Funding to North American startups surged in the first half of 2025, fueled by investor enthusiasm around artificial intelligence.
Overall, investors poured $145 billion into seed through growth-stage rounds for U.S. and Canadian companies in the first six months of the year, per Crunchbase data. That’s a 43% gain year over year, and the highest ha

North America Venture Funding Surged In First Half Of Year As Q2 Held Strong

The new feature makes taking control of unruly newsletter subscriptions a breeze.
Google is rolling out a new feature for the web, Android and iOS that will make unsubscribing from email subscriptions easier than before -- which was already pretty easy. If you don't have the feature yet, you'll soon see a new section in Gmail's sidebar that will le

This New Gmail Feature Makes Managing Your Subscriptions Easier Than Ever

Former NBCU ad exec Linda Yaccarino’s tenure at X may have been fairly short — just two years from start to finish — but she did manage to make an impact on the social network’s ad business, new data from ad intelligence firm Guideline shows. Yaccarino will be leaving X in a better position with its advertisers than she found it, it says.
In the U.

X's ad business improved under departing CEO Linda Yaccarino, but it's still tough times ahead

MaintainX, which operates an equipment maintenance and asset management platform, has raised $150 million in Series D funding, the company announced on Wednesday.
The financing boosts the San Francisco-based startup’s valuation to $2.5 billion, and brings its total raised since its 2018 inception to $254 million. The valuation is more than double t

The AI Effect: MaintainX Sees Valuation Jump To $2.5B With $150M Series D Raise

In a wide-ranging Roundtables conversation for MIT Technology Review subscribers, AI journalist and author Karen Hao spoke about her new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. She talked with executive editor Niall Firth about how she first covered the company in 2020 while on staff at MIT Technology Review, and they disc

Inside OpenAI's empire: A conversation with Karen Hao

YouTube is preparing to update its policies to crack down on creators’ ability to generate revenue from “inauthentic” content, including mass-produced videos and other types of repetitive content — things that have become easier to generate with the help of AI technology.
On July 15, the company will update its YouTube Partner Program (YPP) Monetiz

YouTube prepares crackdown on 'mass-produced' and 'repetitive' videos, as concern over AI slop grows

Darkstar, a defence tech ecosystem builder, announced the official launch of Europe’s first pan-European defence fund fully dedicated to backing real military systems, including weapons and dual-use technologies.
The newly launched €25M fund has secured a first close of €15M, led by SmartCap, Estonia’s sovereign defence fund. Additionally, over 30

Re-arming Europe: Darkstar launches €25M pan-European defence fund for battlefield-ready tech, weapons; secures €15M first close

ServiceUp, a platform that automates and manages the vehicle repair process, has raised $55 million in a Series B round of funding led by PeakSpan Capital, the company told Crunchbase News.
The financing brings ServiceUp’s total raised since its 2021 inception to nearly $70 million. The company declined to reveal its valuation, noting only that it

Autotech Startup ServiceUp Lands $55M In Series B Funding

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology.
Inside OpenAI’s empire: A conversation with Karen Hao
In a wide-ranging Roundtables conversation for MIT Technology Review subscribers, journalist and author Karen Hao recently spoke about her new book, Empire of

The Download: a conversation with Karen Hao, and how did life begin?

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4 was chock full of controversial policies—Medicaid work requirements, increased funding for ICE, and an end to tax credits for clean energy and vehicles, to name just a few. But one highly contested provision was missing. Just days earlier, during a late-night voting ses

Why the AI moratorium's defeat may signal a new political era

Michigan may be best known as the birthplace of the American auto industry, but its innovation legacy runs far deeper, and its future is poised to be even broader. From creating the world’s largest airport factory during World War II at Willow Run to establishing the first successful polio vaccine trials in Ann Arbor to the invention of the snowboa

Building an innovation ecosystem for the next century

Parspec, a startup using artificial intelligence to improve efficiency in the construction industry supply chain, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding, the company told Crunchbase News exclusively.
The company aims to help sales agents and wholesale distributors “efficiently bid and supply” construction products. The company claims its key

Exclusive: AI-Powered Construction Procurement Startup Lands $20M Series A

If you were told that the odds of something were 3.1%, it really wouldn’t seem like much. But for the people charged with protecting our planet, it was huge.
On February 18, astronomers determined that a 130- to 300-foot-long asteroid had a 3.1% chance of crashing into Earth in 2032. Never had an asteroid of such dangerous dimensions stood such a h

Inside the most dangerous asteroid hunt ever

Global venture funding ticked up year over year in Q2 2025, with a greater concentration of capital into the largest funding rounds compared to a year ago, Crunchbase data shows.
Q2 funding reached $91 billion, up from $82 billion in Q2 2024, per Crunchbase data. However, quarter-over-quarter funding fell from $114 billion in Q1, which marked the h

Q2 Global Venture Funding Climbs In A Blockbuster Quarter For AI And As Capital Concentrates In Larger Companies

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology.
Inside the most dangerous asteroid hunt ever
If you were told that the odds of something were 3.1%, it might not seem like much. But for the people charged with protecting our planet, it was huge.
On February 18,

The Download: hunting an asteroid, and unlocking the human mind

Fortnite maker Epic Games has settled its antitrust case against Samsung, according to a court filing. The case, filed last September, accused Samsung of working with Google to block rival app stores by default on Samsung phones.
“We’re dismissing our court case against Samsung following the parties’ discussions,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said in a pos

Fortnite maker Epic Games settles antitrust case against Samsung

Chances are your personal data has already been exposed in a data breach. If not, it almost certainly will at a later date because data breaches happen almost every day.
I'm not trying to scare you, but it's important to be prepared. It's a topic I think about often as a cybersecurity and credit card editor for CNET. I'm not invulnerable to hackers