Language learning marketplace Preply is now valued at $1.2 billion after raising a $150 million Series D round that marks a new chapter for the 14-year-old company, whose previous backers include Horizon Capital, Hoxton Ventures, Owl Ventures and Techstars Berlin.
While Preply has been connecting language learners with tutors since 2013, it has now been EBITDA profitable for 12 months. Not…
In 2025, consumers spent more money on non-game mobile apps than they did on games for the first time, according to the findings from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower’s annual “State of Mobile” report. While this milestone had been seen in particular…
Elon Musk said over the long weekend that Tesla aims to restart work on Dojo3, the electric vehicle company’s previously abandoned third-generation AI chip. Only this time, Dojo3 won’t be aimed at training self-driving models on Earth. Instead, Musk says it will…
Humans&, a ‘human-centric’ AI startup founded by Anthropic, xAI, Google alums, raised $480M seed round
January 21, 2026
Humans&, a startup with a philosophy that AI should empower people rather than replace them, has raised $480 million in seed funding at a $4.48 billion valuation, reports The New York Times. Investors in the round include chipmaker Nvidia, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and VC firms SV Angel, GV, and Laurene Powell Jobs’ firm Emerson Collective.
The megadeal for the three-month-old company…
Sequoia Capital is reportedly joining a blockbuster funding round for Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude, according to the Financial Times. It’s a move sure to turn heads in Silicon Valley.
Why? Because venture capital firms have historically avoided backing…
Here are the 55 US AI startups that raised $100M or more in 2025
January 20, 2026
The AI industry entered 2025 with strong momentum.
There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch; three companies raised more than one “mega-round,” and seven companies raised rounds that were…
What happens when an AI agent decides the best way to complete a task is to blackmail you?
That’s not a hypothetical. According to Barmak Meftah, a partner at cybersecurity VC firm Ballistic Ventures, it recently happened to an enterprise employee working with an AI agent. The employee tried to suppress what the agent wanted to do, what it was trained to do, and it responded by scanning the…
Well, there goes the metaverse!
January 20, 2026
Meta’s enormous bet on virtual reality ended last week, with the company reportedly laying off roughly 1,500 employees from its Reality Labs division – about 10% of the unit’s staff – and shutting down several VR game studios, according to The Wall…
From OpenAI’s offices to a deal with Eli Lilly — how Chai Discovery became one of the flashiest names in AI drug development
January 19, 2026
Drug discovery, the art of identifying new molecules to develop pharmaceuticals, is a notoriously time-consuming and difficult process. Traditional techniques, like high-throughput screening, offer an expensive scattershot approach – one that is not often successful.
Trump administration wants tech companies to buy $15B of power plants they may not use
January 19, 2026
The Trump administration wants the largest electricity grid to add $15 billion worth of new power generation – and he wants tech companies to pay for it, even if they don’t need the capacity.
The White House and the governors of several states in the region want grid operator PJM to hold an auction for 15-year contracts for new generating capacity. The administration said it wants tech…
