Tech
Avalanche thinks the fusion power industry should think smaller
Nuclear fusion conjures images of massive reactors or banks of dozens of large lasers. Avalanche co-founder and CEO Robin Langtry thinks smaller is better.
For the last several years, Langtry and his colleagues at Avalanche have been working on what’s essentially a desktop version of nuclear fusion. “We’re using the small size to learn quickly and iterate quickly,” Langtry told TechCrunch.
Fusion power promises to supply the world with large amounts of clean heat and electricity, if researchers and engineers can solve some vexing challenges. At its core, fusion power seeks to harness the power of the Sun. To do that, fusion startups must figure out how to heat and compress plasma for long enough that atoms inside the mix fuse, releasing energy in the process.
Fusion is a famously unforgiving industry. The physics is challenging, the materials science is cutting edge, and the power requirements can be gargantuan. Parts need to be machined with precision, and the scale is usually so large as to obviate rapid fire experimentation.
Some companies like Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) are using large magnets to contain the plasma in a doughnut-like tokamak, others are compressing fuel pellets by shooting them with powerful lasers. Avalanche, though, uses electric current at extremely high voltages to draw plasma particles into an orbit around an electrode. (It also uses some magnets to keep things orderly, though they’re not nearly as powerful as a tokamak’s.) As the orbit tightens and the plasmas speed up, the particles begin to smash into each other and fuse.
The approach has won over some investors. Avalanche recently added another $29 million in an investment round led by R.A. Capital Management with participation from 8090 Ventures, Congruent Ventures, Founders Fund, Lowercarbon Capital, Overlay Capital, and Toyota Ventures. To date, the company has raised $80 million from investors, a relatively small amount in the fusion world. Other companies have raised several hundred to a few billion dollars.
Space-based inspiration
Langtry’s time at the Jeff Bezos-backed space tech company Blue Origin influenced how Avalanche is tackling the problem.
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“We’ve figured out that using this sort of SpaceX ‘new space’ approach is that you can iterate really quickly, you can learn really quickly, and you can solve some of these challenges.” said Langtry, who worked with co-founder Brian Riordan at Blue Origin.
Going smaller allowed Avalanche to speed up. The company has been testing changes to its devices “sometimes twice a week,” something that would be challenging and costly with a large device.
Currently, Avalanche’s reactor is only nine centimeters in diameter, though Langtry said a new version grow to 25 centimeters and is expected to produce about 1 megawatt. That, he said, “is going to give us a significant bump in confinement time, and that’s how we’re actually going to get plasmas that have a chance of being Q>1.” (In fusion, Q refers to the ratio of power in to power out. When it’s greater than one, the fusion device is said to be past the breakeven point.)
Those experiments will be carried out at Avalanche’s FusionWERX, a commercial testing facility the company also rents out to competitors. By 2027, the site will be licensed to handle tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that’s used as fuel and is crucial to many fusion startup’s plans for producing power for the grid.
Langtry wouldn’t commit to a date when he hopes Avalanche will be able to generate more power than its fusion devices consume, a key milestone in the industry. But he’s thinks the company is on a similar timeline as competitors like CFS and the Sam Altman-backed Helion. “I think there’s going to be a lot of really exciting things happening in fusion in 2027 to 2029,” he said.
Tech
Peak XV says internal disagreement led to partner exits as it doubles down on AI
Peak XV Partners, a leading venture capital firm in India and Southeast Asia, has seen a fresh round of senior departures. These follow other leadership exits over the past year as it pushes ahead with plans to deepen its focus on AI investing and expand its footprint in the U.S., while keeping India as its largest market.
The latest departures stem from an internal disagreement with senior partner Ashish Agrawal (pictured above, left) that led to a mutual decision to part ways, Managing Director Shailendra Singh told TechCrunch. He added that two other partners, Ishaan Mittal (pictured above, right) and Tejeshwi Sharma (pictured above, center), chose to leave alongside him.
Singh said Peak XV did not want to go into the specifics of the disagreement and was focused on moving forward. “Just out of privacy, and out of, like, trying to be classy about it,” he said. Singh added that such departures were not uncommon at large, multi-stage venture firms and that Peak XV wanted to move on quickly after several years of working together.
All board seats held by the departing partners would be transitioned “imminently,” Singh said, noting that the firm already had overlapping representation across several portfolio companies. He said Peak XV was not concerned about continuity, noting that multiple general partners and operating partners were already involved across many of those boards.
The departures mark the exit of long-tenured investors from the firm. Agrawal had been with Peak XV for more than 13 years, while Mittal spent over nine years at the firm and Sharma more than seven years, per their LinkedIn profiles.
Agrawal wrote in a LinkedIn post that he had decided to “take the entrepreneurial plunge” and was teaming up with Mittal and Sharma to start a new venture capital firm. He described the move as an opportunity to build a new institution with longtime partners and thanked Peak XV’s leadership for what he called a “truly wonderful partnership.”
During his time at Peak XV, Agrawal led investments across fintech, consumer, and software, including Groww, one of the firm’s most prominent IPO exits in 2025. He also backed multiple early- and growth-stage companies alongside Mittal and Sharma, contributing to Peak XV’s broader portfolio build-out over the past decade.
Agrawal, Mittal, and Sharma did not respond to messages for comments.
Peak XV has also moved to strengthen its senior leadership from within. The firm on Tuesday promoted Abhishek Mohan to general partner, expanding its investment leadership bench, while Saipriya Sarangan was elevated to chief operating officer, taking charge of firm-wide operations.
