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Anthropic has won an early round in a California federal court after a judge refused to block the AI company from using lyrics owned by Universal Music Group and other companies to train its Claude chatbot. Reuters has more here.
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Discover who's leading the $500B AI hardware revolution!
We cover 50+ most promising AI hardware startups across datacenter accelerators, AI-optimized consumer devices, autonomous systems, medical devices and more. Get use cases, founder backgrounds, funding details, and more.
Download the list here.
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| This Startup's Algorithms Found Critical Minerals in Places Everyone Else Ignored |
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By Tim De Chant
Last summer, mining startup KoBold made a splash when it said it had discovered in Zambia one of the world’s largest copper deposits in more than a decade.
Now, another startup, Earth AI, exclusively told TechCrunch about its own discovery: promising deposits of critical minerals in parts of Australia that other mining outfits had ignored for decades. While it’s still not known whether they are as large as KoBold’s, the news suggests that future supplies of critical minerals are likely to emerge from a combination of field data parsed by artificial intelligence.
“The actual, real frontier [in mining] is not so much geographical as it is technological,” Roman Teslyuk, founder and CEO of Earth AI, told TechCrunch.
Earth AI has identified deposits of copper, cobalt, and gold in the Northern Territory and silver, molybdenum, and tin at another site in New South Wales, 310 miles (500 kilometers) northwest of Sydney.
More here.
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Amboss, a twelve-year-old Berlin company that provides digital reference tools and study resources for medical students and healthcare professionals to support learning and clinical decision-making, raised a $259.4 million round. Investors included KIRKBI, Lightrock, and M&G Investments. MobiHealthNews has more here.
Character Biosciences, a six-year-old startup based in Jersey City, NJ, that is focused on developing targeted therapies for progressive eye diseases, particularly age-related macular degeneration, raised a $93 million Series B round co-led by aMoon and Luma Group, with additional participation from Bausch + Lomb, and Jefferson Life Sciences as well as previous investors Innovation Endeavors, Catalio Capital Management, S32, and KdT Ventures. BioPharma Dive has more here.
Fleetio, a fourteen-year-old company based in Birmingham, AL, whose platform and mobile app help organizations track, analyze, and improve fleet operations by managing vehicles, equipment, parts, and drivers, raised $450 million to purchase Auto Integrate, which allows businesses to create, manage, and invoice repair order requests. The deal, which values the combined company at $1.5 billion, was co-led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives and previous investor Elephant VC. PYMNTS has more here.
Hillstar Bio, a two-year-old Boston startup that is developing targeted therapies for autoimmune diseases, raised a $67 million Series A round. Investors included Droia Ventures, Frazier Life Sciences, Novo Holdings, LifeArc Ventures, and Hummingbird Bioscience. More here.
Navina, a six-year-old New York startup whose platform integrates with electronic health records to help clinicians identify potential diagnoses, risk factors, and medication conflicts, raised a $55 million Series C round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with previous investors Vertex Ventures Israel, ALIVE, and Grove Ventures. MobiHealthNews has more here.
Nexthop AI, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that builds cloud infrastructure software that uses AI to optimize how and where large AI models run across different cloud environments, raised $110 million in a seed and Series A round led by Lightspeed Ventures, with Kleiner Perkins, WestBridge Capital, Battery Ventures, and Emergent Ventures also piling on. SiliconANGLE has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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CamGraPhIC, a seven-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, that raised a $27 million Series A round co-led by CDP Venture Capital, NATO Innovation Fund, Sony Innovation Fund, and Join Capital, with Bosch Ventures, Frontier IP, and Indaco Venture Partners also participating. More here.
EDGE Boost, a five-year-old San Diego startup that offers a dedicated bank account and Visa debit card designed specifically for bettors to manage their gambling funds separately from personal finances, raised a $17.2 million seed round led by Bullpen Capital, with StepStone Group, Suro Capital, Impulsum Ventures, Mantis VC, and Indicator Ventures also taking part. The company also secured $32 million in debt. More here.
Sunday, a seven-year-old Boulder startup that offers eco-friendly, subscription-based lawn care products tailored to individual lawns using natural ingredients, raised a $25 million round. S2G Investments provided the capital. More here.
