The world today is riven by cultural differences, political divisions, and geopolitical disputes — a challenging environment for any investor hunting for startups that can grow large enough to deliver venture-scale returns.

Kompas VC has developed a regionally sensitive strategy to help it navigate, and invest in, this fragmented world. And it’s putting fresh capital towards this approach with a new €160 million fund ($187.5 million), the firm told TechCrunch.

“We see the world really falling into three main spheres of economic activity, of political activity — the U.S., Europe, and China,” Sebastian Peck, partner at Kompas VC, told TechCrunch. “We certainly see today that these three domains follow very, very different trajectories.”

Kompas has staked its reputation on backing startups that tackle core industrial competitiveness challenges, from manufacturing and supply chains to critical infrastructure and sustainability. Those themes haven’t disappeared, but different regions emphasize them to varying degrees.

“There was a lot of enthusiasm around these themes back in 2021,” Peck said. “In 2026, we’re in a very, very different paradigm. It’s all about AI, it’s all about fast growth, very explosive growth. A lot of big topics that we partially play to but also are not really part of what we stand for.”

“Our focus is in the physical world, anything around producing physical goods,” he added, saying that Kompas focuses on startups working on decarbonization, productivity, and risk management. “We’ve found our niche.”

That niche turns out to be pretty broad. Reshoring is en vogue in nearly every market, and depending on the startup, those markets typically have more than enough scale for a firm like Kompas.

Though dwarfed by some venture funds these days, Kompas’s newly raised second fund should give it ample opportunity to lead early stage rounds with checks ranging from €3 million to €5 million. 

As a European fund, Kompas has access to a range of founders and startups in the region. But it must weigh how global fragmentation might limit the potential for some to deliver venture returns. Peck cites prefab housing as an example. The approach is widely used in Scandinavian countries, but it isn’t as common in Germany or the rest of Europe, let alone the United States.

“It feels like such an intuitive solution. It’s a product that is effectively an industrial product. It should be highly scalable,” he said. Ultimately, the reason it doesn’t resonate outside Scandinavia has more to do with “cultural conditioning” than the technology itself, he said. “In that industry, if the U.S. isn’t the market you can go to, you need to look very, very carefully at whether there’s a large enough addressable market.”

The fragmentation extends beyond housing. For example, in Europe, sustainability is still broadly attractive, in contrast to the U.S., where the theme doesn’t have the cachet it did several years ago. 

Still, a lot can change quickly, Peck acknowledges. “We are investing over 10-, 15-year horizons. That’s a few legislative periods to bridge, and sometimes things swing in unexpected directions.”

The shifting landscape poses a challenge, but also an opportunity for a smaller investor like Kompas. “I think there’s a great space for highly focused, highly specialized, smaller funds like ours to be the first check-in and bring sweep up certain themes and certain founders,” Peck said. 

When looking for some powerful wireless headphones, the Skullcandy Crusher Evo, priced at $99.99 (was $210), is a popular choice. Why? Users want something with a lot of bass, but not so much that it drowns out the rest of the track. On the right earcup, there is an adjustable slider that allows you to fine-tune the low end to your liking.

Crank it right down, and the sound remains pleasant and balanced, with nothing getting lost in the mix. Turn it up, though, and you’ll be rewarded with a KNOCK of bass that literally vibrates through the earcups, all the way to the top of your skull. Two full-range drivers handle the rest of the audio, so your voices and guitars stay exactly where they should, even when the bass is turned up to eleven.

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Real-world testing proves that the forty-hour battery is actually rather reasonable, as a single charge will last you several days, including commutes, dog walks, workouts, and so on. When you run low on battery, ten minutes plugged in provides you roughly four hours of music, which is quite useful, especially on those mornings when you’re racing around getting ready and don’t have time to think about your case. The Bluetooth remains rock steady even when you’re bouncing between rooms or working out, and we’ve had reports of zero odd drops from folks who’ve put these through their paces over the course of a few weeks.

The memory foam earcups and padded headband provide a highly comfortable experience, even after hours of use. The over-ear style effectively blocks out background noise, making it ideal for subway commutes or loud offices that do not require active canceling. Some people have reported feeling slightly warm after a few hours, but the fit is really good even if you wear glasses, and it’s rather forgiving on different skull sizes once you’ve worn them in. A handy small control panel on the earcup handles volume, skipping, and calls, eliminating the need to fumble for your phone.

