Tech
ETH Zurich spinoff Voliro’s flying robots save lives, but don’t tell its CEO
We have only touched the surface of what drones can do and how ubiquitous they will become. This is also true in industry, where they have the potential to replace human labor in risky activities such as inspection at height.
Swiss startup Voliro operates in this space, with flying robots that can inspect wind turbines, overwater structures, and other infrastructure that’s hazardous for humans to reach because of factors such as height and weather conditions.
This is more than a visual inspection for glaring issues like corrosion; Voliro’s drones can poke around with sensors that can perform tasks such as dry film thickness, often eliminating the need for people on ropes. Yet, don’t expect CEO Florian Gutzwiller to tell you how many labor casualties the company’s drones are preventing. “I’m Swiss. If I were an American CEO, I would say we are saving lives every day, but I think it’s too aggressive,” he told TechCrunch.
Cultural differences aside, Gutzwiller has another reason to emphasize other aspects than accident prevention, such as productivity: Even when all goes well, which is luckily most often the case, industrial inspections cause downtime. Avoiding this downtime can save a significant amount of money for Voliro’s clients, which include Chevron and Holcim, as well as inspection and maintenance service providers.
“One of my favorite examples is flare stacks,” Gutzwiller said. “Because a flare stack is hot, you have to turn it off. You have to cool it down. You have to build a scaffold. Then you do the inspection. After doing the inspection, remove the scaffold, and then turn it on again. This can be a matter of days or weeks, and we can do it in 20 minutes.”
Voliro’s competitors include Avestec, Flyability, and Skygauge, but Gutzwiller thinks versatile hardware gives it an edge. There are its sensors that can handle heat, combined with the core innovation it is based on: a tiltable rotor that gives freedom of 360-degree motion to its robots, meaning they can work on ceilings and apply pressure without losing stability.
This advanced rotor was developed by some of Voliro’s team within the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich, before the startup became one of its many spinoffs in 2019. The commercial launch of its drones followed three years later, but that’s not what it sells: Its business model is a B2B subscription.
This model has many advantages, Gutzwiller said. For customers, it means accessing hardware and software upgrades as they are developed, in addition to getting support. For the company, it means recurring revenue that can fund R&D and showing the kind of cash flow that investors like to see.
This may explain why the company recently managed to raise $12 million, despite a challenging fundraising environment for startups and robotics. Bringing its funding to date to $22 million, this new capital injection was led by Cherry Ventures, with additional investment from existing business angels, family offices, and a conventional debt facility as a minority part of the round, according to the company.
Commercial traction helped with VCs and bankers, but there was still an element of luck and serendipity. Voliro pitched many VC firms, as is the norm these days, but it hadn’t pitched Cherry Ventures until a Mexican entrepreneur Gutzwiller met randomly at a bus stop in the mountains recommended him to do so. Fast forwarded a few months, and Cherry led Voliro’s Series A round.
Gutzwiller’s journey with Voliro was also serendipitous. After selling his company Open Systems to private equity in 2017, Gutzwiller became an angel investor, but he didn’t stop at investing into the ETH spinoff: He became an entrepreneur in residence at the company, then its executive chairman, until he replaced former CEO Mina Kamel in November 2022.
Gutzwiller is now in charge of spearheading Voliro’s growth, and he’s bullish about its platform approach. For instance, it will soon support third-party sensors that can detect corrosion under insulation. In the longer term, it could go further toward repairs, for instance, by having its robots remove rust or add coating themselves. But first, the company will work on expanding its client base across oil and gas, energy, and other industry sectors that could benefit from needing less human work at height.
Tech
ElevenLabs lists BlackRock, Jamie Foxx, and Eva Longoria as new investors
Voice AI company ElevenLabs revealed new investors that are part of its $500 million Series D fundraise, which was first announced in February. The additions include institutions such as BlackRock, Wellington, D.E. Shaw, and Schroders; enterprises like Nvidia, Salesforce Ventures, Santander, KPN, and Deutsche Telekom; and individual investors such as Jamie Foxx, Eva Longoria, and Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk.
The startup also noted that it surpassed $500 million in ARR (annual recurring revenue), after ending last year with nearly $350 million in ARR. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Mati Staniszewski, said last month that ElevenLabs added $100 million in net new ARR in Q1 2026, ending the quarter at roughly $450 million in ARR.
The company has also accelerated its valuation rapidly, growing from $6.6 billion last September to $11 billion this February.
“Voice is the highest-stakes channel for any customer interaction, and the bar for quality, latency, and security is extremely high. ElevenLabs is not just a category leader – it is becoming a foundational enabler of Deutsche Telekom’s broader Industrial AI vision. From voice-as-a-service to multilingual automation and in-network AI agents, we believe the company is uniquely positioned to reshape how businesses interact with customers across all channels,” Karine Peters, managing director at Deutsche Telekom’s venture arm T.Capital, said in a statement.
In the past quarter, the voice AI company has signed enterprise contracts with the likes of Deutsche Telekom, Revolut, and Klarna.
