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Waymo’s acceleration over the past 18 months is undeniable. The Alphabet-owned self-driving company now operates commercial robotaxi services in six markets, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and Miami. It has plans to grow its fleet of driverless taxicabs this year to more than a dozen new cities internationally, including London and Tokyo. 

And now it has $16 billion to fuel that expansion. Is it enough? 

Talking to a few industry watchers, the answer kept landing in the squishy “sort of” and “it depends” territory. 

First the bull case. Alphabet is clearly committed to ensuring Waymo’s success; the parent company is, and continues to be, the primary investor. Which means Waymo isn’t exposed like other AV startups that suddenly lost funding after their backers (often legacy automakers) got skittish or pivoted. 

Its ridership and autonomous miles driven stats are also exploding and will likely continue in that trajectory unless it is derailed by regulators. (Waymo provides 400,000 rides every week across six major U.S. metropolitan areas, and in 2025 alone, it more than tripled its annual volume to 15 million rides.)

This doesn’t guarantee success, though, especially if the gauge is set to profitability. Waymo still must solve several problems, including cost and increasing attention from regulators (the company’s chief safety officer just testified in a Senate Commerce hearing). If Waymo wants to simply be the licensor of its AV tech, it will have to move away from being the operator, which means giving up some control. That’s hard with a nascent technology under scrutiny.

And while some of you will fight me on this, it also lacks the in-house manufacturing that Tesla has. Yes, Waymo has automotive partners. But it doesn’t come with the same financial leverage or ability to drive down costs with scale.

Disagree? Send your argument to my email at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com.

A little bird

The investors behind the now-defunct EV startup Canoo were always mysterious — in fact, they were only revealed as part of a lawsuit. Six years ago, I received a tip to look into one of them in particular: David Stern. He had connections to Prince Andrew but was otherwise a ghost.

He was on my mind, though, as the Department of Justice started releasing its files on Jeffrey Epstein. My curiosity as to whether he would turn up in the documents was quickly overwhelmed by the fact that he was, in fact, a close business partner of the convicted sex offender. He brought Epstein investment opportunities from around the world, and in particular, pitched him on investing in Faraday Future, Lucid Motors, and Canoo during the go-go days of mobility funding. Read my story on Stern and Epstein’s relationship and how mobility startups were once in the mix.

— Sean O’Kane

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

Deals!

Autonomous vehicle technology is about more than just robotaxis — it is a difficult and costly business that only a handful of well-capitalized companies like Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox are pursuing. Many startup founders are applying the AV systems they’ve developed to other use cases, including off-road defense, trucking, forklifts, mining, and construction. Investors, anxious about missing out on the AV party, are jumping into these sectors. 

Bedrock Robotics is the latest example of investor interest. The Silicon Valley autonomous vehicle technology startup, founded by veterans of Waymo and Segment, are developing a self-driving system that can be retrofitted onto construction equipment. And it just raised $270 million in Series B funding co-led by CapitalG and the Valor Atreides AI Fund. Other investors include Xora, 8VC, Eclipse, Emergence Capital, Perry Creek Capital, NVentures (Nvidia’s venture capital arm), Tishman Speyer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgian, Incharge Capital, C4 Ventures, and others.

Bedrock raised more than $350 million in a short time (the company was formed in 2024). And while that might not seem like a lot compared to the size of some seed rounds in the AI labs sector, it shows money is flowing into physical AI startups. I expect more deal flow; importantly I expect the startups focused on practical applications of automated driving systems to attract talent — if they can afford them. Bedrock, for instance, hired Vincent Gonguet, who previously led AI safety and alignment at Meta for all Llama models, as its head of evaluation. It also hired John Chu away from Waymo. 

Keep an eye out for my interview with Bedrock Robotics co-founder and CEO Boris Sofman. 

Other deals that got my attention this week …

German electric motor maker Additive Drives raised €25 million ($29.5 million) from Nordic Alpha Partners.

