Techin' Geek

How many of the companies with recent layoffs are truly adapting their workforces to the efficiencies and challenges of artificial intelligence? And how many of them were just using AI as an excuse to cover other problems?

That’s the question posed by a New York Times article on the trend of “AI-washing,” where companies will cite AI as the reason for layoffs that might actually be caused by other factors, like over-hiring during the pandemic.

AI was the stated reason for more than 50,000 layoffs in 2025, with Amazon and Pinterest among the tech companies who blamed the technology for recent cuts.

But a Forrester report published in January argued, “Many companies announcing A.I.-related layoffs do not have mature, vetted A.I. applications ready to fill those roles, highlighting a trend of ‘A.I.-washing’ — attributing financially motivated cuts to future A.I. implementation.”

Molly Kinder, a senior research fellow at the Brookings Institute, noted that saying layoffs were caused by AI is a “very investor-friendly message,” especially when the alternative might mean admitting, “The business is ailing.”

January was such a long month that it has already brought us five fresh European unicorns: from Belgium to Ukraine, several tech startups raised funding at valuations above the $1 billion threshold.

But before we take a closer look at who joined the club, two caveats.

First: This count includes startups that may be incorporated elsewhere but have their roots or a large part of their team in Europe. Until a pan-European corporate structure exists (often called “EU Inc”), this split will remain common — and we’ve decided to overlook it. Take Lovable, which is incorporated in Delaware but cannot be dissociated from Stockholm’s startup scene.

Second: valuation doesn’t equal commercial success, and it is too early to tell whether all of these companies will achieve the kind of traction that Lovable has, with the company recently crossing $300 million in annual recurring revenue. But in the current climate, the fact that VCs were willing to invest in them at unicorn valuations is a strong signal of where the appetite is. 

With these caveats out of the way, let’s dive in.

Aikido 

Belgium-based cybersecurity startup Aikido Security reached unicorn status with its $60 million Series B funding round. Valuing the company at $1 billion, the round was led by DST Global, with participation from PSG Equity, Singular, Notion Capital, and others.

According to a press release, the funding will help Aikido enhance its platform, which was built to unify security across the entire software lifecycle and is already used by more than 100,000 teams globally. The company also reported “five-times revenue growth and nearly three-times customer growth” over the last year.

In a blog post, the startup celebrated this milestone and its significance. According to its team, “in an industry dominated by Palo Alto and Tel Aviv heavyweights, Aikido shows that Europe can build a world-class software security company and win globally.”

Cast AI 

Cloud optimization company Cast AI is headquartered in Florida, but has Lithuanian roots and a major office in Vilnius — which explains why many now consider it to have become Lithuania’s fifth unicorn.

Cast AI’s valuation now exceeds $1 billion following a strategic investment from Pacific Alliance Ventures (PAV), the U.S.-based corporate venture arm of Korean conglomerate Shinsegae Group. In April 2025, Cast AI raised a $108 million Series C that had reportedly already brought the company close to unicorn territory.

Alongside its latest funding round, the company also introduced OMNI Compute for AI, which aims to help users deploy more AI workloads on fewer GPUs and remove regional capacity constraints.

Harmattan AI 

French defense tech company Harmattan AI was only founded in 2024, but is already worth $1.4 billion, according to its latest funding round. The $200 million Series B was led by Dassault Aviation, maker of the Rafale fighter jets, and also ties into a broader partnership.

Before securing this key partner, Harmattan AI had already signed agreements with the French and British ministries of defense and with Ukrainian drone maker Skyeton, amid growing appetite for autonomous defense aircraft.

Osapiens 

German ESG software firm Osapiens raised a $100 million Series C led by Decarbonization Partners, a joint venture between BlackRock and Temasek, which valued the company at over $1.1 billion.

Founded in Mannheim in 2018, Osapiens now has more than 2,400 customers worldwide, including large multinational companies that rely on its platforms and tools for sustainability reporting and data compliance, but also to mitigate supply chain risks.

Preply

The 14-year-old language learning marketplace Preply is now a unicorn valued at $1.2 billion — a milestone that also embodies Ukrainian resilience. The edtech company was founded in the United States, but its founders are Ukrainian and supporters of their home country, where Preply has a team of 150 employees.

According to its CEO, Kirill Bigai, who believes in AI-enhanced learning, proceeds from the $150 million Series D round will help the startup hire more AI talent across its four offices — now located in Barcelona, London, New York, and Kyiv.

Waymo has nearly finalized a new $16 billion funding round that will value the robotaxi company at $110 billion, according to the Financial Times.

