September 09, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

Meta debuts its Muse AI agent. Will consumers trust it?: Meta's new personal AI agent Muse wants access to users' email, calendars, payments, health services, and more — making the company's biggest consumer AI bet yet a major test of whether people still trust Meta with their data. Read More

How to watch Apple's foldable iPhone announcement: Apple's annual iPhone event will stream live on September 9 at 10 a.m. PDT, and we're expecting big news. Read More

Hackers are stealing Claude tokens from subscribers: Last month, a Claude user noticed his account was consuming tokens even though he wasn't working. Anthropic has since warned users about hackers. Read More

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Morning Must-Reads

Sequoia doubles down on Cymphony as AI agents create new enterprise security risks: Cymphony was valued at more than $100 million in a $25 million Series A co-led by Sequoia and SMBC Fin Atlas Beyond Fund. Read More

Google DeepMind alumni are building tools to accelerate fusion power for the grid: Fusionality is developing control systems and simulation environments to help fusion power startups move faster. Read More

Besxar is building an orbital semiconductor factory, one SpaceX rocket at a time: If you want to manufacture in space—and bring the products back again—there's a limited set of options: Wait to go to the International Space Station, or partner with a handful of start-ups launching spacecraft that spend time in orbit before they return to Earth. But the vehicle that goes to space and comes back to Earth more often than any other is a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster, which made that round-trip 163 times last year and has already flown more than 100 times this year. Now, a startup says it has talked Elon Musk's space company into letting it prototype an orbital semiconductor factory across a dozen flights with the booster. Besxar, a start-up founded by former OpenAI staffer Ashley Pilipiszyn, wants to make the key precursors for advanced semiconductors by taking advantage of the vacuum of space. A key reason chip fabs on Earth are such hugely insane infrastructure projects is the need to create pressurized clean rooms to keep out even microscopic dust and contaminants that could ruin a chip during production. Pilipiszyn argues that a new generation of rockets could offer an alternative to all that infrastructure and to do it, she has raised almost $14 million, including a $9 million seed round led by Dauntless Ventures and Overture VC. "We're at a time where it's actually more cost-effective to go where the physics already works," she told TechCrunch. "Don't do it on Earth where you're fighting physics." The company's first two "fabships"—small canisters designed to Read More

Cognition hits $48B valuation, signaling investors believe AI coding is far from a winner-take-all market: Cognition's valuation multiple is higher than Cursor's was before selling to SpaceX. Read More

Autonomy pivots to gas vehicles to keep the dream of car subscriptions alive: Scott Painter, founder of TrueCar, is still trying to build a business around vehicle subscriptions, where you can cancel at any time. Read More

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Last but Not Least

Group of bipartisan lawmakers ask US government to ban several hack-for-hire firms: The three Indian companies are accused of using hackers to steal information used to sway litigation. Read More