Author: GT

Philadelphia-based robotics company Asylon announced Tuesday that it raised a $26 million Series B led by Insight Partners, with participation from Veteran Ventures Capital, Allegion Ventures, and the GO PA Fund. Asylon began as a drone company for securing facilities. It’s best known for a drone that has a robotic arm that can change its own batteries. But it also has a robotic guard dog service called DroneDog. Asylon takes the famed Boston Dynamics robot dog Spot and modifies it for guard work and to integrate with its command-and-control Guardian software. Asylon offers the drones, dogs, and software as its…

AI companies are pushing agents as the next Great Workplace Disruptor, but experts say they’re still not ready for prime time. AI agents often struggle to make decisions by themselves, hallucinate frequently, can’t cooperate with other agents, fail at confidentiality awareness, and integrate poorly with existing systems. Industry pioneers like Andrej Karpathy and Ali Ghodsi have said that, like the deployment of autonomous vehicles, humans need to be in the loop in order for agents to succeed.  A startup called Mixus wants to address that with its AI agent platform that not only keeps humans in the workflow, it also…

Programmable optics startup Lumotive has added a few more strategic backers to its recent Series B round. Redmond, Washington-based Lumotive reopened its recent Series B funding round to bring in Amazon, through its Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, and ITHCA Group, the technology investment arm of Oman’s sovereign wealth fund, as investors. These fresh funds bring the company’s Series B round to $59 million, up from the $45 million Lumotive initially closed in February. The startup has raised more than $100 million in venture capital to date. Lumotive CEO Sam Heidari told TechCrunch that the startup saw a lot more demand…

Owners of the Lucid Air sedan will be able to charge their luxury EVs at thousands of Tesla Supercharger stations in North America starting July 31, nearly two years since the automakers reached an agreement. But there is a notable caveat: Lucid Air vehicles won’t be able to charge as fast as Tesla vehicles. Lucid said on Tuesday that all Lucid Air sedans, regardless of model year, will be able to access Tesla’s network of fast chargers with an approved adapter that costs $220. Tesla V3 (and above) Supercharger stations are compatible with the Lucid Air adapter. However, the Air…

Los Angeles-based Nevoya came out of stealth last year with the ambitious goal of breaking the EV truck adoption logjam. Nevoya made enough progress on its goal to attract investors — and a $9.3 million seed round — to help it move even faster. The young company, which buys electric trucks and offers them to shippers, is now carrying goods for 10 different Fortune 500 companies. More importantly, it’s offering services as a carrier to those companies in California at cost parity with similar-sized diesel trucks. It’s a noteworthy accomplishment, especially at a time of increasing anti-EV headwinds — fueled…

Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon, takes the stage during The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on Dec. 4, 2024.Michael M. Santiago | Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump met with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, CNBC has learned.The meeting between Trump and Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, lasted for more than an hour, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the conversation was private.Amazon declined to comment on the meeting. A spokesperson for Bezos…

New York City-based Betaworks has closed its $66 million Fund III, which will focus on investing in early-stage AI companies.  Betaworks has been investing in AI since at least 2016 and, through its investment program Camp, has backed companies such as Huggingface and Granola. Jordan Crook, a partner at the firm (and former TechCrunch employee), said the new fund will focus on agents, native AI interfaces, and application-layer AI.  “Around these themes, we will continue to do straight seed investing and the Betaworks Camps,” Crook said.  Fund III will seek to invest in at least 25 pre-seed to seed investments,…

In this photo illustration, Claude AI logo is seen on a smartphone and Anthropic logo on a pc screen. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesOpenAI and Anthropic continue to lead a fundraising bonanza in artificial intelligence, raising historic rounds and stratospheric valuations.But when it comes to finding AI exits for venture firms, the market looks a lot different.AI startups raised $104.3 billion in the U.S. in the first half of this year, nearly matching the $104.4 billion total for 2024, according to PitchBook. Almost two-thirds of all U.S. venture funding went…

Karun Kaushik and Selin Kocalar weren’t planning to raise a Series A so soon. Their AI compliance startup, Delve, which announced a $3 million seed round in January, was growing fast and signing customers at a steady clip. Then, inbound interest started rolling in, COO Kocalar told TechCrunch. Delve, which automates regulatory compliance with AI agents, ended up fielding multiple term sheets, eventually closing a $32 million Series A at a $300 million valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners, which took up most of the round, with participation from CISOs at Fortune 500 companies. Insight has been “amazing…

Amazon logo on a brick building exterior in San Francisco on Aug. 20, 2024.Smith Collection | Gado | Archive Photos | Getty ImagesAmazon plans to acquire wearables startup Bee AI, the company confirmed, in the latest example of tech giants doubling down on generative artificial intelligence.Bee, based in San Francisco, makes a $49.99 wristband that appears similar to a Fitbit smartwatch. The device is equipped with AI and microphones that can listen to and analyze conversations to provide summaries, to-do lists and reminders for everyday tasks.Bee CEO Maria de Lourdes Zollo announced in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday that the…