Tech
Do you want to build a robot snowman?
Nvidia’s GTC conference had everything: trillion dollar sales projections, graphics technology that can yassify video games, grand declarations that every company needs an OpenClaw strategy, and even a robot version of the beloved snowman Olaf from Disney’s “Frozen.”
On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I recapped CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote and debated what it means for Nvidia’s future. And yes, a big part of our discussion focused on poor Olaf, whose microphone had to be turned off when he started rambling.
Even if the demo had gone flawlessly, Sean might still have had some reservations, as he noted these presentations always focus on “the engineering challenges” and not the “really messy gray areas” on the social side.
“But what happens when a kid kicks Olaf over?” Sean asked. “And then every other kid who sees Olaf get kicked or knocked over has their whole trip to Disney ruined and it ruins the brand?”
Read a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Anthony: [CEO Jensen Huang] was basically saying that every company needs to have an OpenClaw strategy now. I think that is just a very grand statement that’s meant to be attention grabbing; I think it’s also interesting coming at this kind of transitional moment for OpenClaw.
The founder has gone to OpenAI. So it’s now this open source project that potentially can flourish and evolve beyond its creator, or it could languish. If companies like Nvidia are investing a lot into it, then [it’s] more likely that it’ll continue to evolve. But it’ll be interesting to see a year from now, whether that looks like a prescient statement or everyone’s like, “Open what?”
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Kirsten: In the case of Nvidia, it costs them nothing in the grand scheme of things to launch what they call NemoClaw, which is an open source project, which they built with the OpenClaw creator. But if they don’t do something, they have a lot to lose. So really that message to me, the way I translated it when Jensen was like, “Every enterprise needs to have an OpenClaw strategy,” it was, “Nvidia needs to have a solution or strategy for enterprises, because if it’s successful, it is another way or another pathway for Nvidia to be part of numerous other companies.” So doing nothing is a greater risk than doing something that doesn’t go anywhere.
Sean: The real question here is why have we not talked about what is clearly the end game for Nvidia, and the thing that is going to turn it into the first $100 trillion company, which is an Olaf robot.
Anthony: How could I forget?
Kirsten: Anthony, just go to the end of the two and a half hours to watch this.
So, the Olaf robot comes out, and this is something that Jensen loves to do. He loves to have these demos and some of them go better than others. It is also to demonstrate Nvidia’s technology in robotics, and I don’t know if Olaf was actually speaking in real time or if it was programmed — it felt a little programmed, or it had specific keywords that it used.
But the greatest part about it is that they had to cut its mic at the end because it just started rambling and speaking to the crowd. And then it went over to its little passageway and was slowly lowered. And you could see it on the video. It was still talking, but no mic.
Sean: Now we just need to give this little robot a wheelbase. And I know the perfect founder who can provide it.
I mean, these demos are always silly. I don’t want to get up on my soapbox, because I know that we’ve talked about this a little bit earlier this week, but this was an impressive demo up until the moment where it fell a little bit short.
This is another really good example, though, of [how] robotics is a really interesting engineering problem and a really interesting physics problem and a really interesting integration problem, and all of this stuff, but this was presented as, in partnership with Disney, and it’s supposed to be the future of Disney parks and things like that: You’re going to be able to walk around and see Olaf from “Frozen” and take pictures of them and everything.
But these efforts never consider — or certainly don’t put front and center in events like this — all the other things you have to consider when you roll stuff out like this. There’s a really good YouTuber, Defunctland, that did a really good video about this — four hours long, not too long — about the history of Disney trying to get these kinds of robotics into their park, these automatons.
The engineering challenges are really interesting and it’s fun to see that history, but it always comes back to the same question of: Okay, but what happens when a kid kicks Olaf over? And then every other kid who sees Olaf get kicked or knocked over has their whole trip to Disney ruined and it ruins the brand?
There’s just so much on the social side of this. And that sounds silly, but this is the question that we’re kind of asking about humanoid robots, too. There’s so much hype about all this other stuff and we just don’t really hear as much conversation about the really messy gray areas on the social side of these things, and also just integrating them into people’s lives. We only ever really hear about the engineering challenges — which again, are really impressive.
Kirsten: I have a counterpoint and then we have to get to our next [topic]. This is a job creator, because Olaf will have to have a human babysitter in Disneyland, probably dressed up as Elsa or something else. You can imagine that actually, what we’re doing is creating jobs [with] this engineering experiment.
Tech
Anthropic releases Opus 4.8 with new ‘dynamic workflow’ tool
On Thursday, Anthropic released Opus 4.8, the newest version of its most advanced publicly available model. The model is available everywhere, with standard pricing at the same level as the previous Opus release.
The new model comes just 41 days after Opus 4.7 was released, a much faster upgrade cycle than normal for Anthropic. (The most recent Sonnet and Haiku models are three and seven months old, respectively.) The fast turnaround may have something to do with the chilly reception to Opus 4.7, which some users found disappointing.
That interval has also seen significant new releases for OpenAI’s Codex and Google’s Gemini Flash model, increasing the pressure on Anthropic to keep pace.
Opus 4.8 comes with the expected best-in-class benchmark results, but there’s also particular attention to how the model manages bad or uncertain data. In the launch post, Anthropic’s early testers found that the new model is “more likely to flag uncertainties about its work and less likely to make unsupported claims.”
Echoing this point, a testimonial from Bridgewater associates said the biggest difference in the upgrade was “Opus 4.8’s tendency to proactively flag issues with the inputs and outputs of an analysis, something other models routinely missed and left to the users to catch.”
Together with the new model, Anthropic launched a feature called Dynamic Workflows, which will be available in research preview. The system is designed to help larger models like Opus manage complex tasks across hundreds of parallel subagents.
