Companies

Hottest toy for Christmas? Nvidia CEO plays with adorable Microduck robots, 20,000 sell

The robots, stomping their little feet and making tiny R2-D2 noises, sat, fell down dead for a "nap," and summersaulted on voice command.

TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 roundtables: Go deeper on the challenges founders are solving right now

TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 is coming to SoWa Power Station in Boston on November 4, bringing founders, investors, and operators together for a full day of candid conversations, practical sessions, live pitching, networking, and smaller roundtables built for deeper discussion.

AI drug development startup Pathos AI closes $237M investment

Pathos AI Inc. today announced that it has raised $237 million in funding at a $3 billion valuation. Pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb Co. led the Series E round with participation from several unnamed returning backers.

Earnings Beats Are No Longer Enough for Big Tech

Meta, IBM and Tesla all cleared profit expectations, yet charges, segment weakness and skeptical investors show beats alone no longer move Big Tech.

Oura sues rival Ultrahuman again, threatening its U.S. smart ring comeback

Oura alleges in its newest lawsuit that Ultrahuman's Ring Pro infringes two of its patents.

Ex-OpenAI science chief Kevin Weil launches Warp Sciences with $215M for drug chemistry

Drug discovery chemistry startup Warp Sciences Inc. launched today with $215 million in new funding, six months after co-founder and Chief Executive Kevin Weil left his job running science initiatives at OpenAI Group PBC.

Startup Advice Is Converging on the Same Warning

Three recent stories point at one idea: durable startups are built on systems and retained users, not on hype or early deals.

Leaked video exposes how industrial-scale Chinese factories are dismantling RTX 5090s by the thousands to fuel AI servers

Wondering why RTX 5090s are so hard to find? Leaked footage shows thousands of consumer GPUs, including Founders Editions, being torn apart for AI servers.

Agent cloud startup Daytona hits $1B valuation backed by FirstMark and a who’s who of angels

Daytona is building a cloud for agents that's like giving every agent its own computer. It has attracted founders of Stripe, Perplextity, Datadog, Mercor, and others as angels, it says.

US Tech Funding Is Quietly Being Repriced Downward

Three recent stories point to a single shift on the funding beat: the market is repricing ambition, cutting burn, and demanding proof instead of promises.

What some of Anthropic’s backers are reportedly worth before its IPO

Early-stage and follow-on investors in the AI lab are already sitting on major paper returns.

Netflix can’t fire its way out of this downward spiral

Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters assured investors this week that they have nothing to be concerned about.

Companies

Tech's New Deal Currency Is Talent and Compute, Not Cash

Three recent stories show that the most consequential deals in US tech now turn on control of scarce people, models and infrastructure rather than ordinary cash purchases.

Foursquare co-founder says equity holders saw no returns from the company's acquisition

Foursquare raised $411 million in funding according to PitchBook data, but its equity holders saw no returns from its final acquisition.

Tesla and SpaceX are discussing a possible merger, Musk says

Tesla and SpaceX have formed special committees to discuss a possible merger, Elon Musk said during the latter's third quarter earnings call Tuesday.