TechCrunch Startup News

Harper is an AI-native insurance brokerage that just raised a $45 million combined Series A and seed, after a member of YC's Winter 2025 cohort.

Also, MatX, a chip startup founded by two former Google hardware engineers, has raised a $500 million Series B led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness, an investment fund formed by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the new acquisitions, the company wants to bolster its position as a marketing solution by potentially adding video creation and more granular measurement.

Also, Stripe and PayPal Ventures have participated in Xflow's $16.6 million round that gives it a post-money valuation of $85 million.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country, Ukrainian startups have done more than survive: they are still building and growing.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI news app Particle can now pull in key moments from podcasts, letting readers instantly play short, relevant clips alongside related stories.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Quantonation Ventures, a venture firm investing in quantum and physics-based startups, has closed its oversubscribed second fund at €220 million, or approximately $260 million. That’s more than twice the size of its inaugural fund, and comes in addition to other signals that the quantum winter isn’t coming yet.

Also, Neo's new Residency program invests $750,000 in an uncapped SAFE for startups and provides a $40,000 no-strings-attached grant for college students.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nvidia is working with investors, nonprofits, and venture firms to build earlier ties with India's fast-growing AI founder ecosystem.

Also, General Catalyst's pledge marks a sharp jump from the company's earlier $500 million–$1 billion India earmark.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social network Bluesky now offers private messaging by integrating the startup Germ's E2E encrypted messenger natively in its app.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reload announces a $2.275 million raise in a round led by Anthemis and the launch of its first AI employee, Epic.

Also, Mirai raised a $10 million seed to improve how AI models run on devices like smartphones and laptops.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kana, a new AI marketing startup from the founders of Rapt and Krux, has raised $15 million to build customizable, agent-based marketing tools.

The partnership will see the two companies exploring how World Labs’ models can work alongside Autodesk’s tools, and vice versa, starting with a focus on entertainment use cases.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SpendRule, launched last summer, is an AI-powered platform that helps healthcare systems track their spending.

Mistral AI has agreed to buy Koyeb, a Paris-based startup that simplifies AI app deployment at scale and manages the infrastructure behind it.

Thrive Capital just raised $10 billion for its new fund-- nearly double the size of its last fund.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices