<p>Founders, the battlefield is calling! Startup Battlefield 200 applications are now live — and the race has begun. If you’ve got a groundbreaking idea and the guts to pitch it to the world, TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is your arena. You’ll face elite VC judges. You’ll compete against 199 of the world’s most promising startups. And [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A founder who has carved out a name for himself building products to help restaurants connect better with would-be diners has raised $50 million for his latest startup: a new take on the idea of customer loyalty.&nbsp; Blackbird Labs has built a payments-meets-loyalty-meets-blockchain platform for restaurants to grow repeat business while reducing some of the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Dark kitchens &#8212; also referred to as ghost kitchens, cloud kitchens, or virtual kitchens &#8212; often receive criticism for their food quality. Sizl, a cook-to-order delivery service based in Chicago, seeks to change this perception by delivering meals made with fresh ingredients in around 30 minutes flat. The company announced its recent $3.5 million seed [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Billing itself as &#8220;Stripe for emerging markets,&#8221; Turkish fintech Sipay has raised a $78 million Series B funding round, claiming a valuation of $875 million in the process. This round is significant, as Sipay plans to expand into markets outside of Turkey, offering additional services like remittances that Stripe currently does not offer in those [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Heron Power is raising between $30 million to $50 million for a Series A, according to a report.</p>

<p>Los Angeles-based startup Moonvalley, which is developing AI tools for video creation, has raised a fresh $43 million in venture capital, according to an SEC filing. The filing lists 11 unnamed investors and comes roughly a week after Moonvalley launched its first AI video-generating model, Marey. Moonvalley previously raised $70 million in seed funding from backers [&hellip;]</p>

<p>IBM on Monday said it has acquired Hakkoda, a data and AI consultancy based in New York. The acquisition would &#8220;further expand&#8221; IBM&#8217;s ability to bring consultants and AI to clients, particularly customers in industries like financial services, public sector, and healthcare and life sciences, said Mohamad Ali, SVP and head of IBM&#8217;s consulting business, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Thirteen years ago, when Chris Farmer founded early-stage venture firm SignalFire with data analysis at the core of its investment strategy, many were skeptical about the approach — conventional wisdom dictated that nascent companies didn&#8217;t have enough data to make investment algorithms effective. &#8220;This was a very radical idea, and everyone thought I was crazy,&#8221; [&hellip;]</p>

<p>OpenAI is said to have discussed acquiring the AI hardware startup that former Apple design lead Jony Ive is building with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. According to The Information, OpenAI could pay around $500 million for the fledgling company, called io Products. Ive, who left Apple in 2019 to start his own design firm called [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week reminded us that different startups share a different approach to news: Some choose to remain quiet for a very long time, even about their acquisition [&hellip;]</p>

<p>TechCrunch All Stage, our big event for founders of startups at all stages of funding (see what we did there?), is coming up July 15 at Boston’s SoWa Power Station. And it’s our pleasure to announce that Underscore VC’s investing partner Chris Gardner will join a loaded lineup of speakers by leading a breakout session [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Grace, an insurance company for luxury goods, announced on Wednesday a $6.4 million (€5.9 million) seed round led by FinTech Collective and Speedinvest.  An insurance company for luxury goods, Grace works with luxury brands to protect purchased consumer goods. If an item is stolen or damaged, a consumer can create a claim through the Grace [&hellip;]</p>

<p>TechCrunch All Stage — the ultimate founder summit — is shaping up to be a powerhouse event where 1,200 founders and VCs across all stages will come together to forge meaningful connections and gain practical insights they can immediately apply to scale their startups. Join us on July 15 at SoWa Power Station in Boston [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The quality of AI-generated voices is good enough for things like creating audiobooks and podcasts, having articles read aloud to you, and basic customer support. But many businesses don&#8217;t think AI voice tech is quite reliable enough to deploy. That&#8217;s why two MIT grads, Moin Nadeem and Nikhil Murthy (pictured above), founded Phonic, a company [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Calling founders, VCs, and startup experts — share your scaling strategies! TechCrunch All Stage 2025 is assembling top minds in startups and venture capital on July 15 in Boston. If you have valuable insights on scaling, now’s your chance to share them with 1,200+ founders, investors, and entrepreneurs. Lead thought-provoking sessions, interactive roundtables, and actionable [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Runway, a startup developing a range of generative AI models for media production, including video-generating models, has raised $308 million in a Series D funding round. General Atlantic led the round, which had participation from Fidelity Management &amp; Research Company, Baillie Gifford, Nvidia, SoftBank, and others. The fresh capital will be put toward AI research [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Most recent hydrogen startups have been focused on making modular electrolyzers, but Fourier has taken that trend to the extreme.</p>

<p>Rather than divide people into demographic buckets, Northwind Climate analyzes survey responses for behavioral clues.</p>

<p>Qualcomm has acquired the generative AI division of VinAI, an AI research company headquartered in Hanoi, for an undisclosed amount, the companies announced on Monday. The move marks Qualcomm&#8217;s continued expansion into the AI tooling sector. VinAI, which was founded by former DeepMind research scientist Hung Bui, develops a range of generative AI technologies, including [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Construct Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in startups applying technology to sectors like manufacturing, transportation, and defense, has closed its third fund with $300 million in capital commitments. The Washington, D.C.-based firm previously raised a $225 million second fund and a $75 million capital pool for later-stage companies in 2022. While many [&hellip;]</p>