Funding
OpenAI working on new $30B raise at $1.25T valuation ahead of IPO
Should OpenAI command an over $1 trillion valuation with this round, it would break records as the most highly valued private company ever.
TechCrunch ·
Industry Insights
AI news that
matters to Georgia.
Technology, policy, funding, and workforce headlines from trusted publishers, refreshed throughout the day. Georgia stories are flagged so you can follow what's happening close to home.
Funding
Nirva raises $33M for a pendant that only listens to you
Nirva will ship its $249 ambient AI pendant by the end of the year.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
DeepSeek reportedly raises $15B days after US restrictions
DeepSeek has reportedly raised $15 billion in one of China's largest funding rounds, just days after the US ordered federal agencies to remove its technology over national security concerns.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Exclusive: Slingshot Raises $27M In Seed Funding To Build An Insurer For Those Small Policies Sold At Checkout
Slingshot Insurance, a Minneapolis-based AI-native embedded insurance startup, is emerging from stealth with $27 million in a seed funding round co-led by Rally Ventures and Skyward Group, it tells Crunchbase News exclusively.
Crunchbase News ·
Funding
The AI IPO Wave Is The Dot-Com Bubble’s Evil Twin. Anthropic’s Delay Just Proved It.
In this guest article from Airrived co-founder and CEO Anurag Gurtu, he contends that Anthropic’s rapid revenue growth does not justify its proposed $2 trillion IPO valuation, given enormous infrastructure commitments, safety concerns,…
Crunchbase News ·
Funding
Your Next Customer Might Be An Agent. Here’s How To Build Your Brand For Both Humans And AI.
As AI agents increasingly recommend and purchase products, brands must appeal to both machines and humans by documenting their voice, creating clear product descriptions and checking how AI summarizes their messaging. Guest author Toby…
Crunchbase News ·
Funding
Legal AI startup Legora raises $550M Series E at $8.8B valuation
Legal AI startup Legora announced Wednesday that it raised a $550 million Series E round, valuing it at $8.8 billion.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Blacksmith hits unicorn valuation after Sequoia leads Series C
Blacksmith, a platform that lets companies build and test AI code more effectively, just announced a $66 million Series C round led by Sequoia that values the company at $1 billion.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Anthropic’s cloud partnerships are getting messy
Anthropic is reportedly struggling to secure enough compute from cloud providers that increasingly view it as a competitor, even as its infrastructure spending balloons ahead of a planned November IPO.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
OpenAI acquires startup Orchestra Bio to beef up its biotech business
OpenAI says it's adding Orchestra's team and technology to work on Rosalind, its AI model for life sciences research, and to its related Rosalind Workbench tool, a harness that aims to help researchers plan experiments and analyze results.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Otter.ai raises $320 million from General Catalyst’s growth fund for its meeting tool
Meeting note-taking tool Otter.ai announced on Tuesday that it has raised $320 million from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund (CVF), which provides capital to startups without diluting equity and gets returns on the results of…
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Tolan snags $30M for its AI companion that helps users navigate life
AI companion app Tolan has raised another $30 million after attracting more than 250,000 active users.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Tenstorrent hits $6.2B valuation to scale open-weight AI chips
After drawing acquisition interest earlier this year, the Nvidia challenger raised $1.5 billion to remain independent.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
AI assistant startup Town nabs unicorn valuation four months after launch
AI assistant startup Town nabbed a unicorn valuation on Monday, announcing a $108 million Series B round co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Menlo Ventures.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
The FDE Bubble: Silicon Valley’s Most Expensive Game Of Pretend
Enterprise AI companies relying on armies of forward deployed engineers are disguising labor-intensive services as scalable software, inflating recurring revenue and valuations while falling short of autonomy claims, argues Anurag Gurtu,…
Crunchbase News ·
Workforce
Disney agrees to hire the majority of Character.AI’s workforce
After chatbot startup Character.AI filed for bankruptcy earlier this week, many of its employees will have the opportunity to take jobs at Disney. Character.AI’s former CEO Karandeep Anand recently became the entertainment giant’s first…
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Meta removes language that raised scraping and AI training concerns
A Meta spokesperson insisted that the updated terms did not reflect a change in the way Meta crawls the web.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Spending Contracts For Latest AI-Driven Startup Batch
Startup investors aren’t exactly hitting pause, but they did scale back on giant rounds this past week, with just two startup financings in the multiple hundreds of millions.
Crunchbase News ·
Funding
Mark Wahlberg on using AI in film ‘the right way’ and being open to an AI clone carrying on his legacy
Actor and angel investor Mark Wahlberg says he's OK with using AI in filmmaking, provided it's used "to enhance what you're doing."
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Asia’s Startup Funding At Near Record High In Q3, Driven By AI
Overall, investors put $38.5 billion into reported seed- through growth-stage financings for Asian startups in Q3, per Crunchbase data. Of that, a majority went to AI-focused companies, echoing the trends we’ve seen globally.
Crunchbase News ·
Funding
Even Benchmark thinks AI is eroding the venture pact against backing rivals
Benchmark says the Valley’s rule against backing rivals is getting harder to keep.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Last chance to save up to $200 on your TechCrunch Founder Summit pass: Early booking ends October 16
Savings of up to $200 end October 16 for TechCrunch Founder Summit end on October 16. These savings for Founder and Investor Passes vanish after Friday. Join 1,000 founders and investors on November 4 at Boston’s SoWa Power Station. Bring…
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Amazon’s Bee launches two new personal AI devices, starting at $75
Amazon-owned Bee has launched its first new AI devices since its acquisition, including an updated wearable and a credit-card-sized recorder that attaches to smartphones. The devices can summarize conversations, create to-do lists, and…
TechCrunch ·
Funding
What it takes to build accountable AI in government
Six leaders from government and industry explain how embedding AI in financial, grants, and acquisition systems can move agencies from after-the-fact reporting to real-time risk prevention, without losing human oversight. The post What it…
FedScoop ·
Funding
Zenzap raises $44M for its AI chat app that aims to replace WhatsApp in the workplace
Zenzap is used by organizations including Starbucks and Taco Bell
TechCrunch ·
Funding
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Day 2
Day 2 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, full of all themes across AI, investor-only session, more roundtables, and more. Register to save 50% on your pass.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Exclusive: Stella & Dot Founder Raises $5M For Her Next Act, AI Marketing Startup Marklo
In this Crunchbase News exclusive, we spoke to Marklo AI founder Jessica Herrin about her solution to the marketing problems she encountered when building earlier startups, and how a group of investors, led by Forerunner, are backing that…
Crunchbase News ·
Funding
38 Companies Join The Crunchbase Unicorn Board In Blockbuster September, Led By Semiconductor, Fintech And Space Tech Companies
Semiconductors, financial services and space technology led for new Unicorn Board counts with the remainder hailing from a broad swath of industries including biotech, AI infrastructure, AI training, security and frontier labs.
Crunchbase News ·
Funding
Scimplify raises $25M to challenge China’s grip on critical materials with AI
Scimplify's annualized revenue run rate has tripled to $200 million as it eyes U.S. expansion.
TechCrunch ·
Funding
Pluto Security raises $42M as AI gives enterprise security teams a new headache
The problem with giving everyone in a company access to AI tools is that people will use them in unexpected ways. And that fact is steadily seeding fears that companies now have new, gaping security holes in their systems or, at least,…
TechCrunch ·
Headlines link to the original publisher. AI Ready Georgia curates these sources automatically and doesn't endorse third-party content. Have a story or source we should include? Let us know.