The $1 billion acquisition of rent-to-own startup Divvy Homes, which was announced Wednesday, is expected to leave some shareholders without a payout, according to sources familiar with the deal. The terms and Divvys journey from buzzy startup to acquisition target reflects the rollercoaster ride the proptech industry has endured over the past decade. [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Caffeinated Capital, a San Francisco venture firm started by a solo capitalist Raymond Tonsing, is raising a fifth fund of $400 million, according to a regulatory filing. The firm, an early investor in software company Airtable and defense startup Saronic, has already raised $160 million toward the fund. If Caffeinated hits its target, it will [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Ati Motors, an Indian startup building AI-powered autonomous mobile robots, has raised $20 million in a Series B round. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Chris Young, Microsoft's head of of business development and its venture unit, M12, resigned from his role on Wednesday, the company said. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In 2015, the blogging site Tumblr launched a GIF discovery feature called Tumblr TV as an experimental product. Now, with the U.S. TikTok ban leaving the fate of the short-form video app uncertain, Tumblr has decided its finally time to launch Tumblr TV, which has since evolved to support video, to all its users as [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In this suit, workers are claiming they suffered PTSD from disturbing content. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In the wake of Metas decision to remove its third-party fact-checking system and loosen content moderation policies, Google searches on how to delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads have been on the rise. People who are angry with the decision accuse Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of cozying up to the Trump administration at the expense of [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

After a turbulent few years for proptech, Divvy Homes announced Wednesday that it is selling to a division of Brookfield Properties for about $1 billion. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that the two AI leaders, Sam Altman and Mustafa Suleyman do not care for each other. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Crypto is making such a big comeback that AngelList and CoinList are launching a way to help raise capital for crypto-specific founders using crypto coins. They are teaming up to launch Crypto special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and Crypto roll-up vehicles (RUVs), the companies shared with TechCrunch exclusively on Wednesday. The partnership, they said, will give [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Samsung Unpackeds one more thing was a bit of a weird one. After the presentation ended, the company rolled a brief pre-packaged video of the Galaxy Edge not to be confused with the Star Wars theme park of the same name. Though limited, the reveal was confirmation of earlier rumors that the hardware giant [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The dream of battery-free devices has taken an unlikely turn, as Carnegie Mellon researchers debuted Power-Over-Skin. The technology allows for electrical currents to travel through human skin in a bid to power things like blood sugar monitors, pacemakers, and even consumer wearables like smartglasses fitness trackers. Researchers note the tech is still in early stages. [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Hiya, folks, welcome to TechCrunchs regular AI newsletter. If you want this in your inbox every Wednesday, sign uphere. OpenAI is making gains at the expense of its chief rivals. On Tuesday, the company announced the Stargate Project, a new joint venture involving Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, Oracle,and others to build AI infrastructure for OpenAI in [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Streaming service Plex has long since grown beyond its original focus of being a home for personal media to offer a more comprehensive solution for discovering, streaming, and sharing content across services, including Plexs own ad-supported free TV and movies. More recently, the company added social networking features, which its today expanding with its rollout [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Hoping to capitalize on the data center power boom, state-owned utility Santee Cooper is looking for partners to finish construction on two incomplete reactors. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

At Samsungs Unpacked 2025 on Wednesday, the company unveiled the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+, and Galaxy S25 Ultra. Google marked the occasion with a slew of Android updates, including key updates to its AI assistant, Gemini. Starting Wednesday, users can access an improved Gemini, which integrates into apps and services across a device. In a [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

On Wednesday, Samsung unveiled how SmartThings, its smart home platform, will introduce AI features that allow users to simplify their everyday life through ambient sensing technology and generative AI. At Samsung Unpacked 2025, the company said the upcoming Home AI features will gather insights from a users everyday life to create personalized experiences. Samsung shared [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A new day has dawned for the Samsung side button. At Samsung Unpacked 2025 on Wednesday, the company announced a small but meaningful tweak arriving on the Galaxy S25 line. As it continues to focus more efforts on mobile AI, Samsung is offering up easier access to Google Gemini, by way of the [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Alongside a slew of announcements tied to Samsungs Galaxy S25 launch at Samsung Unpacked 2025 on Wednesday, Google announced a pair of accessibility improvements for Android. This includes improvements to the screen reader, along with hearing aid functionality. The hearing aid updates arrive after Google expanded the offering as part of its Android 15 rollout. [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

At Samsung Unpacked 2025 on Wednesday, Google announced that its updating Circle to Search to make it easier for users to find information and get things done. The feature, which launched last year, allows people to search from anywhere on their phone by using gestures like circling, highlighting, scribbling, or tapping. Now Google is expanding [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Billionaire Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are fighting on X about Stargate, the enormous infrastructure project to build data centers for OpenAI across the U.S. Stargate, announced Tuesday during a press conference at the White House, would funnel as much as $500 billion from investors including SoftBank and Middle East AI fund MGX [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

This month, drama unfolded across mainstream social media platforms like TikTok, which briefly went dark in the U.S. before a rapid return. Instagram recently faced backlash after ending its third-party fact-checking program. At the same time, startups like Favorited are attracting attention from investors, creators, and viewers. On Wednesday, the livestream app announced its $1.3 [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Department of Homeland security told members of the Cyber Safety Review Board that their membership was terminated. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

TikTok is back online in the U.S. for the time being, but its future remains uncertain. While many apps have been scrambling to attract TikTok users and creators, a bookmarking backup service called Dewey has launched a solution that saves your favorite TikTok videos and allows you to access them at any time even [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Were kicking things off earlier than ever! TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets are officially on sale. Dont miss your chance to snag them at the lowest rates of the year! Immerse yourself in the epicenter of tech innovation at Disrupt 2025! From October 27-29, Moscone West in San Francisco transforms into the global hub for technology [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

