Category: Startups

At 14, Sasha Bagrov is building a safer marketplace for teenage odd jobs When I was a young teenager, I was in Girl Guides — essentially the Australian equivalent of Girl Scouts — and went to a school that strongly encouraged civic participation. So I duly knocked on strangers’ doors,

Anthropic’s Opus 4.6 is a smut-machine Anthropic forbids its Claude models from generating sexually explicit content. But a series of tests conducted by TechCrunch found that it didn’t take much to get past the restriction. Powered by WPeMatico https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/21/anthropics-opus-4-6-is-a-smut-machine/

Japanese space tech startup Letara expands beyond satellite thrusters with $16M Japanese space startup Letara is betting its hybrid rocket technology can move beyond small satellite thrusters into a broader market for space, defense and security, after raising ¥2.6 billion ($16 million). Powered by WPeMatico https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/21/japanese-space-tech-startup-letara-expands-beyond-satellite-thrusters-with-16m/

Michael Polansky is training an AI model on skin that’s still alive Michael Polansky — better known publicly as Lady Gaga’s partner and a former top deputy to Sean Parker — has quietly spent years building an AI-driven startup that keeps living human skin tissue alive for weeks outside the

Nvidia partners with data center developer Cloverleaf Nvidia continues to pour money into data center development — just as AI data centers bring lots of money into Nvidia. Powered by WPeMatico https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/21/nvidia-partners-with-data-center-developer-cloverleaf/

How AI accounting startup Rillet raised $100M and became a unicorn in 48 hours Rillet CEO Nicolas Kopp shared growth numbers at a board meeting and set off a fundraising frenzy from Iconiq, Sequoia and others. Without even trying. Powered by WPeMatico https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/21/how-ai-accounting-startup-rillet-raised-100m-and-became-a-unicorn-in-48-hours/

Solinide closes €4M to commercialise photonic chips for AI data centres Swedish deeptech company Solinide Photonics has raised €4 million in seed funding to commercialise its silicon nitride photonic integrated circuit technology and prepare for scalable manufacturing. The round was co-led by Navigare Ventures and PSV Hafnium, with participation from

France’s top-funded tech companies in H1 2026 France remained one of Europe’s leading tech funding markets in H1 2026, with investment concentrated in AI, space, fintech and healthcare. Several large transactions shaped the total, including Eutelsat’s €975 million debt financing, Advanced Machine Intelligence’s €885 million seed round and Mistral AI’s

Callosum raises $100M seed round A UK AI startup that is building software infrastructure that allows AI workloads to run on different chips and AI models has raised $100m in an exceptionally high-value European seed round. Callosum has raised $100m in a seed round led by European VC Atomico, with “significant participation”

Lithuanian AI startup Guideless raises €1M to streamline software training AI-powered software training and operational knowledge platform Guideless has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding to further develop its technology and expand internationally. The round was led by Superhero Capital, with participation from FIRSTPICK VC and angel investors Thomas Plantenga