The Skullcandy app adds a personal touch by running a fast hearing test and then adjusting the sound profile to match your individual ears. The Tile tracking embedded into the headphones means that if you ever misplace them, you can simply whip out your phone and it will show you precisely where they are – for example, under the back seat of your car or buried in a gym bag. When you’re going on a trip, packing is a breeze thanks to the easy-to-fold design and supplied case, and there’s even an aux cord in case you run out of juice after a long day.

German electronics manufacturer Loewe Technology has acquired French loudspeaker company Cabasse, bringing a 76-year-old acoustic engineering brand into a premium electronics group best known for its high-end television and sound system products.

Cabasse, founded in 1950 in Brittany, has built its reputation around proprietary coaxial driver technology and a catalogue that includes the Sphere Evo loudspeaker. The brand currently has an independent research, development and production operation based in Brest, and this will continue following the transaction.

That operational continuity reflects the terms of the deal, under which Cabasse retains its brand identity and engineering autonomy while gaining access to Loewe’s international sales infrastructure and marketing resources to support wider distribution of its products.

In nearly 10 years since being established, Tribe has supported more than 500 start-ups and scale-ups.

UK start-up IoT Tribe is opening its European operations, with Dublin as its first base. The deep-tech ecosystem builder has already made two hires in the country – a head of venture incubation and acceleration, and an associate of same.

Tribe was formerly known as the ‘Start-up Scale-up’, a European Commission-funded IoT accelerator which operated across four European hubs, Dublin included. The programme ran for one year, from 2015 to 2016, and supported more than 130 start-ups from 47 countries.

Tribe was formally established in 2017. That year, the start-up launched the IoT Tribe North Industrial Tech accelerator in partnership with Innovate UK to help its corporate partners adopt newer innovations.

In nearly 10 years since being established, Tribe has supported more than 500 start-ups and scale-ups, it said. It has also engaged with more than 150 corporations and public agencies, and has built a network of more than 200 experts and mentors, it added.

“Europe’s deep-tech moment is here and it will be won or lost on execution. Dublin is the natural launchpad for Tribe’s European operations – a city we’ve worked with for 10 years, home to world-class engineering talent and a corporate base serious about adopting frontier technology,” said Tribe founder and CEO Tanya Suarez.

“From here, we’ll scale the model that has already proven its value to corporate and government clients across Europe and beyond.”

Tribe Europe, as the new Dublin branch will be called, will work with founders, corporates and public bodies across Ireland to run accelerator programmes and facilitate open innovation challenges, it said.

“Corporates across Europe are done debating whether to engage with deep tech. They want partners who can de-risk adoption at speed. That is the gap Tribe closes in Ireland and across the continent,” said Tribe’s director of operations Marcus Roberts.

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Hundreds of workers in Ireland tasked with refining Meta’s AI models have been told that their jobs are at risk as the company embarks on a sweeping new round of layoffs, according to documents obtained by WIRED.

The affected workers are employed by the Dublin-based firm Covalen, which handles various content moderation and labeling services for Meta.

The workers were informed of the layoffs over a brief video meeting on Monday afternoon and were not allowed to ask questions, according to Nick Bennett, one of the employees on the call. “We had a pretty bad feeling [before the meeting],” he says. “This has happened before.”

In all, more than 700 employees stand to potentially lose their jobs at Covalen, according to an email reviewed by WIRED. Roughly 500 are data annotators. Their job is to check material generated by Meta’s AI models against the company’s rules barring dangerous and illegal content. “It’s essentially training the AI to take over our jobs,” claims another Covalen employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “We take actions as the perfect decision for the AI to emulate.”

Sometimes, the work involves cooking up elaborate prompts to try to bypass guardrails meant to prevent models from serving up child sexual abuse material, say, or descriptions of suicide. “It’s quite a grueling job,” claims Bennett. “You spend your whole day pretending to be a pedophile.”

Last week, Meta announced plans to cut one in 10 jobs as part of sweeping layoffs aimed at making the company more efficient. A memo circulated by the company reportedly indicated that layoffs were motivated by a need to increase spending on other aspects of the business. Though the memo did not mention AI, the company recently announced plans to nearly double its spending on the technology. In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.” In the email reviewed by WIRED, Covalen employees were told only that the layoffs were a result of “reduced demand and operational requirements.”

In a statement, Meta spokesperson Erica Sackin said: “As we shared in March, over the next few years, Meta will be deploying more advanced AI systems to transform our approach to content enforcement and operations across our platforms, so that it delivers the safety and protection people expect. As we do that, we’ll be reducing our reliance on third-party vendors and strengthening our internal systems.”

