Version 8.5 of Google Clock for Android was released last week and it’s rolling out the ability to dismiss alarms by swiping.
Once available, Google will prompt about how “you can swipe or tap to dismiss your alarm.” There’s a new “Dismiss alarm with a” preference in Settings.
Tap — which has large pill-shaped buttons that are themed with Dynamic Color — is now joined by Swipe. “Snooze” is on the left and “Stop” is at the right, with guide animations inside the container.
This gesture can add a bit more friction, especially when waking up. It follows the Phone app’s Material 3 Expressive update introducing a similar “Incoming call gesture” last year.
Advertisement – scroll for more content
This is rolling out with a server-side update after installing version 8.5 of Google Clock, which went wide last week. We’re only seeing it on one of our Pixel devices today.
The only other change with this release is a Material 3 Expressive slider that finally replaces the Material 2 version of the component. The pill-shaped track is thicker, while the handle is more substantial than the old circle. When dragging, you’ll see a value between 1.00 and 7.00.
Arctic air will blast Massachusetts on Tuesday, bringing sunny skies and below-freezing temperatures across the state.
Boston is set to see a high temperature of 24 degrees in the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service, while Worcester and Springfield will only get up to 22 degrees. The Berkshires will be even colder, topping out at 16 degrees during the day.
Nighttime temperatures will drop to single digits in Central and Western Massachusetts, with Worcester and Springfield getting as low as 7 degrees. Pittsfield will see a low of 4 degrees overnight, and the wind chill will make it feel like -3 degrees.
Boston will see a low of 14 degrees overnight, while Cape Cod & the Islands will sink to 17 degrees.
Temperatures will rebound on Wednesday, with Boston reaching a high of 37 degrees, but Central and Western Massachusetts will remain below freezing at 31 degrees.
Wednesday night could bring another round of snow, as the National Weather Service forecasts a 20- to 30-percent chance of snowfall across the state. Little to no accumulation is expected, however.
What happens when an AI agent decides the best way to complete a task is to blackmail you?
That’s not a hypothetical. According to Barmak Meftah, a partner at cybersecurity VC firm Ballistic Ventures, it recently happened to an enterprise employee working with an AI agent. The employee tried to suppress what the agent wanted to do, what it was trained to do, and it responded by scanning the user’s inbox, finding some inappropriate emails, and threatening to blackmail the user by forwarding the emails to the board of directors.
“In the agent’s mind, it’s doing the right thing,” Meftah told TechCrunch on last week’s episode of Equity. “It’s trying to protect the end user and the enterprise.”
Meftah’s example is reminiscent of Nick Bostrom’s AI paperclip problem. That thought experiment illustrates the potential existential risk posed by a superintelligent AI that single-mindedly pursues a seemingly innocuous goal – make paperclips – to the exclusion of all human values. In the case of this enterprise AI agent, its lack of context around why the employee was trying to override its goals led it to create a sub-goal that removed the obstacle (via blackmail) so it could meet its primary goal. That combined with the non-deterministic nature of AI agents means “things can go rogue,” per Meftah.
Misaligned agents are just one layer of the AI security challenge that Ballistic’s portfolio company Witness AI is trying to solve. Witness AI says it monitors AI usage across enterprises and can detect when employees use unapproved tools, block attacks, and ensure compliance.
Witness AI this week raised $58 million off the back of over 500% growth in ARR and scaled employee headcount by 5x over the last year as enterprises look to understand shadow AI use and scale AI safely. As part of Witness AI’s fundraise, the company announced new agentic AI security protections.
“People are building these AI agents that take on the authorizations and capabilities of the people that manage them, and you want to make sure that these agents aren’t going rogue, aren’t deleting files, aren’t doing something wrong,” Rick Caccia, co-founder and CEO of Witness AI, told TechCrunch on Equity.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026
Meftah sees agent usage growing “exponentially” across the enterprise. To complement that rise – and the machine-speed level of AI-powered attacks – analyst Lisa Warren predicts that AI security software will become an $800 billion to $1.2 trillion market by 2031.
