Author: TechCrunch News

In Brief Posted: 3:59 PM PST · January 8, 2026 Image Credits:jpa1999 / Getty Images Data security startup Cyera continues on a growth tear. On Thursday, it announced a $400 million Series F funding round at a $9 billion valuation. The New York-based outfit has now raised over $1.7 billion. This funding comes just six…

Image Credits:GTMfund 11:27 AM PST · January 8, 2026 Building software products has never been easier, so why are so many well-funded startups failing to take off no matter how good their product is? In this season finale episode of Build Mode, our guest has an answer: Startups have focused too much on product development and not…

Skylight, known for its digital picture frame, has a new digital product that puts software and AI at the center…

Ford says the new generation of BlueCruise will be 30% cheaper to build than the current technology…

Over the past few days, several posts on LinkedIn and Twitter/X went viral after one of the most talked about AI companies in San Francisco suddenly vanished from LinkedIn: Artisan AI.   The company’s LinkedIn page, individual employee profiles, and posts from executives all displayed a “This post cannot be displayed” message.   The startup had been…

Image Credits:Justin Sullivan / Getty Images 8:17 AM PST · January 2, 2026 Tesla annual sales have fallen for the second year in a row, a drop fueled by the removal of the federal tax credit in the U.S. and competition from Chinese automakers. Tesla delivered 1.63 million vehicles globally in 2025, a 9% fall…

Arya.ag, an Indian agritech company offering storage facilities near farms and offering lending services to hundreds of thousands of farmers, has drawn investor interest and remained profitable even as global crop prices continue to fall in a volatile commodities market. The investor interest has taken shape in the latest all-equity Series D round from GEF…

Image Credits:Getty Images 7:00 AM PST · January 1, 2026 Every year, TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield pitch contest draws thousands of applicants. We whittle those applications down to the top 200 contenders, and of them, the top 20 compete on the big stage to become the winner, taking home the Startup Battlefield Cup and a cash…

Although iconic founders like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg famously didn’t finish college, multiple studies show that the vast majority of successful startups had founders with bachelor’s or graduate degrees. Despite this data, the appeal of a dropout founder persists, though VC enthusiasm for the ‘un-degreed’ is far from constant. It is a phenomenon that…

Founders Tade Oyerinde and Teddy Solomon spoke at Disrupt this year about keeping communities engaged…