AI & Robotics

Autonomous vehicle startup Waabi has raised $1 billion and struck a partnership with Uber to deploy self-driving cars on the ride-hailing platform – the company’s first expansion beyond autonomous trucking. The funding consists of an oversubscribed $750 million Series C round co-led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners and roughly $250 million in milestone-based capital from Uber…

Flora, a design tool used by designers at Alibaba, Brex, creative agency Pentagram, and entertainment company Lionsgate, has hit a new milestone. The startup has raised $42 million in Series A led by Redpoint Ventures, it announced on Tuesday. Generative AI models can be used in the design process via prompts and other multimodal inputs. Software companies like Adobe, Figma, and Canva have also…

British startup Synthesia, whose AI platform helps companies create interactive training videos, has raised a $200 million Series E round of funding that brings its valuation to $4 billion – up from $2.1 billion just a year ago. Unlike some other AI startups that are still a long way from turning a profit, Synthesia has found a lucrative business in transforming corporate training thanks to…

Meta today said that it is pausing teens’ access to its AI characters globally across all its apps. The company mentioned that it is not abandoning its efforts but wants to develop an updated version of AI characters for teens, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The move comes days before a case against Meta is set to go to trial in New Mexico, in which the company is accused of not…