Pharmaceutical maker Regeneron announced Monday it will buy genetic testing company 23andMe for $256 million following a bankruptcy auction. Regeneron said it will acquire 23andMe’s genomics service and its bank of 15 million customers’ personal and genetic data as part of the deal. The pharma giant said it plans to use the 23andMe customer data…
Deel has lobbed a new volley in the ongoing legal battle with rival HR tech startup Rippling. Deel filed a motion, containing a series of letters, asking the Irish court to make Rippling hand over information. In one letter, Deel wants unredacted versions of witness affidavits, including the famed one by former Rippling employee, Keith…
Uber is entering India’s growing B2B logistics market by extending its partnership with the Indian government-backed nonprofit that aims to break the domination of the e-commerce duo Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart and widen digital commerce in the South Asian nation. On Monday, the ride-hailing giant announced it will soon launch its B2B logistics service through…
VUZ, a startup known for offering immersive video experiences from red carpets and football stadiums, has raised $12 million as it doubles down on its presence in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as accelerates expansion into Africa, Asia, and the United States. The pre-Series C funding round, led by the International…
Cryptocurrency executives and other investors with significant wealth from crypto holdings are getting more serious about personal security, according to stories this weekend in both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. While cryptocurrencies have always created unique security risks, it seems there’s a rising threat of violent abduction due to the growing value of Bitcoin,…
Grok, the AI-powered chatbot created by xAI and widely deployed across its new corporate sibling X, wasn’t just obsessed with white genocide this week. As first noted in Rolling Stone, Grok also answered a question on Thursday about the number of Jews killed by the Nazis in World War II by saying that “historical records,…
I’ve tested out a number of e-bikes in my time here at TechCrunch. And I’ve never been so tempted to hang onto one as I have with Heybike’s new Alpha. This sturdy, fat-tire, all-terrain e-bike is worth the $1,699 price tag. The Alpha ticked a whole lot of my boxes, including ones I didn’t even…
The Trump administration and congressional officials are scrutinizing a deal between Apple and Alibaba that would bring Alibaba-powered AI features to iPhones sold in China, according to The New York Times. Citing anonymous sources, the NYT says White House officials and members of the House Select Committee on China have asked Apple executives directly about…
Y Combinator-backed startup Firecrawl is back on the hunt for AI agent employees. As we reported back in February, its first attempt didn’t yield an AI worth hiring. But it’s now placed three new ads on YC’s job board for “AI agents only” and has set aside a $1 million budget total to make it…
Epic Games is escalating its efforts to pressure Apple to allow its game Fortnite into its App Store, with a new court filing asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to require that Apple “accept any compliant version of Fortnite onto the U.S. storefront of the App Store.” Epic and Apple have been engaged in a years-long…
