Sources: Multimodal AI startup Fal AI already raised at $4B+ valuation

Fal provides developers with over 600 image, video, audio, and 3D models, it says, and boasts that its cloud has thousands of Nvidia H100 and H200 GPUs and is fine-tuned for speedy inference.

Sesame, the conversational AI startup from Oculus founders, raises $250M and launches beta

Former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe’s new startup, Sesame, is building AI-powered smart glasses with natural, humanlike voice interaction. Backed by Sequoia and Spark, the company also launched an invite-only iOS beta to preview its conversational AI.

Netflix goes ‘all in’ on generative AI as entertainment industry remains divided

Netflix isn’t planning to use generative AI as the backbone of its content but believes the technology has potential as a tool to make creatives more efficient.

Open source agentic startup LangChain hits $1.25B valuation

As TechCrunch previously reported, the maker of a popular open source framework for building AI agents has officially become a unicorn.

Life360 ventures into pet tech with the launch of a new GPS tracker

Family location safety app Life360 is venturing into pet tech with the launch of its new tracking device for cats and dogs.

One startup’s quest to store electricity in the ocean

Sizable Energy has a plan to store excess renewable energy in flexible reservoirs out at sea. The startup has raised $8 million to test prototypes.

YouTube adds at timer for you to stop scrolling Shorts

YouTube is adding an timer for the Shorts feed to curb doomscrolling

Shuttle raises $6 million to fix vibe-coding’s deployment problem

The platform engineering startup Shuttle announced $6 million in seed funding to handle the infrastructure problems that start where products like Lovable and Cursor leave off.

Sumble emerges from stealth with $38.5M to bring AI-powered context to sales intelligence

The founders of machine learning community Kaggle are trying to upend the crowded sales prospecting market with AI. And they’re making headway.

OpenAI launches an AI-powered browser: ChatGPT Atlas

OpenAI is launching an AI-powered browser, its latest challenge to Google as the main way people find information online.