The founder conference built for growth: TechCrunch Founder Summit pass rates increase June 26

Save up to $190 on your pass to TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 by June 26, 11:59 p.m. PT. Designed for founders first on November 4 in Boston. Register here.

Thanks to AI, a Chinese startup has figured out the priciest fusion energy bottleneck

Fusion energy has spent decades trapped in an expensive cycle of trial and error. Now, a Chinese startup believes AI-powered simulation software could dramatically accelerate reactor development by helping scientists test designs virtually before commi…

Founders Fund’s outlier bet on humanely killed fish

Shinkei makes a refrigerator-sized robot called Poseidon to kill fish quickly and humanely.

War Taught this Ukrainian Entrepreneur the Value of Resilience
War Taught this Ukrainian Entrepreneur the Value of Resilience

Salome Mikadze-Struk is no stranger to adversity. The daughter of refugees, she built a software-development business as an undergraduate at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and kept it running despite the outbreak of war in her native Ukraine. Now…

He made your free video player run smoothly. Now he’s doing that for robots.

French serial entrepreneur and open-source legend Jean-Baptiste Kempf has been building Kyber, an infrastructure layer to control remote devices in real time.

Source: Elastic agrees to buy CRV-backed DeductiveAI for up to $85M

DeductiveAI, a startup that uses AI to catch and resolve bugs in software, was founded just three years ago.

AI inference startup Baseten reportedly raising $1.5B months after its last mega-round

Startup Baseten is reportedly close to finalizing a $1.5 billion round at a $13 billion as the “inference gold rush” marches on.

The 11 standout startups from YC’s Demo Day, according to VCs

TechCrunch spoke to investors to find the hottest startups in the Spring 2026 YC batch. Some of them commanded valuations of over $175 million, VCs said.

‘Queer Eye’s’ life coach Karamo Brown launches Kē, a wellness app featuring his AI digital clone

Karamo Brown, famous for his pep talks on Netflix’s “Queer Eye,” has jumped into the wellness and AI space with his new app, Kē. After spending a year and a half focusing on his own journey—from fitness and nutrition to meditation, sobriety, rela…