Forget EVs — stationary batteries are getting all the buzz, and investment, in the U.S. these days.

Startup Lunar Energy is the latest example. The six-year-old company, which builds battery packs for homeowners in California, Georgia, and Washington, said Wednesday it has completed two large funding rounds. The startup shared it raised a previously unannounced $130 million Series C and a $102 million Series D. The Series C was led by Activate Capital, while the Series D was led by B Capital and Prelude Ventures.

The startup plans to use the funds to scale manufacturing to 20,000 units by the end of this year before ramping up to 100,000 by the end of 2028. In total, Lunar has raised more than $500 million from investors.

Stationary storage has become a bright spot for battery manufacturers that have been subject to policy whiplash after the Trump administration and GOP-controlled Congress gutted large parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, which had incentivized companies to build batteries in the U.S. to supply the automotive industry.

As the grid strains under the weight of an increasingly electrified economy — along with the boom in data center demand — grid-connected batteries have become one of the most versatile ways to boost its resiliency.

Lunar can call on its fleet of batteries, which come in 5 kilowatt-hour modules between 15 kilowatt-hours and 30 kilowatt-hours, to deliver juice to the grid when needed. Its virtual power plant (VPP) software can also control EV chargers and appliances, allowing it to both supply electrons while tamping down demand.

Such VPPs are expected to be able to replace costly and polluting peaking power plants in a matter of years.

Competition in the space has been heating up lately. In October, Base Power raised $1 billion, less than six months after raising a $200 million round for its residential battery-based VPP. Tesla operates its own Powerwall-based VPP, too.

Outside of residential settings, Tesla’s storage business has been growing in leaps and bounds, while former Tesla executive JB Straubel’s startup Redwood Materials has launched its own energy storage division. Even Ford wants in on the action. 

Batteries have transformed from bit players just five years ago to major assets on the grid. Their modularity makes them quick to build and easy to deploy, and while they’re still costly relative to some fossil fuel power sources, prices have been dropping quickly. No wonder investors are piling in.

Tinder is turning to a new AI-powered feature, Chemistry, to help it reduce so-called “swipe fatigue,” a growing problem among online dating users who are feeling burned out and are in search of better outcomes.

Introduced last quarter, the Match-owned dating app said that Chemistry leverages AI to get to know users through questions and, with permission, accesses their Camera Roll on their phone to learn more about their interests and personality.

On Match’s Q4 2026 earnings call, one analyst from Morgan Stanley asked for an update on the product’s success so far.

Match CEO Spencer Rascoff noted that Chemistry was still only being tested in Australia for the time being, but said that the feature offered users an “AI way to interact with Tinder.” He explained that users could choose to answer questions to then “get just a single drop or two, rather than swiping through many, many profiles.”

In addition to Chemistry’s Q&A and Camera Roll features, the company plans to use the AI feature in other ways going forward, the CEO also hinted.

Most importantly, Rascoff said the feature is designed to combat swipe fatigue — a complaint from users who say they have to swipe through too many profiles to find a potential match.

The company’s turn toward AI comes as Tinder and other dating apps have been experiencing paying subscriber declines, user burnout, and declines in new sign-ups.

In the fourth quarter, new registrations on Tinder were still down 5% year-over-year, and its monthly active users were down 9%. These numbers show some slight improvements over prior quarters, which Match attributes to AI-driven recommendations that change the order of profiles shown to women, and other product experiments.

Match said that this year, it aims to address common Gen Z pain points, including better relevance, authenticity, and trust. To do so, the company said it is redesigning discovery to make it less repetitive and is using other features, like Face Check — a facial recognition verification system — to cut down on bad actors. On Tinder, the latter led to a more than 50% reduction in interactions with bad actors, Match noted.

Tinder’s decision to start moving away from the swipe toward more targeted, AI-powered recommendations could have a significant impact on the dating app. Today, the swipe method, which was popularized by Tinder, encourages users to think that they’re choosing a match from an endless number of profiles. But in reality, the app presents the illusion of choice, since matches have to be two-way to connect, and even then, a spark is not guaranteed.

The company delivered an earnings beat in the fourth quarter, with revenue of $878 million and EPS of 83 cents per share, above Wall Street estimates. But weak guidance saw the stock decline on Tuesday, before rising again in premarket trading on Wednesday.

Beyond AI, Match will also increase its product marketing to help boost Tinder engagement. The company is committing to $50 million in Tinder marketing spend, which will include creator campaigns on TikTok and Instagram, where users will make claims that “Tinder is cool again,” Rascoff noted.

Andreessen Horowitz just raised a whopping ⁠new $15 billion in funding⁠. And a $1.7 billion chunk of that is going to its ⁠infrastructure team⁠, the one responsible for some of its biggest, most prominent AI investments including Black Forrest Labs, Cursor, OpenAI, ⁠ElevenLabs⁠, Ideogram, ⁠Fal⁠ and dozens of others.  

A16z ⁠general partner with the infra team Jennifer Li⁠ (who oversees such investments as ElevenLabs – just valued at $11 billion); Ideagram and Fal, has a clear thesis on where the team is looking to spend it’s latest chunk of cash. 

Watch as Venture and Startups editor Julie Bort talks with Li on ⁠Equity⁠ about where a16z sees this AI super cycle going next, including the talent crunch hitting AI-native startups, why search infrastructure matters more than people think, and what kinds of companies are actually getting funded right now. 

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