A federal appeals court declined to rescue Anthropic from the Pentagon's “supply-chain risk” designation on Wednesday, leaving the AI company locked out of Defense Department contracts while a separate legal fight over Trump's broader ban on federal agencies using Claude continues in California. Reuters has more here.

Meta has launched Muse Spark, a new multimodal AI model built by its Superintelligence team that shows strong gains in areas like health reasoning and search, though it still trails Google’s Gemini on core reasoning and coding benchmarks. Decrypt has more here.

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By Julie Bort

Databricks co-founder and CTO Matei Zaharia almost missed the email telling him that he was the 2026 recipient of the ACM Prize in Computing. “Yeah, it was a surprise,” he told TechCrunch.

Back in 2009, the tech Zaharia developed for his PhD at UC Berkeley, under the tutelage of famed professor Ion Stoica, was launched into Databricks.

Zaharia had created a way to dramatically speed the results of slow, clunky, big data projects and released it as an open source project called Spark. Big data was in those days what AI is today and Spark turned the tech industry on its ear. The 28-year-old Zaharia became a tech celeb.

Since then, he has helmed the engineering at Databricks, growing it into a cloud storage giant and now a data foundation for AI and agents. Along the way the company has raised over $20 billion — valuing it at $134 billion — and hit $5.4 billion in revenue run rate. The Silicon Valley dream.

On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery issued him the award for his collective contributions. The award comes with a $250,000 cash prize that he is donating to an as-yet-to-be-determined charity.

Zaharia, who in addition to his CTO duties is also an associate professor at UC Berkeley, is looking forward, not back. Like everyone else in the Valley, the future he sees is filled with AI.

“AGI is here already,” he told TechCrunch.

MillTech, a seven-year-old London startup that automates FX hedging and cash investment workflows for fund managers and corporates, raised a $60 million round at a $325 million valuation. Apax Digital Funds provided the financing. EU-Startups has more here.

Modus, a one-year-old San Francisco and New York startup that uses AI to automate audit testing, transaction analysis, and document review for accounting firms, announced that it raised a total of $85 million in seed and Series A financing. Lightspeed Venture Partners led both rounds, with Comma Capital and Garry Tan also taking stakes. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Sidewinder Therapeutics, a three-year-old San Diego startup that develops bispecific antibody-drug conjugates for cancer treatment, raised a $137 million Series B round co-led by Frazier Life Sciences and Novartis Venture Fund, with OrbiMed, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, DCVC Bio, Samsara BioCapital, Longwood Fund, Astellas Venture Management, and Alexandria Venture Investments also participating. The company has raised a total of $162 million. BioPharma Dive has more here.

HexemBio, a two-year-old New York startup that develops therapies that rejuvenate blood stem cells for bone marrow transplants and other age-related conditions, raised a $10.4 million seed round led by Draper Associates, with SOSV and Seraphim also contributing. The Next Web has more here.

Patlytics, a three-year-old New York startup that uses AI to manage patent drafting, infringement analysis, and portfolio management for legal teams, raised a $40 million Series B round led by SignalFire. The company has raised a total of approximately $65 million. More here.

Sora Fuel, a two-year-old Boston startup that captures CO₂ from the air and converts it into sustainable aviation fuel using water and renewable energy, raised a $14.6 million round co-led by Spero Ventures and Inspired Capital, with Engine Ventures and Wireframe Ventures also chiming in. More here.

CONXAI, a six-year-old Munich startup that automates construction workflows by using AI to analyze project data, bids, and site activity, raised a $5.8 million Series A round co-led by BayBG Venture Capital and Capricorn Partners, with Pi Labs, Earlybird, Noa, Zacua Ventures, and Argonautic Ventures also pitching in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Flora Fertility, a three-year-old startup based in Calgary, Canada, that provides individually owned fertility insurance covering treatments like IVF and medications, raised a $3.6 million round led by ManchesterStory, with Slauson & Co. and BDC also investing. Femtech Insider has more here.

Inxy, a four-year-old Warsaw startup that provides payment infrastructure that lets businesses accept digital assets and send global payouts, raised a $4 million seed round led by Flashpoint. The company has raised a total of $7 million. Financial IT has more here.

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Jeito Capital, a six-year-old Paris venture firm that invests in clinical-stage biotech companies developing drugs in areas like obesity, oncology, and autoimmune disease, has raised a €1 billion second fund that it says is the largest ever for a fully independent European biopharma investor. BioPharma Dive has more here.

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says the company will “for sure” reserve a portion of its IPO shares for retail investors, invoking Elon Musk’s playbook with Tesla and SpaceX as she argues that ordinary users should be able to own part of ChatGPT’s parent. CNBC has more here.

British computer scientist Adam Back has denied being bitcoin's mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto, after a New York Times investigation — which drew on clues like Satoshi's use of British spelling, his embedding of a London Times headline in Bitcoin's first block, and his ties to the cypherpunk movement — named him as the most likely candidate. TechCrunch has more here.

Michael Saylor, the bitcoin evangelist and executive chairman of Strategy — the company formerly known as MicroStrategy — dismissed today's New York Times investigation into the founder of Bitcoin, arguing that while stylometric analysis is intriguing, no theory can be considered more than speculation until someone signs a message with Satoshi's cryptographic keys.

The Big Short investor Michael Burry, who recently disclosed a sizable short position against Palantir, says Anthropic is “eating [its] lunch,” arguing that the Claude maker’s rapid growth and plug-and-play appeal are pulling enterprise spending away from more government-focused rivals. Business Insider has more here.

GoPro is cutting 23% of its workforce, or 145 employees, as the wearable camera maker continues trying to claw its way back to profitability amid weak growth, supply constraints, and tariff pressure. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Millions of Americans cashed in on prediction markets last year. Now they're discovering that the IRS has yet to call the outcome on how to actually tax their winnings.

A hacker is allegedly trying to sell what could be the largest known data theft from China: more than 10 petabytes of sensitive material reportedly siphoned from a state-run supercomputing center, including what experts say appear to be classified defense documents and missile schematics. CNN has more here.

Asian carp, the uninvited Midwestern guests that bodycheck boaters, break noses, and knock grown men off their water skis, have become so belligerent that locals are now suiting up in football helmets just to enjoy a casual float down the Illinois River.

Why childhood summers feel longer.

How to walk like a model. (“Splash, splash, splash!”)

The Masters’ collectible garden gnomes — sold only in person at Augusta National for about $50 — have become such a hot secondary-market item that some are now fetching more than $10,000, especially given 2026 could be the last year they’re made.

Dyson has unveiled its first portable handheld fan, a $99 device that weighs just 7.5 ounces, delivers airflow of up to 55 mph, and runs for as long as six hours.

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