Autonomous underwater vehicles startup Apeiron Labs closed a $9.5 million Series A round led by Dyne Ventures, RA Capital Management Planetary Health, and S2G Investments. Assembly Ventures, Bay Bridge Ventures, and TFX Capital participated.

GoCab, the African mobility fintech startup, raised a $45 million financing round comprising $15 million in equity and $30 million in debt. The equity round was co-led by E3 Capital and Janngo Capital, with participation from KawiSafi Ventures and Cur8 Capital. 

Mitra EV, a commercial EV fleet company in Los Angeles, raised $27 million in financing, including equity funding from lead investor Ultra Capital and a credit facility from S2G Investments.

Overland AI, a Seattle-based developer of self-driving systems designed for military operations, raised $100 million in a round led by 8VC. Other investors included Point72 Ventures, Ascend Venture Capital, Shasta Ventures, Overmatch Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and StepStone Group.

Plug, the used EV marketplace, raised $20 million in a Series A led by Lightspeed with participation from Galvanize and existing investors Autotech Ventures, Leap Forward Ventures, and Renn Global. 

R3 Robotics, a European startup that wants to automate the disassembly of EV systems at scale, raised €20 million ($23.6 million) in combination of grants and venture funding. The €14 million ($16.5 million) Series A funding was co-led by HG Ventures and Suma Capital. Oetker Collection, the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), and existing shareholders, including BONVENTURE, FlixFounders, and EIT Urban Mobility also participated. 

Skyryse, an El Segundo, California-based aviation automation startup, has raised more than $300 million in a Series C investment. The round, led by Autopilot Ventures, pushes its valuation to $1.15 billion. Other investors include Fidelity Management & Research Company, ArrowMark Partners, Atreides Management LP, BAM Elevate, Baron Capital Group, Durable Capital Partners, Positive Sum, Qatar Investment Authority, RCM Private Markets Fund managed by Rokos Capital Management, and Woodline Partners.

Notable reads and other tidbits

China has banned concealed electronically actuated door handles popularized by Tesla. The ruling, published by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, says all new cars sold in the country must have mechanical releases on their door handles by January 1, 2027. There is chatter that Europe could soon follow. 

Uber continues to make moves designed to make it competitive in the autonomous vehicle sector. The company has promoted Balaji Krishnamurthy, its VP of strategic finance and investor relations, to be its CFO. This may not seem connected to AVs, but it is. Krishnamurthy actively promotes the company’s autonomous ride-hailing partnerships and has a board seat at AV company Waabi. During the company’s Q4 call, he talked about AVs, saying the company would invest capital in its AV software partners, work with AV makers by investing equity or via offtake agreements, and “support our AV infrastructure partners.”

Meanwhile, a high-profile lawsuit against Uber has delivered a mixed verdict for the ride-hailing company, which was sued after a woman alleged she was raped by her Uber driver in November 2023. A jury determined Uber was liable as an apparent agent of the driver and awarded $8.5 million to the plaintiff. The jury rejected claims that Uber was liable for negligence or design defects and declined to award punitive damages. An Uber spokesperson, who emailed TechCrunch a statement, said the “verdict affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety. We will continue to put safety at the heart of everything we do.” Uber plans to appeal the decision. 

One more thing …

Last week in our newsletter, we did a poll asking what the name or ticker of Elon Musk’s combined supercompany should be. Thanks to those who emailed their suggestions, many of which had space themes, like Galactic X (great one). As for the poll, the majority picked plain ol’ X. 

That makes sense, considering Musk has often talked, and posted, about X, the everything app. About 50% voted for X, while 20.7% picked ELON, 17.2% selected SpaceAI, and 12.1% chose K2, a reference to one of the corporate entities created in January. 

My pick? I think it will ultimately be X, and the company will include more than just SpaceX and xAI.

To participate in our polls, sign up for our newsletter!