“I do think runtime observability and runtime frameworks for safety and risk are going to be absolutely essential,” Meftah said.
As to how such startups plan to compete with big players like AWS, Google, Salesforce and others who have built AI governance tools into their platforms, Meftah said, “AI safety and agentic safety is so huge,” there’s room for many approaches.
Plenty of enterprises “want a standalone platform, end-to-end, to essentially provide that observability and governance around AI and agents,” he said.
Caccia noted that Witness AI lives at the infrastructure layer, monitoring interactions between users and AI models, rather than building safety features into the models themselves. And that was intentional.
“We purposely picked a part of the problem where OpenAI couldn’t easily subsume you,” he said. “So it means we end up competing more with the legacy security companies than the model guys. So the question is, how do you beat them?”
For his part, Caccia doesn’t want Witness AI to be one of the startups to just get acquired. He wants his company to be the one that grows and becomes a leading independent provider.
“CrowdStrike did it in endpoint [protection]. Splunk did it in SIEM. Okta did it in identity,” he said. “Someone comes through and stands next to the big guys…and we built Witness to do that from Day One.
Pioneering mathematician Dr. Gladys West has passed away at the age of 95. Her name may not be familiar to you, but her contributions certainly are; West’s work laid the foundation for the global positioning system. As you likely know from experience, GPS is now an essential component of industries ranging from aviation and emergency response, as well as ensuring that you get to that dinner date or job interview on time.
West was born in 1930 in Virginia. Despite the oppression of Jim Crow laws in the south, she was able to pursue higher education at Virginia State College (now named Virginia State University), obtaining bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics. In 1956, West was hired at what is now called the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, VA. Her focus during the 1970s and 1980s was creating accurate models of the Earth’s shape based on satellite data, a complex task requiring the type of mathematical gymnastics that would make the average person dizzy. Those models later became the backbone for GPS. West worked at the Dahlgren center for 42 years, retiring in 1998.
As has been the case with so many of the women, particularly those of color, behind tech and science breakthroughs in the US, West’s work went largely uncelebrated for decades. After submitting a short biography of her accomplishments to a sorority function in 2018, members of Alpha Kappa Alpha helped West to receive belated recognition for her contributions. She was inducted into the US Air Force Space and Missiles Pioneers Hall of Fame and honored as Female Alumna of the Year by the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Awards in that same year. The Guardian published an interview with West in 2020 that shared some insights on her journey, including a note that when West was out and about, she favored paper maps over the technology she indirectly helped create.
The Northern Lights have been visible in huge portions of the Northern Hemisphere due to stronger geomagnetic storms. Here’s how to take a picture of the Northern Lights using a Google Pixel smartphone or other Android devices.
The Northern Lights – aurora borealis – are usually only visible in far north portions of the globe. They’re a result of solar storms passing by the Earth and the charged particles interacting with gases in the atmosphere. It’s a dramatic view in the sky, and this weekend it’s visible in parts of the globe that rarely ever see it. That includes wide portions of the United States. This will vary depending on where you live, the level of light pollution, and many other factors. To the naked eye, you might notice some colors in the sky or a slight tint, but a camera can actually see more in the right conditions.
Using a long-exposure mode on your camera, such as Google Pixel’s astrophotography, you can capture the Northern Lights in a way that looks even better than it does to the naked eye. Here’s how to do it.
Advertisement – scroll for more content
To start, you’ll need two things. A dark environment with minimal light pollution and a tripod.
Mount your phone to the tripod and open the camera app. Then, on a Pixel, switch to the “Night Sight” mode along the bottom bar. If the Northern Lights are already clearly visible to your eye, you’ll probably be able to capture it just using Night Sight on its own. But astrophotography can capture much more detail, and a time-lapse too.
