Category: Tech Crunch

From a struggling family tea estate to an innovative climate venture, Alt Carbon has raised $12 million in a seed round as it plans to scale its carbon dioxide removal work in the South Asian nation. The climate tech startup, which locks away carbon for thousands of years through enhanced rock weathering on farmlands, attracted...

Lidar company Luminar reached a deal with Yorkville Advisors Global and an unnamed investor that could bring another $200 million into its coffers through the sale of convertible preferred stock over an 18-month period. The agreement, which was announced in a regulatory filing Wednesday, follows an abrupt change in leadership and layoffs. Earlier this month,...

Other than AI Siemiatkowski admission, it wasn’t obvious that this was AI. There were only a few subtle signs.

Popular battle royale game Fortnite has finally returned to the U.S. App Store amid game maker Epic Games’ lengthy legal skirmish with Apple. As of Tuesday, Fortnite is also available on the Epic Games Store and AltStore in the EU. It’ll show up in App Store searches soon, Epic said in a post on X....

Luminar, the lidar company founded by recently replaced CEO Austin Russell, is going through another restructuring, according to a recent regulatory filing. This new round of layoffs, which the company did not provide figures for, follows extensive cuts to the workforce in 2024. Luminar cut about 30% of its workforce in 2024, a reduction that...

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Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he “made a lot of mistakes with Google Glass” during an onstage interview at Google I/O 2025 on Tuesday. Brin was a surprise addition to an interview with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis conducted by Big Technology Podcast’s Alex Kantrowitz. Brin went on to say he “didn’t know anything about...

Google’s family of “open” AI models, Gemma, is growing. During Google I/O 2025 on Tuesday, Google took the wraps off Gemma 3n, a model designed to run “smoothly” on phones, laptops, and tablets. Available in preview starting Tuesday, Gemma 3n can handle audio, text, images, and videos, according to Google. Models efficient enough to run...

Cairo-based Sylndr has raised $15.7 million as it expands beyond online used car sales into auto financing, servicing, and tools for dealers. Development Partners International’s Nclude Fund led the round. The company, which operates in Egypt’s fast-growing but under-digitized vehicle market, said the latest round includes both fresh equity and previously unannounced seed financing. Sylndr...

The company is also aiming to unlock access to the San Francisco International Airport, although those plans are on a much longer timeline.