Tech

The way venture capitalists think about fund-raising can be a black box. But investors must think about their go-to-market strategy for raising their own funds, just as much as they think about how their portfolio companies find their market fit.   All season on Build Mode, we’ve explored how founders should approach marketing, but this week we’re exploring how VCs sell themselves to founders as trustworthy partners, and … Read more

The Walt Disney Company announced on Thursday that it has signed a three-year partnership with OpenAI that will bring its iconic characters to the company’s Sora AI video generator. Disney is also making a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI. Launched in September, Sora allows users to create short videos using simple prompts. With this … Read more

A pregnant woman in San Francisco gave birth inside a Waymo robotaxi Monday night en route to UCSF Medical Center, marking the latest milestone in the driverless car saga that no one saw coming — except everyone with more than six months of experience behind the wheel of a ride-share vehicle. According to The SF … Read more

Google just made a major move in the AI infrastructure arms race, elevating Amin Vahdat to chief technologist for AI infrastructure, a newly created position reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai, according to a memo first reported by Semafor and later confirmed by TechCrunch. It’s a signal of just how critical this work has become … Read more

Park Dae-jun has resigned as chief executive of South Korean retail giant Coupang after a data breach exposed the personal information of more than half of the country’s population. In a statement, Park apologized for the breach, citing a “deep sense of responsibility for the outbreak and the subsequent recovery process.” Coupang has replaced Park … Read more

Apple on Wednesday released its annual list of the most downloaded apps and games for the year. For the U.S. market, OpenAI’s ChatGPT topped the ranks of free iPhone apps (not including games) with the most installs in 2025. The AI app was followed by Threads, Google, TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail and … Read more

Naveen Rao, the former head of AI at Databricks, has raised $475 million in seed capital at a $4.5 billion valuation for his new startup, Unconventional AI. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Ventures, with participation from Lux Capital and DCVC. The funding is a first installment toward the goal of up … Read more

It’s been quite the year for Coreweave. In March, the AI cloud infrastructure provider went public in one of the biggest and most anticipated IPOs of the year that didn’t live up to its hype. Another setback took place in October, when a planned acquisition of the cloud provider’s business partner, Core Scientific, faltered due … Read more

Kabir Narang, a founding general partner at B Capital and an early backer of several Indian startups, has left the global venture firm, TechCrunch has learned and confirmed with the company. Narang is laying the groundwork for a new investment platform slated for 2026 that will focus on “compounding at the intersection of technology, AI, … Read more

AI research lab Anthropic continues to cement its stake as the predominant AI player in the enterprise space. On Tuesday, Anthropic announced a multi-year partnership with professional services firm Accenture. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed; however, The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal is for three years. Accenture confirmed the deal … Read more