Driverless cars are no longer restricted to the realm of sci-fi thanks to companies like Waymo deploying commercial robotaxi services in multiple cities. And a number of automakers, big and small, are trying to bring that same level of autonomy to personally owned vehicles over the next few years. If that happens, what kinds of things could you do with a personal AV' Maybe you'll be able to send it to pick up food or run errands ' the hope of a company called Autolane. Or, if you're Tesla CEO Elon Musk, you think owners will want to deploy their cars into the world to offer rides to other people, creating a tidy, nearly effortless side-hustle. Hebron Sher, co-founder of Dallas-based Zevo, is eager to capitalize on all of the above. The company has been operating an EV-only car-share fleet for a little over a year, and it's now adding robotaxis, starting with a new company called Tensor. Tensor is kind of an odd duck. The startup sort of emerged earlier this year from a previous Silicon Valley startup called AutoX that also had operations in China, and boldly claims that it will be the first to sell a fully autonomous car to regular consumers ' in 2026, no less. Zevo says it will purchase up to 100 of Tensor's cars and add them to its network....

Startup investors this week demonstrated continued willingness to write big checks for promising companies in sought-after areas. Leading the pack was Saviynt, an AI identity security platform that picked up a fresh $700 million. 1. Saviynt, $700M, AI identity security: Saviynt, a provider of AI-optimized identity security tools, announced that it secured $700 million in Series B financing. KKR led the round, which set a $3 billion valuation for the 15-year-old, El Segundo, California-based company. 2. Unconventional AI, $475M, AI energy efficiency: Unconventional AI, a startup designing a computer to optimize energy efficiency for AI, raised $475 million in seed funding. Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners led the financing for the San Francisco Bay Area company. 3. Fervo Energy, $462M, geothermal energy: Houston-based Fervo Energy, a developer and operator of geothermal energy projects with a focus on technologies to scale this power source, picked up $462 million in Series E funding led by B Capital. The funding will go toward a geothermal project in Western Utah as well as other projects in its pipeline....

The only real consistency about the asset class is it's reliably volatile. Sectors in vogue one year are out a few quarters later. Angel syndicates must increasingly compete with venture big shots. And founders who secure the biggest rounds can't assume more capital is en route. For 2025, the seed investment environment exhibited its typical quirkiness, with a few trends standing out. In particular, it was a huge year for huge rounds. Predictably, it was also a banner period for AI dealmaking. And in geographic trends, we saw the U.S. pull in a bigger-than-usual share of total investment. The concept of a seed round being very small is rather retro. Today, both eight- and nine-figure rounds are reasonably common, especially for a startup with highly regarded founders, expertise in a hot sector, and an early technological advantage. However, keep in mind: most of the rise was due to a single round. This was the $2 billion seed financing for Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. This month, another giant deal also boosted the totals, a $475 million financing for Unconventional AI, which is designing a computer to optimize energy efficiency for AI....

Retro, a friend-focused photo-sharing app with roughly a million users, is adding a new feature that lets you time-travel through your old photo memories from your phone's camera roll. While the app today offers a way to share photos of what's happening during your week with a private group of friends, or create shared albums, this latest addition, dubbed 'Rewind,' is private to you ' unless you choose to share the photos with others. 'If you're a new user, you don't really have the opportunity to go time-travel through your memories in this way,' said Sharp, who had spent over six years at Meta working on products like Instagram Stories and Facebook Dating, before leaving to found his own photo-sharing startup with Ryan Olson, Retro's CTO, in 2022. 'The other problem that we saw was that people take more photos than ever, but they actually do less with that volume of photos than ever before. So it's almost as if those photos go into the ether,' he added. 'As people engage with those platforms more and more, something that has to be true and will be true is that people will still want to see more of their friends,' Sharp says. 'The photos and videos you take will need to find a place where they can reach the intended audience.'...