OpenAI reportedly finalizing $100B deal at more than $850B valuation

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories to start your morning

View this email online in your browser  February 19, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 OpenAI reportedly finalizing $100B deal at more than $850B valuation: OpenAI is reportedly getting close to closing a $100 billion deal, with backers including Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank, and Microsoft. The deal would value the ChatGPT-maker at $850 billion. Read More This VC's best advice for building a founding team: This season on Build Mode, we're diving into what it takes to build a world-class founding team.  To kick off season two, Isabelle Johannessen is joined by Yuri Sagalov, managing director at General Catalyst and former founder, YC partner, and seed investor at Wayfinder Ventures. Sagalov has worked with hundreds of pre-seed and seed-stage companies and has seen firsthand the best (and worst) ways to hire in the early days. Read More Current is a new RSS reader that's more like a river than an inbox: Current introduces a stress-free, totally reimagined RSS news reading app as a one-time paid download. Read More Be the first to know when news breaks Subscribe to our News Alerts, and you won't miss a thing. Breaking news, exclusives, and special reports—straight to your inbox. Sign up for News Alerts! A message from Fidelity Stop Guessing What Fundraising Requires Cap table. Pitch deck. Investor updates. Diligence. The Fundraise-Ready Startup Kit equips you with the core materials founders can use to raise with confidence. Download the Kit  Morning Must-Reads Altman and Amodei share a moment of awkwardness at India's big AI summit: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi prompted speakers at the event to join hands and raise them in a show of unity, all executives on stage obliged, except OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei, who held their hands conspicuously apart. Read More Bug in student admissions website exposed children's personal information: Ravenna Hub, which lets parents apply and track the status of their kids' applications across thousands of schools, allowed any logged-in user to access the personally identifiable data associated with any other user, including their children. Read More OpenAI taps Tata for 100MW AI data center capacity in India, eyes 1GW: OpenAI also plans to expand its presence in India with new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru later this year. Read More OpenAI deepens India push with Pine Labs fintech partnership: OpenAI moves beyond ChatGPT in India with a Pine Labs deal targeting enterprise payments and AI-driven commerce. Read More Rivian owners will soon be able to access vehicle controls using their Apple Watch: Rivian is launching a companion app that pairs with Apple Watch in the coming week. Read More A message from Snyk Agentic security for AI-powered software AI-native applications are dynamic, unpredictable, and moving at machine speed. Evo by Snyk introduces a new era of "agentic security"—using specialized AI agents to discover, test, and protect your AI ecosystem. Meet Evo Last but Not Least OpenAI, Reliance partner to add AI search to JioHotstar: The rollout includes two-way integration that surfaces streaming links directly inside ChatGPT. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107

World Labs lands $1B, with $200M from Autodesk, to bring world models into 3D workflows

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories this afternoon

View this email online in your browser  February 18, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 World Labs lands $1B, with $200M from Autodesk, to bring world models into 3D workflows: The partnership will see the two companies exploring how World Labs' models can work alongside Autodesk's tools, and vice versa, starting with a focus on entertainment use cases.  Read More Amazon halts Blue Jay robotics project after less than 6 months: Amazon said Blue Jay's core tech will be used for other robotics projects and the employees who worked on it were moved to other projects. Read More Mastodon, a decentralized alternative to X, plans to target creators with new features: Mastodon is looking to grow its open source, decentralized social network with new features aimed at creators. Read More Be the first to know when news breaks Subscribe to our News Alerts, and you won't miss a thing. Breaking news, exclusives, and special reports—straight to your inbox. Sign up for News Alerts! A message from Microsoft and NVIDIA It all starts here at NVIDIA GTC 2026 See the breakthroughs redefining AI across industries. Join Microsoft at NVIDIA GTC to explore physical AI, AI factories, and agentic AI and experience the ideas driving the next era of innovation. Full conference passes for March 16–19 in San Jose are sold out, but single-day passes are still available. Get yours now. Register now Afternoon Must-Reads Microsoft says Office bug exposed customers' confidential emails to Copilot AI: Microsoft said the bug meant that its Copilot AI chatbot was reading and summarizing paying customers' confidential emails, bypassing data-protection policies. Read More Hacking conference Def Con bans three people linked to Epstein: The Def Con hacking conference banned hackers Pablos Holman and Vincenzo Iozzo, as well as former MIT Media Lab director Joichi Ito, from attending the annual conference after their reported connections with Jeffrey Epstein. Read More Data breach at fintech giant Figure affects close to a million customers: The Figure data breach allowed hackers to steal customer names, dates of birth, physical addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. Read More Google debuts $499 Pixel 10a: The smartphone is available for preorder now with shipments starting March 5. It comes in Lavender, Berry, Fog, and Obsidian. Read More Audible's new 'Read & Listen' feature syncs your Kindle e-books with audiobooks: The feature will require customers to buy both versions of the title, but at a discounted price. Read More A message from TechCrunch Events Beyond the Agentic AI Hype: How Leading Enterprises Make It Actually Work Join this free webinar to learn what it really takes to deploy agentic AI in production and drive real enterprise impact beyond experimentation. Register Today You missed these chats from Disrupt: Kindred talks home-swapping platform for travelers, Chef Robotics introduces AI into commercial kitchens, and Character.AI addresses chatbot safety with teens. Watch on Cheddar.com Watch on Streaming Last but Not Least Google adds music-generation capabilities to the Gemini app: Users will be able to use text, images, and videos as a reference to generate music. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107