Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: French online carpooling marketplace BlaBlaCar says India now accounts for ~33% of its carpool passengers and expects to reach ~150M passengers globally in 2025 — Every few weekends, 21-year-old student Lavanya Jain opens the BlaBlaCar app to find a lift from Noida on the outskirts …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: WhatsApp updates its Business API terms to ban general-purpose chatbots starting January 15, 2026, affecting WhatsApp assistants of OpenAI, Perplexity, others — Meta-owned chat app WhatsApp changed its business API policy this week to ban general-purpose chatbots from its platform.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Reddit says it is expanding Reddit Answers, its Google Gemini-powered search experience, to five new languages: French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese — Reddit announced Thursday that it is expanding its AI-powered search experience to five new languages: French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: OpenAI says it paused Sora's ability to generate videos resembling MLK Jr. at the request of his estate, after some users created “disrespectful depictions” — OpenAI announced Thursday it paused the ability for users to generate videos resembling the late civil rights activist …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Indian startup Kuku, which offers audio content and vertical dramas, raised an $85M Series C led by Granite at a $500M valuation and has 10M+ paid subscribers — Kuku, an Indian storytelling platform backed by Google, has raised $85 million in fresh funding as it aims to scale its audio …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Google plans to invest $15B over five years in India to set up a 1GW data center and AI hub in the southern Andhra Pradesh state; Google has 14K staff in India — Google is making a $15 billion investment to set up a 1-gigawatt data center and AI hub in India, even as the Indian government pushes …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Oura raised $900M led by Fidelity at an “approximately” $11B valuation, up from $5.2B after raising $200M in December 2024, and has sold 5.5M smart rings total — Finnish health tech company Oura has raised $900 million in fresh funding led by Fidelity Management & Research Company …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Google adds a Chrome feature that automatically disables browser notifications from websites users haven't interacted with recently, on Android and desktop — Google's Chrome web browser is about to become much less noisy. — On Friday, the technology giant announced a new feature …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: NPCI, which runs India's UPI, partners with OpenAI and digital payment company Razorpay on a pilot to let consumers shop and pay directly through ChatGPT — India has kicked off a pilot to let consumers shop and pay directly through AI chatbots, with OpenAI's ChatGPT leading the rollout …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: OpenAI expands its ~$5 ChatGPT Go plan to 16 new Asian countries, including Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, after launching it in August — OpenAI is rapidly expanding its affordable ChatGPT Go plan, which costs under $5, to 16 new countries across Asia.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: MrBeast, who earned an estimated $85M in 2025, says AI-generated videos could threaten creators' livelihoods, calling it “scary times” for the industry — Top YouTube creator MrBeast is worried about AI's impact on creators' livelihoods, despite having dabbled with using the technology himself.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch: Since Dec. 2024, Anker has offered cash and other incentives to Eufy security camera users for donating footage, including of thefts, to train its AI systems — Earlier this year, Anker, the Chinese company that makes Eufy security cameras, offered its users money in exchange for videos of package and car thefts.
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: OpenAI acquires AI-powered personal finance app Roi; source: CEO and co-founder Sujith Vishwajith is the only member of Roi's four-person team joining OpenAI — OpenAI has acquired Roi, an AI-powered personal finance app. In keeping with a recent trend in the AI industry, only the CEO is making the jump.
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch: Sources: former Databricks VP of AI Naveen Rao is in talks to raise $1B led by a16z at a $5B valuation for his new AI hardware startup Unconventional — Naveen Rao, who was formerly the head of artificial intelligence at Databricks, is in talks to raise a $1 billion at a $5 billion valuation …
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: An interview with Replit CEO Amjad Masad on its $3B valuation, rapid growth, pivoting to non-technical white-collar workers, its $350M war chest, and more — While AI coding startups like Cursor raise brow-raising rounds on barely three years of existence, Replit's path to a $3 billion valuation has been anything but swift.
Dominic-Madori Davis / TechCrunch: a16z releases a report, citing Mercury data, on the top 50 AI companies that startups pay; OpenAI leads, followed by Anthropic, Replit, Freepik, and ElevenLabs — On Thursday, Andreessen Horowitz released its first AI Spending Report in partnership with the fintech firm Mercury.