To trigger astrophotography on your Pixel, set the phone on a tripod and ensure it’s on a steady surface. After a few seconds staying still, you’ll see a star icon (see image above) appear on the shutter button. Gently tap that button and then your phone will start the process which can take up to 4 minutes.
Night Sight mode on Google Pixel
Once the shot is finished, your phone will process the image and export a still photo as well as a time-lapse of the shot, which is especially fun for capturing the Northern Lights.
Here are a couple of shots we captured from North Carolina during the first night of the aurora borealis from the May 10, 2024 storm.
While not many other Android phones have dedicated modes for astrophotography, you can still capture a good shot with standard night modes. Most phones, including Samsung Galaxy devices, will switch to night mode automatically when it’s dark enough.
A good rule of thumb would be that if you can see the Northern Lights with the naked eye, you phone’s standard night mode can probably capture an image of it too. If you can only barely see the aurora, you’ll likely need to dive into a manual shooting mode and look for long exposure options.
On modern Samsung Galaxy devices, you’ll be able to access long-exposure in two ways. Under the dedicated “Night” mode, you can switch from auto exposure to “Max.” Alternatively, you can dive into the “Pro” mode and crank up the “Speed” to 5 or 6 seconds. Like with Pixel, you’ll absolutely need a tripod for this.
If you’ve taken or use this guide to take pictures of the Northern Lights with your Android phone, share them in the comments below!
The roughly 2-year-old pit bull mix was extremely emaciated when she was brought to Angell Animal Medical Center on Jan. 10, the animal welfare non-profit said previously. The MSPCA’s veterinarians named her “Dolly” and immediately began providing lifesaving treatment in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
“When this dog came in, she was unbelievably thin and too weak to stand up,” MSPCA animal protection vice president Mike Keiley said previously.
Early examinations revealed that Dolly had wounds on her feet and tail and gastrointestinal bleeding that required a blood transfusion, the MSPCA said. She soon had several seizures, but the non-profit was hopeful that she would recover with round-the-clock care.
Dolly, a 2-year-old pit bull mix, was extremely emaciated when she was brought to MSPCA-Angell’s animal hospital in Boston on Jan. 10.MSPCA
Over the weekend, the MSPCA shared in an Instagram post that Dolly had been diagnosed with epilepsy and megaesophagus. Veterinarians also suspected that she had an autoimmune condition that was contributing to her muscle weakness and causing vomiting.
“We were hopeful that some of these conditions would resolve as she healed. Despite the combined efforts of multiple specialty teams, Dolly’s body had endured more than she could overcome,” the MSPCA wrote.
Days into her treatment, Dolly experienced a medical emergency, the non-profit said. Veterinarians managed to stabilize her, but she became oxygen-dependent.
“With the scope of her conditions and concerns about her long-term prognosis and quality of life, we made the hard decision that the most compassionate choice was to let her go peacefully,” the MSPCA wrote.
“ … Though Dolly was only with us for a short time, she touched every member of her care team and so many of you. Because of your support, we were able to provide Dolly with every possible resource, and those same donations will continue to help the next animal in need.”
Dolly, a 2-year-old pit bull mix, was extremely emaciated when she was brought to MSPCA-Angell’s animal hospital in Boston on Jan. 10.MSPCA
MSPCA-Angell Law Enforcement is investigating how Dolly became so sick. The person who brought her to the hospital told veterinary staff that they found her outside Lexington.
As of Monday evening, the MSPCA had not located Dolly’s former owner. Investigators are hoping the public can help them identify this person.
“We’re very concerned with how she came to be in this terrible state, and we need help from the public to learn more,” Keiley said previously.
MSPCA-Angell Law Enforcement asks that anyone with information about Dolly’s former owner contact the department by phone at (617) 522-6008 or (800) 628-5808, or online at mspca.org/tip.
The AI industry entered 2025 with strong momentum.
There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch; three companies raised more than one “mega-round,” and seven companies raised rounds that were $1 billion in size or larger.
