Tech
Eclipse backs all-EV marketplace Ever in $31M funding round
If you want to buy or sell a used EV right now, what’s the first step you’d take?
A startup called Ever wants to be the answer to that question. The company, which bills itself as the first “AI-native, full-stack auto retail business” for electric vehicles, already has thousands of customers buying and selling their EVs on the platform.
Now it’s looking to scale with help from a $31 million Series A funding round led by Eclipse, with Ibex Investors, Lifeline Ventures, and JIMCO — the investment arm of the Saudi Arabian Jameel family (an early investor in Rivian) — as co-investors.
Over the last decade, companies like Carvana and CarMax helped usher in the digital car-buying experience. More recently, myriad startups have tried to improve the car-buying experience with AI, pitching ideas like voice agents or smarter scheduling software. Eclipse’s Jiten Behl thinks this is the wrong approach if you want to really modernize the automotive retail experience, though.
“These bolt-on AI tools are band-aids,” he said in an interview with TechCrunch. He likened it to how many major automakers’ first EVs were essentially combustion vehicles that were repackaged to fit electric drivetrains. That approach came with major tradeoffs compared to designing a new EV from the ground up, which was the approach companies like Tesla and Rivian took.
“Auto retail is a perfect candidate for disrupting with AI, you know? It’s a lot of process, lot of labor, [very] rules-based,” he said.
Lasse-Mathias Nyberg, Ever co-founder and CEO, said in an interview that buying or selling a car typically triggers “hundreds or thousands of different actions” that a retailer needs to perform in order to complete the transaction. “There’s massive complexities or frictions on both sides.”
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In 2022, he and his team set out to reduce or remove those complexities. What they settled on after a year of research was a digital-first auto retailer. The core tech is an orchestration layer or “operating system” that can handle all the different workflows behind a transaction, whether it’s processing information submitted by a prospective buyer or seller, or managing the vehicle inventory.
“When you do appraisals, or pricing, or titling, it’s very deterministic in terms of what steps need to be taken. And today, there are lots of single point solution tools that are used,” he said. Most companies “use these tools together in a very inefficient manner, and you think that you are on a digital journey — but if you actually could clean-sheet it, and if you actually could use the power of agentic AI, and you can create one unified customer experience and remove all these micro-frictions.”
Nyberg claimed that building the company this way has allowed Ever’s sales team to be two to three times more productive than they would be otherwise, and he expects that to scale as the company grows. He said this extra efficiency and productivity beefs up their margins, which can be booked as profit or passed along to the customer by offering lower prices.
Ever applies this fresh approach to both its online marketplace and physical locations. Nyberg said the hybrid model is important because seeing and trying a car in person remains crucial to the shopping experience for a lot of buyers — especially those who might be assessing EVs for the first time.
Early reviews of Ever’s product have been mixed. Users on one particular Reddit thread from last year were split, with some drawn to how Ever is making EVs easier to buy, while others detailed struggles getting in touch with the startup’s team. Ever was just getting off the ground and was more or less operating in stealth, and so Nyberg chalks that up to a learning experience. He said his team is working hard to make sure its system can be flexible enough to accomplish everything the company has set out to do.
The bigger challenge may be overall interest in EVs, which has cooled a bit in the United States. Nyberg said he hasn’t ruled out Ever buying or selling used combustion cars in the future, but wants to stick to EVs in the near-term since there isn’t a retailer that is laser-focused on these vehicles.
Behl, who spent eight years on Rivian’s leadership team, admitted he’s a “hopeless romantic when it comes to EVs,” and said he still believes the industry is moving toward electric propulsion because of the inherent benefits. And he said his “first thought” when he started doing diligence on Ever was: “I wish Rivian was doing this.”
More broadly, Behl said, companies like Carvana are still in the single digits of market share when it comes to automotive retail. That’s why he sees so much upside in Ever.
“Customers are going to continue to gravitate towards better experience when it comes to buying cars, which means it is going to be a digitally-led customer experience which takes away all the friction of buying and selling a car,” he said.
Tech
Roku to launch streaming bundles as part of its efforts to continue growing its profitability
Roku shared its fourth-quarter earnings for 2025 this week, as well as some exciting plans in the pipeline. The company is rolling out new streaming bundles, expanding its $3 subscription service, Howdy, to more platforms, and partnering with more premium streaming services following the successful addition of HBO Max.
Launching bundles in 2026 is a smart move, as it could attract more viewers looking for enticing deals amid rising subscription prices. Many streaming platforms have been increasing their rates recently, and Roku aims to appeal to cost-conscious consumers. The positive impact of HBO Max on Roku’s premium subscriptions has encouraged the company to continue this strategy by adding more top-tier partners, which is likely to drive growth going forward.
Additionally, Roku launched its ad-free subscription streaming service, Howdy, last year and plans to expand its availability beyond the Roku platform. While specific details remain undisclosed, Roku CEO Anthony Wood stated at CES last month that the goal is to distribute Howdy widely, saying, “We want to distribute it everywhere.”
Other highlights include Roku users streaming 145.6 billion hours of video in 2025, marking a 15% increase from 2024. The company is also nearing the milestone of 100 million streaming households, though it has decided to report this figure less frequently.
Financially, Roku delivered an impressive quarter, posting net income of $80.5 million, a rebound from a $35.5 million loss in the same period last year. Total revenue for Q4 2025 reached $1.4 billion, representing a 16% year-over-year increase.
Looking ahead, Roku is optimistic, projecting total net revenue of $5.5 billion and gross profit of $2.4 billion.
“In 2023, our priority was to rightsize our cost structure and reach adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2024, and we achieved that goal a full year ahead of schedule,” Wood told investors during the call yesterday afternoon. “Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, we are confident in our ability to sustain double-digit platform revenue growth while continuing to grow profitability.”