Dominic-Madori Davis / TechCrunch: Oneleet, an integrated compliance service combining penetration testing, code scanning, and more, raised a $33M Series A led by Dawn Capital and hits $3M ARR — Bryan Onel's father was a locksmith. As for Onel, he described himself as the digital equivalent. — Ethical hacking was Onel's hobby growing up.
TechCrunch: Source: HR software company Gusto paid ~$600M to acquire Guideline, which offers 401(k) plans to SMBs; Guideline raised $340M and had a $1.15B valuation in 2021 — Last month, Gusto, a payroll and HR software company, announced that it agreed to acquire Guideline, a startup offering retirement plans to small and medium businesses.
Rebecca Szkutak / TechCrunch: Chipmaker Cerebras Systems raised a $1.1B Series G from Fidelity, Trump Jr.'s 1789 Capital, and others at an $8.1B post-money valuation ahead of its planned IPO — Nvidia rival Cerebras Systems raised a new round of private financing despite its previous plan be trading on the public market by 2025.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: An interview with California state Senator Scott Wiener on his new AI safety bill SB 53, the bill's scope, his focus on AI safety bills, AI PACs, and more — This is not California state senator Scott Wiener's first attempt at addressing the dangers of AI.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: eBay agrees to acquire Tise, a social marketplace for secondhand fashion and interior design items that has raised $45M in funding, for an undisclosed sum — eBay announced on Monday that it's acquiring Tise, a social marketplace for second-hand fashion and interior design items.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: How developers are using Apple's local AI models in iOS 26: Lil Artist story generation, MoneyCoach's spending insights, F1 race summaries in Lights Out, more — Earlier this year, Apple introduced its Foundation Models framework during WWDC 2025, which allows developers to use …
Kate Park / TechCrunch: Inside Pangyo Techno Valley, South Korea's “Silicon Valley” that is home to 1,800+ startups, R&D centers, and global tech firms, as it strives for global impact — Just south of Seoul, in the city of Seongnam, sits what many call the “Silicon Valley of South Korea” …
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: Databricks says it plans to integrate OpenAI's models, including GPT-5, into its data platform and AI product Agent Bricks, as part of a $100M multiyear deal — Databricks said on Thursday that it is incorporating OpenAI's models, including GPT-5, into its data platform as well as its AI product …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Spotify updates its AI policy, including adopting the upcoming DDEX standard to label and identify AI music and rolling out a new music spam filter — Spotify on Thursday announced a series of updates to its AI policy, designed to better indicate when AI is being used to make music …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Neon, which pays users to record their phone calls and sells that audio data to AI companies for training, becomes the #2 social app on the US App Store — A new app offering to record your phone calls and pay you for the audio so it can sell the data to AI companies is, unbelievably …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Emergent, which lets non-technical users build apps via AI agents that handle coding errors and more, raised a $23M Series A, bringing its total funding to $30M — In the last decade, as the camera quality of smartphones improved, platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok rose in popularity for photo and video sharing.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: OpenAI launches ChatGPT Go in Indonesia for ~$4.50 per month, expanding its budget-friendly ChatGPT subscription plan after debuting it in India in August — OpenAI is expanding its budget-friendly ChatGPT subscription plan beyond India. The company launched its sub-$5 ChatGPT Go paid plan …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: UK-based Tide, a neobank used by 1.6M micro and small enterprises, half of them in India, raised $120M led by TPG at a $1.5B valuation — U.K.-based fintech Tide has entered the unicorn club with a fresh funding of $120 million led by TPG, as the startup now serves over 1.6 million micro …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Google Cloud says it now works with nine of the 10 leading AI labs, including OpenAI, and with 60% of the world's generative AI startups, fueling its growth — Google Cloud announced Thursday it has added fast-rising AI coding startups Lovable and Windsurf to its roster of customers.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Mastodon, the nonprofit that maintains the social network, plans to offer paid hosting, moderation, and support services for organizations joining the fediverse — Mastodon, the non-profit organization that maintains the software powering the decentralized alternative to social networks like Threads and X …
Rebecca Szkutak / TechCrunch: Atlassian acquires developer productivity platform DX for $1B in cash and restricted stock; DX has 350+ enterprise customers and raised less than $5M — Productivity software giant Atlassian is making its largest acquisition yet to add a developer productivity tool to its product suite.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: Filing: Insight Partners says a ransomware attack on its systems between October 2024 and January 2025 affected 12,600+ people, including its limited partners — Venture capital firm Insight Partners has notified thousands of people, including the firm's limited partners …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Spotify adds new features for free users globally, allowing them to search for and play any song they want; the company reported 433M ad-supported MAUs in Q2 — Following its long-awaited launch of lossless streaming for paid subscribers, Spotify is upgrading its service for free users, too.
