This digest compiles the latest from TechCrunch.
Today’s TechCrunch Roundup
Luminar receives a larger $33 million bid for its lidar business
27 Jan 2026, 2:17 pm by Sean O’Kane
A new leading bidder has appeared in the Luminar bankruptcy case: Redmond, Washington-based MicroVision, which beat out Quantum Computing Inc.’s bid by $5 million.
China’s Moonshot releases a new open-source model Kimi K2.5 and a coding agent
27 Jan 2026, 2:11 pm by Ivan Mehta
The company said that the model was trained on 15 trillion mixed visual and text tokens.
Node-based design tool Flora raises $42M from Redpoint Ventures
27 Jan 2026, 2:00 pm by Ivan Mehta
Flora’s node-based design tool is being used by companies like Pentagram and Lionsgate.
Uber launches an ‘AV Labs’ division to gather driving data for robotaxi partners
27 Jan 2026, 1:00 pm by Sean O’Kane
Uber is not developing its own robotaxis again; instead it plans to collect and offer data. It’s a bet that more volume will help autonomous vehicle partners solve the weirdest edge cases.
Northwood Space secures a $100M Series B and a $50M Space Force contract
27 Jan 2026, 10:30 am by Sean O’Kane
This is the El Segundo, California-based startup’s second raise in less than a year.
‘Among the worst we’ve seen’: report slams xAI’s Grok over child safety failures
27 Jan 2026, 10:00 am by Rebecca Bellan
“We assess a lot of AI chatbots at Common Sense Media, and they all have risks, but Grok is among the worst we’ve seen,” Robbie Torney of Common Sense Media said.
Qualcomm backs SpotDraft to scale on-device contract AI with valuation doubling toward $400M
27 Jan 2026, 1:30 am by Jagmeet Singh
SpotDraft now processes over 1 million contracts annually using its AI tool, with contract volumes up 173% year-over-year.
South Korea’s Edenlux set for U.S. debut of eye-strain wellness device
27 Jan 2026, 1:30 am by Kate Park
Edenlux builds wearable tech to protect and train your eyes, inspired by its founder’s personal vision recovery.
Google pays $68M to settle claims its voice assistant spied on users
27 Jan 2026, 12:43 am by Lucas Ropek
Google did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement of the class-action case, which accused the firm of “unlawful and intentional interception and recording of individuals’ confidential communications without their consent and subsequent unauthorized disclosure of those communications to third parties.”
AI chip startup Ricursive hits $4B valuation two months after launch
27 Jan 2026, 12:13 am by Julie Bort
Ricursive joins Recursive and Unconventional AI in raising massive funds at multi-billion valuations out of the gate.
End of today’s TechCrunch roundup.
