Billionaire Gautam Adani and several executives at his company, the Indian conglomerate Adani Group, have been indicted over an alleged scheme to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian officials in exchange for contracts to a 12 gigawatt solar power project. The indictment, unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn, charges Adani, his [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Startups pursuing fusion power have benefitted from AI's insatiable thirst for electricity. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

H, the Paris startup founded by Google alums, made a big splash last summer when, out of the blue, it announced a seed round of $220 million before releasing a single product. Three months later, still without a product, that splash started to look like a catastrophic flood when three of the companys five co-founders [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Pony AI, the Chinese autonomous vehicle startup thats looking to go public on the Nasdaq stock exchange, now wants to raise around $260 million, according to a new regulatory filing. Thats up from its previous target of around $224 million. To meet the goal, Pony will sell as many as 20 million American depository shares. [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Belgium-based Odoo decided to use open-source tools as a way to attack the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software market, going up against giants like SAP. Fast forward a couple of decades and its now picking up 500 million in secondary investment or around $527M at current exchange rates led by CapitalG (Alphabets venture [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As companies server infrastructure grows, they often run into challenges keeping tabs on the health of their various assets, like cloud instances and local data centers. Monitoring tools, also known as observability tools, can help but lots of tools quickly becomes overwhelming. According to one survey, seven in 10 organizations believe that monitoring is [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Bling Capital, one of the more prolific and well-connected seed VC firms, has nabbed another $270 million for a new flagship, fourth fund. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The open source funding problem is very real, but a slew of initiatives have emerged of late, with startups, corporations, and venture capitalists launching various programs to support some of the most critical projects via equity-free financing. Today its GitHubs turn, launching the GitHub Secure Open Source Fund with an initial commitment of $1.25 million [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Bluesky, the social network and X competitor has been benefiting from a surge of departures from the Elon Musk-owned app formerly known as Twitter. Today, Bluesky has hit a major milestone: its topped 20 million users. Whats more, new data indicates the apps rapid growth is seeing it close the gap with another prominent X [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Quantum computing is getting there. After years of slow but steady development to create a useful quantum computer that can outperform classical machines, were still squarely in the so-called noisy intermediate-scale quantum era. However, many of the pieces needed for building more advanced and stable machines are starting to fall into place now. [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Creator marketplace startup Agentio, which has built an automated platform for YouTubers to sell their ad slots to brands, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Benchmark with participation from returning investors Craft Ventures and AlleyCorp. With the new funding, the startup aims to scale its marketplace for YouTubers and bolster its [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Funding for European tech appears to have stabilized in 2024 after dropping precipitously in 2023, but the signs continue to point to more tough times ahead, according to the latest State of European Tech report. The annual survey produced by European VC firm Atomico notes that startups in the region are on track [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Its no secret that the venture capital industry is facing a liquidity crisis as IPOs and other exits remain few and far between after 2020 and 2021s record-breaking years. Now, we have numbers that show just how bad its gotten. In 2023, the U.S. VC industry invested $60 billion more into startups than it collected [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Though President-elect Donald Trump has been expected to stop the looming ban on TikTok, his political appointments suggest otherwise. Trump announced on Sunday that he selected Brendan Carr to chair the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates the internet, news media, and other forms of communication. Carr, whom Trump appointed to the FCC in 2017, [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Partiful, the New York-based event-planning app thats taking on older solutions like Evite, Eventbrite, and Facebook Events, has been named Googles app of the year, the tech giant announced on Monday as part of its best apps and games of 2024 list. The list also highlighted the top game, AFK Journey, alongside other category winners [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google is committing $20 million in cash and $2 million in cloud credits to a new funding initiative designed to help scientists and researchers unearth the next great scientific breakthroughs using artificial intelligence (AI). The announcement, made by Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis during a fireside chat at the closed-door AI for Science [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

CISA's director will depart the agency after three years at the helm, as part of the seamless transition of government power. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Indias competition watchdog has ordered WhatsApp to stop sharing user data with other Meta units for advertising purposes for five years and also levied a fine of $25.4 million for antitrust violations related to WhatsApps controversial 2021 privacy policy. The Competition Commission of India, which began the investigation in 2021, found that WhatsApps take-it-or-leave-it privacy [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The US-based firm said hackers misdirected a $250,000 wire transfer payment that it hasn't been able to recover. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Blizzard Entertainment first released World of Warcraft in November 2004, so The New York Times celebrated the anniversary by outlining the many ways we can still see the massively multiplayer online roleplaying games influences 20 years later. For one thing, while multiplayer games and early social networks such as MySpace already existed, WoW provided a [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.