To be a viable alternative to our GADA Tudor, the value collection has to include a travel-time watch. We looked at Farer’s 36-mm Lander IV, with its preppy color scheme and distinctive character, but ultimately we went for another cult favorite from the affordable end of the Swatch Group stable.

The Mido Ocean Star Decompression Worldtimer costs $5 less than the Farer, at $1,490, and brings its own eye-catching dial to the table, as well as a 200-meter water resistance rating and a version of the same 80-hour movement as in the Hamilton. Perhaps the clincher was the world-time bezel, which shouldn’t be confused with a true mechanical world-time complication, but does give at-a-glance timekeeping around the world.

So far we’ve spent $3,905, which means we still have $645 burning a hole in our pocket. The obvious gap in this collection is a chronograph of some kind. It would give us the decisive edge over the Black Bay, but for this budget most mechanical chronographs are out of reach. We could buy a MoonSwatch—in fact, at $285 we could buy two and have enough left for the Uber home—but we’re on our mission to find something more substantial, more interesting, and (let’s face it) more likely to stand the test of time.

And that something is the Brew Super Metric ($475), a hybrid mecha-quartz chrono from a New York microbrand with more personality than every MoonSwatch put together. The unashamedly loud retro styling isn’t for everyone, but we think that the cushion-shaped case and steel bracelet help broaden our stylistic options, and although it’s not a pedigree mechanical chronograph, it costs less than $500 while looking and feeling like no one’s idea of a compromise.

That brings the challengers to a grand total of $4,380, which means we’d be able to buy a six-watch case to keep our collection in (of course it’s got space for one more …) and maybe even a couple of spare straps.

There’s no doubt the Tudor is in a different league, but could a crack squad of specialists tempt you to part with $4,550? Or will the lure of singular luxe prove too tempting? Over to you. It’s decision time.

Amazon MGM just released the final trailer for its upcoming film starring Ryan Gosling, Project Hail Mary, and it provides our first good look at his five-legged alien co-star, Rocky. The movie adapts a 2021 Andy Weir (The Martian) novel of the same name, and follows Dr. Ryland Grace, a scientist who wakes up on a spacecraft far from Earth with no recollection of how he got there or why, only to discover he’s on a seemingly impossible mission to stop an extinction event.

If you’ve read the book, you already know we’re in for an emotional rollercoaster with this one, and the latest trailer aptly tugs at our heartstrings with a glimpse of the friendship that grows between Grace and an alien he meets after waking up — and the incredibly high stakes they’re facing. The movie will be released nationwide on March 20, but Amazon announced alongside this trailer that it’ll be offering tickets for early screenings in premium formats including IMAX, Dolby Cinema, 4DX and 70MM to Prime members. Those screenings will begin on March 16, and tickets go on sale February 20 through Fandango.

On today’s episode of You Asked: Is it still worth buying an Apple TV 4K in 2026? Is the LG C5 the better choice over a Sony OLED? And in a bright room, are you going with the Bravia 9, or letting Samsung’s S95F OLED take on that glare instead?

Is it still worth buying an Apple TV 4K in 2026?

@lukehill1030 asks: Is it still worth getting the Apple TV 4K in 2026. Currently don’t have any sort of stream stick or box

Luke… I would say yes it’s definitely still worth it. I know we all love to torture ourselves with the thought of a newer version coming out right after we’ve bought the previous model, but we’ve been hearing reports and rumors about a new Apple TV 4K coming for so long that I refuse to believe anything until I see it.

So… there. Now I’ve almost guaranteed a new one will come soon.

Seriously though… I think the current model will still have plenty of life and quality of life features that you’ll enjoy for years to come. Plus, they did update the operating system just last year with the new Liquid Glass look and feature set, including the ability to save logins with your Apple account. So I don’t think Apple is ditching it anytime soon.