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ai|coustics, a four-year-old Berlin startup that develops AI-based audio algorithms to enhance speech quality in digital communications and media content, raised a $5.4 million seed round. Partech led the investment, with Acurio, Intuition, and Arc Investors as well as previous investors Connect and FOV Ventures also contributing. PodNews has more here.
AmberSearch, a four-year-old German startup that offers an AI-powered enterprise search engine that enables employees to quickly retrieve internal company documents and data through a unified search and chat interface, raised a $2.3 million seed round led by Ventech. More here.
ARK Capture Solution, a one-year-old Belgian startup that develops all-electric, modular carbon capture systems for industries such as petrochemicals, glass, and steel, raised a $2.4 million pre-seed round. Aperam Ventures and Seeder Fund were the co-leads. Tech Funding News has more here.
Brevel, an eight-year-old Israeli startup that produces a neutral-flavored, sustainable protein from microalgae designed for incorporation into various animal-free products such as dairy, egg, meat, and seafood alternatives, raised a $5 million seed extension. NevaTeam Partners, Siddhi Capital, the EIC Fund, Good Protein Fund, The Food Tech Lab, and PVS Investments invested in the deal. CTech has more here.
Catchwise, a two-year-old Oslo startup that provides a digital assistant for fishing vessel captains that integrates satellite tracking, historical catch data, and oceanographic information to help identify optimal fishing areas, raised a $1.4 million pre-seed round led by Dreamcraft Ventures, with Sondo and Ocean Impact also pitching in. ArcticStartup has more here.
Charm Security, a one-year-old New York startup whose platform is designed to protect organizations and their customers from scams, social engineering, and human-centric fraud, raised an $8 million seed round. Team8 was the deal lead. SecurityWeek has more here.
Nace.AI, a one-year-old Palo Alto startup that has developed an AI agent designed to assist with audit and compliance tasks by providing real-time insights into risks and compliance violations, raised a $5 million led by General Catalyst. Tech Funding News has more here.
Sympera AI, a one-year-old New York startup whose product helps relationship managers analyze data in order to prioritize clients, uncover client needs, manage pipelines intelligently, and generate tailored sales strategies, raised a $10 million seed round. Nyca Partners and Viola Ventures were the co-leads. CTech has more here.
Topanga, a four-year-old Los Angeles startup that uses AI to help commercial kitchens reduce food waste and packaging costs through tools like smart scales and a reusable container system, raised an $8 million Series A round led by Blue Bear Capital, with Struck, Amasia and Wonder Ventures also stepping up. More here.
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Emergence Capital, the 22-year-old venture firm based in San Mateo, CA, has closed a $1 billion fund, its seventh. TechCrunch has more here.
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Here's a weird one. Remember Napster? Infinite Reality a six-year-old startup based in Norwalk, CT, that develops AI-powered 3D immersive experiences for digital media and e-commerce, has purchased the notorious music streaming service from the blockchain platform Algorand for a whopping $207 million. CNBC has more here.
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Block, a 16-year-old San Francisco company that has a number of financial products including Square, the payment app, just laid off 931 employees, and TechCrunch has the email co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey used to deliver the news. More here.
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StubHub's IPO has erased one of its founders from the company's history. Axios has more here.
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Charles Lespérance has joined Celesta Capital, a Silicon Valley firm focused on deep tech with more than $1 billion under management, as a partner. Lespérance's prior role was as a partner at BDC. More here.
Jump Capital, a Chicago-based VC firm that invests in Fintech, Application Software, and Infrastructure Software, has brought on Aqil Pasha as a vice president based in Jump's New York offices. Pasha previously worked as an investor at Venture Guides. More here.
BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti helped shape digital media; now he's trying to lead users to "positive" social media. For the newest StrictlyVC Download, we talked with him about what he has up his sleeve.
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TikTok has launched a media campaign portraying the company as a life saver (literally). The New York Times has more here.
A challenging test from the Arc Prize Foundation is putting AIs in their place, with LLMs like OpenAI's OpenAI’s o1-pro and DeepSeek’s R1 scoring 1% versus 60% for humans. TechCrunch has more here.
EU companies are increasingly considering moving away from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft cloud services in response to the Trump administration's posture towards Europe, reports Wired, which has more here.
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