Days after AI coding startup Windsurf announced that it’s being acquired by Cognition, Windsurf startup Jeff Wang took to X to offer more details about the drama and uncertainty around the deal. Windsurf was previously reported to be in acquisition talks with OpenAI, but that deal fell apart, with Google DeepMind instead hiring the startup’s…
When Vultron announced its $22 million funding round earlier this week, the AI startup made sure to highlight a key investor: Craft Ventures, the firm “co-founded by White House AI adviser David Sacks.” The announcement has raised questions about conflicts of interest in the Trump administration, where Sacks serves as both AI and crypto czar…
Most founders eventually have to pitch venture firms in hopes of raising capital. Tiffany Luck, a partner at NEA, took the stage at TechCrunch’s All Stage event in Boston to answer how to craft the perfect one. “I like to think of a VC pitch as your initial way for assessing founder-investor fit,” she told…
In the last 30 years or so, cybersecurity has gone from being a niche specialty within the larger field of computer science, to an industry estimated to be worth more than $170 billion made of a globe-spanning community of hackers. In turn, the industry’s growth, and high-profile hacks such as the 2015 Sony breach, the…
AI is being forced on us in pretty much every facet of life, from phones and apps to search engines and even drive-throughs, for some reason. The fact that we’re now getting web browsers with baked-in AI assistants and chatbots shows that the way some people are using the internet to seek out and consume…
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership…
Privacy-focused browser DuckDuckGo is rolling out a new setting that lets users filter out AI images in search results. The company says it’s launching the feature in response to feedback from users who said AI images can get in the way of finding what they’re looking for. Users can access the new setting by conducting…
Christine Hunsicker, founder of the fashion startup CaaStle, turned herself in to authorities Friday to face fraud charges, authorities confirmed to Bloomberg. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment against her, charging her with wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, aggravated identity theft, and lying to financial institutions. She…
Mistral AI, the French company behind AI assistant Le Chat and several foundational models, is officially regarded as one of France’s most promising tech startups and is arguably the only European company that could compete with OpenAI. But compared to its $6 billion valuation, its global market share is still relatively low. However, the recent…
Greptile, an AI-powered code review startup, is in the process of raising a Series A. Sources familiar with the deal tell TechCrunch it’s for $30 million at a $180 million valuation led by Benchmark partner Eric Vishria. But one person says that the deal hasn’t closed and terms may change. Founded by Dasksh Gupta after…
