Anthropic finally confirmed the details of its latest raise, and it's a doozy: a $3.5 billion Series E round at a $61.5 billion post-money valuation led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, General Catalyst, Jane Street, Menlo Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures also chipping in. The four-year-old San Francisco startup has raised a total of $18.2 billion. TechCrunch has more here. 

Taiwanese semiconductor company TSMC plans to make a fresh $100 billion investment in the U.S. that would involve building five additional chip facilities in the country in coming years, its CEO announced with President Trump today, without offering a timeframe. Reuters explains some of the drivers here, including that: "As a key manufacturing partner to Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Advanced Micro Devices, TSMC is central to the U.S. chip industry, and bringing more of its production to U.S. soil would solve a major supply chain risk for those firms. The Taiwanese company could also play a central role in saving rival Intel. Earlier this year, Trump administration officials met with [CEO C.C.] Wei in New York about taking a majority stake in a joint venture in Intel's factory unit, as part of a deal in which several chip firms would take a stake in the venture, according to a source familiar with the matter." More here.

President Trump's announcement yesterday that the U.S. would establish a strategic crypto reserve initially caused the prices of the specific cryptocurrencies he mentioned (XRP, SOL, and ADA and later BTC and ETH) to spike, but most have now settled back to their previous levels. CoinDesk has more here.

How Speedinvest Raised €350 million + & Optimized Portfolio Management with Affinity: Join us for an exclusive webinar with Lukas Huber from Speedinvest on March 20, where he’ll share how the firm has leveraged Affinity to streamline fundraising and portfolio workflows. Learn how they tracked LP engagement to raise their €350 million fund, and hear about their approach to managing portfolio relationships seamlessly with the key integrations that have enhanced efficiency across their tech stack. Learn more on Thursday, March 20.

By Marina Temkin

Three key investors have left General Catalyst amid a series of recent changes at the firm, which now describes itself as an “investment and transformation company,” TechCrunch has learned.

The departed managing directors include Deep Nishar and Kyle Doherty, who co-led General Catalyst’s late-stage strategy known as Endurance, and Adam Valkin, one of the three leads of the firm’s early-stage fund, according to multiple people close to General Catalyst.

Nishar, Doherty, and Valkin didn’t respond to requests for comment. General Catalyst declined to comment.

While the reasons for the departures remain unclear, a General Catalyst limited partner described a number of other changes among the leadership at the company.

Following its October 2023 merger with European early-stage firm La Famiglia, General Catalyst appointed Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, La Famiglia’s founder, as one of its top most senior partners, according to the LP. About six months later, General Catalyst acquired Indian VC firm Venture Highway, placing its founder, Neeraj Arora, also among the top most senior investors at the firm, the LP added.

Individuals close to General Catalyst have also said that the firm’s strategic shift beyond venture has influenced how investors are compensated. General Catalyst has shifted its compensation structure to favor cash bonuses over equity, these people said.

More here.

Ramp, a six-year-old New York startup that provides businesses with corporate charge cards and software to manage expenses, pay bills, and automate accounting tasks, closed a $150 million secondary sale at a $13 billion valuation, almost doubling the valuation of its previous round last April. Stripes, GIC, Avenir Growth, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, 137 Ventures, and Definition Capital invested in the deal. The company has raised a total of $1.2 billion in equity and $700 million in debt. TechCrunch has more here. (TechCrunch separately reported on Ramp's annualized revenue growth.)

Cloudsmith, a nine-year-old Belfast startup that acts as a central hub for developers to control software dependencies, ensuring secure and reliable software delivery across different environments, raised a $23 million Series B round. TCV was the deal lead, with participation from Insight Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Instant, a four-year-old Sydney startup that helps online retailers convert visitors into loyal customers through automated marketing strategies, raised an $11.2 million Series A round at a $60+ million post-money valuation. Hummingbird Ventures led the transaction, with Blackbird, TEN13, and Reinventure also taking part. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Viam, a five-year-old New York startup that allows companies to apply AI to real-time data from robots, sensors, and industrial machines without requiring deep technical expertise, raised a $30 million Series C round led by USV, with additional participation from Battery Ventures and Neurone. The company has raised a total of $117 million. PYMNTS has more here.

