August 19, 2025

Databricks CEO says fresh $1B will help him attack a new AI database market: The round, which pushes Databricks' valuation to $100B, was co-led by Insight Partners and Thrive. CEO Ali Ghodsi says he's found an enormous untapped AI agent market to spend the funds. Read More

Spotify's latest feature lets you add your own transitions to playlists: The new options are designed to appeal to playlist experts and other music fans, who have collectively created nearly 9 billion playlists on Spotify's platform to date. Read More

AI crawler Firecrawl raises $14.5M, is still looking to hire agents as employees: Firecrawl nabbed Shopify's CEO Tobias Lütke as an investor from a gutsy email after they discovered he was using the product. Read More

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Meta is shaking up its AI org, again: On Friday, The Information reported that Meta was preparing to tear down its existing AI org and reorganize it into four new groups. Four days later, the change has been made official with an internal memo. Read More

Appeals court says NLRB structure unconstitutional, in a win for SpaceX: SpaceX scored a win in a decision from the Fifth Circuit over the labor board's structure. Read More

Discover how developer tools are shifting fast with Lauri Moore and David Cramer at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: From no-code to AI-assisted dev environments, "vibe coding" is changing how early-stage startups build — and who they need to hire. The once-standard idea of landing a "10x engineer" as your first critical hire is getting a serious reality check with Lauri Moore (Bessemer) and David Cramer (Sentry) on the Builder Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in October at San Francisco's Moscone West. Read More

OpenAI launches a sub-$5 ChatGPT plan in India: This plan will offer 10x more messages and image generation than the free tier, among other benefits. Read More

Nvidia said to be developing new, more powerful AI chip for sale in China: Nvidia is apparently putting together a new AI chip meant for sale in China that's half as powerful as its flagship B300 Blackwell GPU. The new chip would be more powerful than the H20 GPUs the company is currently allowed to sell in the country. Read More

Disrupt 2025 gathers 250+ industry trailblazers and 10,000+ attendees in San Francisco on October 27–29. Explore 200+ sessions on scaling, exits, and the evolving tech landscape. Hear from Elad Gil (Gil & Co), Astro Teller (X, The Moonshot Factory), Tekedra Mawakana (Waymo), May Habib (Writer), and more. Register now to save $600+ before prices hike.

Eight Sleep raises $100M to expand its AI-powered sleep tech: The sleep tech company raised from HSG, Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, Y Combinator, and big F1 names like Charles Leclerc and Zak Brown. Read More

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