Technology

Y Combinator alum Skio sells $105M in cash, only raises $8M, founder says

Y Combinator alum Skio sells $105M in cash, only raises $8M, founder says

๐Ÿ’ฅ Explore this trending post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: Fintech,Startups,Exclusive,exits,Skio,Y Combinator โœ… **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: Skio, a 2020 Y Combinator alumni founded by Keenan Frost, a self-described college dropout, has been acquired by rival Recharge, the companies announced Thursday. Skio and Recharge both make products that handle subscription payments for brands. While the official press release did not reveal the terms of the deal, Frost (who previously left the company) posted on X, LinkedIn, and Instagram that his startup took in $105 million in cash and had only raised $8 million from investors. This is a healthy return by…
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With Tim Cook stepping down, Apple has achieved record sales, but a chip shortage is looming

With Tim Cook stepping down, Apple has achieved record sales, but a chip shortage is looming

๐Ÿ”ฅ Read this insightful post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: Hardware,Apple,iPhone,John Ternus,RAMaggedon,Tim Cook ๐Ÿ’ก **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: Apple reported a record quarter on Thursday. However, outgoing CEO Tim Cook warned that some storm clouds are gathering in the form of memory chip supply issues that could impact the business in the near future. โ€œToday Apple is proud to announce our best quarter ever, with revenue of $111.2 billion and double-digit growth in every geographic segment,โ€ Cook said during Thursday's earnings call. โ€œiPhone achieved record revenue for the March quarter, fueled by this exceptional demand for the iPhone 17 lineup.โ€ Less…
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Sources: A potential $900 billion valuation round could happen within two weeks

Sources: A potential $900 billion valuation round could happen within two weeks

โœจ Check out this awesome post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: AI,Venture,Exclusive,Anthropic,megarounds โœ… **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: Anthropic is asking investors to make allocations to the AI โ€‹โ€‹company's latest fundraising campaign within the next 48 hours, according to sources familiar with the matter. The round, which TechCrunch reported is expected to be worth about $50 billion, is expected to close within two weeks, the sources said. As mentioned earlier, Anthropic is targeting a valuation of around $900 billion. However, our sources said that due to growing demand from investors seeking a stake in the company, the final valuation may exceed this…
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Apple has been surprised by the AI-driven demand for Macs

Apple has been surprised by the AI-driven demand for Macs

โœจ Explore this must-read post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: Hardware,AI,Apple,earnings,mac,mac mini,Mac Studio,macbook neo โœ… **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: Apple's iPhone sales and services revenues were the stars of the show in the tech giant's latest quarter, but the Mac has quietly outperformed โ€” thanks to growing demand for artificial intelligence workloads. Wall Street investors were expecting to see Mac revenue in the low $8 billion range, but Apple reported $8.4 billion in the second quarter ended March 28 โ€” a notable win for a non-core segment of the tech giant's business. Additionally, investors believed before the earnings announcement that Mac…
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Legal AI startup Legora is valued at $5.6 billion and its battle with Harvey is getting hotter

Legal AI startup Legora is valued at $5.6 billion and its battle with Harvey is getting hotter

๐Ÿ’ฅ Read this insightful post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: AI,Startups,jude law,legal tech,legora,nventures ๐Ÿ“Œ **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: Nvidia has set a new stone in its AI empire. NVentures, its venture capital fund, has backed Legora, in what is said to be its first legal investment in AI. Leveraging artificial intelligence to help lawyers streamline their work, the Swedish-born legal tech startup is competing with US player Harvey. Along with Atlassian and other new financial investors, NVentures has joined Legora's cap table as part of a $50 million Series D extension that comes a month after the startup's $550 million Series…
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Rivian is reducing the size of the Department of Energy loan to $4.5 billion, while enhancing the capacity of the Georgia factory

Rivian is reducing the size of the Department of Energy loan to $4.5 billion, while enhancing the capacity of the Georgia factory

โœจ Read this must-read post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: Transportation,electric vehicles,EVs,Rivian ๐Ÿ“Œ **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: Rivian has reworked its loan deal with the Department of Energy and now expects to borrow $4.5 billion to build its new plant in Georgia, down from the original $6.6 billion allocated under the Biden administration. The company also announced Thursday that it will retire the loan sooner than planned, in early 2027, and expects to increase the Georgia plant's total capacity from 200,000 to 300,000 vehicles in the initial phase of operation โ€” another sign that the company has high hopes for its…
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Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future has paid $7.5 million for a company linked to founder Jia Yueting

Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future has paid $7.5 million for a company linked to founder Jia Yueting

โœจ Read this trending post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: Transportation,Exclusive,faraday future,Jia Yueting โœ… **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: Faraday Future paid about $7.5 million to a company controlled by its founder Jia Yueting in 2025, according to a new regulatory filing. The long-struggling electric vehicle startup made payments in one year when it delivered just four vehicles and lost nearly $400 million. The company focused on selling smaller trucks and cheaper robots imported from China. The payments occurred while Faraday Future was still under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which was probing what are known as โ€œrelated party…
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Elon Musk attests that XAI trained Grok on OpenAI models

Elon Musk attests that XAI trained Grok on OpenAI models

๐Ÿ”ฅ Explore this awesome post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: AI,AI training,distillation,Elon Musk,Grok,OpenAI โœ… **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: OpenAI and Anthropic have recently been on the warpath against third-party efforts to train new AI models by incentivizing chatbots and publicly accessible APIs, a process known as โ€œdistillation.โ€ That conversation has focused on Chinese companies using distillation to create open-weight models that are roughly equivalent in capacity to American offerings, but are available at a much lower cost. However, technology insiders widely assume that US labs are using these technologies on each other to avoid falling behind competitors. Now, we know this…
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Uber turns to Hertz to clean, charge and repair Lucid Motors’ robotaxis

Uber turns to Hertz to clean, charge and repair Lucid Motors’ robotaxis

๐Ÿ’ฅ Discover this awesome post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: Transportation,autonomous vehicles,avs,hertz,Lucid Motors,robotaxis,self driving cars,Uber โœ… **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: Uber's upcoming luxury robotaxi service in collaboration with Lucid Motors and Nuro will get a fourth partner: Hertz. Hertz will provide "day-to-day management of vehicle assets, including shipping, maintenance, repairs, cleaning and warehouse staffing," the companies announced Thursday. The service, which was announced last year, is supposed to launch by the end of 2026 in the San Francisco Bay Area, using Lucid's Gravity SUVs and Nuro's self-driving technology. Hertz is handling this work through a newly created subsidiary called Oro Mobility,…
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Salesforce is outsourcing its AI roadmap โ€“ to customers

Salesforce is outsourcing its AI roadmap โ€“ to customers

๐Ÿ’ฅ Explore this trending post from TechCrunch ๐Ÿ“– ๐Ÿ“‚ **Category**: AI,Enterprise,TC,Salesforce,Enterprise AI,AI agents,artificial intelligence,Agentforce โœ… **What Youโ€™ll Learn**: Artificial intelligence continues to advance at breakneck speed, forcing companies to develop and release new products faster than ever before or risk becoming irrelevant to a fast-moving competitor. Salesforce believes it has found a strategy that allows it to keep up even if it's not clear where AI is going next. The customer management software giant is outsourcing its AI roadmap in real time. Salesforce certainly isn't the only company that works closely with its customers to get feedback on its products.…
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