Bluesky announces $100M Series B after CEO transition

The additional funds have been used to scale Bluesky’s team, while the company continues to develop Bluesky’s app and the underlying ATProto that powers it.

TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 nominations are still open

Nominate your startup, or one you know, for TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 before May 27. Chance to win $100,000 equity-free funding and VC access.

Anori, Alphabet’s new X spinout, is tackling one of the world’s most expensive bureaucratic nightmares

Anori aims to shrink down the pre-development process by getting all parties, including the city, on to a unified platform from the start so that compliance conflicts are surfaced in weeks instead of months or years.

Tools for founders to navigate and move past conflict

Founders can create frameworks for working through conflict and change when the team is just two or three people, and if done correctly, it can scale with the company. 

K2 to launch its first high-powered satellite for space compute

K2’s Gravitas is an ambitious project that aims to demonstrate the tech needed to build data centers in space.

Arc expands into electric commercial and defense boats with $50M raise

The Los Angeles startup raised $50 million from Eclipse, a16z, Menlo Ventures, and others as it seeks to expand beyond sport boats.

Rebel Audio is a new AI podcasting tool aimed at first-time creators 

Rebel Audio is a new all-in-one podcasting tool that allows creators to record podcasts, edit, clip content for social, and publish episodes, all without ever leaving the platform. 

The leaderboard “you can’t game,” funded by the companies it ranks

Artificial intelligence models are multiplying fast, and competition is stiff. With so many players crowding the space, which one will be the best — and who decides that? Arena, formerly LM Arena, has emerged as the de facto pu…

This startup wants to make enterprise software look more like a prompt

The company has raised $12 million in seed funding to build an AI operating system for enterprise.

Sequen snags $16M to bring TikTok-style personalization tech to any consumer company

With its Series A, Sequen is bringing its proprietary AI ranking and personalization technology to large consumer business.