Tesla's Stock Soars as Its Robotaxi Service Goes Driverless

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Tesla shares hit their 2025 high and now sit just 1% below their all-time peak after the company confirmed it is testing its fully driverless Robotaxi vehicles in Austin. CNBC has more here.

In a letter to employees that has also been published as a securities filing, Netflix is seeking to calm the backlash over its $82.7 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery by pledging to preserve theatrical releases and avoid studio closures, even as unions and lawmakers warn the deal could raise prices and concentrate power. TechCrunch has more here.

How iRobot Lost Its Way Home

Image Credits: iRobot

By Connie Loizos

There’s something painfully American about the arc of iRobot, the company that taught your vacuum to navigate around the furniture. Founded in 1990 in Bedford, Massachusetts by MIT roboticist Rodney Brooks and his former students Colin Angle and Helen Greiner, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday, punctuating a 35-year run that took it from the dreams of AI researchers to your kitchen floor and, finally, to the tender mercies of its Chinese supplier.

Brooks, the founding director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and the robotics field’s resident provocateur, spent the eighties watching insects and having epiphanies about how simple systems could produce complex behaviors. By 1990, he’d translated those insights into a company that would eventually sell over 50 million robots. The Roomba, launched in 2002, became the rare gadget that transcended its category to become a verb, a meme, and, to the amusement of many, a cat-transportation device.

The money soon followed, with the company raising $38 million altogether, including from The Carlyle Group, before going public in a 2005 IPO that raised $103.2 million. By 2015, iRobot was flush enough to launch its own venture arm, prompting TechCrunch to wryly declare that “robot domination may have just taken another step forward.” The plan at the time was to invest $100,000 to $2 million in up to 10 seed and Series A robotics startups each year. It was the kind of move that marks a company’s arrival, the moment when you’re successful enough to fund the next generation’s dreams.

Then Amazon came knocking. In 2022, the corporate giant agreed to acquire iRobot for $1.7 billion in what would have been Amazon’s fourth-largest acquisition ever at the time. In a press release announcing the tie-up, Angle, who’d been CEO since the company’s inception, spoke about “creating innovative, practical products” and finding “a better place for our team to continue our mission.” It seemed like a fairy tale ending — the scrappy MIT spinoff absorbed into the Everything Store’s sprawling empire.

Except European regulators had other ideas. Indeed, amid threats they would block the deal — they believed Amazon could foreclose rivals by restricting or degrading access to its marketplace — Amazon and iRobot agreed to kill the deal in January 2024, with Amazon paying a $94 million breakup fee and walking away. Angle resigned. The company’s shares nosedived. It shed 31% of its workforce.

Massive Fundings

Chai Discovery, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to design novel molecules, raised a $130 million Series B round at a $1.3 billion post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst, with Thrive Capital, Menlo Ventures, and OpenAI also anteing up. TechCrunch has more here.

Impulse Dynamics, a 27-year-old company based in Marlton, NJ, that develops cardiac contractility modulation therapy for heart failure patients, raised a $158+ million round co-led by Sands Capital and Braidwell, with additional participation from Redmile, Perceptive, and Alger. MassDevice has more here.

Link Cell Therapies, a four-year-old South San Francisco startup that develops oncology cell therapies, raised a $60 million Series A round led by Johnson & Johnson Innovation, with Samsara BioCapital, Sheatree Capital, and Wing Venture Capital also contributing. The company has raised a total of $92 million. More here.

Notion, a 12-year-old San Francisco startup that offers productivity software and AI-driven workplace tools, is letting employees sell roughly $300 million worth of shares at an $11 billion valuation as it weighs additional financings ahead of a potential IPO, according to Forbes, which has more here.

Octane, an 11-year-old New York company that offers instant financing for large recreational and lifestyle purchases, raised a $50 million Series F round at a $1.3 billion post-money valuation. Valar Ventures was the deal lead, with Upper90, Huntington National Bank, Camping World, and Holler-Classic Family also joining in. The company relatedly oversaw a $50 million secondary sale wherein early shareholders sold their shares to new investors. Crunchbase News has more here.

PolyAI, a seven-year-old London startup that develops AI voice assistants for call centers, raised an $86 million Series D round co-led by previous investors Georgian, Hedosophia, and Khosla Ventures, with NVentures, Sands Capital, Squarepoint Ventures, Citi Ventures, Point72 Ventures, and the British Business Bank also opting in. Tech.eu has more here.

Spinny, an 11-year-old Indian company based in Gurugram, India, that operates an online marketplace for used cars, raised a $160 million Series G round at a $1.8 billion post-money valuation, according to TechCrunch. Investors included prior backer Accel, WestBridge Capital, and an unnamed new investor. TechCrunch has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Axion, a five-year-old New York startup that provides AI tools to help manufacturers detect and address product quality issues, raised a $37 million Series B round co-led by Salesforce Ventures and Schneider Electric Ventures, with Bessemer Venture Partners also taking part. More here.

Mirelo, a three-year-old Berlin startup that develops AI tools to generate synced sound effects for video, raised a $41 million seed round co-led by Index Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, with Atlantic also engaging. The company has raised a total of $44 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Smaller Fundings

Auxira Health, a one-year-old Chicago startup that provides virtual cardiology services, raised $7.8 million in seed funding co-led by Route 66 Ventures and Abundant Venture Partners, with DigiTx Partners, American Heart Association Ventures, Ensemble Innovation Ventures, and City Light Capital also participating. More here.

IVFmicro, a seven-year-old UK startup that develops microfluidic devices to improve IVF outcomes, raised a $4.7 million pre-seed round led by Northern Gritstone, with Innovate UK Investor Partnerships Programme also stepping up. Tech Funding News has more here.

Navier, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that builds autonomous engineering teams for hardware design and development, raised a $5.6 million seed round. Investors included GV, HCVC, and Y Combinator. More here.

YO Labs, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that develops cross-chain crypto yield optimization tools, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Foundation Capital, with Coinbase Ventures, Scribble Ventures, and Launchpad Capital also investing. The company has raised a total of $24 million. CoinDesk has more here.

New Funds

Lightspeed Venture Partners, a 25-year-old Silicon Valley VC firm that has made big bets on Anthropic, xAI, and Mistral, announced that it raised more than $9 billion across six funds to double down on the capital demands of breakout AI companies. The New York Times has more here.

Dragoneer, a 25-year-old San Francisco VC firm that invests concentrated stakes across late-stage private and public tech companies, raised its seventh fund in the amount of $4.3 billion. Axios has more here.

Exits

Nvidia has acquired SchedMD, a 15-year-old Salt Lake City company that develops the open source Slurm workload manager for high-performance and AI computing, as the chipmaker looks to expand its open source footprint. Terms were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Luminar, a nine-year-old Orlando startup that makes lidar sensors for autonomous vehicles, filed for Chapter 11 after losing its big Volvo contract, defaulting on loans, and undergoing multiple rounds of layoffs and executive departures. TechCrunch has more here.

Going Public

SpaceX is kicking off an investment banking “bake-off” this week to hear pitches from banks about an IPO that could raise over $30 billion at a roughly $1.5 trillion valuation (and make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire). The New York Post has more here.

People

Thrive Holdings has hired longtime Palantir CIO Jim Siders to run its new IT services arm, Shield Technology Partners. CNBC has