Xaira, an AI drug discovery startup, launches with a massive $1B, says it’s ‘ready’ to start developing drugs
Advances in generative AI have taken the tech world by storm. Biotech investors are making a big bet that similar computational methods could revolutionize drug discovery. On Tuesday, ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs, an affiliate of Foresite Capital, announced that they incubated Xaira Therapeutics and funded the AI biotech
Read moreAnduril moves ahead in Pentagon program to develop unmanned fighter jets
Anduril Industries has taken another step forward in its quest to become the next great American prime, this time by beating out major defense companies to develop and test small unmanned fighter jet prototypes. The venture capital darling beat out Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman on the deal, under
Read moreIBM moves deeper into hybrid cloud management with $6.4B HashiCorp acquisition
With HashiCorp, Big Blue gets a set of cloud lifecycle management and security tools, and a company that is growing considerably faster than any of IBM’s other businesses. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreRabbit’s R1 is a little AI gadget that grows on you
If there’s one overarching takeaway from last night’s Rabbit R1 launch event, it’s this: Hardware can be fun again. After a decade of unquestioned smartphone dominance, there is, once again, excitement to be found in consumer electronics. The wisdom and longevity of any individual product or form factor — while
Read moreJioCinema, the Indian streaming service, launches 35-cent tier to box out Netflix and Prime Video
JioCinema introduced new monthly subscription plan on Thursday, with the lowest tier costing just 35 cents. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreWhatsApp for iOS is rolling out passwordless logins with passkeys
Illustration: The Verge One more app joins the passwordless future we’ve been promised. WhatsApp says it’s now rolling out support for passkeys in the iOS version of the app. With the feature enabled, users of Meta’s encrypted messaging app can use iPhone biometrics for login — that is, Face ID
Read moreEric Schmidt-backed Augment, a GitHub Copilot rival, launches out of stealth with $252M
Augment, a startup developing an AI-powered platform similar to GitHub's Copilot, has launched out of stealth valued at nearly $1 billion. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreTikTok ban signed into law by President Biden: How we got here, and what comes next
TikTok faces an uncertain fate in the U.S. once again. A bill including a deadline for TikTok parent company Bytedance to divest within nine months or face a ban on app stores to distribute the app in the U.S., was signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday as part of
Read moreRadical thinks the time has come for solar-powered, high-altitude autonomous aircraft
Though many eyes are on space as orbit develops into a thriving business ecosystem, Radical is keeping things a little closer to the ground — but not too close. Its high-altitude, solar-powered aircraft aim to succeed where Facebook’s infamous Aquila failed by refining the tech and embracing more markets. It’s
Read moreStripe, doubling down on embedded finance, de-couples payments from the rest of its stack
Stripe continues to hold the title of being the biggest financial technology business still in private hands, with a current valuation of about $65 billion and a whopping $1 trillion in total processed payment volume last year alone. But fintech is fragmented and a fast-moving target, and with competitors chipping away
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