# Prediction Markets, AI Automation, and Efficient LLMs

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-05-08

## Transcript

This is TechCrunch.
Amazon bietet allen frischgebackenen Eltern in den Logistikzentren extra Familienboni.
So wie Anton, der gerade seine neugeborene Tochter im Arm hält.
Ihr Glucksen ist für ihn das schönste Geräusch der Welt.
Das heißt, vielleicht ist das Geräusch das schönste von allen.
Prediction market startup Calchi announced on Thursday a $1 billion Series F round, valuing the company at $22 billion.
Now, that's double the $11 billion valuation Calchi nabbed just five months ago after raising a $1 billion Series E.
Now, this latest round was led by KOTU with participation from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, and Paradigm.
The startup told Bloomberg that its annualized revenue exceeds $1.5 billion.
You see, Calci, alongside rival Polymarket, ushered in the boom in prediction markets where consumers place bets on everything, from what stars are wearing at the Met Gala to which sports team will win the next big game.
In a blog post, Calci said that institutional trading on the platform has increased 800% in the past six months and that it hosts 90% of prediction market activity in the U.S.
Polymarket has been working to unroll remaining restrictions on its U.S.
operations from a ban imposed in 2022.
The head of Jeff Bezos' family office has left the board of directors of Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by the Amazon founder, according to numerous state filings reviewed by TechCrunch.
Melinda Lewison, who leads investments at Bezos Expeditions, appears to have stepped down at some point in the last few months, documents filed with the Delaware, Florida, and Massachusetts secretaries of state show.
That leaves Bezos with no direct representation on Slate's board as the company prepares to put its low-cost electric truck into production later this year.
Slate did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Lewison and Bezos did not respond to emailed requests for comment either.
Lewison's departure raises questions about Bezos' support and involvement with the startup at a time when the Amazon founder is now, apparently, focused on robotics at his new startup, Project Prometheus.
That company raised more than $6 billion late last year and is reportedly seeking $100 billion for a new fund focused on buying industrial companies in order to automate them with AI.
Last month, Slate announced a $650 million Series C round but only named one lead investor.
TWG Global, a firm run by Guggenheim partner CEO Mark Walter, Los Angeles-based VC firm Slauson & Company, an existing investor, confirmed to TechCrunch that it also participated.
All right, so for the last few years, apps like Google's Notebook LM, Hero, and lately Adobe Acrobat have given users the ability to create podcasts based on existing material like documents, daily schedules, and articles.
Well, now Spotify is letting you access these podcasts within its app.
But you'll need some programming tools to do so.
You see, the company said that if you already use a tool like OpenAI's Codex, Anthropik's Clawed Code, or OpenClaw, you can use Spotify's new CLI tool, which is in beta.
to create the podcast and import it to Spotify to consume later.
The podcasts will appear in the user's Spotify library for easy access, but aren't available to other Spotify users.
To take advantage of the new feature, users can go to the tool's GitHub page and follow the instructions there.
they would be prompted to log into their Spotify accounts through a browser.
After that, they can write a prompt like, Build me an audio session that dives deep into the history of the World Cup with details about key players, where it's been held, and what I should know about the games this year, and ask the agent to generate a podcast and save it to Spotify.
Easy peasy.
Users would also get a link to the Spotify listing for their podcasts.
And now over to Dennis for the latest in startup business news all in about one minute.
Imran, thank you and let's begin with Skyroot Aerospace, because they have become India's first space tech unicorn after raising $60 million in a new investment ahead of the maiden orbital launch of its rocket in the coming weeks.
The funding round valued the startup at $1.1 billion on a pre-money basis and included about $50 million in primary equity.
The investment comes as Skyroot prepares for the first orbital launch attempt by an Indian private company.
And DeepSeek is in talks to raise its first round of venture capital, and in just a few weeks, its potential valuation has soared from $20 billion to $45 billion.
The Chinese AI lab came to prominence in early 2025 after launching a large language model that trained on a fraction of the compute power and at a fraction of the cost of the US big models like those from OpenAI and Anthropic.
And that'll do it for me.
Imran, back to you.
And folks, that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Ivan Mehta, Dominic Midori Davis, Sean O'Kane, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow, same Tech Time, same Crunch channel.
And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.
The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history.
When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves.
And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over.
turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans.
I'm Tracy.
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And we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history.
Look for the Civil War and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts.