Author: GT

It’s been a couple of years since our last topic-focused, one-day event — but with AI transforming the tech landscape, we couldn’t miss the chance to gather 1,200 founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone shaping the future of AI for a deep dive into what’s next. On June 5 in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley, TechCrunch Sessions: AI lands right at the intersection of startups and the rapidly evolving AI boom. If you’re building in tech and want to get smart on where the industry stands — and where it’s headed — this is the room to be in. Book…

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Attending the Masters for the first time was a new experience for Thomas Abraham, and it wasn’t just about the golf.The 16-year-old from Houston had the rare opportunity to use a public telephone for the first time.“It was kind of cool,” said Abraham, who phoned a friend while attending the Masters Par 3 competition on Wednesday with his father, Sid. “I’ve never used one before. I figured it out. If I had to use one of those (rotary) phones I probably would’ve had to ask my dad.” Augusta National requires its patrons to leave their cellphones…

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesFintech’s relief rally is already losing steam.Shares of Affirm, Toast, Bill.com, PayPal and other consumer-focused fintech firms turned lower Thursday.The retreat followed a powerful bounce Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on dramatically higher import tariffs.While the administration simultaneously escalated duties on Chinese goods to 125%, markets took the broader delay as a sign that Washington may soften its stance — at least temporarily — on the more disruptive elements of its trade agenda.The sector still faces longer-term risks, from rising hardware costs to small business credit exposure and macro uncertainty.Affirm…

Tessell, a startup developing a multi-cloud database-as-a-service, has raised $60 million in a new funding round led by WestBridge Capital ahead of its plans to expand its market presence and launch an AI-powered conversational database management service. As data becomes more critical than ever, many companies are struggling to manage and store it efficiently. Legacy database solutions are often rigid, offering little flexibility across cloud providers. Meanwhile, most managed database services remain costly, commanding high rates for high performance. Tessell aims to solve all this with its platform. The four-year-old startup leverages decades of database kernel experience from its co-founders…

Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden has acquired Slingshot, a trading app that allows users to see their crypto balance across multiple protocols. Slingshot allows users to trade tokens from a single universal USDC balance, removing hurdles like wallet setup, bridging assets across chains, and juggling gas fees, thus expanding Magic Eden well past Solana to every chain, including bitcoin. “This acquisition is a major step forward in advancing the Magic Eden vision, which is to provide users worldwide with a seamless and safe way to buy and sell crypto and digital assets across all chains,” Jack Lu, CEO and…

An oil pumpjack is seen in a field on April 08, 2025 in Nolan, Texas. Brandon Bell | Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump’s trade war has thrown the oil market into deep uncertainty, triggering wild swings in crude prices, undermining investor confidence and jeopardizing domestic production.U.S. crude oil hit a low of $55.12 on Wednesday, down 23% from the closing price on April 2 when Trump announced his sweeping plan to slap tariffs on more than 180 countries. The rapid pullback in prices threatens the president’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda as companies will struggle to boost output at profit.But West Texas Intermediate…

Legal tech has come a long way, but the bulk of an intellectual property or patent lawyer’s work today is still done with spreadsheets, word processors, and PDFs. A startup out of Delaware, Solve Intelligence, is using generative AI to speed up that work, believing its tech is uniquely suited to the needs of patent attorneys who need both domain expertise and legal knowledge to do their work. Solve offers an in-browser document editor that works like Google Docs but is powered by an AI model to help attorneys with the drafting and writing required for IP work and filing…

U.S.-listed spot bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw outflows Wednesday even as the cryptocurrencies’ prices surged after President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause in tariffs on most countries, excluding China. The 11 bitcoin ETFs lost a net $127.2 million Wednesday, with investors withdrawing $89.7 million from BlackRock’s IBIT alone, according to data from Farside Investors. Wednesday marked the fifth consecutive day of outflows, with the funds losing a cumulative $722 million over the period. Ether ETFs have also fallen out of investor favor and the nine funds saw a net outflow of $11.2 million Wednesday. The…

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has explored the opportunities and challenges brought about by AI with regards to global energy.   Training and deploying sophisticated AI models occur within vast, power-hungry data centres. A “typical AI-focused data centre consumes as much electricity as 100 000 households,” the IEA notes, with the largest facilities under construction projected to demand 20x times that amount. Surging data centre investments Global investment in data centres has nearly doubled since 2022, reaching half a trillion dollars in 2024, sparking concerns about escalating electricity needs. While data centres accounted for approximately 1.5% of global electricity consumption in…

After months of hearty marketing efforts and large-scale technology demos across the U.S., Nuro has secured $106 million in fresh funding to help scale its autonomous driving technology and advance commercial partnerships.  The Series E round brings Nuro’s total funding raised to $2.2 billion and its valuation to $6 billion. That’s a drop from the $8.6 billion post-money valuation Nuro secured after its $600 million Series D in 2021, but most startup valuations have come down from the highs seen during the era of easy money.  Usually, a down round can be cause for concern, as it might reflect diminished…