TechCrunch Startup News

Robinhood announced Monday it has filed an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a new publicly traded fund that will hold shares of startups. The idea behind the “Robinhood Ventures Fund I” is to allow every retail investor access to make money on the hottest startups before they go public.

Also, Rodatherm Energy, a new geothermal startup, emerged from stealth Monday with $38 million in funding and a plan to build a pilot plan in Utah.

And, Amid an ongoing surge in defense tech investing, advanced manufacturing company Divergent Technologies raised $290 million to expand production of missile parts and other specialized components for the military.

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When Mark Lee was a law student at Harvard, a trademark class exposed him to the staggering scale of counterfeiting, an illicit industry worth more than $3 trillion annually, and set him on an unexpected path to entrepreneurship.

Bret Taylor, board chair at OpenAI and CEO of AI agent startup Sierra, was asked in a recent interview with The Verge whether he agreed with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s declaration that “someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money in AI.”

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Initially launched as an instant messaging app rivaling WhatsApp in 2012, Hike pivoted to real-money gaming in recent years, with its primary platform, Rush, offering casual games like carrom and ludo for cash prizes, following the shutdown of Hike Messenger in 2021. Rush attracted over 10 million users and generated more than $500 million in gross revenue over its four-year run.

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After investing in robotics startups for 10 years, Seth Winterroth, a partner at Eclipse, said the time to invest in robotics has never been better. The robotics startup market has matured and the hardware and software powering these bots has gotten significantly better — and cheaper.

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Grammy Award-winning musician, composer, and producer Wyclef Jean says the music industry is broken, which is why he’s now involved with a startup, OpenWav, that’s looking to give the power back to the artists. Through the OpenWav app, launched over the summer, artists can drop new music and exclusives; connect directly with fans; sell merch; host concerts, pop-ups, and listening parties; and more.

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Anduril announced Tuesday that a fleet of its XL uncrewed undersea vehicle “Ghost Shark” will begin operations in Australian waters next year under a massive billion dollar contract. The five-year award structure is the defense-startup holy grail; it’s a program of record that essentially locks in recurring revenue by becoming a line item in the country’s defense budget.

Also, Perplexity, the AI-powered search startup that competes with Google by providing conversational answers to user queries, has secured $200 million in new capital at a $20 billion valuation.

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Arc announced Wednesday it has signed a contract of that value with Curtin Maritime, a tug and barge operator. The new hybrid-electric tugs are expected to hit the waters around the Los Angeles port in 2027. Curtin has ordered eight tugs — at around $20 million apiece — and Arc will build them in conjunction with Snow & Co. shipyard.

Also, it’s been a long road for the 20-year-old fintech Klarna to make it to an IPO. But on Wednesday, the company successfully landed on the New York Stock Exchange, having raised $1.4 billion, largely for its existing investors, rather than itself.

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Fabian Kamberi, CEO and co-founder of the Berlin-based AI gaming startup Born, thinks the current AI companions on the market are designed to be exploitative and geared towards isolating users through one-to-one relationships with AI chatbots.

Also, Clyx is a social platform that helps users find community events to join. Five years after its launch, the app today has 50,000 active users buying tickets for events, and more than 200,000 users browsing events. The company has now raised $14 million in a Series A round led by Blitzscaling Ventures, with participation from other investors, including Iqram Magdon-Ismail, the co-founder of Venmo, and F1-driver-turned-investor Nico Rosberg

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SpaceX just fired off one of the biggest shots yet in the spectrum wars, agreeing to pay $17 billion to take over a massive chunk of wireless airwaves from EchoStar for Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell services.

The deal is the most aggressive signal yet that SpaceX wants to rule the satellite-to-phone market.

Also, Ramp answered any lingering questions as to why investors recently valued the expense management startup at $22.5 billion, just 45 days after a previous funding round valued it at $16 billion: The company says it has achieved $1 billion in annualized revenue.

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Nuclearn got its start when the founders were working at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station just west of Phoenix. They had been experimenting with ways to streamline various repetitive tasks first from a data science perspective then with more advanced AI models.

Also, ReOrbit, a Finnish startup focused on helping nations control their own sovereign satellites, has raised a record €45 million (about US $53 million) Series A round of funding for a European space tech company. The funding round signals that Europe’s new space market is heating up, fueled by a geopolitical environment in which countries increasingly worry about relying on foreign technology for critical infrastructure.

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