“Claude Code alongside Opus 4.8 can now carry out codebase-scale migrations across hundreds of thousands of lines of code from kickoff to merge, with the existing test suite as its bar,” the post explains.
Anthropic is still holding back its most advanced Mythos model after a tentative preview last month raised cybersecurity concerns. However, the company hinted in today’s Opus release that the Mythos preview period might soon end, once necessary safeguards are complete.
“We’re making swift progress on developing these safeguards and expect to be able to bring Mythos-class models to all our customers in the coming weeks,” the company wrote.
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Tech
Corgi announces $106M raise at $2.6B valuation — double what it was worth 3 weeks ago
Insurance tech Corgi on Thursday announced a $106 million Series B1 raise, valuing the company at $2.6 billion, just three weeks after announcing a $160 million Series B at a $1.3 billion valuation and four months after its $108 million Series A. The company offers insurance, working specifically with startups in areas like tech, cyber, and general liability; it counts Deel and Artisan among its customers.
Even in the current go-go dealmaking environment, that sequencing is remarkable. While startups raising back-to-back rounds at steep step-ups have become almost routine, a company whose valuation doubles in three weeks is unusual enough to raise questions, particularly given the investor set in both rounds is the same.
Asked what material event justified that kind of jump in such a short window, investor Kanyi Maqubela of Kindred Ventures cited the company’s momentum. It’s an explanation may satisfy some, but the practice more generally is starting to attract scrutiny in LP circles. “There’s growing distrust of internal markups,” said one LP who backs numerous venture funds and asked not to be named. Said this person of exit mechanisms specifically, “[I]f a company [is] just getting re-priced upward with no real liquidity event, LPs notice.”
The specific concern is that a fund that invests at one valuation, then marks it up three weeks later can make portfolio performance look stronger on paper than the underlying business may justify.
In this case, Maqubela suggested, that’s not an issue for Kindred’s limited partners, nor for Corgi’s other investors, which include Prime Capital, Leblon Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Y Combinator.
“LPs really like exits above all,” Maqubela said in a message to TechCrunch. “They discount the value of markups since those aren’t always reflective of reality.” He added that in this case, revenue growth rationalized the new round.
Founded in 2024 by Emily Yuan and Nico Laqua, Corgi says it’s building coverage for what it calls “newer categories” of risk while also addressing an often underserved market among legacy insurance carriers — startups and the unique liability problems they face, including those related to AI.
“Corgi covers anything from when an AI system causes financial loss, misinformation, operational failures, or compliance issues,” Laqua told TechCrunch. “Many legacy policies either exclude these risks or handle them ambiguously.
Corgi is not alone in the insurtech market; Vouch, which is backed by Y Combinator, operates in a similar space.
When asked about the back-to-back rounds, Laqua said that insurance is a “highly capital-intensive industry,” and that “demand has accelerated quickly across new product lines and partnerships.” Building an AI-native platform compounds those costs further.
“We’re best known for our business insurance products, but the additional capital will be used to expand into new insurance categories, scale the AI underwriting platform, grow embedded distribution partnerships, and continue growing our team,” Laqua said.
Corgi has now raised $378 million in total funding from its investors.
Correction: The title of this headline originally misstated the valuation due to an editing error.
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Tech
Startup Battlefield 200 application deadline extended to June 8 after overwhelming demand
Founders, the battlefield is still open, but not for much longer.
After overwhelming demand from founders around the world, TechCrunch has extended the Startup Battlefield 200 application deadline to June 8. If you thought you missed your opportunity to pitch live on the Disrupt Stage in October at San Francisco’s Moscone West, this is your final chance to step into one of tech’s most competitive startup arenas.
Nominate a standout startup or submit your application before the deadline.
What is Startup Battlefield 200?
Startup Battlefield 200 is where ambitious early-stage startups go from unknown to impossible to ignore. Selected founders will take the spotlight at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, pitching live in front of elite investors, influential media, and the global startup ecosystem. One startup will walk away with $100,000 in equity-free funding, but every company selected gains visibility that can reshape its trajectory.
More than 1,700 startups have participated in Startup Battlefield over the years. Together, they’ve raised more than $32 billion and produced over 250 exits, including acquisitions by companies like Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Uber, and Amazon.
This is the same competition that helped launch companies like Dropbox, Discord, Mint, Fitbit, and Trello. More than 1,500 startups have competed in Startup Battlefield, and many have gone on to become category-defining businesses.
Why founders are still racing to apply
Competition for Startup Battlefield 200 has intensified as founders look for ways to stand out in a crowded fundraising environment. The extension gives more startups the opportunity to enter, but expectations are higher than ever.
Selected startups receive:
- A free exhibit table for all three days of Disrupt.
- Four complimentary Disrupt passes.
- Branding and visibility inside the Disrupt event app.
- Press exposure and lead-generation opportunities.
- Access to founder-only masterclasses.
- The opportunity to pitch live on the Disrupt Stage.
- Direct feedback from leading venture capitalists.
- A chance to win $100,000 in equity-free funding.
Who should apply
TechCrunch is looking for bold early-stage startups with a working MVP and a vision capable of disrupting an industry. Bootstrapped, pre-seed, and seed-stage startups are encouraged to apply. Select Series A startups in capital-intensive sectors may also qualify.
If you are building something category-changing, this is your chance to prove it on one of the biggest stages in tech.
The clock is still ticking
The deadline extension was driven by overwhelming demand, but the battlefield will not stay open forever. Thousands of startups are competing for a limited number of spots, and every application is reviewed closely by the TechCrunch team.
This is your opportunity to get in front of investors, customers, media, and future partners all in one place. Nominate or apply before June 8 and fight for your place among the next generation of breakout startups.
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