Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Am I the only one whose head is spinning from all of the transpo news this week? Reminder, it’s only Thursday morning. Let’s jump in! Oh wait, … Read more
Amid a fraught environment for battery startups, Sila has raised $375 million to finish construction of a U.S. factory that will scale its next-generation battery technology for customers like Mercedes-Benz and Panasonic by the end of 2025. Sila, formerly known as Sila Nanotechnologies, is slated to finish construction of its Moses Lake, Washington plant in … Read more
Outside of AI, few startups have drawn venture investments like climate tech. And like AI, companies in the sector need large infusions of cash, sometimes well beyond what a typical venture investor might offer, to reach a size where they’ll be able to make a mark. A new deal involving Rondo Energy, which makes thermal energy … Read more
a16z-backed Character.AI said today that it is now allowing users to talk to AI characters over calls. The feature currently supports multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. The startup tested the calling feature ahead of today’s public launch. During that time, it said that more than 3 million users had … Read more
Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecoms operator, has initiated what analysts expect to be an industry-wide increase in tariffs in the world’s second largest wireless market, raising some of its plans by more than 20%. Jio’s revised pricing structure, effective July 3, sees its entry-level Rs 155 ($1.87) plan, offering 2GB of data and unlimited calls, … Read more
AI “agents” are generative AI models that can perform actions autonomously, like copying info from an email and pasting it into a spreadsheet and have been hailed as productivity superchargers. That might be a bit premature, given models’ tendency to make mistakes. But at least a few founders (and analysts and investors) seem convinced that … Read more
Amazon is facing another competition lawsuit in the UK. The latest claim, which was filed Thursday, is seeking more than £2.7BN in damages — or around $3.4BN at current exchange rates — before the UK’s Competition Appeals Tribunal. The case is being brought by Andreas Stephan, a professor of competition law at the University of … Read more
Cloud services continue to be a weak point for enterprises when it comes to security, so companies providing effective solutions to address this continue to see a lot of interest in the market, both from customers and investors. In the latest example of that, Odaseva – which focuses on one sole use case: securing Salesforce … Read more
French startup Dust has raised a $16 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital. With Dust, companies can create custom AI assistants and share them with their employees so that they can work more efficiently. But what’s interesting with Dust is the differences with other companies working on enterprise agents or AI assistants … Read more
NASA has selected SpaceX to develop a spacecraft that will deorbit the International Space Station in 2030 — a contract valued at as much as $843 million, the agency announced Wednesday. The ISS is nearing the end of its operational life, and as plans for new, commercially-owned space stations heat up, the one that started … Read more