Fusion power startup Type One Energy recently raised $87 million, TechCrunch has learned from sources familiar with the deal. The new funding is a convertible note that brings the total venture investment in the startup to more than $160 million. Type One is also in the midst of raising a $250 million Series B at a $900 million pre-money valuation, according to sources and later confirmed by the company. Like other energy startups, Type One has benefited from a surge in demand from data centers and the broader electrification of the economy. Data centers are expected to use nearly three…

The reboot of the early internet online community Digg, a one-time rival to Reddit, is moving forward. The company, which is today back under the ownership of its original founder, Kevin Rose, along with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is launching its open beta to the public on Wednesday. Similar to Reddit, the new Digg offers a website and mobile app where you can browse feeds featuring posts from across a selection of its communities and join other communities that align with your interests. There, you can post, comment, and upvote (or “digg”) the site’s content. Originally a Web 2.0-era news aggregation…

With news that Discord is kicking the tires on going public soon, other tech companies are starting to take their chances. Liftoff Mobile filed its first S-1 document late Tuesday, the first step in the process. The company isn’t yet discussing how big this IPO will be: It has not yet filled in any data about the size of the offering or the stakes held by its principal shareholders. However, the IPO research firm Renaissance Capital reports the whisper number at $400 million, meaning that’s what the street thinks the company hopes to raise. The company offers a platform that…

OpenAI announced Wednesday that it had reached a multi-year agreement with AI chipmaker Cerebras. The chipmaker will deliver 750 megawatts of compute to the AI giant starting this year and continuing through the year 2028, Cerebras said. The deal is worth over $10 billion, a source familiar with the details told TechCrunch. Reuters also reported the deal size. Both companies said that the deal is about delivering faster outputs for OpenAI’s customers. In a blog post, OpenAI said these systems would speed responses that currently require more time to process. Andrew Feldman, co-founder and CEO of Cerebras, said just as…

Former OpenAI exec Mira Murati’s startup, Thinking Machines Lab, is saying goodbye to two of its co-founders, both of whom are headed back to OpenAI. Another former OpenAI staffer who went to work for Murati’s startup is also headed back to the company. On social media on Wednesday, Murati announced the departure of Barret Zoph, the company’s co-founder and CTO. “We have parted ways with Barret,” Murati said in a post on X. “Soumith Chintala will be the new CTO of Thinking Machines. He is a brilliant and seasoned leader who has made important contributions to the AI field for…

As AI automates parts of the workforce, Emversity, an Indian workforce-training startup, is building talent pipelines for roles it sees AI can’t replace, and has raised $30 million in a new round to expand job-ready training in the world’s most populous market. The all-equity Series A round was led by Premji Invest, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Z47, the Bengaluru-based startup announced on Thursday. The funding values Emversity at around $120 million post-money, sources confirmed to TechCrunch, up from about $60 million in its April 2025 pre-Series A round. Total funding now stands at $46 million. India has…

The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday it has finalized an order that bans General Motors and its OnStar telematics service from sharing certain consumer data with consumer reporting agencies. The finalized order, which comes a year after the agency reached a proposed settlement with GM, also requires the automaker to be more transparent with its consumers and obtain their explicit consent on any data collection. The finalized order comes nearly two years after a New York Times report showed how GM and OnStar collected, used, and sold drivers’ precise geolocation data and driving behavior to third parties, including data brokers…

Elon Musk said Wednesday he is “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok,” hours before the California Attorney General opened an investigation into xAI’s chatbot over the “proliferation of nonconsensual sexually explicit material.”  Musk’s denial comes as pressure mounts from governments worldwide — from the UK and Europe to Malaysia and Indonesia — after users on X began asking Grok to turn photos of real women, and in some cases children, into sexualized images without their consent. Copyleaks, an AI detection and content governance platform, estimated roughly one image was posted each minute on X. A separate…

The subscription economy helped boost mobile app revenues in 2025, even as app downloads declined for the fifth consecutive year, according to app intelligence firm Appfigures‘ annual report. In 2025, global downloads of all mobile apps and mobile games via the App Store and Google Play reached an estimated 106.9 billion, 2.7% lower than the year prior. Consumer spending, meanwhile, climbed 21.6% to reach an estimated $155.8 billion during the same period. The data indicates that app developers, marketers, and publishers have been successful in getting their users to make in-app purchases or activate subscriptions, even as the number of…

Netflix is increasing its investment in video podcasts, with its latest projects featuring famous comedian Pete Davidson and Cowboys Hall-of-Famer Michael Irvin. The streaming giant announced on Wednesday two original video podcasts coming to the platform: Irvin’s “The White House,” streaming on January 19, and “The Pete Davidson Show,” debuting on January 30.  Both series, available only to Netflix subscribers, are designed to leverage the star power of their hosts. Davidson already has two comedy specials on the service that have performed well for the streamer. Meanwhile, Irvin stands out as a prominent figure in the sports world and was…