Startup News

California-based startup Charter Space secured $5 million in seed funding to expand its space insurance business. The round was led by Crystal Venture Partners, with QED, Blank Ventures, Hustle Fund, and Gaingels participating. The company currently serves over 50 clients across the US space and defense sectors.

Indian startup Astrobase is testing its methane-powered, reusable Everest engine, aiming to produce ~50 units annually. Designed for both rocket stages, it enables safe landings and reflights. The company targets scaling India's payload-launch capacity from 9.5 tons to 1,000 tons per year, boosting the country's space economy and security.

Delhi High Court issued notices to Ola, Uber, Rapido, the Centre and Delhi government, asking them to respond to a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking stronger safety measures for women passengers. The PIL proposed allowing passengers to cancel rides without penalties when an unauthorised driver or vehicle arrives, and technology-based alerts in cases of significant route deviations.

India is eyeing an investment of $25 billion to support deep-tech startups in the country, as the US and China are ahead in the global race to develop frontier technologies, Mint reported, citing sources. It added that India had invested $11.6 billion over the last decade and is committed to investing another $11 billion under the Research Development Infrastructure Fund.

While speaking to a reporter outside White House, Palantir CEO Alex Karp appeared frustrated by questions about his message to US President Donald Trump during AI meet. Karp called the journalist's line of inquiry "stupid as shit" and asked if they thought he was "the village idiot". Several AI and tech leaders had signed an AI safety pact at meet.

Several demonstrators dressed in cardboard robot costumes and wielding cardboard scythes gathered outside OpenAI's annual DevDay conference on Tuesday. "Sam Altman, get off it, put people over profit," a group of protesters chanted while marching in a circle. The protesters carried signs including “No Killer Robots” and “No Climate Destruction”, reflecting various concerns about the technology.

OpenAI on Tuesday launched personal AI agents called "Dots", but X users noted that the "Dot.com" domain redirects to Grok Bot, an AI agent by Elon Musk's xAI. One X user called it "pettiness at its finest", while another described it as the "most expensive troll". xAI has not officially confirmed whether the domain acquisition was intentional or coincidental.

US President Donald Trump had a humorous exchange with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei during a White House event on Tuesday. While inviting Amodei to speak about AI "doom" fears in front of reporters, Trump told them, "All (Amodei) said was okay." Trump then turned to Amodei and said, "Be careful." Several other AI leaders were also present at the event.

OpenAI reportedly ignored safety warnings from two employees months before its AI agents hacked websites of AI startup Hugging Face and other companies, the NYT reported. Employees had warned that OpenAI's newest AI models were not being appropriately monitored during testing. However, they were told that the tests needed to move forward quickly to release the models on time.