ElevenLabs said that, besides the fundraising, it also closed a $100 million tender, a second in roughly six months after the company issued one last September. Staniszewski said in a blog post that the company will give an opportunity to retail investors to invest in ElevenLabs through Robinhood Ventures, but didn’t provide details about the program.
Staniszewski noted that consumers won’t trust systems that sound robotic or “interact strangely” and emphasized the importance of building “human-level AI voice models.” Last month, the company acquired the team from Polish voice AI startup Papla to bolster its research team.
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Tech
Kaspersky suspects Chinese hackers planted a backdoor into Daemon Tools in ‘widespread’ attack
Security researchers at Kaspersky say they have identified a malicious backdoor planted in the popular and long-running Windows disc imaging software, Daemon Tools.
The Russian cybersecurity company said on Tuesday that data collected from computers around the world running the Kaspersky antivirus software shows a “widespread” attack is under way, targeting thousands of Windows computers running Daemon Tools.
The hackers, whom Kaspersky has linked to a Chinese-language speaking group based on an analysis of the malware, used the backdoor in Daemon Tools to plant additional malware on a dozen computers across the retail, scientific and manufacturing sectors, as well as government systems. Kaspersky said the hacking of these specific computers implied a “targeted” effort.
The company said the targeted organizations are located in Russia, Belarus, and Thailand.
Kaspersky said the backdoor was first detected on April 8.
Kaspersky said it had contacted Disc Soft, the company that maintains Daemon Tools, but did not say if the developer responded or took action. Kaspersky said the supply chain attack is “still active,” suggesting that the hackers can still plant malware on thousands of computers running the disc imaging software.
This is the latest in a string of so-called “supply chain” attacks that have targeted developers of popular software in recent months. Hackers are increasingly taking aim at the accounts of developers who work on widely used code and software, and abusing that access to push malicious code to anyone who relies on the software. This approach lets the hackers break into a large number of computers at once when their malicious code is delivered as a software update.
Earlier this year, hackers associated with the Chinese government hijacked the popular text editing software Notepad++ to deliver malware to a number of organizations with interests in East Asia. Security researchers also warned of another attack last month targeting users who visited the website of CPUID, which makes the popular HWMonitor and CPU-Z tools.
TechCrunch downloaded the Windows installer from Daemon Tools’ website, and the file appeared to contain the backdoor when we checked it with the online malware scanner service VirusTotal.
It’s not known if the macOS version of Daemon Tools was compromised, or if other apps made by Disc Soft are affected.
When contacted for comment, a Disc Soft representative said they are “aware of the report and are currently investigating the situation.”
“Our team is treating this matter with the highest priority and is actively working to assess and address the issue. At this stage, we are not in a position to confirm specific details referenced in the report. However, we are taking all necessary steps to remediate any potential risks and to ensure the security of our users,” the representative said.
Do you know more about the cyberattack targeting Daemon Tools users? Did you receive an antivirus alert saying you were affected? We want to hear from you. To contact this reporter securely, reach out via Signal username zackwhittaker.1337.
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Tech
Etsy launches its app within ChatGPT as it continues its AI push
Etsy announced Tuesday the launch of its native app within ChatGPT, opening up a new way for shoppers to explore its catalog of over 100 million listings.
The new experience is designed to move beyond the limitations of traditional keyword queries. Instead of typing something like “wooden coffee table,” then scrolling and adjusting filters, users can now express what they’re looking for in natural language. For instance, “Help me find a Mother’s Day gift under $100 for my mom who loves gardening.”
Now live in beta, the feature allows users to tag @Etsy directly within a prompt. From there, the Etsy app in ChatGPT surfaces relevant product listings that users can browse, compare, and click through to Etsy for additional details or purchase.
This isn’t Etsy’s first experiment inside ChatGPT. Back in September, Etsy became an early partner in ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout integration, which let users buy products directly inside the chat interface. However, the initiative ended in March, suggesting it didn’t perform as OpenAI had hoped. It was reported that Etsy didn’t see a large volume of sales from the integration, leading Etsy to start building a native app within ChatGPT instead.
Alongside this launch, Etsy also revealed it’s testing a beta conversational search experience within its platform, specifically geared toward helping users find gifts. The gift assistant acts as a personal shopper, offering a guided, conversational way to discover ideas, narrow down preferences, and surface relevant products.
This builds on Etsy’s broader AI push, which includes an AI-powered discovery experience featuring curated collections and a suite of seller tools, including a tool that helps generate product titles and descriptions, as well as a writing assistant to help draft messages to buyers. In 2024, Etsy introduced a new “Designed” label to identify AI content, part of an effort to increase transparency as AI-generated artwork becomes more prevalent on the platform.
The news of a ChatGPT integration comes a week after Etsy reported its Q1 2026 earnings, surpassing revenue expectations with $631 million, and marketplace gross merchandise sales were up 6% year over year. Notably, active buyers increased for the first time in two years to 86.6 million. Etsy also touted 5.6 million active sellers on the platform.
In February, the company announced it was selling Depop to eBay for $1.2 billion in cash, a move aimed at doubling down on its core marketplace.
Etsy joins a growing list of companies building native apps within ChatGPT, including Angi, SeatGeek, Tubi, and Wix. Developers have been able to build apps within the chatbot since October.
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