AI & Robotics

Two teenage founders walked into Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham’s backyard with an idea no one in agriculture seemed to want – an AI model to help design better pesticides. By the time they left, they had a new business model, a new company, and eventually, Graham’s backing. Now, that reimagined company – Bindwell – has raised $6 million in a seed round, co-led…

Power demands of data centers have grown from tens to 200 kilowatts in just a few years, a pace that has data center developers scrambling to design future facilities that can handle the load. “In the next couple of years, it’s going to be 600 kilowatts, and then we’re going to a megawatt,” Tim Heidel, CEO of Veir, told TechCrunch. “We’re speaking to folks that…

Israeli AI agent startup Wonderful has raised $100 million in a Series A round led by Index Ventures, with participation from Insight Partners, IVP, Bessemer, and Vine Ventures. The large round, in a market already crowded with AI agent startups, suggests Wonderful has convinced top tier investors it’s not just another GPT wrapper, but a company building the infrastructure and orchestration…

Kaltura, a New York-headquartered AI video platform company, is acquiring eSelf.ai, an Israel-based startup behind conversational avatars – AI-generated digital humans that can talk with users – for about $27 million. Kaltura announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire eSelf, a platform supporting more than 30 languages and featuring a user-friendly studio for…