Tesla appears to be building a teleoperations team for its robotaxi service

As Tesla gears up to launch a robotaxi service in the coming years, the automaker looks like it’s building out a teleoperations team. According to a recent job listing, Tesla is hiring a software engineer to help develop a teleoperations system that will allow human operators to remotely acce

Cardless swipes up $30M to build a new generation of co-branded credit cards

More than a quarter of all U.S. residents use co-branded credit cards to get discounts and other extras from brands they use regularly. But not all is rosy in the world of loyalty commerce. Major brands like Uber, Starbucks, and Walmart have all pulled back from such projects over the years after f

Say bye to free-form e-bike parking in London following new rules to reduce bike mess on streets

London is putting the brakes on the mess of electric bikes that litter the streets of the city. Today, the local transportation authority, Transport for London (TfL), announced a new enforcement policy that will restrict parking for the tens of thousands of e-bikes rented on-demand from companies l

Google to test plain ‘blue link’ results for hotel searches in EU markets in latest DMA twist

Google has announced it’s making more changes to how it displays search results in the European Union in response to continued complaints that it’s failing to comply with the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). This will include what it bills as a “short test” of plain “blue

Intel and Biden Administration finalize $7.86B CHIPS Act grant for domestic manufacturing

The U.S. Department of Commerce confirmed on Tuesday it has awarded $7.865 billion to chip giant Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, a federal statute signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022 to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing. The funding will go toward manufacture and ad

AI helps India’s Meesho cut some customer call costs by 75%

Softbank-backed online shopping site Meesho has rolled out what it claims is the first GenAI-powered voice bot among Indian e-commerce firms for customer support, paring down some expenses by 75%. GenAI, or generative AI, refers to artificial intelligence models that are trained on lots of data

EV charging platform Ampeco raise $26M Series B, as demand for charging soars

We last covered EV charging platform Ampeco in 2023 when it raised a Series A round of $13 million. Today it's raised $26 million in a Series B funding led by Revaia, a growth equity investment fund. That takes its total funding to $42 million.  Many EV charging systems are end-to-end sol

Cradle builds out its protein-design AI platform (and wet lab) with $73M in new funding

Using AI to accelerate biotech is fast becoming standard practice, and companies offering services to deploy the tech quickly are seeing big uptake and new investment. Cradle is one of these, focused on protein design — and it just raised $73 million to build out its labs and team. Cradle appear

Cambridge materials science spin-out Molyon is on a mission to make next-gen batteries fly

Battery tech is pivotal as the world leans into electrification to power decarbonization in the race against climate change. But rising demand is putting more attention on the limits and drawbacks of current generation lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery technology. This is where Cambridge University spin

Volta, a Shopify for B2B transactions, raises biggest pre-seed round of Italy

Volta, a new startup with a team split between two headquarters in Milan and Paris, has secured a €6 million pre-seed round ($6.3 million) to develop a new vertical software-as-a-service platform focused on B2B sales. In more practical terms, the Volta team pitches its product as an equivalent t

Rivian snags $6.6B conditional federal loan to build Georgia factory

Rivian said late Monday it has secured conditional commitment for a $6.6 billion loan from the Department of Energy, funds that will help the EV maker restart construction of a massive factory in Georgia. The funds will come from DOE's Loan Programs Office Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufact

Google Developer Program gains new features, but you’ll have to pay for them

In June, Google announced the Google Developer Program, a free program to give devs access to resources designed to help them build applications using Google services. Now that “millions” of devs have signed up (according to Google), the company is introducing a second, paid tier to com

Sill’s new app rounds up the best links from your Bluesky and Mastodon networks

Want to keep up with what everyone’s talking about on alternative social media sites like Bluesky and Mastodon, but don’t have time to constantly scroll through their respective apps? A newly launched link aggregation service called Sill may be able to help. The servi

Here’s why ServiceTitan was on the clock to go public

When ServiceTitan dropped its S-1 notice of an impending public offering on November 18, many VCs likely rejoiced. A successful IPO by the company, which builds operating software for trade businesses, could be what the quiet IPO market needs to start shaking loose. But the timing of ServiceTitan&