Category Funding

TechCrunch expands Startup Battlefield 200 judge lineup with five more venture investors

TechCrunch adds five VC judges to Startup Battlefield, revealing who will question founders at Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco.

The AI slowdown debate is growing as Anthropic, OpenAI and Nvidia clash over safety, regulation and whether frontier labs should pace development.

Get the Disrupt ticket before Sept. 25 to save up to $200 before prices rise for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco.

Vals is betting on AI benchmarking as the new trust layer, with a $40M round, rapid growth and private tests for real-world model performance.

Vantora raised $100 million to build physical AI startups for corporate partners, with a new proprietary M&A model.

Anthropic confirms a wet biology lab, deepening its AI push into life sciences amid rising safety fears and pharma partnerships.

Anthropic’s AI safety proposal sparks debate as Dario Amodei calls for slower frontier development and independent review.

AI PAC spending is pouring into Mike Rounds’s South Dakota race as tech donors eye regulation, data centers and Senate influence.

Disrupt 2026 exhibit bookings close tonight, with startups racing to secure Expo Hall tables before the final deadline.

Crusoe raised $3.9 billion to expand AI infrastructure, fund OpenAI’s Texas site and scale modular Spark data centers.