Tech
Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads mocking AI with ads helped push Claude’s app into the top 10
Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads — which feature darkly comedic scenarios of people seeking advice from chatbots, only to be steered to “cougar” dating sites and height-boosting insoles — have been paying off. In the days since, Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude has climbed from No. 41 on the U.S. App Store to become a top 10 app. As of Friday, Claude sits at No. 7 — its highest rank to date — suggesting its “no ads” pitch resonates strongly with users.
According to new data from market intelligence provider Appfigures, Claude’s U.S. downloads across both iOS and Android totaled an estimated 148,000 from Sunday through Tuesday — the most recent data available. That’s a 32% increase from the preceding three days, Thursday through Saturday, where downloads totaled approximately 112,000.
Claude’s daily average number of downloads from Sunday through Tuesday was 49,200, up 32% from the usual Sunday through Tuesday average of 37,400 per day.
The numbers suggest that Anthropic’s Super Bowl commercials, combined with Anthropic’s recent release of its new Opus 4.6 model, worked to drive attention to Claude’s app and its key differentiator from ChatGPT. The latter rolled out ads to free users this week, just as Anthropic’s ads had warned.
As a result, Claude’s app is gaining more attention than it did when it first debuted on mobile.
The consumer-focused AI app arrived on iOS in May 2024 to a fairly tepid reception. ChatGPT had beaten it to market on mobile devices and had grown to nearly half a million installs in its first five days. By comparison, Claude had only pulled in 157,000 total global downloads within its first week and didn’t reach a rank higher than No. 55 on the U.S. App Store.
Globally, Claude saw some gains this past week, too. Overall worldwide downloads of Claude across both the App Store and Google Play grew 15% from Sunday to Tuesday versus last Thursday to Saturday. However, this was less than half the gains seen in the U.S., Appfigures noted.
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Tech
India partners with Alibaba.com for export push despite past China tech bans
India’s government has partnered with China’s Alibaba.com on an export-focused program aimed at helping startups and small businesses reach overseas buyers. The move highlights New Delhi’s selective engagement with Chinese-linked tech platforms years after it imposed sweeping bans on consumer apps and games.
This week, the Indian government’s Startup India initiative announced the collaboration with Alibaba.com to identify and support Indian startups that can help onboard and scale Indian exporters on the group’s global B2B platform. The program offers commissions and technical support to those startups to assist small manufacturers and traders in reaching overseas markets.
The new partnership arrives after years of strained India–China relations. New Delhi banned dozens of Chinese-linked apps in 2020 following a deadly border clash, including major platforms such as TikTok, PUBG Mobile, and AliExpress, an e-commerce app operated by Alibaba Group. Those restrictions remain in place, making the Indian government’s public collaboration with Alibaba’s export-focused platform a carefully circumscribed form of engagement rather than a broader policy reset.
India’s export ambitions are closely tied to its small businesses and the platforms they use to reach overseas markets. Micro, small, and medium enterprises account for nearly half of the country’s exports and about 31% of GDP, according to the Indian government’s latest Economic Survey, underlining why New Delhi has focused on expanding digital market access for smaller firms through global B2B channels, including Alibaba.com.
Alibaba.com’s B2B platform connects more than 50 million active buyers across over 200 countries and regions, said Rocky Lu, head of India business at the company.
“Alibaba.com has been active in India for over two decades, and we remain dedicated to our core mission of empowering MSMEs to scale their businesses globally,” Lu told TechCrunch. “Our focus continues to be on leveraging our digital infrastructure to help ‘Made in India’ products reach an international audience through digital transformation.”
Lu did not confirm whether the Startup India initiative marks Alibaba.com’s first direct partnership with India’s federal government since 2020. He said, however, that the company has “maintained a consistent cadence of engagement with various government and semi-government bodies integral to the Indian export ecosystem,” including through digital training programs for MSMEs and collaborations with export promotion councils.
The partnership reflects India’s differentiated approach toward China, maintaining restrictions in strategic and security-sensitive sectors while allowing economic engagement where there is clear benefit, said Kazim Rizvi, founding director of the New Delhi-based public policy think tank The Dialogue.
“Going forward, regulatory clarity will be important,” Rizvi told TechCrunch. “Predictable policy environments will help ensure that startups feel confident participating in such initiatives.”
The Indian government seems to be drawing a distinction between export-focused platforms and consumer-facing Chinese apps, said George Chen, partner and co-chair of the digital practice at The Asia Group, a Washington-based consultancy that advises companies on policy and geopolitical risks across Asia. Chen, who previously served as a regional public policy director at Meta, said New Delhi sees value in Alibaba’s role in supporting B2B exports, particularly given the platform’s reach in markets such as Africa, which could help Indian exporters diversify their global sales.
India appears to be drawing lessons from China’s approach to digital platforms, Chen told TechCrunch.
“China bans foreign apps like Facebook and Instagram for Chinese individual users but still allows Facebook and Google to do business with Chinese companies, especially exporters who rely on those platforms to sell products abroad,” Chen said.
The Startup India collaboration follows other recent steps by Alibaba.com to expand export-focused services in India. In June 2025, the company launched its Trade Assurance program in the country, aimed at helping Indian small and medium-sized exporters manage risks in cross-border transactions through payment protection and dispute-resolution tools.
The developments also come as India and China show tentative signs of improved engagement in multilateral technology forums, with Chinese representatives expected to attend the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi next week. Indian officials, however, have not indicated any change to restrictions on Chinese consumer technology platforms.
The Indian commerce ministry did not respond to a request for comments.
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