SpaceX received $6.45 billion in new U.S. Space Force contracts just ahead of its expected IPO, including $4.16 billion to build satellites for President Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile and air defense system and $2.29 billion for a low-Earth-orbit communications network. TechCrunch has more here.

Dell shares surged more than 30% after the company reported booming AI server sales and disclosed a $9.7 billion Pentagon software contract, lifting Michael Dell’s net worth by roughly $34 billion as the company raised its full-year AI revenue forecast to $60 billion. The New York Post has more here.

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In 2026, you cannot snatch AI coding tools out of developers’ vice-grip hands, researchers have discovered.  

But while AI is undoubtedly helping coders produce code faster, it may not be producing better code, other researchers warn. And that could cause problems down the road for them. 

Specifically, in February 2026, respected AI research lab METR published a surprising revelation: most developers won’t work, even on a limited number of tasks, without AI anymore. 

METR had hoped to provide an update to some groundbreaking research published a few months earlier, in 2025, on AI coding productivity. In it, researchers measured how much time open source developers took to do tasks by hand versus with AI. 

While developers in that study reported that AI was making them more productive, they were shocked to learn it actually slowed them down. Sure, it generated code faster, but then they spent extra time finding and fixing errors, steering the AI and waiting on it to complete tasks. 

When METR set out to repeat the experiment to measure advances in AI and coder proficiency, they couldn’t.

Devs weren’t willing to participate “because they do not wish to work without AI” even just for the study, the researchers confessed. 

Base Power, a three-year-old Austin startup that installs and manages home batteries that provide backup power, lower residential electricity costs, and sell stored electricity back to the grid during peak demand, is reportedly in the market to raise a round at a $12 billion valuation, with Ribbit Capital as the purported lead. Forbes has more here.

Focused Energy, a five-year-old startup based in Darmstadt, Germany, that is developing laser-based fusion systems designed to generate clean power using deuterium-tritium fuel capsules compressed and ignited by lasers, raised a $240 million Series A round. Investors included RWE, SPRIND, and European Innovation Council Fund as well as previous investor Prime Movers Lab. More here.

Garner Health, a seven-year-old New York startup that uses healthcare data and AI to help employers steer employees toward higher-quality doctors, with financial incentives that lower out-of-pocket costs for patients and overall healthcare spending for employers, raised a $100 million Series E round at a $2.74 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Index Ventures, with previous investors Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint, Thrive, Sequoia, Founders Fund, and Kaiser Permanente Ventures also participating. More here.

Observable Space, a four-year-old Los Angeles startup that makes laser communications ground stations, ground-based sensing systems, and in-space optical payloads for tracking objects, navigating spacecraft, and transmitting data from orbit, raised a $90 million round. Investors included Lux Capital, Upfront Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners, Island Green Capital, RTX Ventures, BRV Capital, and Fathom Fund. Payload has more here.

Stark, a two-year-old Berlin startup that makes autonomous strike drones and other defense systems, including loitering munitions designed to identify and strike targets, raised a $350 million round at a $2.9 billion valuation. Tech Funding News has more here.

XCENA, a four-year-old South Korean startup that develops memory-adjacent chips designed to reduce the cost and power demands of AI inference, raised a $135 million Series B round at a $570 million post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Atinum and IMM Investment, with Corstone Asia as well as previous investors SBI Investment and Mirae Asset Capital also opting in. The company has raised a total of $185 million. TechCrunch has more here.

MokN, a three-year-old Paris startup that protects organizations from identity-based attacks by using decoy corporate access points to expose stolen credentials before attackers can exploit them, raised a $15 million Series A round led by GV, with Datadog as well as previous investors Moonfire and OVNI Capital also contributing. Tech.eu has more here.

Picogrid, a six-year-old startup based in El Segundo, CA, that develops hardware and software for connecting military sensors, autonomous systems, and command-and-control tools, raised a $45 million Series A round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with Washington Harbour and GSBackers as well as previous investors Initialized Capital, Starburst Ventures, Credo Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Giant Step Capital also participating. Tectonic has more here.

