Spotify and UMG’s 2026 licensing deal lets Spotify Premium users prompt AI-generated remixes and covers through a paid add-on (launch date and pricing TBD). Artists can opt out and collect royalties; Co-CEO Alex Norström says it’s “grounded in consent, credit, and compensation.”
Stellantis, the automaker behind Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, and Dodge, announced in May 2026 a commercial partnership with U.K.-based self-driving startup Wayve to bring hands-free driving technology to…
Maka Kids, a startup building a streaming app for children ages zero to six, announced in 2026 that it has raised $3 million in seed funding to scale its platform. The app is currently accepting…
AI startup Hark says it raised a $700M Series A in May 2026 at a $6B post-money valuation, led by Parkway Venture Capital and backed by Intel Capital and Qualcomm Ventures. Founded in late 2025 by Brett Adcock, the 70-person team runs Nvidia B200 GPUs and plans to release its first multi-modal models this summer for a personal AI platform.
A new AI therapy and coaching app called The Path has raised $14.3 million in seed funding, with motivational speaker and author Tony Robbins joining as a co-founder alongside former Calm employees Anson Whitmer and Tyler Sheaffer. The round was led by Prime Movers Lab, where…
Fresha’s May 2026 $80M round led by KKR’s Next Generation Technology Growth fund lifts its valuation above $1B and totals $285M raised. The London-founded platform now runs 35M appointments/month for 140,000 businesses, and plans to expand to more countries and add AI features.
Scammers have exploited a loophole in Microsoft’s email systems for several months by sending spam and phishing links from msonlineservicesteam@microsoftonline.com, a real address used for account alerts and 2FA codes, a TechCrunch report (May 2026) says. The Spamhaus Project confirmed the abuse and notified Microsoft; Microsoft acknowledged the inquiry but hadn’t confirmed whether it was stopped.
GitHub disclosed in May 2026 that a malicious VS Code extension enabled TeamPCP to breach its systems. TeamPCP claims ~4,000 internal repos; GitHub confirmed 3,800, all containing GitHub code. Socket calls it a long-running supply-chain spree: 20 waves, 500+ poisoned packages.
France is accelerating a government-wide shift away from US technology platforms, replacing tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Office with French and open-source alternatives. The push,…
Anthropic told investors it expects Q2 2026 revenue to more than double to about $10.9B and post its first operating profit, per a May 21, 2026 Wall Street Journal report. It warned big upcoming compute costs may wipe out profitability, despite rising Claude demand and new tools for small businesses and law firms.
SpaceX told investors in a Wednesday IPO filing that xAI’s Grok “Spicy” and “Unhinged” modes could trigger regulatory scrutiny, reputational harm, and explicit/deceptive outputs. The company set aside $530M for litigation and said it’s under U.S. and other-country investigation over alleged sexualized imagery of minors.
Clouted secured a $7M seed round in May 2026 led by Slow Ventures, with Gold House Ventures, Weekend Fund, and Peak XV’s Surge joining. Its AI selects the best platform and audience, continuously testing 30–90s clips created by a network of 100,000+ gig creators from podcasts, songs, and movies; CEO Justin Banusing said it’s like penetration testing, citing its use for &Friends, now drawing 20,000+ attendees, after completing a16z’s Speedrun accelerator in 2024.
