Category: Uncategorized

  • Runway, best known for its video-generating AI models, raises $300M

    Runway, a startup developing a range of generative AI models for media production, including video-generating models, has raised $300 million in a Series D funding round. General Atlantic led the round, which had participation from Fidelity Management & Research Company, Baillie Gifford, Nvidia, SoftBank, and others. The fresh capital will be put toward AI research… Read more

  • The Nintendo Switch 2, hands-on: It’s pretty good!

    At a presentation unveiling the Nintendo Switch 2, longtime Nintendo producer Kouichi Kawamoto revealed that at one point, he considered calling the Switch’s successor the “Super Nintendo Switch.” It would have been a nice nod to Nintendo’s second console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which followed the original NES about 35 years ago. But Kawamoto,… Read more

  • A web3 startup aims to change the game in the tariff wars

    With President Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs coming out today — a day he is calling “Liberation Day” — a Web3 startup thinks it could track tariffs automatically on goods coming into and out of the USA using its blockchain platform. The claim may well be bold — and typical of many such bold claims… Read more

  • Fuse raises $6.6M to fix a payment problem for companies expanding to MENA

    Expanding into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains a costly and complex challenge for global businesses, thanks to fragmented regulations and banking systems. Dubai-based fintech Fuse aims to simplify that with a cross-border payments API and has raised $6.6 million in seed funding to make it happen. Founded in 2023 by George Davis,… Read more

  • Truecaller now has over 450M monthly active users

    The caller identity app Truecaller said that it crossed the 450 million user mark earlier this week. The company said that it added 50 million users in the past 10 months and 15.5 million users since the beginning of 2025. India is the company’s biggest user base. So it wasn’t surprising when Truecaller promoted Chief… Read more

  • Fintech Plaid raises $575M at a $6.1B valuation, says it will not go public in 2025

    Plaid, which connects bank accounts to financial applications, has sold about $575 million worth of common stock at a $6.1 billion post-money valuation, the fintech company confirmed to TechCrunch. The valuation is about less than half of the $13.4 billion that San Francisco-based Plaid was valued at when it raised a $425 million Series D… Read more

  • Y Combinator neobank Djamo raises $17M with 1M users across Francophone Africa

    Djamo is one of several digital banking startups targeting Africa’s underbanked. But unlike many that focus on large markets like Nigeria, Egypt, or South Africa, Djamo has carved out a niche in Francophone West Africa, specifically the Ivory Coast and, more recently, Senegal. It now serves over one million customers across both countries. The Y… Read more

  • Space solar startup Aetherflux raises $50M to launch first space demo in 2026

    Aetherflux, the space solar startup founded by billionaire co-founder of Robinhood Baiju Bhatt, has raised a $50 million in a Series A round as it works to launch its first low Earth orbit demonstration in 2026.  The San Carlos, California-based startup, which came out of stealth last October, aims to eventually launch a constellation of… Read more

  • Stablecoin issuer Circle takes another stab at a public listing

    Circle, the issuer of USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, filed to go public on Tuesday. The company, which makes money from interest earned on its reserve assets, reported that its 2024 revenue and reserve income was $1.68 billion, up from $1.45 billion the year prior. Circle’s 2024 net income was $156 million,… Read more

  • OpenAI’s o3 model might be costlier to run than originally estimated

    When OpenAI unveiled its o3 “reasoning” AI model in December, the company partnered with the creators of ARC-AGI, a benchmark designed to test highly capable AI, to showcase o3’s capabilities. Months later, the results have been revised, and they now look slightly less impressive than they did initially. Last week, the Arc Prize Foundation, which… Read more