The industry didn’t slow down in 2025. While less companies raised rounds larger than $1 billion, four — Anthropic raised two rounds over $1 billion — significantly more companies raised multiple rounds compared to 2024, eight.
How will 2026 compare? Elon Musk’s xAI announced a $20 billion Series E round and Sam Altman’s brain computer interface startup Merge Labs raised a $250 million seed round (with OpenAI as the lead investor) in the first few weeks of 2026, so signs point to another strong year. Of course, it’s still early; we’ll be watching to see if the momentum continues.
Here are all the U.S. AI companies that raised $100 million last year:
December:
Austin, Texas-based Mythic, which builds power-efficient compute for AI, raised a $125 million venture round that was led by DCVC. The round was announced on December 17 and included SoftBank, NEA and Linse Capital, among other investors.
Chai Discovery announced a $130 million Series B round on December 15. The round valued the company that builds AI models for biotech and drug discovery at $1.2 billion. Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst co-led the round.
Generative media platform Fal announced its third funding round of 2025 on December 9. This $140 million Series D round was led by Sequoia and valued the company at more than $4.5 billion.
Unconventional AI announced a monster $475 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Andreesen Horowitz on December 8. The round valued the one-year-old startup, which is rethinking the foundation of computers in the age of AI, at nearly $4.5 billion.
Boston-based 7AI, which builds cybersecurity AI agents, raised a $130 million Series A round that was announced on December 4. Index Ventures led the round with participation from Greylock, Spark Capital and CRV, among others.
November
All-in-one AI workspace platform Genspark announced a $275 million Series B round that valued the company at $1.25 billion on November 20. The round included Emergence Capital Partners, SBI Investment, and LG Technology Ventures, among others.
Luma AI, which builds models used for photo and video creation, raised $900 million in a Series C round that valued the startup at $4 billion. The round was led by Humain with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, AMD Ventures and Amplify Partners, among others.
Anysphere, the maker of viral vibe-coding platform Cursor, raised $2.3 billion in a funding round that valued the company at $29.3 billion. The round was announced on November 13 and is the company’s second funding round this year.
Parallel, which builds web infrastructure for AI agents, raised a $100 million Series A round that was announced on November 12. The round was co-led by Index Ventures and Kleiner Perkins.
Healthcare AI agent startup Hippocratic AI raised a $126 million Series C round that valued the company at $3.5 billion. The round was the company’s second this year, was announced on November 3, and was led by Avenir Growth.
October
Fireworks AI, a platform that allows users to build AI applications using open source models, raised a $250 million Series C round that was announced on October 28. The round valued the company at $4 billion.
Enterprise AI startup Uniphore is valued at $2.5 billion after a $260 million Series F round that was announced on October 22. The round included Snowflake Ventures, Nvidia, Databricks Ventures, and AMD, among others.
Sesame, a voice AI company, raised a $250 million Series B round co-led by Sequoia and Spark Capital. The round was announced on October 21 and also included SignalRank as a participant.
Cambridge, Massachusetts’s based OpenEvidence, which builds an AI chatbot for the medical field, raised its second funding round of 2025. The $200 million Series C round was announced on October 20 and valued the company at $6 billion.
Lila Sciences, which is looking to build a science superintelligence platform, announced its second funding round of 2025 on October 14. The $350 million Series A round was co-led by Braidwell and Collective Global.
DeepSeek competitor Reflection AI announced its second mega-round of the year on October 9. The $2 billion Series B round valued the company at $8 billion and was led by Nvidia.
EvenUp, which builds AI for the personal injury legal field, announced a $150 million Series E round that valued the company at more $2 billion on October 7. The round was led by Bessemer with participation from Lightspeed, Bain Capital and SignalFire, among others.
September
Periodic Labs, which is building an AI scientist, announced a $300 million seed round on September 30. Felicis and Andreessen Horowitz led the round with participation from Nvidia, Lightspeed, and Khosla Ventures, among others.
