July 24, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

Anduril reportedly in talks to raise funding at $100B valuation, more than 3x last year's mark: Anduril is said to be raising a new round of funding that may push its valuation up to about $100 billion, per Reuters. Read More

US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a 'duress' password during border search: A U.S. citizen has asked a court to throw out the government's claim that he gave over a passcode to border authorities that wiped his phone's data, opening up fresh questions about a person's constitutional rights at the U.S. border. Read More

Anthropic launches Opus 5: Opus 5 will be both cheaper and less restrictive than Fable, likely making it preferable in most use cases. Read More

A message from CAST

New: Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for tech debt

AI agents are not only accelerating software delivery, but the creation of architectural technical debt. Learn how leading organizations are tackling it. Download your full complimentary copy.

Download here

Afternoon Must-Reads

Waymo reportedly mulling a breakup with Uber: The contract between the two companies ends in May 2028, Uber told TechCrunch. Read More

Volkswagen engineers charged with insider trading tied to Rivian joint venture: The indictment, which was unsealed Friday, alleges the Volkswagen engineers used confidential insider information to buy stock in Rivian. Read More

Rivian sues the US government for 'full refund' of Trump tariffs: The automaker joins a long line of companies seeking such refunds. In April, Rivian CFO Claire McDonough said she expected the company stood to reap a refund in the "tens of millions of dollars." Read More

Sam Altman's biometric startup World raises $52.5M via crypto sale: Sam Altman's side project — which seeks to scan the world's eyeballs and turn them into unique digital identifiers — has raised some fresh cash through a crypto sale. Read More

Why Cognition bought Poke: AI personality is becoming a competitive advantage: AI coding startup Cognition has acquired Poke, the AI assistant you text like a friend, in a deal valuing the startup in the low nine figures. The acquisition brings Poke’s conversational style and interaction model to Cognition’s coding agent Devin, reflecting a growing belief that how AI assistants interact with users is as important as the models powering them. Read More

A message from ThoughtSpot

Who’s leading analytics and BI in 2026?

Gartner evaluated every analytics platform so you don't have to. See why ThoughtSpot was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Analytics and BI.

Read full report

Last but Not Least

Midjourney acquired the astrology app Co-Star: The AI lab Midjourney continues to expand its purview beyond image and video generation. Read More

Check out some of our other newsletters:

StrictlyVC

TechCrunch Events

TechCrunch Mobility

Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here

Got a tip?
Get in touch securely.

Want to advertise on TechCrunch?

Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter.

Unsubscribe

Member Center

501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107