FairPlay, a four-year-old Los Angeles startup that helps organizations in areas like lending and insurance identify and correct biases in their AI systems, raised a $10 million round co-led by Infinity Ventures and JPMorganChase as well as previous investor Nyca Partners. More here.

Faks, a five-year-old Paris startup that aims to streamline interactions between pharmacies and their suppliers by centralizing communications, managing claims, and organizing promotional activities, raised a $6.3 million round led by Speedinvest, with previous investors Connect Ventures, Seedcamp, and FJ Labs also stepping up. Tech Funding News has more here.

HeyMilo, a two-year-old New York startup that uses AI to automate the initial stages of candidate interviews, conducting interactive voice-based assessments to efficiently evaluate applicants, raised a $2.2 million round led by Canaan Partners and including Alumni Ventures and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator. More here.

Needle, a one-year-old San Francisco and Berlin startup that offers an AI-powered platform that enables businesses to access and manage information stored across various internal systems, raised a $2.2 million seed round co-led by 468 Capital and Presight Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

VRAI, a eight-year-old Dublin startup that specializes in simulation training for defense and security sectors using virtual and mixed reality technologies, raised a $5.2 million Series A round. Beringea was the deal lead. EU-Startups has more here.

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CoreWeave, a buzzy seven-year-old New Jersey startup backed by Nvidia that provides infrastructure-as-a-service tailored for industries like AI, has finally filed to go public. The company recorded $1.92 billion in revenue in 2024, and Microsoft accounted for a whopping 62% of this total. CNBC has more here. 

Sachin Dev Duggal, who founded Builder.ai, a well-known London startup whose platform allows businesses to build a web or native mobile app in a modular fashion, has stepped down as CEO. The Financial Times reported last year that the company had experienced high employee turnover as well as customer complaints, and two years ago, it named Duggal as a suspect in an Indian money laundering case. Builder.ai has raised more than $450 million from investors like the Qatar Investment Authority and Insight Partners. The Financial Times has more here. 

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, announced today that his paper's editorials will soon be accompanied by an AI rating that will assess its political content and recommend alternative political viewpoints. The Guardian has more here. 

In a wide-ranging interview with Joe Rogan on Friday, Elon Musk said that there is an 80% chance that A.I. will have a “good outcome” and a 20% chance it will result in “annihilation.” He and Rogan also discussed the imminent arrival of AI-powered sex robots. The New York Times has more here. 

Speaking of Elon Musk, the philoprogenitive South African centi-billionaire has just another child with Neuralink exec Shivon Zilis. The Cut has more here.

Reddit co-founder and VC Alexis Ohanian has joined forces with billionaire Frank McCourt in his bid to buy TikTok. TechCrunch has more here. 

Scott Wiener, a California state senator who last year proposed legislation to ban AI systems from inflicting "critical harm," has unveiled a new bill to protect AI whistleblowers. TechCrunch has more here.

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban on Saturday waded into the latest government tech shake-up, offering help to newly laid-off federal workers whose job it was to make government tech work better. “It’s just a matter of time before DOGE needs you to fix the mess they inevitably created. They will have to hire your company as a contractor to fix it. But on your terms," he wrote on Bluesky. TechCrunch has more here.

The Trump administration's decision to fire 170 employees at the National Science Foundation last month could threaten the U.S.'s ability remain competitive in AI, Bloomberg reports.

The AI search engine Perplexity is working with Deutsche Telekom to develop an "AI phone." While a Deutsche Telekom board member explained the move by  saying that DT is "becoming an AI company,” Perplexity co-founder and CEO  Aravind Srinivas was more bold. “Perplexity is transitioning from just being an answer machine to an action machine," he said. TechCrunch has more here.

A new discovery by researchers at Zoom Communications could dramatically cut AI costs by as much as 90%. VentureBeat has more here. 

The heads of Tether and Circle are locked in a "kill-or-be-killed" battle over the future of crypto, according to The Wall Street Journal, which has more here. 

Paperback books are increasingly a thing of the past. 

The nine people who check in to every "White Lotus."

The New York Times picks its favorite photos from last night's Oscars. 

A turntable sans tonearm milled from a solid block of aluminum for $6,000. Magnifique.