I’d also say that the Apple TV 4K is probably best thought of as a vehicle to get you where you wanna go. It’s a nice vehicle. It’s snappy and responsive. It looks good and has everything you need. But what matters is still gonna be the content you play on it. So if that’s what you’re yearning for, go for it. It’s one of the best, especially if you don’t want a bunch of ads thrown in your face within the operating system.

Bravia 8 vs. LG C5 for movies and TV shows

@fennec7906 asks: How’s the Bravia 8 vs the LG C5? Mostly watching movies and TV Shows?

As long as you’re referring to the original Bravia 8, to quote Dwayne Carter… I’d go with the LG C5 all day and tomorrow.

It’s the brighter of the two OLED TVs, which matters a lot for movies and TV shows where you may run into dark scenes. It’s also gonna help quite a bit if your room gets any daylight. And since both TVs also have Dolby Vision, there’s really not much of an advantage for Sony in the movies department with that TV.

Refresh rate and the number of HDMI 2.1 ports may not matter to you as much if you’re not gaming, but LG’s better in both of those departments as well with more options.

Now, if it’s the Bravia 8 II that you’re referring to, that’s a different story. That one would be a significant step up from the C5 in terms of color and processing, but it would also be a big step up in budget.

Either way, the LG C5 is one of the best all-round models when it comes to picture quality AND pricing. You really can’t go wrong with it.

Bright room TV choice: Sony Bravia 9 vs. Samsung S95F OLED

Vasilis asks: Hello! I would like your help with a purchase I’m about to make. We recently moved into a new apartment and my living room is larger than the previous one. In the previous place, I had a 55‑inch TV and it was fine because the distance between the couch and the TV was less than 3 meters. In the new apartment, the distance is almost 4 meters and the 55 inches now feels small. The living room gets quite bright during the daytime. I watch a lot of movies, series, and sports, and I also have a PS5. I’m thinking of going all the way up to 75 inches. I’m deciding between a Sony Bravia 9 or a good, high‑end OLED. I’ve seen many of your reviews and I would really appreciate your help to finally make a decision. Thank you, and I hope I didn’t take too much of your time!

Hey! Happy to help, and congrats on the upgrade! I think you’ve nailed it in terms of size. My own living room couch is about three meters away from the TV, and 65 inches feels right, but if I were any further like you are, I’d definitely go bigger as well.

So to that end, especially considering brightness, go with the Bravia 9. It’s such a great TV. So bright and capable while still maintaining excellent contrast. It was literally made to shine in bright rooms where it can overpower that ambient light and punch through it with peak brightness in HDR.

And as a sports viewer as well, yeah, you’ll appreciate its SDR brightness as well.

The only OLED TV I think I’d throw into the debate would be the Samsung S95F. And there are pros and cons that you’ll have to weigh against each other.

The pros… OLED picture quality means deeper blacks… kinda… we’ll come back to that.

In terms of connectivity, since you’ll have your PS5 plugged in as well, taking up an HDMI 2.1 port to get the fastest refresh rate, and the other 2.1 port being the eARC potentially being used for a soundbar, if you did need to connect something else that could take advantage of HDMI 2.1, you wouldn’t be able to on the Sony with just two of those available. Samsung, on the other hand, has four.

As for the cons… You won’t have Dolby Vision with Samsung… AND… let’s talk about those deeper OLED blacks. Samsung does have its anti-glare screen, which does great against reflections, but in a bright room, depending on how the light hits the TV, sometimes those inky OLED blacks appear a little lighter.

The Sony, on the other hand, MIGHT show direct reflections if it’s really bright light hitting the TV, but I think the Bravia 9 brightness can overpower quite a bit AND have the glossy screen that many desire.

It could be splitting hairs depending on the exact conditions, but to be safe, I’d still probably go Bravia 9. Sony’s processing and the brightness that can stand up to just about anything PLUS being able to have Dolby Vision is too good to pass up, especially at 75-inches. Also… it looks like it’s about a thousand dollars LESS than a 77-inch S95F right now. So there’s that.

