Flapping Airplanes raises $180M to build human-like learning AI
TechCrunch · February 10, 2026
AI lab Flapping Airplanes has secured $180 million in seed funding from Google Ventures, Sequoia, and Index to pursue a less common approach: training models to learn more like humans rather than relying on massive internet-scale datasets. If it works, it could reduce dependence on scraped data and shift how next-gen models are trained, with implications for data costs, privacy, and generalization.
Read full article →Ex-GitHub CEO unveils Entire, a platform for building AI agents
Hacker News · February 10, 2026
Former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman has launched Entire, a new developer platform aimed at making it easier to build, run, and manage AI agents in production. The pitch is an agent-first stack that standardizes common plumbing—tooling, orchestration, and deployment—so teams can focus on agent behavior rather than bespoke infrastructure. If it gains adoption, it could become a pragmatic layer between LLMs and real-world apps, similar to how modern platforms abstracted away earlier web ops complexity.
Read full article →Anthropic Eyes New Funding Round Valued Near $20B
TechCrunch · February 9, 2026
Anthropic is reportedly closing in on a new funding round around $20B, just five months after raising $13B in equity. The rapid back-to-back raises underscore how frontier AI labs are burning capital to secure scarce compute and talent, and how investors are still willing to bankroll that arms race despite soaring training and inference costs.
Read full article →OpenAI policy exec who opposed “adult mode” reportedly fired
TechCrunch · February 11, 2026
TechCrunch reports that an OpenAI policy executive who had opposed a chatbot “adult mode” was fired amid a discrimination claim, which she denies. The episode highlights rising internal pressure points around safety, content boundaries, and governance as AI labs expand capabilities and face closer scrutiny over workplace practices and decision-making.
Read full article →Runway raises $315M at $5.3B to expand from video to world models
TechCrunch · February 10, 2026
AI video startup Runway raised $315 million at a $5.3 billion valuation, signaling continued investor appetite for generative media infrastructure. The company says it will push beyond video generation into “world models,” aiming for systems that can simulate environments and dynamics—an expansion that could broaden its role from creative tools to foundational models for interactive and embodied applications.
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