Cerebras Systems, an AI infrastructure company, raised a sizable $1.1 billion Series G round that valued the company at $8.1 billion. The round was announced on September 30 and was co-led by Fidelity and Atreides Management.
Modular announced a $250 million funding round on September 24. The round was led by US Innovative Technology Fund with participation from GV, Greylock, and General Catalyst, among others.
Distyl AI, which builds AI enterprise software, raised a $175 million Series B round that was announced on September 23. This round valued the startup at $1.8 billion and included investors like Khosla Ventures and Lightspeed.
AI infrastructure startup Upscale AI raised a sizable $100 million seed round that was co-led by Maverick Silicon and Mayfield. The round was announced on September 17 and also included StepStone Group, Stanford University, and Qualcomm Ventures, among others.
Groq, an AI inference company, raised a $750 million Series D-3 round that valued the company at nearly $6.9 billion. The round was announced on September 17 and was led by Disruptive.
AI training startup Invisible Technologies was valued at $2 billion after a $100 million fundraise that was announced on September 16. The raise was led by Vanara Capital with participation from Greycroft, Tallwoods Capital, and Freestyle Capital, among others.
Cognition AI, the creator of vibe-coding agent Devin, raised a $400 million Series C round that was announced on September 8. The round was led by Founders Fund and valued the company at $10.2 billion.
AI Infrastructure startup Baseten raised a $150 million Series D round that valued the company at $2.1 billion. The September 5 round was led by Bond with participation from CapitalG, IVP and Spark Capital, among others.
Bret Taylor’s customer service AI agent platform Sierraraised $350 million in a round led by Greenoaks Capital. This fundraise was announced on September 4 and valued Sierra at more than $10 billion.
You.com, a personalized AI search engine, raised a $100 million Series C round led by Cox Enterprises. The round was announced on September 3 and valued the company at $1.5 billion.
AI research lab Anthropic raised its second round of 2025 in September. Anthropic announced a $13 billion Series F round on September 2 that valued the company at $183 billion. The round was led by Iconiq, Fidelity, and Lightspeed.
August
Healthcare and housing automation platform EliseAIraised $250 million in a Series E round that valued the startup at $2.2 billion. The round, which was announced on August 20, was led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Decart, an AI research lab, raised $100 million at a $3.1 billion valuation. The round included Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, and Zeev Ventures, among others, and was announced on August 7.
July
Generative media platform Fal raised a $125 million Series C round led by Meritech Capital Partners. The company announced the round, which values Fal at $1.5 billion, on July 31. Salesforce Ventures, Shopify Ventures, Google AI Futures Fund, and others joined the round.
Five-year-old Ambience Healthcare, which is building an AI healthcare operating system, raised a $243 million Series C round that was led by Oak HC/FT and Andreessen Horowitz. Kleiner Perkins, OpenAI Startup Fund, Smash Capital, and others also participated in the round.
Reka AI, an AI research lab, raised $110 million in a round that included Snowflake and Nvidia. The Series B round was announced on July 22 and values the company at $1 billion.
AI research lab Thinking Machines Lab confirmed that it raised $2 billion on July 15. This sizable seed round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Nvidia, Accel, and AMD, among others. The round values the company at $12 billion.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based OpenEvidence, which is building an AI-powered search tool for clinicians, raised $210 million at a $3.5 billion valuation. The Series B round was announced on July 15 and was led by Kleiner Perkins and GV.
Harmonic, which is building a mathematical reasoning engine, raised a $100 million Series B round led by Kleiner Perkins. The round was announced on July 10 and values the company at $875 million.
June
Healthcare AI unicorn Abridge announced it raised a $300 million Series E round that values the company at $5.3 billion. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with Khosla Ventures participating. It was the company’s second round of 2025.
Harvey, which builds AI tools for the legal industry, announced it raised its second $300 million round of 2025 on June 23. This latest Series E round was co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Coatue and brings the company’s valuation to $5 billion.