YouTube said Wednesday that it is adding new experimental features for Premium users, including high-quality audio, a faster playback speed option on mobile, and the ability to jump ahead on the web to skip to the more intriguing part of the video. The company routinely tests new features that users can activate fromyoutube.com/new. The company [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Anthropic has reportedly raised around $1 billion from Google as the AI company looks to deliver a number of major product updates this year. First reported by the Financial Times, Googles fresh investment brings the tech giants total stake in Anthropic to around $3 billion. Google poured $2 billion into Anthropic late last year. Anthropic, [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

U.S. government contractor Conduent, which provides technology to support services such as child support and food assistance, has confirmed that a recent outage was caused by a cybersecurity incident. Conduent confirmed the disruption, which left some U.S. residents without access to support payments, to TechCrunch on Tuesday but declined to say whether the outage was [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Demand for generative AI help drove consumer spending on apps to $150 billion globally in 2024, up 13% from the prior year. According to an annual State of Mobile report from app intelligence provider Sensor Tower (which acquired Data.ai, the original reports author, last March), AI apps saw a surge of interest over the past [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

President Donald Trump has said he would be open to Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle chairman Larry Ellison buying TikTok as part of join venture with the U.S. government. Trump was asked at a press conference on Tuesday if he was open to Elon buying TikTok. He responded that he would be, and added: [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Data analytics platform Databricks has confirmed that it has closed a previously announced $10 billion in Series J equity financing at a $62 billion valuation. The San Francisco-based company also added a further $5.25 billion in debt financing, funded by JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, among other leading financial institutions and alternative [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The hack has the potential to be one of the biggest of the year, but the edtech giant is refusing to answer important questions 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Since it was founded in 2014, India-based Postman has made a name for itself as one of the most popular platforms for building and using APIs, with 500,000 organizations now using the service. Like with so many other SaaS services, though, its valuation today is reportedly down from its $5.6 billion high in 2021. But [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Over the years, Ramp has built a name for itself in the corporate card and expense management space. Its branched out into travel, bill pay, and more, while raising over $1.2 billion in venture funding. Today, the six-year-old fintech startup is announcing a different kind of expansion one that takes it into more of [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

When George Avetisov was the founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup HYPR, he spent a lot of time in the trenches with the companys sales team. He quickly realized that regardless of how good his sales team was, they were consistently pulling in other departments to answer customer questions or fill out technical questionnaires. They [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As enterprises look at how they can best leverage AI to increase their employees productivity, search is an obvious use case. In most companies, after all, data lives in multiple disconnected silos and the combination of large language models, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and enterprise-grade integration services now makes it easier than ever to not [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A four-year-old London startup backed by Peter Thiel has raised a $55 million Series B round as it sets about fixing the broken clinical trial industry. The announcement comes as artificial intelligence is shaping up to revolutionize drug discovery and development, in turn spurring demand for a streamlined clinical trial process to help get new [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Indonesias antitrust agency KPPU fined Google 202.5 billion Rupiahs, equivalent to $12.6 million, on Wednesday for antitrust violation related to its payment system services for the Google Play Store. The KPPU ordered the search giant to cease the mandatory use of Google Play Billing in the Google Play Store. It also asked Google to let [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Hindustan Unilever has agreed to acquire beauty startup Minimalist for about $342 million, as the consumer goods giant seeks to expand in Indias fast-growing premium skincare market. Hindustan Unilever will initially acquire a 90.5% stake in the direct-to-consumer brand through secondary buyouts and primary investment, with the remaining 9.5% to be purchased from founders in [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The U.K.s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has a new interim chairman: former Amazon executive Doug Gurr (pictured above). The announcement comes as the U.K. seeks to position itself as a pro-growth, pro-tech nation by cutting red-tape and bureaucracy, with artificial intelligence (AI) taking center stage. The country is also nearing the end of a [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Indian fintech Jar has turned cash flow positive, an executive at the Tiger Global-backed startup confirmed on Wednesday. The three-year-old startup, which offers savings and investment services to consumers, achieved the milestone while still growing by more than 10 times last year, according to an investor note seen by TechCrunch. The profitability push comes as [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Vertice has made a name for itself over the years in the crowded world of expenditure management by focusing on applying AI to optimize an area where businesses are sinking hundreds of billions of dollars annually: software and cloud spend. The London-based startups business has grown 13x in the three years since its inception (similar [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Truecaller for iOS has been updated with live caller ID support for its premium iPhone users. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

An unlikely group, including Mr Beast and Bench acquirer Employer.com, has submitted a bid to buy TikTok. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A Delaware judge has sanctioned Sheryl Sandberg, Metas former COO and board member, for allegedly deleting emails related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. The decision arises from a case Meta shareholders brought against Sandberg and another former Meta board member, Jeff Zients, late last year. The plaintiffs alleged that Sandberg and Zients used personal [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Microsoft was once the exclusive provider of data center infrastructure for OpenAI to train and run its AI models. No longer. As part of Stargate, OpenAIs massive new AI infrastructure deal with SoftBank, Oracle, and others, Microsoft says it has signed a new agreement with OpenAI that gives it right of first refusal on new [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI says that it will team up with Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and with Oracle, along with others, to build multiple data centers for AI in the U.S. The joint venture, called The Stargate Project, will begin with a large data center project in Texas and eventually expand to other states.The companies expect to commit $100 [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Scale AI's CEO Alexandr Wang has five recommendations for President Trump to keep the US ahead of China on AI. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amperesands technology replaces the iron cores that define old transformers with silicon carbide. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

All throughout Americas capital, founders enjoyed the fruits of their industrys political jockeying. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.