More than three-fourths of that funding will reportedly come from a source close to home — Alphabet, where Waymo is a subsidiary. (The company was incubated as part of Alphabet’s “moonshot factory” X.)

The FT reports that Waymo is bringing on new investors Dragoneer, Sequoia Capital, and DST Global, with existing backers Andreessen Horowitz and Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala also participating in the round.

When contacted by TechCrunch, a company spokesperson said in a statement, “While we don’t comment on private financial matters, our trajectory is clear: with over 20 million trips completed, we are focused on the safety-led operational excellence and technological leadership required to meet the vast demand for autonomous mobility.”

The company is expanding quickly, including with a recent launch in Miami. That growth has come with some challenges, including a number of robotaxis that stalled at traffic lights during a widespread San Francisco blackout.

Waymo has more than $350 million in annual recurring revenue, according to the FT. The company last raised a $5.6 billion Series C in 2024, valuing the company at $45 billion.

Kofi Ampadu, the partner at a16z who led the firm’s Talent x Opportunity (TxO) fund and program, has left the firm, according to an email he sent to staff that TechCrunch obtained. This comes months after the firm paused TxO and laid off most of its staff.

“During my time at the firm, I was deeply grateful for the opportunity and the trust to lead this work,” Ampadu wrote in the email, sent Friday afternoon, with the subject line “Closing My a16z Chapter.”

“Identifying out-of-network entrepreneurs and supporting them as they sharpened their ideas, raised capital, and grew into confident leaders was one of the most meaningful experiences of my career,” he wrote.

Ampadu led the program, which launched in 2020, for over four years until its pause last November, taking over for the initial leader, Nait Jones. Afterward, Ampadu seems to have worked at a16z’s latest accelerator, Speedrun.

Ampadu’s departure perhaps signals the end of the TxO chapter. The fund and program focused on supporting underserved founders by providing access to tech networks and investment capital through a donor-advised fund. Though some founders spoke highly of the program, others criticized the controversial donor-advised structure. The program also launched a grant program in 2024 to provide $50,000 to nonprofits that help diverse founders.

Its last cohort was in March 2025, and its indefinite pause came as many top tech names reframe, cut, or eliminate prior public commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’ve reached out to a16z and Ampadu for comment.

His full note below:

I moved to the United States three months before my 11th birthday. One month later, I started 6th grade in a school more than 5,000 miles from my home, my friends, and everything familiar. Recently, my mom reminded me that my school required me to enroll as an English-as-a-Second-Language student. My memory immediately returned to how confused I felt. Even at 10 years old, I knew it made no sense that a kid from Ghana, an English-speaking country, was being asked to learn a language he already spoke fluently.

This was a systems requirement, a blanketed assumption about what students from certain places could or could not do. That same type of systemic assumption is what we set out to challenge through the Talent x Opportunity Initiative. The venture ecosystem often relies on proxies such as schools, networks, and prior credentials, which can obscure exceptional founders who do not follow the most common paths. TxO invested in and supported these overlooked founders to bridge the gap between talent and opportunity.

During my time at the firm, I was deeply grateful for the opportunity and the trust to lead this work. Identifying out-of-network entrepreneurs and supporting them as they sharpened their ideas, raised capital, and grew into confident leaders was one of the most meaningful experiences of my career.

As I move on to my next chapter, I leave with pride in what we built and gratitude for everyone who helped shape it. Thank you for the trust, the collaboration, and the belief in what is possible. There is more work to do and I am excited to keep building.

A confidential informant told the FBI in 2017 that Jeffrey Epstein had a “personal hacker,” according to a document released by the Department of Justice on Friday.

The document, which was released as part of the Justice Department’s legally required effort to publish documents related to its investigation into the late sex offender, does not identify who the alleged hacker was, but does include several details about them. 

According to the informant, the hacker was an Italian born in the southern region of Calabria and specialized in finding vulnerabilities in iOS, BlackBerry devices, and the Firefox browser. 

The hacker allegedly developed zero-day exploits and offensive cyber tools and sold them to several countries, including an unnamed central African government, the U.K., and the United States. The informant told the FBI that Epstein’s hacker sold a zero-day to Hezbollah, which paid him with “a trunk of cash.”  

Per the informant, the hacker “was very good at finding vulnerabilities.”

It’s important to note that this document contains allegations from only the informant, not from the FBI directly, so it’s unclear how trustworthy the information and allegations are. 

The FBI declined to comment when reached by TechCrunch. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. 

On Friday, the Justice Department announced the release of 3.5 million additional pages from the Epstein files. The newly released files, some heavily redacted, include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.