When a startup announced plans last fall to recreate lost footage from Orson Welles’ classic film “The Magnificent Ambersons” using generative AI, I was skeptical. More than that, I was baffled why anyone would spend time and money on something that seemed guaranteed to outrage cinephiles while offering negligible commercial value.

This week, an in-depth profile by the New Yorker’s Michael Schulman provides more details about the project. If nothing else, it helps explain why the startup Fable and its founder Edward Saatchi are pursuing it: It seems to come from a genuine love of Welles and his work.

Saatchi (whose father was a founder of advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi) recalled a childhood of watching films in a private screening room with his “movie mad” parents. He said he first saw “Ambersons” when he was twelve.

The profile also explains why “Ambersons,” while much less famous than Welles’ first film “Citizen Kane,” remains so tantalizing — Welles himself claimed it was a “much better picture” than “Kane,” but after a disastrous preview screening, the studio cut 43 minutes from the film, added an abrupt and unconvincing happy ending, and eventually destroyed the excised footage to make space in its vaults.

“To me, this is the holy grail of lost cinema,” Saatchi said. “It just seemed intuitively that there would be some way to undo what had happened.”

Saatchi is only the latest Welles devotee to dream of recreating the lost footage. In fact, Fable is working with filmmaker Brian Rose, who already spent years trying to achieve the same thing with animated scenes based on the movie’s script and photographs, and on Welles’ notes. (Rose said that after he screened the results for friends and family, “a lot of them were scratching their heads.”)

So while Fable is using more advanced technology — filming scenes in live action, then eventually overlaying them with digital recreations of the original actors and their voices — this project is best understood as a slicker, better-funded version of Rose’s work. It’s a fan’s attempt to glimpse Welles’ vision.

Notably, while the New Yorker article includes a few clips of Rose’s animations, as well as images of Fable’s AI actors, there’s no footage showing the results of Fable’s live action-AI hybrid.

By the company’s own admission, there are significant challenges, whether that’s fixing obvious blunders like a two-headed version of the actor Joseph Cotten, or the more subjective task of recreating the complex beauty of the film’s cinematography. (Saatchi even described a “happiness” problem, with the AI tending to make the film’s women look inappropriately happy.)

As for whether this footage will ever be released to the public, Saatchi admitted it was “a total mistake” not to speak to Welles’ estate before his announcement. Since then, he has reportedly been working to win over both the estate and Warner Bros., which owns the rights to the film. Welles’ daughter Beatrice told Schulman that while she remains “skeptical,” she now believes “they are going into this project with enormous respect toward my father and this beautiful movie.”

The actor and biographer Simon Callow — who’s currently writing the fourth book in his multi-volume Welles biography — has also agreed to advise the project, which he described as a “great idea.” (Callow is a family friend of the Saatchis.)

But not everyone has been convinced. Melissa Galt said her mother, the actress Anne Baxter, would “not have agreed with that at all.”

“It’s not the truth,” Galt said. “It’s a creation of someone else’s truth. But it’s not the original, and she was a purist.”

And while I’ve become more sympathetic to Saatchi’s aims, I still agree with Galt: At its best, this project will only result in a novelty, a dream of what the movie might have been.

In fact, Galt’s description of her mother’s position that “once the movie was done, it was done,” reminded me of a recent essay in which the writer Aaron Bady compared AI to the vampires in “Sinners.” Bady argued that when it comes to art, both vampires and AI will always come up short, because “what makes art possible” is a knowledge of mortality and limitations.

“There is no work of art without an ending, without the point at which the work ends (even if the world continues),” he wrote, adding, “Without death, without loss, and without the space between my body and yours, separating my memories from yours, we cannot make art or desire or feeling.”

