<p>On February 18, 2024, Ian Laffey posted on X that he and two others he&#8217;d just met built a cheap drone at a hackathon that calculated its coordinates simply by using its camera and Google Maps. He and his colleagues, Sacha Lévy and Carl Schoeller, were all engineers under the age of 25. The tech [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Expense management startup Ramp is being considered for a charge card pilot program by the U.S. government’s General Services Administration, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. The government’s internal expense card program, dubbed SmartPay, is a $700 billion program. It is estimated that the charge card pilot program contract for which Ramp is being [&hellip;]</p>

<p>President Donald Trump’s tariffs have underscored the increasing geopolitical risk that almost all businesses now face. As the situation continues to shift with Trump’s unpredictable deal-making, it’s also becoming clear how challenging it is for companies, nonprofits, consultants, and lawyers to keep up with the rapid day-to-day changes. &#8220;We are drowning in trade updates every [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Chatbot Arena, the crowdsourced benchmarking project major AI labs rely on to test and market their AI models, is forming a company called Arena Intelligence Inc., reports Bloomberg. In a blog post published Thursday, Chatbot Arena said that the company will &#8220;give [it] the resources to improve [its platform] significantly over what it is today.&#8221; [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Want to tap into the energy of 1,000+ startup founders, investors, and tech leaders descending on Boston for TechCrunch All Stage on July 15? Host your own Side Event during “TC All Stage Week,” happening July 13-19! Whether it’s a networking mixer, workshop, morning run, fireside chat, or cocktail hour — you call the shots. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>When Matija Šošić started working in web development, he was surprised by how hard it was to build a full-stack production-ready web application. One of the biggest hurdles Šošić faced was navigating the fragmented dev tooling landscape. Coding a web application required utilizing different tools for developing the front end versus the back end, and [&hellip;]</p>

<p>New York City is one of those places in the world where you can get a dollar slice at 2 a.m. or have a burger delivered in less than 30 minutes, but you&#8217;ll still spend two hours crawling down the highway to catch a flight. Archer Aviation wants to change that with air taxis that [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Chapter, a Medicare advisory startup co-founded by former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, has closed a $75 million funding round at a valuation of $1.5 billion led by private equity and venture firm Stripes. The startup helps seniors choose Medicare health plans analyzing doctors, hospitals, and prescription drug coverage. Unlike many other Medicare insurance brokers, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Another highly valued startup has just been added to the mix in the ongoing legal drama between Rippling and Deel: U.K. fintech giant Revolut. In his blockbuster affidavit that reads like it’s straight out of a movie, Irish Rippling employee Keith O’Brien claimed that Deel paid him about $6,000 a month to spy on Rippling. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Windsurf, the maker of a popular AI coding assistant, is in talks to be acquired by OpenAI for about $3 billion, Bloomberg reported. If the deal happens, it would put OpenAI in direct competition with a number of other AI coding assistant providers, including Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, which OpenAI backed from its OpenAI [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Aura, a digital photo frames company founded by early Twitter employees, is introducing its latest model, Aspen, which adds new technology to the device and its accompanying mobile app. In addition to hosting your digital photos in its 12-inch HD display, the device now also allows you to add captions to your photos when they [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Startups attracted $91.5 billion in venture capital funding in Q1, according to the latest report from data provider PitchBook. This figure not only exceeds the previous quarter&#8217;s allocation by 18.5% but also represents the second-highest quarterly investment in the last decade. Despite this seemingly positive news, Kyle Stanford, lead U.S. venture capital analyst at PitchBook, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Deck, a startup that claims to be building “the Plaid for the rest of the internet,” has raised $12 million in a Series A funding round &#8212; about nine months after closing its seed financing, it tells TechCrunch exclusively. The new raise, led by Infinity Ventures, brings Montreal-based Deck’s total raised since its January 2024 [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The ultimate founder summit returns — now bigger than ever! Formerly TechCrunch Early Stage, TC All Stage is bringing together founders and VCs from every stage, not just early stage. We’re thrilled to unveil the full breakout session lineup at TC All Stage. Packed with scaling pioneers and top-tier VCs, these sessions are designed for [&hellip;]</p>

<p>StrictlyVC, the boutique brand powered by TechCrunch and known for evening events that invite headliners into smaller rooms to connect with live audiences, is headed back to London on May 13 — and its latest speaker lineup is one of its strongest yet. Joining the stage is TS Anil, CEO of Monzo Bank, the digital [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Ryan Breslow is officially back. While the founder of one-click checkout company Bolt re-assumed its helm as CEO in March, Breslow is unveiling Wednesday a new “superapp” that he hopes will formally mark his return as the fintech’s leader. He describes the new product as “one-click crypto and everyday payments” in a single platform, in [&hellip;]</p>

<p>TechCrunch Sessions: AI is right around the corner — and the deadline to reserve your exhibit table is nearly gone. If you’ve got an AI innovation worth shouting about, now’s your moment. Don’t sit on the sidelines while others take the spotlight. Put your product where it belongs — in front of the leaders and [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Capsule is upgrading its AI-powered video editing assistant for marketing, sales, and media teams following the close of a $12 million round of Series A funding, the company announced on Wednesday. The upgraded editor will include new features like AI suggestions and support for real-time collaboration. The new version of its studio software will feature [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Design software startup Figma announced Tuesday it has filed its confidential paperwork for an IPO. We won&#8217;t know more until that paperwork becomes public, which, best-case scenario would be in about a month. However, with the stock market in groundhog mode — seeing its shadow with every new gyration of the Trump administration&#8217;s trade policies [&hellip;]</p>

<p>India&#8217;s market regulator launched a probe Tuesday into Gensol Engineering after finding alleged misuse of electric vehicle loans. BluSmart, a ride-hailing startup connected to Gensol that was once seen as an emerging Uber rival in the South Asian market, has also been swept up into the investigation. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) [&hellip;]</p>