The leadership changes come amid a standout year for Peak XV’s portfolio exits. Five of its companies — Groww, Pine Labs, Meesho, Wakefit, and Capillary Technologies — went public in November and December 2025, generating roughly ₹300 billion (around $3.33 billion) in unrealized, mark-to-market gains for the firm, in addition to about ₹28 billion (about $310.61 million) in realized gains from share sales during the IPOs.
In addition to the latest departures, Peak XV has seen a broader churn in its senior ranks over the past 12 months. Last year, long-time investment leaders Harshjit Sethi and Shailesh Lakhani exited the India team, while Abheek Anand and Pieter Kemps departed from the firm’s Southeast Asia operations. The firm has also seen leadership changes across its marketing, policy, and operations teams in recent months.
Singh dismissed a view circulating in the market that many of the partners who drove Peak XV’s largest exits were no longer at the firm, calling the narrative “not statistically true.” He said several of the firm’s most significant outcomes had been led by long-tenured partners who remained at Peak XV, and argued that the firm’s exit track record did not hinge on any single individual.
Peak XV currently has seven general partners, along with multiple partners and principals, according to Singh.
The VC firm, which split from Sequoia Capital in 2023 and currently manages over $10 billion in capital across 16 funds, has made about 80 investments linked to AI, Singh said, highlighting its push to deepen its focus on AI funding. It is also preparing to open a U.S. office within the next 90 days as it expands its global footprint, per Singh, while continuing to view India as its largest and most important market.
Singh stated the firm believed AI would reshape venture investing more profoundly than previous technology shifts, arguing that successful AI investing required investors with deep technical understanding rather than “generalist” experience. He added that Peak XV was looking to add more AI-native talent, including researchers and engineers with backgrounds in machine learning and large-scale model development.
The firm has invested in more than 400 companies, and its portfolio has seen over 35 initial public offerings and several M&As to date.
Tech
PayPal hires HP’s Enrique Lores as its new CEO
PayPal said on Tuesday it is hiring HP’s Enrique Lores as its CEO and president, replacing current chief executive Alex Chriss. Lores, who has been the chair of PayPal’s board since July 2024, will also take up the role of president.
PayPal said the appointment was made because the company’s pace of change and execution was “not in line with the Board’s expectations” given broader market trends.
Chriss joined PayPal in September 2023 from Intuit, succeeding Dan Schulman. PayPal’s CFO and COO, Jamie Miller, will take over as interim CEO until Lores joins the company.
The appointment comes as PayPal on Tuesday reported lower than expected revenue and profit in the fourth quarter, as consumer spending dipped amid a broader cost of living crisis and a softening labor market. The company also forecast a dip in its full-year profit, which surprised investors, as Wall Street had broadly expected the company to forecast growth instead.
PayPal’s shares were down about 17.9% in premarket trading on Tuesday.
Lores, who served as president and CEO of HP for over six years, said that apart from product innovation, PayPal will hold itself accountable for delivering quarterly accounts.
“The payments industry is changing faster than ever, driven by new technologies, evolving regulations, an increasingly competitive landscape, and the rapid acceleration of AI that is reshaping commerce daily. PayPal sits at the center of this change, and I look forward to leading the team to accelerate the delivery of new innovations and to shape the future of digital payments and commerce,” Lores said in a statement.
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Tech
Fitbit founders launch AI platform to help families monitor their health
Fitbit founders James Park and Eric Friedman have announced the launch of a new AI startup called Luffu that aims to help families proactively monitor their health. The duo are developing an “intelligent family care system” that will start with an app experience and then expand into hardware devices.
Two years after their exit from Google, Park and Friedman are betting on AI to help lighten the mental burden of caregiving. According to a recent report, 63 million, or nearly 1 in 4, U.S. adults are family caregivers, up 45% from 10 years ago.
Luffu uses AI in the background to gather and organize family information, learn day-to-day patterns, and flag notable changes so families can stay aligned and address potential well-being issues.
“At Fitbit, we focused on personal health—but after Fitbit, health for me became bigger than just thinking about myself,” Park said in a press release. “I was caring for my parents from across the country, trying to piece together my mom’s health care across various portals and providers, with a language barrier that made it hard to get complete, timely context from her about doctor visits. I didn’t want to constantly check in, and she didn’t want to feel monitored. Luffu is the product we wished existed—to stay on top of our family’s health, know what changed and when to step in—without hovering.”

The pair note that today’s consumer health market is filled with tools for individuals, but that real life health is shared across partners, kids, parents, pets, and caregivers. Family information is scattered across devices, portals, calendars, attachments, spreadsheets, and paper documents.
With Luffu, people will be able to track the whole family’s details, including health stats, diet, medications, symptoms, lab tests, doctor visits, and more. Users can log health information using voice, text, or photos. Luffu proactively watches for changes, and surfaces insights and alerts, such as unusual vitals or changes in sleep.
The pair told Axios that people can ask questions using plain language to ask about their family’s health, such as “Is Dad’s new meal plan affecting his blood pressure?” or “Did someone give the dog his medication?”
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“We designed Luffu to capture the details as life happens, keep family members updated and surface what matters at the right time—so caregiving feels more coordinated and less chaotic,” Friedman said in the press release.
People who are interested in Luffu can join the waitlist for the limited public beta.
