Month: January 2026

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $20B for Colossus supercomputer and Grok improvements Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI announced the completion of its Series E funding round, raising $20 billion. This significantly exceeds the initial target of $15 billion. Investors include Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, as

Appearance changes, comics, and photo restoration. Google showed what images users generated in Nano Banana in 2025 Google has summed up the year for its Nano Banana image generation and editing tool, which debuted in August 2025. According to the company, the model received the highest ratings among image editing

NVIDIA and Universal Music Group to collaborate on music AI Universal Music Group has signed an agreement with NVIDIA to implement a new artificial intelligence model in one of the world’s largest music catalogs, The Verge reports. As part of the partnership, the companies will use the Music Flamingo AI

Austrian deeptech Vitrealab raises $11M Series A to scale AR photonics technology Vitrealab, an Austrian developer of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) for laser–LCoS-based AR light engines, announced the successful closing of $11 million Series A financing. The investment was led by LIFTT Italian Venture Capital and LIFTT EuroInvest with participation

Revolut in talks to buy Turkish neobank FUPS Powered by WPeMatico https://sifted.eu/articles/revolut-turkey-acquisition

Vestiaire Collective cofounder pushed out after 16 years Powered by WPeMatico https://sifted.eu/articles/vestiaire-collective-cofounder-leaves

Waymo is rebranding its Zeekr robotaxi It sounds like “Oh hi.” Powered by WPeMatico https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/07/waymo-is-rebranding-its-zeekr-robotaxi/

Google and Character.AI negotiate first major settlements in teen chatbot death cases The settlements are among the first tied to lawsuits accusing AI companies of harming users. Powered by WPeMatico https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/07/google-and-character-ai-negotiate-first-major-settlements-in-teen-chatbot-death-cases/

Ford has an AI assistant and new hands-free BlueCruise tech on the way Ford says the new generation of BlueCruise will be 30% cheaper to build than the current technology. Powered by WPeMatico https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/07/ford-has-an-ai-assistant-and-new-hands-free-bluecruise-tech-on-the-way/

Discord and Mercor investor Niko Bonatsos departs General Catalyst, plans new VC firm Bonatsos spent 15 years at GC, and until last year led the firm’s seed investing strategy. Powered by WPeMatico https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/07/discord-and-mercor-investor-niko-bonatsos-departs-general-catalyst-plans-new-vc-firm/