As Sequoia Capital’s first defense tech investment, Mach Industries is an industry darling, raising over $80 million since its founding in 2023. Its founder, Ethan Thornton, now 21, began Mach as a teenage MIT student before dropping out to focus full-time on his startup. But a few months before landing a seed investment from Sequoia […]
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Solid, which claimed to be the ‘AWS of fintech,’ files for bankruptcy after raising nearly $81M in funding
Banking-as-a-service startup Solid (formerly called Wise) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to documents filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on April 7. Founded in 2018, the fintech company had raised a total of nearly $81 million in funding from investors such as FTV Capital and Headline. […]
OpenAI attorneys call for Elon Musk to be enjoined from ‘further unlawful and unfair action’
The dramatic suit between OpenAI and its estranged co-founder, billionaire Elon Musk, shows no sign of letting up. In a filing Wednesday, attorneys for OpenAI and the other defendants in the case, including CEO Sam Altman, called for Musk to be enjoined from “further unlawful and unfair action” and “held responsible for the damage he […]
a16z backs Base Power in $200M round for home backup batteries
The money will fund a rapid expansion, including dozens more megawatt-hours of battery storage and plans for a domestic battery factory.
Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams says company targeted ads at teens based on their ’emotional state’
Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Director of Global Public Policy for Facebook and author of the recently released tell-all book “Careless People,” told U.S. senators during her testimony on Wednesday that Meta actively targeted teens with advertisements based on their emotional state. This claim was first documented by Wynn-Williams in her book, which documents […]
Nvidia’s H20 AI chips may be spared from export controls — for now
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang appears to have struck a deal with the Trump administration to avoid export restrictions on the company’s H20 AI chips. The H20, the most advanced Nvidia-produced AI chip that can still be exported from the U.S. to China, was reportedly spared thanks to a promise from Huang to invest in new […]
Threads is testing a feature that lets you follow the same creators you follow on X
Meta is starting to test a new feature in Threads that lets users follow the same creators they follow on X, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. “We’re currently testing a way for you to find and follow creators from other platforms on Threads, making it easier to connect with the people and conversations that matter […]
Ilya Sutskever taps Google Cloud to power his AI startup’s research
OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s new AI startup, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), is using Google Cloud’s TPU chips to power its AI research, part of a new partnership the companies announced on Wednesday in a press release. Google Cloud says SSI is using TPUs to “accelerate its research and development efforts toward building […]
Court document reveals locations of WhatsApp victims targeted by NSO spyware
The list of 1,223 victims in 51 countries hints at the “true scale of the spyware problem,” per one researcher.
More good news for New York startups: Lerer Hippeau raised another $200M
New York’s A-list venture capital seed fund, Lerer Hippeau, announced it closed a ninth $200 million fund on Wednesday. That’s a step up from its eighth fund, which closed at $140 million, it said. With the new fund, Lerer Hippeau has $1.4 billion of assets under management. Since its inception in 2010, Lerer Hippeau has […]