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Hike, which was valued at $1.4B in 2016 and has since pivoted from a messaging app to a real-money gaming app, shuts down following India's ban on such apps — Hike, once one of India's most valuable startups with unicorn status, has become the latest casualty of New Delhi's recent real-money gaming ban …
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: Shares of transit software company Via closed at $49.51 in their NYSE debut, above the $46 IPO price, giving Via a market cap of ~$3.9B, after raising $492.9M — Investors took a cautious approach to transit software startup Via's IPO on Friday, with shares opening below the company's IPO price …
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: California SB 243, which would mandate safety protocols for AI chatbot companions, passes the State Assembly and Senate and now heads to Governor Newsom's desk — California has taken a big step toward regulating AI. SB 243 — a bill that would regulate AI companion chatbots in order …
Anna Heim / TechCrunch: Helsinki-based ReOrbit, which builds satellites and a software platform to help countries fully control their satellite systems, raised a €45M Series A — ReOrbit, a Finnish startup focused on sovereign satellites, has raised a record €45 million (about US $53 million) …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: OpenAI is merging its Model Behavior team with its Post Training group to bring the work of the Model Behavior team closer to core model development — OpenAI is reorganizing its Model Behavior team, a small but influential group of researchers that shape how the company's AI models interact with people, TechCrunch has learned.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Facebook is revamping its classic Poke feature to be easier to use and include gamification elements similar to Snapchat and TikTok as it courts younger users — Technically, the poke never really left Facebook. — The classic feature from Facebook's early days lets users get a friend's attention with a virtual nudge of sorts.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: WhatsApp fixed a zero-click bug in its iOS and Mac apps that was being used, alongside a now-fixed Apple flaw, to hack into devices of “specific targeted users” — WhatsApp said on Friday that it fixed a security bug in its iOS and Mac apps that was being used to stealthily hack …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Reliance launches a subsidiary called Reliance Intelligence, aiming to create national-scale AI infrastructure in India, in partnership with Google and Meta — Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man and chairman of Reliance Industries, has unveiled an ambitious plan to build the country's AI backbone through …
Anna Heim / TechCrunch: Maisa AI, which offers an enterprise agentic automation service that uses a proprietary system to limit hallucinations, raised a $25M seed led by Creandum — A staggering 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing, according to a recent report published by MIT's NANDA initiative.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Google updates video editing tool Vids to add AI avatars, automatic transcript trimming, and image-to-video tools, and releases a basic version to all users — Google debuted its new-age video editor called Vids for the Google Workplace productivity suite last year.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Google says it is behind the viral “nano-banana” image model, launches it as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image with finer edit controls in Gemini app, Gemini API, more — Google is upgrading its Gemini chatbot with a new AI image model that gives users finer control over editing photos …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: On its 10th anniversary, YouTube Music gets new features, including “Taste Match” playlists similar to Spotify Blend and event notifications through Bandsintown — YouTube is celebrating 10 years of its YouTube Music app on Thursday with the launch of new features that bring it closer to rival Spotify and others.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Bluesky blocks access to its service in Mississippi, saying it doesn't have the resources to comply with the state's broad new law requiring age verification — Social networking startup Bluesky has made the decision to block access to its service in the state of Mississippi, rather than comply with a new age assurance law.
Kate Park / TechCrunch: NYC-based Eight Sleep, which makes the AI-powered Pod smart mattress cover for measuring sleep, raised $100M from HSG and others, after an $86M Series C in 2021 — Roughly one in three adults in the U.S. regularly gets insufficient sleep, driving demand for tools that can monitor, analyze, and enhance rest.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: TikTok is updating its Community Guidelines, adding new rules for Live creators, including a requirement that commercial content must be disclosed — TikTok is preparing an update to its Community Guidelines, which dictate the rules for participating on the social video platform …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Cohere hires Joelle Pineau, who previously led Meta's FAIR lab, as chief AI officer, to oversee AI strategy across Cohere's research, product, and policy teams — Investors once saw Canadian AI startup Cohere as a promising contender to challenge OpenAI and Anthropic in the race to build frontier AI models …