Google Ventures doubles down on dev tool startup Blacksmith just 4 months after its seed round; also, Icarus raises $6.1M to take on space’s “warehouse work” with embodied-AI robots

Google Ventures doubles down on dev tool star...

Up next

Amazon is taking its biggest shot at Nvidia yet; plus, Town nabbed unicorn valuation, and Tolan snags $30M for its AI companion

Amazon wants to break Nvidia’s hold on PyTorch, the free toolkit used to build most AI apps, so that more developers run their apps on alternative chips like its own. Also, AI assistant startup Town nabbed a unicorn valuation on Monday, announcing a $108 million Series B round co ...  Show more

Veritas expands its anti-counterfeit chip to jewelry, trophies, and fragrance bottles; plus, Elorian’s first AI model wants to reason with images

Counterfeiters are getting better at replicating brands' marks and passing off dupes, known as "superfakes," as genuine items. A startup called Veritas wants to tackle the problem with its own chip that verifies goods. Also, according to Elorian's evaluations, Glimpse outperforms ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

“This rocket self-drive to space or what?” — SpaceX’s capitalist milestone. Alexa wants podcasts. The COVID-19 umbrella challenge.
The Best One Yet

Small step for man, giant step for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, as it takes its first human customers to space. Amazon is making moves to invest in local news and sports podcasts because it wants to make “The Audio Wars” a thing. And stocks are up as the economy reopens, but this kinda fe ...  Show more

Inside the AI Gold Rush
Channels with Peter Kafka

Silicon Valley needs a new thing and AI is that new thing: investors are supposed to pour 43 billion dollars into AI this year. But will individual startups cash in on the boom, or will the real winners of AI be the same handful of big, established companies? Featuring: Renate Ny ...  Show more

The shifting view of so-called AI ‘Wrappers’, Plus Starlink’s India expansion 3/21/25
TechCheck

AI search startup Perplexity is in funding talks that would double the company’s valuation to $18 billion. We look at how the focus in AI is shifting from model makers to so-called AI “Wrappers.” Plus, Starlink is expanding into India, but its success lies in the hands of two ...

  Show more

AI's Sputnik moment
Reuters World News

Chinese startup DeepSeek has upended assumptions about what it will take to fund and fuel the next generation of artificial intelligence. Tech correspondents Jeffrey Dastin and Anna Tong discuss the fallout for Silicon Valley, investors and global politics.   Sign up for the Reu ...  Show more