Author: Editor-in-Chief

Making democracy work isn’t easy, as recent events have made clear. Some critics would argue that technology is making it worse. But one startup is hoping that AI could help bridge some differences instead of widen them. “I had an a-ha moment one day when I realized people are asking AI to explain something like they’re five years old,” Tommy Lorsch, co-founder and CEO of Complex Chaos, told TechCrunch. “What if we use it as a facilitator to help people understand each other and find common ground?” He and co-founder Maya Ben Dror are developing tools to help people arrive…

The U.K. government has confirmed it will guarantee a commercial bank loan of £1.5 billion ($2bn) for carmaking giant Jaguar Land Rover after a hack forced the company to shut down its carmaking production lines and left downstream suppliers at risk of bankruptcy. In a statement on Sunday, U.K. ministers said that the government-backed loan will “bolster JLR’s cash reserves so it can support its supply chain which has been greatly impacted by the shutdown.” JLR will have five years to pay back the loan. Companies across the U.K. that supply parts and products to JLR, many of which are…

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Oura Health CEO Tom Hale didn’t discuss reports that the company is raising new funding that would value the health-tracking ring maker at nearly $11 billion, but he did talk about whether he has ambitions to take Oura public. “We’ve certainly hit the thresholds of size, trajectory, scale and growth,” Hale said. “We could go public. Is that in our plans? It’s certainly an option. And when the moment is right, we’ll let everyone know.” Oura recently announced that it expects to generate $1 billion in revenue this year, doubling its…

Manny Medina, previously best-known as the founder of sales automation startup Outreach ($4.4 billion valuation), has wowed investors with his young startup, Paid. Paid just closed an oversubscribed $21.6 million seed round led by Lightspeed. With the €10 million pre-seed round it raised in March, London-based Paid has already raised $33.3 million and hasn’t even hit its Series A yet. A source familiar with the deal says the startup’s valuation is over $100 million. Paid came out of stealth in March offering an interesting contribution to the AI agentic world: The company doesn’t offer agents. It offers a way for…

Despite millions spent on financial software, many finance teams still rely on Excel to close their books and reconcile numbers while preparing them for audit. Two former Microsoft executives view it as a problem — and they have started Maximor to replace spreadsheets with AI agents for the grunt work finance teams perform. Excel spreadsheets are everywhere in finance. Even with dedicated ERP, CRM, and billing systems, many mid-sized companies and enterprises still export transactions into Excel for manual reconciliation. Teams often treat spreadsheets as makeshift databases, sometimes even relying on functions like VLOOKUP — a function used to…

Social network X on Monday said it would appeal an Indian court ruling that upheld a content takedown system, calling the government-run operation “secretive” and claiming it “has no basis in the law.” The platform said last week’s decision by the Karnataka High Court lets police issue “arbitrary” content removal orders through the online portal, called Sahyog. The ruling was in response to a petition by X, filed in March, that challenged the government and the system, which the company described in court as a “censorship portal.” India launched Sahyog (“assistance” in Hindi) in late 2024 to automate content…

Automotive giant Honda and lunar startup Astrobotic are teaming up to explore how a regenerative fuel cell system could help keep the lights on during long nights on the Moon. The companies on Monday partnered up to study whether Honda’s regenerative fuel cell (RFC) can be integrated into Astrobotic’s LunaGrid, a scalable power service built around solar arrays. The two will conduct “illumination studies” at potential lunar south pole landing sites, and evaluate system scalability as well as hardware and software integration. A key challenge for lunar exploration is surviving the two-week-long lunar night, when temperatures can plunge to as…

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer is closing the doors on her consumer software startup Sunshine, and is selling the company’s assets to her new AI startup, Dazzle. The news was first reported by Wired, which cited an email sent to Sunshine’s shareholders. Dazzle is setting out to build an AI personal assistant, the report cited anonymous sources as saying, and added that all of Sunshine’s employees will move to the new company. Almost all of Sunshine’s investors, who include Norwest Venture Partners, Felicis Partners, and SV Angel, have signed off on the deal, Wired cited the sources as saying.…

A federal judge has rejected drone maker DJI’s efforts to get off a Department of Defense list of Chinese military companies. aU.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled Friday that the DoD had provided “substantial evidence” that DJI contributes “to the Chinese defense industrial base.” Pointing to the use of modified DJI drones in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Friedman wrote, “Whether or not DJI’s policies prohibit military use is irrelevant. That does not change the fact that DJI’s technology has both substantial theoretical and actual military application.” At the same time, Judge Friedman rejected some of the DoD’s other…

Venture capitalists have convinced themselves they’ve found the next big investing edge: using AI to wring software-like margins out of traditionally labor-intensive services businesses. The strategy involves acquiring mature professional services firms, implementing AI to automate tasks, then using the improved cash flow to roll up more companies. Leading the charge is General Catalyst (GC), which has dedicated $1.5 billion of its latest fundraise to what it calls a “creation” strategy that’s focused on incubating AI-native software companies in specific verticals, then using those companies as acquisition vehicles to buy established firms — and their customers — in the…