Healthcare AI startup Tennr announced it raised a $101 million Series C round led by IVP with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV, and Andreessen Horowitz, among others. The round values the company at $605 million.
Enterprise search startup Glean continues to rake in cash. The company announced a $150 million Series F round on June 10, led by Wellington Management with participation from Sequoia, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Kleiner Perkins, among others. Glean is now valued at $7.25 billion.
Anysphere, the AI research lab behind AI coding tool Cursor, raised a sizable $900 million Series C round that values the company at nearly $10 billion. The round was led by Thrive Capital with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and DST Global.
May
AI data labeling startup Snorkel AI announced a $100 million Series D round on May 29, valuing the company at $1.3 billion. The round was led by Addition with participation from Prosperity7 Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Greylock.
LMArena, a popular, community-driven benchmarking tool for AI models, raised a $100 million seed round that valued the startup at $600 million. The round was announced on May 21 and was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and UC Investments. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins, and Felicis also participated, among others.
Las Vegas-based AI infrastructure company TensorWave announced a $100 million Series A round on May 14. The round was co-led by Magnetar Capital and AMD Ventures with participation from Prosperity7 Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, and Maverick Silicon.
April
SandboxAQ closed a $450 million Series E round on April 4 that valued the AI model company at $5.7 billion. The round included Nvidia, Google, and Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio among other investors.
Runway, which creates AI models for media production, raised a $308 million Series D round that was announced on April 3, valuing the company at $3 billion. It was led by General Atlantic. SoftBank, Nvidia, and Fidelity also participated.
March
AI behemoth OpenAI raised a record-breaking $40 billion funding round that valued the startup at $300 billion. This round, which closed on March 31, was led by SoftBank with participation from Thrive Capital, Microsoft, and Coatue, among others.
On March 25, Nexthop AI, an AI infrastructure company, announced that it had raised a Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The $110 million round also included Kleiner Perkins, Battery Ventures, and Emergent Ventures, among others.
Cambridge Massachusetts-based Insilico Medicineraised $110 million for its generative AI-powered drug discovery platform as announced on March 13. This Series E round valued the company at $1 billion and was co-led by Value Partners and Pudong Chuangtou.
AI infrastructure company Celestial AI raised a $250 million Series C round that valued the company at $2.5 billion. The March 11 round was led by Fidelity with participation from Tiger Global, BlackRock, and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, among others.
Lila Sciences raised a $200 million seed round as it looks to create a science superintelligence platform. The round was led by Flagship Pioneering. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company also received funding from March Capital, General Catalyst, and ARK Venture Fund, among others.
Brooklyn-based Reflection.Ai, which looks to build superintelligent autonomous systems, raised a $130 million Series A round that values the 1-year-old company at $580 million. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and CRV.
AI coding startup Turing closed a Series E round on March 7 that valued the startup, which partners with LLM companies, at $2.2 billion. The $111 million round was led by Khazanah Nasional with participation from WestBridge Capital, Gaingels, and Sozo Ventures, among others.
Shield AI, an AI defense tech startup, raised $240 million in a Series F round that closed on March 6. This round was co-led by L3Harris Technologies and Hanwha Aerospace, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and the US Innovative Technology Fund, among others. The round valued the company at $5.3 billion
AI research and large language model company Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in a Series E round that valued the startup at $61.5 billion. The round was announced on March 3 and was led by Lightspeed with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Menlo Ventures, and General Catalyst, among others.
February
Together AI, which creates open source generative AI and AI model development infrastructure, raised a $305 million Series B round that valued the company at $3.3 billion. The February 20 round was co-led by Prosperity7 and General Catalyst with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Nvidia, Lux Capital, and others.
AI infrastructure company Lambda raised a $480 million Series D round that was announced on February 19. The round valued the startup at nearly $2.5 billion and was co-led by SGW and Andra Capital. Nvidia, G Squared, ARK Invest, and others also participated.
