarna would receive proceeds from about 5.6 million shares, while its shareholders are offloading nearly 29 million shares.
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Reliance is launching a new subsidiary to drive India's AI ambitions, including a pending partnership with OpenAI.
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Khalid Ashmawy found it hard to send money home while studying in Europe. Now, he’s launched a startup to help other Egyptians with the same problem.
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Maisa AI is built on the premise that enterprise automation requires accountable AI agents, not opaque black boxes.
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Framer, a no-code website builder that claims over half a million monthly active users,has reached a $2 billion valuation after raising a $100 million Series D funding round led by existing investors Meritech and Atomico.
Companies cancelled $5 billion worth of clean tech manufacturing projects in the U.S. in Q2, mirroring a pullback in the broader manufacturing sector.
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Mitti Labs is working with The Nature Conservancy to expand the use of climate-friendly rice farming practices in India. The startup uses its AI to verify reductions in methane emissions. In other news, Assort Health now valued at $750 million, is one of three that recently raised funding to use AI agents for helping healthcare practices answer patient calls.
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Terraton sees promise in biochar, but the technology has struggled to scale. The startup thinks a franchise model could be what unlocks biochar's potential. Also, Uncaged Innovations is working with Hyundai to develop alternatives to leather with a fraction of the environmental impact.
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Robomart's RM5 autonomous delivery robot can carry up to 50 pounds and deliver multiple customer orders at once.
Also, OpenAI has started hiring in India as it looks to expand its presence in the fast-growing South Asian tech market.
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Eyebot secured $20M Series A for 90-second prescription kiosk.
Also, Pintarnya raised $16.7M to power jobs and financial services in Indonesia. The Indonesian startup, now backed by $16.7M in Series A funding, helps workers find full-time and side gigs while offering financial solutions
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FieldAI builds foundational AI models that help all kinds of robots learn and adapt to new environments using physics. Also, Y Combinator is asking the court to deny Apple’s appeal.
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Several Indian startups, including Dream Sports, MPL, and Zupee, are shutting down their real-money games after parliament passed a bill banning such games.
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The thousands of trucks zipping along U.S. highways are often only about half full -- something Oway wants to change with its 'ride-share for freight' software.
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Berlin-based non-profit search engine Ecosia has asked a U.S. judge to turn Chrome into a foundation it controls, funding billions in climate projects.
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The battery materials startup raised significant Series D funding to expand its manufacturing capability. At the same time, it bought out partner SK's stake in a joint venture.
The company helps automate complex enterprise workflows (like continuous integration and testing) — or, in other words, it makes DevOps capabilities more efficient as AI technology takes hold.
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Lol 😂🤣 I love this one.. RIP HQ Trivia I will miss you 😅😅