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Kaltura, a New York-headquartered AI video platform company, is acquiring eSelf.ai, an Israel-based startup behind conversational avatars — AI-generated digital humans that can talk with users — for about $27 million. Kaltura announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire eSelf, a platform supporting more than 30 languages and featuring a user-friendly studio for creating, customizing, and deploying photorealistic digital avatars. Co-founded in 2023 by CEO Alan Bekker, who previously sold his first startup, Voca, to Snap in 2020 — and CTO Eylon Shoshan, eSelf brings deep technical expertise in speech-to-video generation, low-latency speech recognition, and screen…
Rad Power Bikes has informed its employees that it will shut down in January if it is unable to find new funding or get acquired, according to an internal staff email viewed by TechCrunch. The company’s leadership is “still fighting to find ways to continue,” and “the cessation of Rad’s operations is not a forgone conclusion,” according to the email, which was sent by Rad Power’s “people team.” Rad Power employees were told there had been a “very promising” option to keep the company alive that “appeared to be likely to close,” but the deal — which was not specified…
People often think about tech bubbles in apocalyptic terms, but it doesn’t have to be as serious as all that. In economic terms, a bubble is a bet that turned out to be too big, leaving you with more supply than demand. The upshot: It’s not all or nothing, and even good bets can turn sour if you aren’t careful about how you make them. What makes the question of the AI bubble so tricky to answer is mismatched timelines between the breakneck pace of AI software development and the slow crawl of constructing and powering a data center. Because these data centers take…
There are a lot of leaves outside my window, and I’m guessing your view might be similar. This carpet of dead foliage is often viewed as a nuisance, but it can be an important component in the garden. I’ll push a 3-inch (7.6-centimeter) layer of them into beds and borders to serve as root-protecting and insect-sheltering winter mulch. When they decompose, they’ll also add nutrients to the soil, which will fortify my plants in spring.Others will make it into the compost pile, which, along with food scraps, weeds and spent annuals and perennials, will cook into what we gardeners call…
January Ventures co-founder Jennifer Neundorfer stopped by the Equity podcast during TechCrunch Disrupt to chat about fundraising in this very AI-driven market. Founders and investors alike are obsessed with AI, and even Neundorfer said her firm is looking at ways to use AI to make their work more efficient, such as helping to do due diligence on the market and competition. As for companies being built, she has a preference for the founders looking to create something entirely new. “Where I tend to get excited is when I see someone who is using AI to do something that isn’t 10x better. It’s…
Lovable, the Stockholm-based AI coding platform, is closing in on 8 million users, CEO Anton Osika told this editor during a sit-down on Monday, a major jump from the 2.3 million active users number the company shared in July. Osika said the company — which was founded almost exactly one year ago — is also seeing “100,000 new products built on Lovable every single day.” The metrics suggest rapid growth of the startup, which has raised $228 million in total funding to date, including a $200 million round this summer that valued the company at $1.8 billion. Rumors have swirled…
Air travel chaos caused by the government shutdown grew dramatically worse over the weekend and continued into Monday, November 10.The national airspace has seen a significant uptick in the number of canceled flights amid a flight reduction plan from the FAA, which was enacted to maintain safety levels as the amount of unpaid air traffic controllers showing up for work has dwindled across the country. The FAA told U.S. airlines to cut up to 10% of their flights at the 40 airports with the busiest airspace in the country. The mandatory flight reductions led to thousands of canceled flights and…
For more than a decade, makers of government spyware have defended themselves from criticism by saying that their surveillance technology is intended to be used only against serious criminals and terrorists, and only in limited cases. The evidence gathered from dozens, if not hundreds of documented instances of spyware abuse all over the world, however, shows that neither of those arguments are true. Journalists, human rights activists, and politicians have repeatedly been targeted in both repressive regimes and democratic countries. The latest example is a political consultant who works for left-wing politicians in Italy, who came out as the most…
by Donald Wood Last updated: 8:00 AM ET, Mon November 10, 2025 While many stars shone bright at the 2025 Travvy Awards, one of the night’s biggest highlights was the car rental industry’s success.During the 11th annual Travvy Awards, which took place on November 6 at the Greater Fort Lauderdale Broward County Convention Center, the Northstar Travel Group’s TravelPulse.com and AGENTatHOME presented a series of awards to the top car rental companies. In the domestic car rental category, Enterprise Rent-A-Car took home the gold statuette, Hertz the silver, and Avis Budget Group rounded out the top three with a bronze…
Autonomous vehicles are having a moment, and it’s making it a lot easier for smaller companies to raise money. Vay, a German startup offering remote-controlled rental cars, will get $60 million in cash from Singaporean tech heavyweight Grab, the company announced on Monday. The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close by the end of the year, may be followed by “an additional $350M as joint milestones are achieved within the first year,” Vay CEO Thomas von der Ohe wrote on LinkedIn. The Berlin-based startup uses its technology and human operators to remotely drive rental cars…