Author: Editor-in-Chief

Perplexity, the AI-powered search startup that competes with Google by providing conversational answers to user queries, has secured $200 million in new capital at a $20 billion valuation, The Information reported. The fresh funding comes just two months after the company raised $100 million at an $18 billion valuation, according to a July report in Bloomberg. Since its founding three years ago, the rapidly growing AI company has raised $1.5 billion in total funding, according to PitchBook data.  It’s unclear who led Perplexity’s latest capital injection. Bloomberg reported that the July financing was an extension of a previous $500 million…

The California State Assembly took a big step toward regulating AI on Wednesday night, passing SB 243 — a bill that regulate AI companion chatbots in order to protect minors and vulnerable users. The legislation passed with bipartisan support and now heads to the state Senate for a final vote Friday. If Governor Gavin Newsom signs the bill into law, it would take effect January 1, 2026, making California the first state to require AI chatbot operators to implement safety protocols for AI companions and hold companies legally accountable if their chatbots fail to meet those standards. The bill…

Last year’s TechCrunch Disrupt Side Events drew hundreds of founders, investors, and operators after hours — from intimate roundtables to lively happy hours to full-on pitch competitions. Each event unlocked new opportunities for the hosts: investor deal flow, talent connections, and brand exposure with the startup community. This year, you can do the same. As a Side Event host during “Disrupt Week” (October 25–31), you’ll tap into an audience of 10,000+ attendees, plus the broader Bay Area tech community. Why host a Side Event? Visibility: Your brand featured in Disrupt 2025 Side Event listings on the event site, event app,…

Streaming giant Plex is urging its customers to change their passwords after it disclosed a data breach of one of its user databases. The company said in a post on Monday that it was aware of a security incident involving the theft of Plex customer account information, including user names, email addresses, scrambled passwords, and unspecified authentication data. Plex said while the passwords were scrambled in a way that made them unreadable to humans, it’s unclear if the passwords can be deciphered or if the stolen authentication data could be used to gain access to customer accounts. The company said…

On a farm near Manchester, New Hampshire, I was recently treated to a gusher of dirty water, not exactly the sort of thing that most startups will show a reporter. But for Dig Energy, the mud is a feature, not a bug, of its compact drilling rig. The startup, which has been operating in stealth for the last five years, developed the water-jet drilling rig in an effort to make geothermal heating and cooling so inexpensive that it will displace fossil fuel boilers and furnaces. The rig is central to that, promising to slash drilling costs by up to…

Two current and two former Meta employees disclosed documents to Congress alleging that the company may have suppressed research on children’s safety, according to a report from The Washington Post. According to their claims, Meta changed its policies around researching sensitive topics — like politics, children, gender, race, and harassment — six weeks after whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents that showed how Meta’s own research found that Instagram can damage teen girls’ mental health. These revelations, which were made public in 2021, kicked off years of hearings in Congress over child safety on the internet, an issue that remains…

On Monday, Anthropic announced an official endorsement of SB 53, a California bill from state senator Scott Wiener that would impose first-in-the-nation transparency requirements on the world’s largest AI model developers. Anthropic’s endorsement marks a rare and major win for SB 53, at a time when major tech groups like the Consumer Technology Association(CTA) and Chamber for Progress are lobbying against the bill. “While we believe that frontier AI safety is best addressed at the federal level instead of a patchwork of state regulations, powerful AI advancements won’t wait for consensus in Washington,” said Anthropic in a blog post. “The…

Just nine months after raising a whopping $10 billion (plus $5 billion in debt) in January, Databricks has confirmed another $1 billion raise at a $100 billion valuation. When rumors of the raise first broke last month, Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi told TechCrunch that the company is using the funds to invest in its Supabase-competitor database for AI agents. “A year ago, we saw in the data that 30% of the databases were not created by humans,” said Ghodsi. “For the first time, they were created by AI agents. And this year, the statistic is 80%.” The round was co-led…

By the time Harry Qi was 23 years old, he had achieved the kind of financial success that most people will never attain: making about $1 million a year. He was working as “a quant” in his first job out of college. That’s hedge-fund speak for a stock-trading analyst at a statistical-model driven “quant” fund. But, like many people who spend their energies pursuing ever more money, he felt empty. “At some point you just want to make a much bigger impact on this world,” Qi, now 29, tells TechCrunch. So in 2019, he and his high school buddy, Omid…

Want to launch a startup? Build a brand? Run a large-scale conference like this one day? Volunteering at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is one of the best ways to see how the magic happens — and learn what it takes to pull off a world-class event. IMAGE CREDITS:SLAVA BLAZER PHOTOGRAPHY TechCrunch Disrupt returns to San Francisco this October 27–29, and we’re calling in the crew to roll up their sleeves and help make it all happen. Whether you’re greeting attendees, supporting speakers, or running backstage ops, volunteering gets you free event access, real-world experience, and direct exposure to the startup scene.…