Author: TechCrunch News

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour confirmed on a podcast interview that his employees asked social media influencers to promote memes about the FBI’s raid on the home of his archrival, the CEO of Polymarket.  Both companies offer competing events-betting markets, a new kind of betting industry where people wager about the outcomes of events ranging from…

Telegram launched a new page touting its moderation efforts, which have spiked since its founder’s arrest. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only…

Microsoft has announced the newest addition to its Phi family of generative AI models. Called Phi-4, the model is improved in several areas over its predecessors, Microsoft claims — in particular math problem solving. That’s partly the result of improved training data quality. Phi-4 is available in very limited access as of Thursday night: only…

Late-stage deals in space have been on the decline this year, but one notable exception is Fleet Space Technologies’ $100 million Series D.  The Adelaide, Australia-based startup raised the new funding to accelerate the development of ExoSphere, a platform to enable real-time mineral prospecting from space…

Roundabouts. They trapped Clark Griswold in “National Lampoon’s European Vacation” and now they’ve tripped up a Waymo robotaxi. A video is circulating on social media showing a Waymo robotaxi going round and round on a roundabout — as if it is stuck in a loop. A Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch there were no passengers onboard…

SolarSquare has raised $40 million in a round led by Lightspeed in what is the largest venture round in India’s solar sector. The Mumbai-based startup bootstrapped and was profitable selling to corporate customers for five years before switching to residential solar in 2021. Now it has scaled to powering over 20,000 homes and 200 housing…

OpenAI has never revealed exactly which data it used to train Sora, its video-generating AI. But from the looks of it, at least some of the data might’ve come from Twitch streams and walkthroughs of games. Sora launched on Monday, and I’ve been playing around with it for a bit (to the extent the capacity…

University endowments could be taxed much higher under Trump. That may harm VCs, an investor warns. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only…

Andrew Ferguson, one of two Republican FTC commissioners appointed by U.S. President Joe Biden, will be the country’s next FTC chair, incoming president Donald Trump Tuesday on social media. The news is being met with relief in some circles. Current FTC Chair Lina Khan was blamed by many in Silicon Valley for a dearth of…

Electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle startup Joby Aviation has launched a public offering to sell up to $300 million of its shares of common stock, per a regulatory filing. Separately, Joby raised $222 million in October from underwriters. This latest filing adds to that offering and would give Joby the chance to raise a…