Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week brought us mixed messages. A fresh IPO filing, but a bleak outlook for exits overall. New funding rounds, but founders frustrated over lack of capital. […]
Tech Crunch
TikToker sues Roblox over her Charli XCX ‘Apple’ dance
TikTok content creator Kelley Heyer sued the video game Roblox for using her dance to Charli XCX’s “Apple” without permission. Heyer posted the viral dance in June 2024, which fed off of the hype of Charli XCX’s hit summer album Brat. The dance became so popular that Charli XCX incorporated it into her live show […]
ChatGPT will now use its ‘memory’ to personalize web searches
OpenAI is upgrading ChatGPT’s “memory” again. In a changelog and support pages on OpenAI’s website Thursday, the company quietly announced “Memory with Search,” a feature that lets ChatGPT draw on memories — details from past conversations, such as your favorite foods — to inform queries when the bot searches the web. ChatGPT release notes were […]
Trump EPA targets two-man geoengineering startup for ‘polluting the air’
The company sells “cooling credits” for its sulfur dioxide-based geoengineering projects.
From Bogotá to the Battlefield: LatAm startups are winning big in TechCrunch Startup Battlefield
For startups around the world, the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield program offers unmatched exposure, credibility, and connections to scale their businesses. TechCrunch has long been committed to spotlighting companies solving real-world problems in scalable and sustainable ways — making it a powerful launchpad for startups both in and outside the U.S. Several Latin American startups have […]
The Nintendo Switch 2 will still cost $450 in the US, despite tariffs
Nintendo announced on Friday that it will open Switch 2 pre-orders in the U.S. on April 24, following a delay due to the Trump administration’s hefty tariffs. Fans feared the long-awaited console would spike in price due to Trump’s export rules on international goods, but Nintendo confirmed the Switch 2 will still cost $449.99 and […]
Final day to submit your speaker application and shape the next wave of startups at TechCrunch All Stage
Today’s the day! The application to speak at TechCrunch All Stage closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT — this is your final chance to share real-world insights with 1,200+ startup founders and VCs attending the event. Whether you’ve built or backed startups, battled bottlenecks, or cracked the code on growth, the stage is yours. TC […]
Netflix is revamping search with AI to improve discovery
Netflix is building a new search experience aimed at improving the discovery experience, and it’s going to use AI to do it, the company’s CEO Greg Peters said during its first-quarter results conference call. Peters said Netflix is working on “interactive search that’s based on generative technologies” to help people find different titles. Answering an […]
OpenAI pursued Cursor maker before entering into talks to buy Windsurf for $3B
When news broke that OpenAI was in talks to acquire AI coding company Windsurf for $3 billion, one of the first questions on the mind of anyone following the space was likely: “Why not buy Cursor creator Anysphere instead?” After all, OpenAI Startup Fund has been an investor in Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, since the […]
Defense tech Theseus landed Y Combinator, the US Special Forces and $4.3M from a tweet
On February 18, 2024, Ian Laffey posted on X that he and two others he’d just met built a cheap drone at a hackathon that calculated its coordinates simply by using its camera and Google Maps. He and his colleagues, Sacha Lévy and Carl Schoeller, were all engineers under the age of 25. The tech […]