Israel's startup scene shows reslience despite nine months of war

When the war between Israel and Hamas broke out last October, we examined its potential impact on the tech ecosystems in Israel and Palestine. Nine months later, the prevailing sentiment in Israel, based on my conversation with founders and investors, is that the conflict has made the startup and VC …...Read More

Deel acquires Hofy to build its own IT device management service

Fast-growing payroll provider Deel is making a sizable acquisition, its third this year. Deel announced on Thursday that it acquired Hofy, a London-based company that delivers and helps manage office equipment for remote hires. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the deal …...Read More

Dyson’s new OnTrac headphones don’t purify air

If your top concern for a pair of headphones is how well they filter the air, Dyson’s OnTrac aren’t for you. In fact, the new over-ear headphones don’t filter air at all. That much, at least, marks a key change their spiritual predecessors, the Zone, which both fascinated and baffled …...Read More

Bill Weber out as CEO of Firefly Aerospace

Bill Weber is out as chief executive at Firefly Aerospace, following a nearly two-year stint in the role, the maker of launch vehicles, lunar landers and orbital vehicles announced late Wednesday. While the board initiates a search for a new CEO, board member Peter Schumacher will serve as interim CEO, …...Read More

SpaceX's vehicle to deorbit the International Space Station is a Dragon on steroids

The $843 million spacecraft SpaceX is designing to bring down the International Space Station at the end of the decade will be a super-powered version of its Dragon capsule that’s used to transport astronauts and cargo to orbit today, the company revealed Wednesday. NASA awarded SpaceX the massive contract to …...Read More

How a B2B payments startup won Max, Jack and Sam Altman, JP Morgan as investors

It’s not everyday that OpenAI founder Sam Altman teaches your class at Stanford, but that’s the kind of entrepreneurial spirit Lawrence Lin Murata, co-founder and CEO of Slope, tapped into as he and Alice Deng build their B2B payments company. “We met back in 2016 when he taught a class …...Read More

TTT models might be the next frontier in generative AI

After years of dominance by the form of AI known as the transformer, the hunt is on for new architectures. Transformers underpin OpenAI’s video-generating model Sora, and they’re at the heart of text-generating models like Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini and GPT-4o. But they’re beginning to run up against technical roadblocks …...Read More

Ethereum co-founder's warning against 'pro-crypto' candidates: 'Are they in it for the right reasons?'

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, issued a warning on Wednesday against choosing a candidate purely based on whether they claim to be “pro-crypto.” In a blog post, Buterin said it’s more important to scrutinize a candidate’s broader policies to ensure they support cryptocurrency’s underlying goals, including internationalism and protection …...Read More

InMobi eyes $10 billion valuation in 2025 India IPO

Adtech startup InMobi is eyeing a valuation of about $10 billion in an initial public offering it is planning for next year, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The firm plans to list in India, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the deliberations are private. InMobi is profitable …...Read More

Microsoft's AI-powered, Canva-like Designer app lands on iOS and Android

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that its AI-powered Designer app is officially coming out of preview and is now available to all users on iOS and Android. The Canva-like app lets people generate images and designs with text prompts to create things like stickers, greeting cards, invitations, collages and more. Designer …...Read More