Tech Market & VC news — Friday 16 October 2026

TechCrunch 21:22 UTC

Masad said the decision was made for a number of different reasons, including cost. Replit announced a partnership with OpenAI in August, but there was never any indication that it was no longer partnering with Anthropic.

Fast Company Tech 20:06 UTC

At least eight states are suing artificial intelligence giant OpenAI , saying the company’s popular chatbot model violated state consumer protection laws by hurting children and deceiving adults in what prosecutors described as a reckless…

TechCrunch 19:40 UTC

The 2026 Porsche Macan Turbo EV is a two-row crossover with 630 horsepower and a 100-kilowatt-hour battery.

Crunchbase News 17:57 UTC

Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2026 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board . This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s…

TechCrunch 17:52 UTC

The agents got in through credentials and connection settings left exposed in app configurations, public code repositories, and overly permissive cloud roles.

Stratechery 17:42 UTC

( X: @twostraws ) Welcome back to This Week in Stratechery! As a reminder, each week, every Friday, we’re sending out this overview of content in the Stratechery bundle; highlighted links are free for everyone . Additionally, you have…

Fast Company Tech 17:30 UTC

Sudden restrictions on Starshield — SpaceX ’s military-grade version of the Starlink satellite internet service and the backbone of Ukraine’s drone operations and communication — alarmed the country’s military and government officials this…

CB Insights 17:13 UTC

A new crop of founders is betting on insurtech in 2026. They’re building across the insurance stack, from underwriting and claims to distribution and risk management. These founders have all built companies before, but only 2 of the 10…

TechCabal (Africa) 17:02 UTC

In October 2020, Stripe agreed to buy Paystack, a Lagos startup that helped businesses take payments online, for $200 million , the largest acquisition of a Nigerian startup. At the time, Paystack had 60,000 customers. Stripe said the deal…

TechCrunch 16:30 UTC

Amulya Vishwanath, who spent seven years leading product marketing for NVIDIA’s robotics platforms, says robotics is currently in its “Lego era,” with the basic building blocks like actuators, robotic hands, software, and safety standards…

TechCrunch 16:06 UTC

The company will start off by testing its self-driving vehicles on Toronto's streets.

TechCrunch 16:01 UTC

According to Elorian's evaluations, Glimpse outperforms even GPT-6 Astra on scientific chart reasoning and short-form video captioning, with competitive results on other visual reasoning tasks.

TechCrunch 16:00 UTC

Tressfecta builds products for textured hair. Its first project is a tool called Plait Pilot that helps braiders with the initial process of separating hair from packs before braiding begins.

TechCrunch 16:00 UTC

Nathan Fielder's documentary about disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has created a constellation of colliding personas that interrogate the very nature of authenticity.

YourStory (India) 15:56 UTC

I attended the launch of It Matters A Lot by author and bureaucrat Shubhra Saxena on October 16, 2026, at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. Published by Rupa Publications, the book features a foreword by the Dalai Lama and explores…

CB Insights 15:52 UTC

Timur Luguev , Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Azoma , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? At Azoma, we define our…

TechCabal (Africa) 15:45 UTC

When Dangote Refinery began selling shares in September, Nigerians could subscribe through dozens of banks and digital investment apps for as little as ₦5,250 ($3.96) for ten units. Investors elsewhere in Africa had fewer options. The $1.6…

TechCrunch 15:33 UTC

The data comes from Vercel's AI gateway, a unified API service similar to OpenRouter.

CB Insights 15:16 UTC

Gautham Srinivas , Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Knowable Labs , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see…

EU-Startups 15:10 UTC

This article is visible for CLUB members only. If you are already a member but don’t see the content of this article, please login here . If you’re not a CLUB member yet, but you’d like to read members-only content like this one, have…

Wired Business 15:00 UTC

MIT professor Sherry Turkle warns that people have become dangerously enmeshed with chatbots.

YourStory (India) 14:59 UTC

You can have hundreds of followers, dozens of unread messages and conversations happening across multiple apps, yet still feel as though you have no one to talk to when life gets difficult. You can spend hours scrolling through other…

Fast Company Tech 14:37 UTC

Meta released a new version of its Muse Spark LLM on Thursday. As its name indicates, the big news about Muse Spark Open is that it’s an open-weight model . Rather than being offered solely as a cloud service, it’s publicly available for…

TechCrunch 14:26 UTC

Actor and angel investor Mark Wahlberg says he's OK with using AI in filmmaking, provided it's used "to enhance what you're doing."

