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Chinese VCs are hounding failed founders to claw back their investments

In the U.S., it’s accepted that most startups fail — and when that happens, VCs (generally) accept their losses and move on. But that’s not the case in China, where VCs are trying to claw back their investments in failed startups by pursuing the personal assets of their founders in court, The Financial Times reports. […]

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Threads prototypes custom display names and cover images for profiles

Instagram Threads is developing new features that would bring its user experience more in line with that of X (formerly Twitter) and the social network Bluesky. The Meta-owned company is internally prototyping the ability to set a display name and add a cover image to profiles. A spokesperson for the company confirmed to TechCrunch on […]

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Anthropic reportedly in talks to raise $2B at $60B valuation, led by Lightspeed

OpenAI rival Anthropic is in talks to raise $2 billion in new capital in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to The Wall Street Journal. The round, which The Journal reports would value Anthropic at $60 billion, would bring Anthropic’s total raised to $15.7 billion, going by Crunchbase’s data. It would also […]

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Xpeng Aero HT unveils ‘flying car’ that’s part-van, part-eVTOL at CES 2025

Xpeng Aero HT, the aerospace company under Chinese EV startup Xpeng, unveiled at CES 2025 its “modular flying car,” the so-called Land Aircraft Carrie. It’s ssentially an electric minivan with a small folding eVTOL (vertical takeoff and landing vehicle) tucked in the back, which can be rolled out and launched into flight.  The company says […]

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Honda reveals its futuristic ‘0 SUV’ prototype at CES 2025

Honda unveiled Tuesday at CES 2025 the latest EV in its so-called 0 Series — a mid-sized SUV prototype dubbed, surely enough, the 0 SUV. Honda’s take on the SUV will join the 0 Saloon that the automaker showed off at last year’s show. And while Honda first showed us the 0 Saloon, the SUV […]

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Panasonic unveils an AI-powered wellness coach, powered by Anthropic’s Claude, at CES 2025

At CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Panasonic unveiled its upcoming digital assistant, Umi, which offers families a personalized, AI-powered wellness coach. Created in partnership with Anthropic, Umi uses the Claude AI model to help families “care, coordinate, and connect” with each other, the company said. More specifically, this involves an AI assistant that focuses on […]

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HR software startup OnPay was inspired by the founder’s family payroll business

In 2007, Jesse Burgess joined his family’s payroll business. He quickly noticed that the business’ six payroll clerks were getting bogged down by repetitive, monotonous tasks. So he sought to streamline those tasks by creating workflow automation tools. Several years later, Burgess sensed an opportunity to bring the tools he developed for his family’s business […]

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BMW’s new UI puts widgets on the windshield at CES 2025

BMW is totally revamping its in-car user interface, starting with the Neue Klasse sedan later this year and ultimately spreading to all models, the company announced at CES 2025. Some of it looks and feels familiar, but the big change is a widget-based system that lets users customize the layout — including on the car’s […]

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At CES 2025, Uber teams up with Nvidia to scale autonomous driving faster

Uber will use Nvidia’s new generative world model simulation tool, Cosmos, and cloud-based AI supercomputing platform, DGX Cloud, to support the development of autonomous vehicle technology, the companies announced at CES 2025. Cosmos is being marketed to robotics and autonomy companies as a tool that generates physics-based videos from a variety of inputs, including 9,000 […]

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What the heck happened at fintech Bench?

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! It’s good to be back.  This week, we’re looking at the wild ride that was Bench’s shutdown and acquisition; dozens of companies that are hiring in the fintech space; lawsuits against PayPal; an IPO update; and more! This edition is a bit longer than normal since we were on a hiatus […]

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Google puts $1M into 3D design app Rooms after more than 1 million ‘rooms’ created

3D design app Rooms just landed more funding. Launched into beta in 2023, the app from ex-Google employees allows users to build and code interactive 3D rooms and mini-games using a library of more than 10,000 items, which can be further edited using the programming language Lua. Now, Google itself has invested $1 million into […]

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RadioShack is back (kind of) at CES 2025

The 21st century has not been kind to RadioShack. The once-dominant electronics component retailer simply couldn’t compete with big box stores like Best Buy and online retail juggernaut Amazon. February 2015 saw the company delisted from the New York Stock Exchange before declaring bankruptcy the same month. Later that year, RadioShack began the process of […]

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Meticulous shows off its smart espresso machine at CES 2025

Meticulous is showcasing its smart espresso maker, which it says is the world’s first robotic lever espresso machine, at CES 2025 in Las Vegas this week. The prototype has raised nearly $5 million in funding on Kickstarter and another $1.6 million million on Indiegogo. The company’s first batch of espresso machines is set to ship […]

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Employer.com offers to buy failed fintech Level, a week after it makes offer for Bench

Employer.com has offered to acquire Level, a fintech startup that just last week abruptly shut down after failing to find a buyer, according to The Information. But Level is still mulling over the offer, its Employer.com CMO Matt Charney told TechCrunch. “It’s with legal,” he said. Update: there are other details, beyond legal, that are […]

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Peacock is experimenting with mini-games and short videos

As Peacock continues to trail behind major players in the entertainment industry like Netflix, TikTok, and YouTube, the streaming service is adopting strategies similar to its rivals with two new initiatives: mini-games and a short-form vertical video feed. The company announced these experiments at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday. Starting this […]

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Meta to phase back in political content on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads

As part of a significant overhaul of its content moderation policies announced on Tuesday, Meta admitted that its approach to limiting political content across its platforms had been “pretty blunt” and would now be addressed. The company said it would once again phase in political content into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, allowing people who want […]

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