Utilidata, a 14-year-old company based in Ann Arbor, MI, that orchestrates power use across data centers and grid-connected devices so utilities and AI data center operators can monitor capacity, manage distributed energy resources, and increase usable power, raised a $40 million Series C round. Renown Capital Partners was the deal lead, with Keyframe Capital also stepping up. Data Center Dynamics has more here.

Drafted, a nine-month-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to turn home-design ideas into floor plans and 3D layouts, raised a $16 million seed round from investors including Buckley Ventures and Y Combinator. Business Insider has more here.

Modiqo, a San Francisco startup founded this year that turns successful AI agent executions into repeatable workflows so enterprises can reduce token usage, improve reliability, and avoid rebuilding agent processes when models or APIs change, raised a $3 million pre-seed round co-led by Heavybit and Seligman Ventures, with Irregular Expressions also taking part. More here.

Rep AI, a seven-year-old Tel Aviv startup that unifies ecommerce customer engagement across shopper intent detection, personalized sales guidance, conversion optimization, and post-purchase support, raised a $6.2 million round led by Silicon Road Ventures, with Osage Venture Partners, Flashpoint Venture Capital, and Zendesk also investing. More here.

Volt Harbor, a three-year-old startup based in Ann Arbor, MI, that combines batteries, power electronics, and on-board computing into modular energy storage systems for data centers, utilities, commercial sites, and industrial customers, raised a $2 million seed round. MFV Partners led the transaction. More here.

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Wall Street investors are raising questions about SpaceX’s finances, including lower-than-expected space-business revenue and steep xAI losses, but many say they may buy into the IPO anyway out of fear of missing what could be one of the largest public offerings ever, with retail investors expected to play an unusually large role. The New York Times has more here.

Peter Thiel has been building a foothold in Argentina, buying a mansion in Buenos Aires, meeting with President Javier Milei and other officials, and temporarily relocating his family there as the billionaire investor weighs the country as another “Plan B” amid concerns about U.S. taxes, politics, nuclear war, and runaway AI. The New York Times has more here.

Cognition CEO Scott Wu says Devin, the company’s AI coding agent, is meant to augment programmers rather than replace them, even though Devin already commits 89% of its own engineers’ code. TechCrunch has more here.

Corporate America is beginning to ration AI use after some companies saw token bills double or triple or blew through annual AI budgets in months, pushing executives at Uber, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, DoorDash, and others to steer employees toward cheaper tools, curb overlapping products, and demand clearer proof that AI spending is actually improving productivity. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Reuters reports that Tesla’s own AI trainers have seen Full Self-Driving struggle with basic safety tasks, including stopping for school buses, avoiding emergency vehicles, and recognizing pedestrians and animals, while former employees say the company used labor-intensive route mapping and training to make public robotaxi demos look more capable than the technology really is. Reuters has more here.

AI training startups are paying people – and in some cases offering free housecleaning – in exchange for video footage of everyday chores like washing dishes, folding laundry, and mopping floors, as robotics companies hunt for real-world training data to help machines understand physical tasks that can’t be scraped from the internet. The Verge has more here.

Hidden Valley Ranch received more than 6,000 applications for its summer “ranchbassador” job, which pays selected pairs $12,000 each plus expenses to travel Europe for eight weeks promoting ranch dressing as “The Flavor of America” and filming locals trying it on foods like escargot, paella, and fish and chips.

A Florida woman who does not have a right hand was pulled over for allegedly holding a cellphone in her right hand, an impossible citation that was later dismissed for “lack of evidence” after body-camera footage of the stop went viral.

Why English is the perfect language for spelling bees.

TechCrunch reviews Kiwibit’s Bird Feeder Pro, an AI-powered smart bird feeder with a 4K camera, solar charging, two-way audio, cloud storage, and an app that sends alerts, records visits, and identifies more than 10,000 bird species.

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