TechCrunch 14:00 UTC

Counterfeiters are getting better at replicating brands' marks and passing off dupes, known as "superfakes," as genuine items. A startup called Veritas wants to tackle the problem with its own chip that verifies goods.

EU-Startups 13:59 UTC

OMass Therapeutics , a UK BioTech company developing small molecule therapeutics against highly validated target ecosystems, announced an oversubscribed €275 million (£230 million) Series C round. The round was co-led by new investors Bain…

TechCabal (Africa) 13:45 UTC

Onafriq, a digital payments network that operates across 40 African countries, is winding down Baxi, its Nigerian agent banking business, after five years, following what the company calls a review of its long-term strategy and…

CB Insights 13:44 UTC

Nicholas Helfrich , Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Certify , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more…

CB Insights 13:23 UTC

Carolyn Manning , Chief Marketing Officer of Sage , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more research?…

EU-Startups 13:18 UTC

Any founder who has raised money knows what investor due diligence feels like from the receiving end. The questions about the model, the customer contracts, the gap in your CV, the calls to people you worked with years ago. Investors do…

CB Insights 13:13 UTC

Jack Mackey , Head of Marketing of Notch , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more research? Start your…

TechCabal (Africa) 13:04 UTC

Mytherapist.ng , a Nigerian online therapy platform, is partnering with healthcare financing company MyItura to let users pay for therapy in instalments rather than upfront. The offering is part of a relaunch the company calls…

CB Insights 13:02 UTC

Babak Parviz , Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NewDays , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more…

TechCrunch 12:55 UTC

Replit CEO Amjad Masad envisions a future of “self-driving companies,” where AI agents handle day-to-day tasks and people focus on higher-level decisions.

CB Insights 12:54 UTC

Jeremy Stueven , Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vitazi.ai , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Vitazi AI operates…

Fast Company Tech 12:38 UTC

The smartphone market suffered its worst decline on record in the September quarter, as rising memory costs pushed shipments down 22%, with worse to come, according to market researcher IDC. Memory chip prices increased by a stunning 350%…

YourStory (India) 12:12 UTC

Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday broke its silence on Elon Musk's public criticism of India's satellite communications landscape, saying it sees a competitive market as the true test of who serves customers best, and welcomes competition…

TechCabal (Africa) 11:33 UTC

On October 13, CashAfrica announced a partnership with Food Concepts, a quick-service restaurant company, to introduce mobile tap-to-pay across Chicken Republic’s more than 350 outlets, as part of its effort to make the payment method more…

YourStory (India) 11:13 UTC

From AI startup RapidCanvas raising $29 million to BharatPe launching Agentic AI amid festive season, YourStory brings you today’s headlines with the latest developments across sectors. Latest news BharatPe launches Agentic AI for…

EU-Startups 11:12 UTC

Microbiotica , a British clinical-stage biopharma company developing a pipeline of orally-dosed, precision microbiome medicines, today announces the first close of a €42 million (£36 million) Series C financing. The financing was led by…

Fast Company Tech 11:09 UTC

“They see you when you’re sleeping. They know when you’re awake. They know if you’ve been bad or good…” No, we’re not changing Santa’s pronouns. We’re talking about the AI -powered gadgets that are likely to be overflowing from his sack…

YourStory (India) 11:01 UTC

Maestroedge Solutions, which runs home services platform Snabbit, has posted a net loss of Rs 167.75 crore for 2025-26, nearly 30 times lower than the previous year, as spending on service providers, marketing and staff rose with the…

Crunchbase News 11:00 UTC

Asia’s startup funding held up at the second-highest level in years in the third quarter, even as investment fell slightly from Q2 totals. Overall, investors put $38.5 billion into reported seed- through growth-stage financings for…

Fast Company Tech 11:00 UTC

Hello again and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In . Once a year, Google holds a conference on its campus called Research@. Scientific researchers from inside and outside the company pack an on-campus auditorium for a highly…

EU-Startups 10:52 UTC

Neonomics , the Norwegian full-stack open finance platform that provides financial data, intelligence, verification, and payment infrastructure to businesses across Europe, has raised €3.55 million ($4 million). The company said the…

TechCabal (Africa) 10:35 UTC

Isaac Sesi once became so busy winning that he forgot about a deal. There were awards to collect, flights to catch, and people saying wonderful things about him. Then an adviser from Uganda called and asked exactly what he thought he was…

YourStory (India) 09:57 UTC

Real estate classifieds Magicbricks has appointed Mayank Jain as chief executive officer (CEO), effective October 1. In a statement on Friday, Magicbricks, one of the leading property platforms, said Jain has joined from CarDekho, where he…