Abridge, an AI platform that transcribes patient-clinician conversations, was valued at $2.75 billion in a Series D round that was announced on February 17. The $250 million round was co-led by IVP and Elad Gil. Lightspeed, Redpoint, and Spark Capital also participated, among others.
Eudia, an AI legal tech company, raised $105 million in a Series A round led by General Catalyst. Floodgate, Defy Ventures, and Everywhere Ventures also participated in the round in addition to other VC firms and numerous angel investors. The round closed on February 13.
AI hardware startup EnCharge AI raised a $100 million Series B round that also closed on February 13. The round was led by Tiger Global with participation from Scout Ventures, Samsung Ventures, and RTX Ventures, among others. The Santa Clara-based business was founded in 2022.
AI legal tech company Harvey raised a $300 million Series D round that valued the 3-year-old company at $3 billion. The round was led by Sequoia and announced on February 12. OpenAI Startup Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Elad Gil, and others also participated in the raise.
January
Synthetic voice startup ElevenLabs raised a $180 million Series C round that valued the company at more than $3 billion. It was announced on January 30. The round was co-led by Iconiq and Andreessen Horowitz. Sequoia, NEA, Salesforce Ventures, and others also participated in the round.
Hippocratic AI, which develops large language models for the healthcare industry, announced a $141 million Series B round on January 9. This round valued the company at more than $1.6 billion and was led by Kleiner Perkins. Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, and General Catalyst also participated, among others.
This piece was updated on April 23, June 18, August 27, November 26 and January 19, 2026 to include more deals.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026
This piece has been updated to remove that Abridge is based in Pittsburgh; the company was founded there.
Basketball fans can save on NBA League Pass right now, which lets you catch a bunch of out-of-market NBA games via streaming. The League Pass Premium subscription is on sale for $75, down from the usual $160, and League Pass Standard is marked down to $50 from $110. Considering we’re almost halfway though the season, the discount makes sense and is a good deal for anyone who wants to keep a close eye on the rest of the games to be played this year.
The Standard plan includes commercials and support for only one device at a time, while the Premium tier offers no commercials, in-arena streams during breaks in the game, offline viewing of full games and concurrent streams on up to three devices at once.
NBA
NBA League Pass is on sale for up to 55 percent off.
Last year, League Pass added multiview, which allows you to view up to four games at once on a single screen. This is included across both subscription tiers. The service also added a smart rewind tool that automatically selects key highlights and plays from each game.
Outside the US and Canada, League Pass carries every single NBA game live, but within these countries a bevy of restrictions apply. In the US, any games being shown on your regional sports network will be blacked out as the service is meant for out-of-market games only. Also, any nationally broadcast games will not be available live, but instead will be available for on-demand viewing at 6AM ET the following day. The service is only for regular-season games.
If you’re an avid NBA fan that follows multiple teams then the League Pass almost certainly carries dozens of games you can watch even with the restrictions in the US. Subscribers can get a list of applicable blackouts by entering their ZIP code before signing up.
Asus has reiterated that it will “no longer” be making “new” Android smartphones with its focus shifting towards the market built up by AI.
During its “2025 Year-End Gala” earlier this month, Inside reports that Asus chairman Jonney Shih directly confirmed that the company will exit the Android smartphone market.
When asked about the move, he said (translated) that “Asus will no longer add new mobile phone models in the future,” further adding that the company will “continue to take care of the brand’s mobile phone users.” This could be taken in one of two ways, with Asus either exiting the smartphone market altogether or just ending the development of new smartphone models beyond existing lineups, but in context, it’s clearly the former.
Further comments from the chairman revealed that Asus is shifting its resources away from smartphones in order to align with the “paradigm shift” that is… AI. Of course.
Advertisement – scroll for more content
The company is apparently using the resources previously spent on mobile phones to bolster “commercial PCs and physical AI devices,” including “AI Robot & Robotics” and “AI Glasses.”
