TechCrunch

How to make the Startup Battlefield Top 20 — and what every company gets regardless

Every founder who applies to Startup Battlefield wants the same thing: the Disrupt Main Stage. Here’s how to get there and why the opportunity starts well before the main stage.

Alphabet plans to raise $80B to pay for AI buildout

"The company is experiencing strong demand for its AI solutions and services from enterprises and consumers, at levels that are exceeding the company’s available supply," Alphabet said in its statement.

Defense tech darling Mach Industries hits $1.8B valuation, a 4x jump in a year

In a wild ride for 22-year-old founder and CEO Ethan Thornton, Mach Industries has raised another $300 million. It already has five autonomous vehicles in development and completed a major acquisition.

Nvidia chases $200B CPU market with AI agent PCs from Microsoft, Dell, and HP

If Nvidia has cracked a way to bring AI agents easily, safely, and usefully to the masses, it could — and should — be big.

From the stage to the future: Where are Startup Battlefield’s alumni now?

We wanted to show you what happens after the confetti falls. We checked in with some of our recent alumni, many of whom have sat down with us on Build Mode: The Founder Survival Guide, TechCrunch's podcast for founders at every stage.

Florida sues OpenAI, Sam Altman, in first-of-its-kind lawsuit over violent incidents

The lawsuit partially revolves around a shooting at Florida State University last year, and ChatGPT's alleged role in the incident.

Hackers hijacked Instagram accounts by tricking Meta AI support chatbot into granting access

Several users on social media reported having their Instagram accounts hacked over the weekend. Meta's own support chatbot was blamed for allowing hackers to hijack accounts.

Water access is now a risk factor in SpaceX’s IPO

The company says it needs "significant" water resources to cool its data centers, and that access to abundant, affordable water is a challenge.

A new app, The Mall, is building a universal feed for online shopping

The Mall lets shoppers build a personalized feed of brands, track sales and drops, and discover products across thousands of retailers.

Grand Theft Auto V cheat service gets hacked, exposing thousands of gamers

Hackers stole usernames, hashed passwords, and other data from a service that allowed players to cheat in Grand Theft Auto V.

Zigging when most are zagging, ex-Meta CTO raises $250M climate fund

Mike Schroepfer's Gigascale Capital has raised a large fund to back founders building climate-friendly solutions for the world's energy and material shortages.

Anthropic files to go public

Anthropic, now an AI powerhouse that has landed top-tier enterprise customers, was once considered an underdog in the emerging world of large language models.

SpaceX says it may issue ‘significant’ equity in ‘future transactions’

The company added a warning to prospective investors that a major dilution could be in the cards after it goes public.

This AI weather startup is out-forecasting government agencies

WindBorne benefits from its unique combination of model-building and data collection. The company now has about 400 balloons in flight gathering sensor readings at any given time, launched from 15 sites around the globe. The advances in its current model come from improvements in how the data collected by the balloons is fed into the models.

DuckDuckGo makes its ‘no-AI’ search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

Alternative search engine DuckDuckGo launches 'no AI' web extensions for Chrome and Firefox users.

Revolut rolls out services to thousands of users in India ahead of broader launch

The British fintech has built a waitlist of about 450,000 users in India as it prepares for a broader launch.

Strava declares war on scrapers ahead of IPO

To stop scraping, the company is increasing security around its website and will now only allow authenticated users to view certain data. Earlier, users were able to see details like public profiles and fitness club listings without logging in. The company is putting all that data behind authentication to protect it from unauthorized AI scraping.

Unastella, a South Korean rocket startup that launched from home, raises $24M

The Seoul-based rocket startup is developing its own launch vehicles and engines.

Erin Brockovich takes aim at data center secrecy

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has a new mission.

This weekend’s two biggest movies were both directed by YouTubers

The YouTube-to-prestige-horror pipeline is looking very strong.

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