T

TechCrunch

March 2026

Exclusive: Runway launches $10M fund, Builders program to support early-stage AI startups

This is part of our general world models, which is what we’re pushing for next: a set of models that are interactive, real-time, and immersive,
Until [recently], we didn’t have the possibilities of talking to a real-time video agent, so we are really trying to see which teams see the potential and positive impacts of this technology,
Many companies like ours are investing heavily on the primitives that will unlock a new set of applications or new types of companies,
We do really believe that there’s a new kind of internet that’s going to be more personalized, more immersive, and in real-time,
The next generation of AI models will be built on multimodal data — video, audio, images, text together,
We think that through video, we’re going to get to video intelligence, and it’s going to open a wider set of use cases in different industries that we can’t double down on today, but that maybe we can support with our research,

Rivian spinoff Also will build autonomous delivery vehicles for DoorDash

As part of the deal, DoorDash took part in Also’s $200 million Series C funding round, which was led by previous investor Greenoaks Capital

Meta launches two new Ray-Ban glasses designed for prescription wearers

The new glasses start ​at $499 and will be available at optical retailers in the U.S. ​and select international markets, starting April 14

Nomadic raises $8.4 million to wrangle the data pouring off autonomous vehicles

Mustafa BalcEO
Juggling around terabytes of video, slamming that against hundreds of 100 billion plus parameter models, and then extracting their accurate insights, is really insanely difficult,
It’s the same reason Salesforce doesn’t build its own cloud and Netflix doesn’t build its own [content distribution facilities],
We are providing folks insight on their own footage, whatever drives their own AVs [and] robots,

North Korean hackers blamed for hijacking popular Axios open source project to spread malware

A hacker has hijacked and modified a popular open-source software development tool to deliver malware that could put millions of developers at risk of being compromised

Whoop’s valuation just tripled to $10 billion

Whoop, the fitness and health tracking wearable company, has closed a $575 million Series G funding round at a $10.1 billion valuation — nearly triple its last reported valuation of $3.6 billion — in a deal that brings together sovereign wealth funds, major health institutions, and some of the world’s most recognizable athletes

Social gaming platform Rec Room, once valued at $3.5B, is shutting down

Founded in 2016 by Nick Fajt and Cameron Brown, Rec Room garnered significant attention and investments, reaching a valuation of $3.5 billion in December 2021

We spent a long time trying to find a way to make the numbers work,

Meta was finally held accountable for harming teens. Now what?

This was a landmark decision on its own — but the next day, Meta lost another case when a jury in Los Angeles found that the company knowingly designed its apps to be addictive to children and teens, therefore endangering the mental health of the plaintiff, a twenty-year-old known as K.G.M

We need folks to come to the table with solutions, instead of what they’re doing now, which is just telling a different story to both sides of the aisle to rile them up and get them freaked out,
That’s nothing to the Metas of the world,
They took the model that was used against the tobacco industry many years ago, and instead of focusing on things like content, they focused on these addictive features — how the platform is designed, and issues with the design, which is different than content, where you have this First Amendment argument,
Chris Coxmeta CPO
We learned one of the things we need to optimize for is sneaking a look at your phone in the middle of Chemistry :),
Evan Greerthey are the deputy director of the nonprofit advocacy group Fight for the Future
There is no universe where passing censorship or ‘age verification’ law, under the guise of kids safety, doesn’t lead to massive online censorship of content and speech that Trump doesn’t like,
No one wakes up thinking they want to maximize the number of times they open Instagram that day,
I am urging a ‘no’ vote on the current version,
The mountain of unsealed evidence really demonstrates what I experienced first hand,
We do not goal on teen time spent today,
We respectfully disagree with these verdicts and will appeal,

It’s not your imagination: AI seed startups are commanding higher valuations

People are just trying to survive the pressure,
I currently have multiple six-figure contracts, currently closing a seven-figure. You have to have that to raise,
Amber Athertonhong Kong-born British entrepreneur, venture capitalist (born 1991)
There’s a war for great researchers right now, and I don’t think it’s good or bad; it’s just the current state of the market,
Higher... Less room for experimentation, less tolerance for pivots, and more scrutiny if progress doesn’t match the capital raised.”
AI has raised the bar that much higher for founders to have a live product with users and revenue straight out of the gate,
That discipline is just as important as backing winners,
They had relevant experience” and “a track record of execution,
The best seed-stage companies do not look like traditional seed-stage companies anymore,

Robotaxi companies refuse to say how often their AVs need remote help

This capability enables Tesla to promptly move a vehicle that may be in a compromising position, thereby mitigating the need to wait for a first responder or Tesla field representative to manually recover the vehicle,
Ed Markeydemocratic Senator
This report has revealed a stunning lack of transparency from the AV companies around their use of [remote assistance operators] to help guide their AVs. The investigation exposed a patchwork of safety practices across the industry, with significant variation in operator qualifications, response times, and overseas staffing, all without any federal standards governing these operations,

OpenAI, not yet public, raises $3B from retail investors in monster $122B fund raise

SoftBank co-led the round alongside Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, and T. Rowe Price Associates, with participation from Amazon, Nvidia, and Microsoft

At this stage, we are growing revenue four times faster than the companies who defined the Internet and mobile eras, including Alphabet and Meta.”

Starcloud raises $170 million Series A to build data centers in space

Starcloud’s latest funding round values the space compute company at $1.1 billion, making it one of the fastest startups to reach unicorn status after graduating from Y Combinator

Philip Johnstonceo and founder
If it ends up being delayed, we’ll just carry on launching the smaller versions on Falcon 9,
Philip Johnstonceo and founder
There’s kind of two business models,... One is selling processing power to other spacecraft on orbit; the company’s first satellite, for example, analyzes data collected by Capella Space’s radar spacecraft
They are building for a slightly different use case than us,
An H100 is probably not the best chip for space, to be honest, but the reason we did it is we wanted to prove that we could run state of the art terrestrial chips in space,

Mistral AI raises $830M in debt to set up a data center near Paris

It plans to complete building the data center in Bruyeres-le-Chatel and make it operational in the second quarter of 2026, Reuters reported on Monday

Arthur Menschchief Executive
Scaling our infrastructure in Europe is critical to empower our customers and to ensure AI innovation and autonomy remain at the heart of Europe,

AI chip startup Rebellions raises $400 million at $2.3B valuation in pre-IPO round

Founded in 2020, Rebellions develops and designs AI chips while outsourcing their fabrication

AI is now measured by its ability to operate in the real world at scale, under power constraints, and with clear economic return,

Uber is buying Berlin startup Blacklane to bolster its ‘Elite’ offering

It’s a notable exit for Blacklane, which was founded in 2011 and has raised more than $100 million to date from rental car company Sixt, Mercedes-Benz, and ALFAHIM, a conglomerate in the UAE