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 competing companies in the same sector, preferring to place their bets on a single winner. Yet here’s Sequoia, already…
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…
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 Street Journal. It’s a huge reversal for a company that, just four years ago, staked its entire identity on the…
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…
It took Rebecca Yu seven days to vibe code her dining app. She was tired of the decision fatigue that comes from people in a group chat not being able to decide where to eat.
Armed with determination, Claude, and ChatGPT, Yu decided to just build a dining app from scratch – one that would recommend restaurants to her and her friends based on their shared interests.
“Once vibe-coding…
Wikimedia Foundation announces new AI partnerships with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Perplexity, and others
January 16, 2026
As part of its 25th birthday celebration, the Wikimedia Foundation announced a series of new partnerships with AI tech companies that are now customers of its commercial product, Wikimedia Enterprise. Developed by the foundation, Wikimedia Enterprise allows large-scale reuse…
US senators demand answers from X, Meta, Alphabet, and others on sexualized deepfakes
January 16, 2026
The tech world’s nonconsensual, sexualized deepfake problem is now bigger than just X.
In a letter to the leaders of X, Meta, Alphabet, Snap, Reddit, and TikTok, several U.S. senators are asking the companies to provide proof that they have “robust protections…
Parloa triples its valuation in 8 months to $3B with $350M raise
January 16, 2026
Berlin-based Parloa has raised $350 million in Series D funding from existing investors, valuing the six-year-old customer service AI startup at $3 billion. The round comes just eight months after the company raised $120 million at a $1 billion valuation.
The new round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from returning backers, including EQT Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Durable…