The latest round of layoffs marks the second time that Covalen has cut staff in recent months. In November, the company announced plans for job cuts (reportedly to number around 400), culminating in a worker strike. Between the two rounds of layoffs, Covalen’s headcount in Dublin is on track to be almost halved, according to the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU), whose members include some Covalen staff.

For affected Covalen workers, the search for new work will be hampered by a six-month “cooldown period,” during which they are unable to apply to a competing Meta vendor, claims the CWU. “It’s undignified, you know,” says the Covalen employee who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s rude.”

Covalen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Unions representing the affected employees are pushing for Covalen to enter negotiations over severance terms. They also hope to meet with the Irish government to discuss how AI is impacting workers in the country. “Tech companies are treating the workers whose labor and data helped build AI as disposable,” says Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union. “To fight back, it’s absolutely critical that workers organize and demand notice about the introduction of AI, training linked to employment, and a plan for their futures. Workers should also have the right to refuse to train their AI replacements.”

But some of those caught up in the layoffs are doubtful of their chances of securing stable employment in a labor market being rehewn in real time by AI and the deep-pocketed companies leading its development. “It’s a universal battle between downtrodden white-collar workers and big capital, really,” claims Bennett. “That normally only goes one way.”

Update 4/28/25 3:30pm ET: This story has been updated to include comment from Meta.

If you’ve finished Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 and immediately wanted more, Netflix heard you. The animated series has officially been renewed for season 2, and it is returning to Netflix this fall.

For context, Tales From ’85 is a spin-off of the original Stranger Things franchise, set in the winter of 1985 in Hawkins, Indiana. It follows the Hawkins Investigators Club as they face paranormal threats in an animated format separate from the live-action series.

What happened at the end of Tales From ’85 season 1?

[Spoiler warning: please skip this section if you have not finished season 1 yet.]

Season 1 threw a lot at the Hawkins Investigators Club as they came face to face with a snow shark and a group of sinister pumpkin monsters called the Gourd Horde.

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The real threat, however, was the Horde Queen, a creature that evolved from an Upside Down vine after Hawkins Food Mart clerk Daniel Fischer conducted secret experiments using Mrs. Baxter’s stolen research.

His green serum combined years of botanical science with extracted Upside Down vine DNA, creating something far beyond what he bargained for. The gang managed to stop the Queen from opening a new gate to the Upside Down, with Eleven sealing it shut using the creature’s own body.

But the finale left one ominous image burned into viewers’ minds. In the Upside Down, a stem burst through the Queen’s corpse and unfurled into a glowing flower with the maw of a Demogorgon.

What to expect from Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 season 2?

Season 1 ended with the Hawkins Investigators Club uncovering a genuinely terrifying mystery, and season 2 is picking up that thread with a brand new paranormal threat.

Showrunner Eric Robles confirmed that the glowing flower is the beginning of a whole new mystery. The threat in season 2 apparently emerges from Hawkins’ abandoned silver mines. The mysterious blue flower spotted blooming in the Upside Down at the end of season 1 is also set to play a significant role going forward.

Robles has also been clear that the seasons of the Stranger Things spinoff series are not standalone stories. They are directly connected, which means every detail from season 1 will matter heading into the next chapter. Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Nikki will all be returning.

Why did Netflix renew Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 despite mixed reviews?

Season 1 just dropped a few days ago, and Netflix did not waste any time with the renewal announcement. However, the spinoff received a divisive reception, to put it mildly. It currently holds the lowest Rotten Tomatoes scores of any entry in the Stranger Things franchise, sitting at 63% from critics and 54% from audiences. Meanwhile, on IMDB, the show received only 5.7/10.

Common complaints pointed to unlikable characters, particularly newcomer Nikki, and uneven plotting. Despite all of that, Netflix moved ahead with the renewal anyway, and did so just four days after season 1 debuted. The deciding factor appears to have been viewership.

The series pulled in 2.8 million views in its opening weekend and landed at number 7 on Netflix’s global Top 10, also securing a spot in the platform’s top 15 animated series debuts of all time. That kind of traction, regardless of critical reception, was enough to greenlight a second season.

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• You can now interact with data and create entire dashboards with Gemini in Sheets
• Google Meet’s AI summaries now extend to in-person and third-party conferencing platforms
• AI has allowed Google to make it even quicker to move from Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace

Google Cloud just held its biggest event yet, but with 260+ announcements across the entire portfolio at Google Cloud Next 2026, many of the smaller but no less important Google Workspace updates flew under the radar.

In a ‘one last thing’-like blog post, the company detailed a number of less headline-worthy improvements it’s rolled out to its Workspace online apps to make Gemini even more useful.