In that light, Saatchi’s insistence that there must be “some way to undo what had happened” feels, if not outright vampiric, then at least a little childish in its unwillingness to accept that some losses are permanent. It may not, perhaps, be all that different from a startup founder claiming they can make grief obsolete — or a studio executive insisting that “The Magnificent Ambersons” needed a happy ending.

Just in time to create a new Super Bowl ad, Crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek has made the priciest domain purchase in history, buying AI.com for $70 million, according to the Financial Times. The deal, paid entirely in cryptocurrency to an unknown seller, shatters previous records. (Broker Larry Fischer, who facilitated the sale, is presumably celebrating his good fortune.)

Marszalek plans to debut the site during Sunday’s big game, offering consumers a personal AI agent for messaging, app usage, and stock trading. “If you take a long-term view — 10 to 20 years – [AI] is going to be one of the greatest technological waves of our lifetime,” he told the FT.

The purchase rewrites the domain record books — not that crypto industry itself is known for its restraint when it comes to spending. Previously, CarInsurance.com held the crown at $49.7 million (2010), followed by VacationRentals.com ($35 million in 2007) and Voice.com ($30 million in 2019). Other eye-popping sales include PrivateJet.com ($30 million), 360.com ($17 million), and Sex.com, which has sold twice for over $13 million each time, though its second owner went bankrupt trying to monetize it.

“With assets like AI.com, there are no substitutes,” Fischer told the FT. “When one becomes available, the opportunity may never present itself again.”

Whether these mega-dollar domains actually deliver returns remains an open question. But for Marszalek, who already owns Crypto.com and dropped $700 million on stadium naming rights, owning two category-defining domains is apparently worth the outlay.

Comparing Our Favorite Vacuum Cleaners

Honorable Mentions

Bissell PowerClean FurFinder for $210: This was our previous top pick for cordless vacuums, and it’s still a great affordable stick vacuum. But if you’re looking for a cheap option, the regular Bissell PowerClean ($200) is a touch cheaper since it doesn’t come with the FurFinder upholstery attachment, while Dyson and Ryobi’s vacuums have more powerful suction for pet hair.

Black and Decker Dustbuster Flex for $95: This is another cool handheld vacuum that’s great for cars, or even indoor areas like staircases. It has a 4-foot hose, longer than most compact vacuums, and has a handy little charging mount that the accessories clip into. And thank goodness for the charging mount, since the battery only lasts 15 minutes.

Dyson Car+Boat Handheld Vacuum for $290: Dyson’s latest handheld vacuum was designed specifically for cars (and boats!) in mind, so if you have a vehicle to clean, this is made for it. It’s got a fantastic battery life compared to other handheld vacuums.

Dyson Gen5 Detect Cordless Vacuum for $800: This is Dyson’s current top-of-the-line stick vacuum, and it’s fantastic, especially for homes with a lot of pet hair. But it’s expensive and rarely on sale, making it a hard upgrade when you’ll still get a great experience with the Dyson V15 Detect. But this vacuum does have a HEPA filter, while the V15 Detect does not.

Ecovacs Deebot X11 Omnicyclone for $999: If you want a newer robot vacuum, the Ecovacs Deebot X11 Omnicyclone has a unique design with no dust bag. Instead, it has a rounded canister like a Dyson or stick vacuum, circling the debris to keep it from tangling. It’s a good design and this is overall a great robot vacuum, especially if you don’t want to buy dust bags over and over.

Roborock Qrevo S for $350 (used): This was our previous top robot vacuum pick, but Roborock updated the Qrevo line with new models that aren’t shipping to the United States, and the model we liked best is only available secondhand.

Tineco Pure One Station 5 for $459: If you want a cordless stick vacuum but don’t want to deal with emptying it all the time, this Tineco vacuum comes with a self-emptying docking station. You’ll eventually have to empty the station, but it’s a great bonus feature and keeps the vacuum from falling over around your home since it’s stored safely in the docking station.

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