The year data centers moved from backend to center stage
There was a time when most Americans had little or no knowledge about their local data centers. Server farms, long the invisible but vital backbone of the Internet, have rarely captured the attention of those outside the technology industry, not to mention that they are an issue with particularly fascinating political resonance. As of 2025, […]
European startup market data doesn’t live up to its energy – yet
At the annual Slush conference held in Helsinki last month, it was impossible to ignore the excitement in Europe’s startup market. However, actual data on the current state of the region’s venture market shows a different reality. Result: European markets have yet to recover from the global venture capital reset that occurred in 2022 and […]
Waymo explains why robot taxis got stuck during San Francisco power outage
Waymo said Tuesday in a blog post explaining why its self-driving cars got stuck at intersections during last weekend’s power outages in San Francisco that it will ship a software update that will allow robotaxis to “more decisively” navigate faulty traffic lights during power outages. Waymo said the robotaxi’s self-driving system treats dead-end lights as […]
9 Top Biotech Startups in Disrupt Startup Battlefield
TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield pitch contest attracts thousands of applicants each year. These entries will be narrowed down to the top 200, and the top 20 will compete on the big stage to win the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000 in prize money. However, the remaining 180 startups all surprised us in their respective categories and […]
How Mill landed deals with Amazon and Whole Foods
The Mill may have started with homes, but co-founder and CEO Matt Rogers says the food waste startup has long aspired to expand into commercial customers. “This has been part of our plan since the Series A deck,” Rogers told TechCrunch. Now, with a formal deal between Amazon and Whole Foods, the company’s plans to […]
Zoox issues lane crossing software recall
Zoox, owned by Amazon, announced a recall on Tuesday because its self-driving system could cause vehicles to cross the center lane near intersections or block crosswalks. The voluntary software recall affected 332 vehicles, according to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Although there have been no crashes related to this issue, […]
The founders have just raised funding to revisit the same problem: affordable custom home design.
Nick Donahue’s parents were in the home construction business, so Nick Donahue spent his childhood hearing about the construction industry in the United States. His father built homes for major developers and his mother sold to major builders all over the East Coast. Donahue was particularly interested in why designing a custom home is so […]
Marissa Mayer’s startup Dazzle raises $8 million led by Forerunner’s Kirsten Green
Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer refuses to sit on the sidelines of the generative AI revolution. After running his photo-sharing and contact management startup Sunshine for the past six years with little success, the celebrated technology leader has shut down the company and launched Dazzle, a new startup focused on building the next generation of […]
Amazon’s AI assistant Alexa+ now works with Angi, Expedia, Square, and Yelp
Amazon is expanding its AI-powered digital assistant Alexa+ with new features. The company announced Thursday that starting in 2026, it will add four new integrations to the service that will allow Assistant to work with Angi, Expedia, Square, and Yelp. These additional features allow customers to book hotels, get quotes for in-home services, make salon […]
Lemon Slice gets $10.5 million from YC and Matrix to build digital avatar technology
Developers and businesses are increasingly deploying AI agents and chatbots within their apps, but so far they’ve been mostly limited to text. Digital avatar generation company Lemon Slice is working on adding a video layer to chats using a new pervasive model that can create digital avatars from a single image. The model, called Lemon […]