Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led deal amid rush for robot training data

The round for the two-year-old startup is coming together months after Mecka announced its Series A.

Matt Mullenweg tells Automattic staff in Slack he’s back in control after CEO ouster

In a Slack message seen by TechCrunch, Matt Mullenweg told Automattic employees he’s back in control of the company, days after its board put him on leave. Automattic has not yet confirmed the apparent reversal.

Maven Robotics wants to steal your robot deployment deal

Maven Robotics emerged from stealth today with a $100 million Series A and active deployments.

Uber rival inDrive scales beyond ride-hailing to capture more consumer spending

inDrive’s ad business, first piloted in July 2025, has served more than 2 billion impressions and attracted over 2,000 paying advertisers a month.

Group of bipartisan lawmakers ask US government to ban several hack-for-hire firms

The three Indian companies are accused of using hackers to steal information used to sway litigation.

Autonomy pivots to gas vehicles to keep the dream of car subscriptions alive

Scott Painter, founder of TrueCar, is still trying to build a business around vehicle subscriptions, where you can cancel at any time.

Google DeepMind alumni are building tools to accelerate fusion power for the grid

Fusionality is developing control systems and simulation environments to help fusion power startups move faster.

AI power users claim Anthropic duped them with subscriptions, and they’re taking it to court
AI power users claim Anthropic duped them with subscriptions, and they’re taking it to court

Anthropic says power users are key to its business – it’s prioritized them even when it means cutting off other popular applications, like OpenClaw. But some of these same customers say Anthropic misled them into believing they’d get more out of a top-tier pricing subscription than they did. In an expanded class action lawsuit filed […]

Poseidon Aerospace lands $60M ahead of first pilotless test flight

The startup is trying to rethink the economics of cargo aircraft by removing pilots from the equation entirely.

The sameness problem behind those unappetizing AI-generated menus

While restaurant owners might look to generative AI as a shortcut to sprucing up their menu, customers can viscerally sense that something is wrong with the food.