TechCrunch Startup News

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TechCrunch Startup News episodes

June 18 SpaceX alum nabs $22M to turn rocket engines into geothermal power plants
Critical Energy is turning rocket engines into geothermal power plants, and it wants to build 300 GW per year by 2045.

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5 min
June 17 Startup Foundation Alloy developed a new alloying technique; plus, Probably raises $9M to build a more reliable kind of AI
Instead of heating metals, Foundation Alloy beats them into submission. The startup has raised $22 million to scale up production of its alloys.
Also, the company Probably wants to prevent hallucinations and factual errors from reaching users, and achieve accuracy on par with deterministic systems.

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9 min
June 15 Jeff Bezos’s Prometheus raises $12B to build an ‘artificial general engineer’ for the physical world; plus, Theker building a factory robot that doesn’t specialize in anything
The new round values the physical AI startup that aims to automate heavy engineering and drug design at $41 billion.
Also, unlike humanoid robots designed around a fixed form — think Boston Dynamics — Theker's machines are built to be reconfigured.

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7 min
June 12 Endurance Energy raises $54M to harness a massive untapped energy source; Jedify raises $24M to help companies arm AI agents with context on their businessplus,
SpaceX alumni Andrew Redd is betting the ocean has vast amounts of untapped geothermal energy.
Also, the funding round was led by Norwest, with participation from S Capital VC, Cerca Partners, and Oceans Ventures. Snowflake Ventures also participated as a strategic investor.

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13 min
June 11 Datadog veterans launch AI coding startup Niteshift on a bet against Big AI lock-in; plus, Zest launches a restaurant discovery app
AI coding agent startup Niteshift has raised a $7 million seed round from a who's who of angels. It's betting companies will want power over, not lock-in, with model makers.
Also, backed by Alexis Ohanian’s 776 and Kindred Ventures, Zest uses transaction data and AI to generate restaurant recommendations based on users’ real dining habits and the places they frequent.

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11 min
June 10 Evotrex raises $30M to build the RV that doesn’t need a charging station; plus, so long FAANG and hello to MANGOS
The startup is one of many entering the RV space, but it's banking on a hybrid power system that can go far beyond campsites.
Also, with SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI all eyeing massive public debuts, the tech industry may soon have a new class of corporate overlords — and a new acronym to match. Say goodbye to FAANG and hello to MANGOS.

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7 min
June 08 Helion, the Sam Altman-backed fusion startup, raises $465M to build a power plant for Microsoft
Fusion startup Helion is racing to complete a power plant for Microsoft by 2028. A fresh infusion of cash should help with that.

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5 min
June 05 Is Silicon Valley ready to put robots in people’s homes? Hello Robot is.
The California startup released the fourth-generation of its home assistance robot, Stretch.

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10 min
June 04 Brynn Putnam's Board raised $20M; plus, ZeroDrift raises $10M to protect AI models from themselves
Board, the startup building what it calls "together tech" designed to bring people into the same room, has closed a Series A led by Union Square Ventures.
Also, a new AI compliance service sits between AI models and end users to flag and replace any messages that might present a compliance problem.

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7 min
June 03 Pacific Fusion’s latest prototype packs 440 gigawatts into an 80-nanosecond burst; plus, Rocket engine startup Impulse raises $500 million to hire people, not AI
Pacific Fusion's sub-scale prototype delivered enormous amounts of power in a flash, setting the company up for its demonstration power plant.
Also, engineering physical systems still depends on human talent, according to Impulse Space president Eric Romo.

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9 min