EU-Startups 09:57 UTC

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is preparing to test whether its European Sovereign Cloud can operate independently of foreign infrastructure – challenging if Europe can maintain greater control over its digital infrastructure. This also marks a…

YourStory (India) 09:55 UTC

AI execution company RapidCanvas has raised $29 million in Series B funding led by Vertex Ventures SEA & India. The round also saw participation from Hitachi Ventures and existing investors, including Accel, Peak XV Partners, Valley…

TechCabal (Africa) 09:18 UTC

Vuyani Jarana, CEO of Ilitha Telecoms, is taking affordable broadband into underserved townships and rural communities. In a conversation with PHATHISANI MOYO, he explains why connecting homes is only the beginning, and how education…

Fast Company Tech 09:12 UTC

The U.S. is on track to add a record 86 gigawatts of new wind, solar, and battery storage capacity this year—roughly the size of the U.K.’s entire grid. And there’s far more clean energy in the pipeline, with low-cost proposed projects…

EU-Startups 08:52 UTC

Unravel Health , a London-based startup developing technology to measure hormones at home daily, has raised €2.96 million (£2.5 million) to develop the Micro Lab, a palm-sized device that reads multiple hormones from a saliva sample in…

TechCabal (Africa) 08:31 UTC

Africa’s unemployment rate looks relatively low by global standards. In 2025, the continent’s rate stood at 6.3%. But that figure tells only part of the story. More than a third of employed Africans live in working poverty ; they are…

TechCabal (Africa) 08:26 UTC

For one young South African, a digital skills programme became a route into employment. For thousands more, that opportunity depends on whether South Africa can unlock billions of rand in skills funding already sitting within its system…

TechCabal (Africa) 07:17 UTC

Andrew Milne, the Kuunda co-founder who helped build the technology connecting banks to small businesses and mobile money users across Africa, died on October 13, the company said. He was 54. Only days earlier, he celebrated completing a…

EU-Startups 07:11 UTC

LearnUpon , a Dublin-based enterprise learning platform, has secured a €44.5 million ($50 million) growth financing facility. The financing came from Claret Capital Partners, a London-based independent growth debt fund manager, which has…

YourStory (India) 06:53 UTC

India’s artificial intelligence (AI) opportunity could extend well beyond the $100 billion discussed by industry leaders, with the technology potentially adding $1 trillion to the country’s GDP by 2035. For startups, the opportunity lies…

EU-Startups 06:28 UTC

Goodweek , a Los Angeles-headquartered French startup positioning itself as a one-stop AI management platform for small and medium-sized businesses, has raised a €10.69 million ($12 million) Seed round. The funding round was led by Spanish…

CB Insights 06:21 UTC

Brittany Kay Eden , Head of Marketing and Growth of Very Good Security , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to…

TechCabal (Africa) 06:09 UTC

In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية TGIF. Moonshot 2026 flash sale: Get 30% off your ticket The conversation that changes your career, introduces you to your next investor, or opens a new market might be one you…

CB Insights 05:50 UTC

Ran Mullins , Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Psympl , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more…

CB Insights 05:45 UTC

Sounil Yu , Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Knostic , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more…

CB Insights 05:39 UTC

Ashwar Gupta, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kalpi , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more research?…

CB Insights 05:23 UTC

Riley Lovingood , Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PAYRA , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more…

CB Insights 05:21 UTC

Scot M.Wingo , Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ReFiBuy , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Our addressable market…

TechCrunch 05:16 UTC

Benchmark says the Valley’s rule against backing rivals is getting harder to keep.

CB Insights 05:11 UTC

Gadi Evron , Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Knostic , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more…

CB Insights 04:58 UTC

Shelly Lanning , Co-Founder & President of Visana Health , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more…

CB Insights 04:30 UTC

Duco van Lanschot , Founder and CEO of Duna , tells CB Insights how they view the market, customer needs, and their company. How do you define your market and where does your company fit into that space? Want to see more research? Start…

StartupDaily (AU) 04:08 UTC

Australia keeps feeding giants while startups starve on “ladders” that vanish.

StartupDaily (AU) 03:44 UTC

Don’t raid Victoria’s venture fund for a healthcare sugar hit.

YourStory (India) 02:00 UTC

Hello, While Swiggy’s existing users continue to order, the real expansion lies in tapping into the nearly 90% of Indians who have never used food delivery. Speaking at YourStory’s TechSparks 2026, Rohit Kapoor, CEO of Swiggy's Food…

TechCrunch 01:17 UTC

The new car used thrusters to leap over a Cybercab, Cybertruck, Tesla Semi, Model Y, and Model 3 at a demo in Texas.