Napster Is Back, and It Wants to Digitally Clone Teachers

Napster is back. The name that struck fear into the hearts of music executives in the early dotcom era may be coming to a classroom near you. In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, it has signed a strategic partnership with Gems Education to build AI agents and digital personas for education. In doing so, the once-notorious music-sharing company is bringing its technology into the classroom and testing how AI can augment the work of both teachers and students. Today’s Napster, of course, bears no resemblance to its original incarnation as a peer-to-peer music-file-sharing service. Launched in 1999 by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform revolutionized how people downloaded music, forcing the entire entertainment industry to rethink how content was distributed, sold, and controlled. Napster eventually became the subject of a string of legal battles over copyright infringement and, following a series of adverse court rulings, had to shut down its original service in 2001. Following its shuttering, the company went through various iterations, most recently as a music-streaming platform, until it was purchased by the Florida-based tech company Infinite Reality in 2025 for $207 million and pivoted to become an artificial intelligence platform. In January this year, it abruptly shut down its music-streaming service. The company is now establishing a regional hub in Dubai, with Samuel Huber, formerly the founder and CEO of UK-based technology company Landvault—itself acquired by Infinite Reality in 2024—taking the helm as Napster’s CEO for the Middle East and Africa. “The name has always been about giving power to the users,” says Huber. “Twenty-five years ago, it was about music and how music should be owned by people, not the gatekeepers. And now this is the same fight, the same ethos, but it’s about data and intelligence.” Huber says that means challenging the power of the big AI companies. “The AI model companies have a lot of power; they’re building incredible models, and we want Napster to be an alternative to that.” Napster’s work for Gems will develop proof-of-concept projects and showcases, including digitalising instructors, gamified learning, AI-assisted content creation, and classroom simulations. The first phase will be anchored at the Gems School of Research and Innovation, where the Gems Global Education AI Hub and Gems Intelligence 360 platform will provide a real-world environment for educators, students, and partners to codesign, test, and evaluate AI agents and digital personas. Napster will provide dedicated design, development, and product management resources based on Napster Learn, its AI-powered learning system. Digital twins of teachers, for example, will provide around-the-clock support. Trained on a teacher’s material, courses, and papers, these digital twins will live online, becoming a “copy of yourself that you can then use to scale your time.” Students will be able to talk to them outside class, ask questions, refine concepts, and learn at their own pace, while teachers receive insights into the questions students are asking and where they may need additional support. “We’re creating a better experience using voice, using video, to create a better way to interact with AI to make it more natural, so AI becomes more like coworkers rather than a machine or tool that you prompt, and we apply this technology in different verticals.” According to Huber, AI agents and digital personas extend what teachers can do without replacing the human relationship at the heart of education. He also says student data will remain within the country and, where required, can be hosted on a company’s own servers. He also says Napster does not use user data to train its AI models.

Cerberus, WeGlobal AI, and LOOQ took the top three spots at the regional final of Road to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2026 and will represent Central Eurasia in Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco on October 13-15, before 10,000+ tech leaders attending. The three emerged from a field of 22 finalists, chosen from a record 726 applications across 39 countries. Meet these winners at Disrupt by registering for your ticket here. The Road to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield — run by Silkroad Innovation Hub in partnership with TechCrunch, Freedom Holding, Astana Hub, and IT Park Uzbekistan — drew nearly 50% more applications than its 2025 debut, when 485 startups from 27 countries applied. National rounds narrowed the field to 22 finalists, who pitched live at the Regional Final before 47 jurors from eight countries. AI-Dana, an AI judge, joined them as an independent juror for the second year. “Road to Battlefield 2026 had record applications and representation from more countries than ever. The companies pitching across health tech, education, productivity, enterprise, and cyber were cutting-edge and impressive. These founders are getting global visibility at TechCrunch Disrupt, and that sends a message to the next generation: You can build locally and scale globally. That visibility is a catalyst. Road to Battlefield proves this ecosystem is thriving and that there’s a real pathway for founders here to compete on a world stage,” said Isabelle Johannessen, head of the Startup Battlefield program at TechCrunch. It’s also a field that has gone almost entirely AI — of the 726 startups that applied this year, 84% were building AI products. All three winners fit that mold: An AI agent that hunts for security vulnerabilities (Cerberus); an AI platform for student mental health and career guidance (WeGlobal AI); and AI-powered hardware that measures who actually looks at a billboard (LOOQ). “We had a very strong applicant pool this year, which made the final selection genuinely difficult,” said Asset Abdualiyev, founder and CEO of Silkroad Innovation Hub. “From the beginning, the idea behind Road to Battlefield has been to give talented founders a platform to be seen, heard, and connected to opportunities beyond the region. Throughout the competition, we invited experienced VCs and tech leaders from different countries, giving founders the opportunity to pitch their companies, receive feedback, and build relationships with the global startup community. The strongest teams made it through to the final, and we are proud to have TechCrunch as a partner in creating this global pathway for founders from Central Eurasia.” The rest of the top 10 Road to Battlefield finalists included Suriy (Mongolia), TelAgri (Georgia), SeaDar (Azerbaijan), Kaptın Kaptın (Türkiye), Admyra (United States), MVSxAI (Qatar), and Soup (Kazakhstan). The Winners Cerberus (Uzbekistan) First-place winner Cerberus is an AI-powered cybersecurity startup that automatically hunts for vulnerabilities in corporate IT systems. The company is addressing a problem it sees in the current generation of AI-driven security tools: Many rely heavily on general-purpose language models that can hallucinate, with potentially serious consequences when given access to corporate systems. Cerberus has already gone through 500 Global Eurasia and has been accepted into the Alchemist Silkroad — Silicon Valley Residency program. “We were simply glad to be part of Road to Battlefield. Competing against 726 applications from 39 countries is valuable in itself, whatever the outcome,” said Aziz Akhmedkhodjaev, founder and CEO of Cerberus. “What made our pitch unique is that we’re solving a problem the market is already feeling. Everyone is writing code with AI now, vulnerabilities are appearing faster than teams can find them, and there’s no established way to let an AI agent test real infrastructure safely. We believe the judges recognized that, and we’ll do our best, treating it as a serious responsibility. We don’t intend to let our region down.” The win also gives Uzbekistan its first Road to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield champion, as the country looks to bring more of its emerging technology companies onto the international stage. “Uzbekistan’s startup ecosystem has changed significantly in the past few years,” said Sherzod Shermatov, Minister of Digital Technology of Uzbekistan. “We are seeing more founders building sophisticated technology products and thinking about international markets from the beginning. Cerberus taking first place and advancing to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 is a strong example of that progress, and an important opportunity to show the global technology community what founders from Uzbekistan can build.” WeGlobal AI (Kazakhstan) Second-place winner WeGlobal AI built its platform around a shortage of school psychologists in Kazakhstan, giving schools AI tools to track student mental health and offer career guidance at a scale no hiring push could match. “Road to Startup Battlefield was an incredible experience for our team,” said Bolat Ashim, co-founder and CEO of WeGlobal AI. “Going through the National and Regional rounds gave us the opportunity to challenge our thinking, sharpen our story, and meet some amazing founders along the way. Finishing second and earning the opportunity to join TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 in San Francisco is a huge milestone for us. We’re excited to represent Kazakhstan on a global stage and introduce what we’re building at WeGlobal AI to the wider tech community.” For Kazakhstan, WeGlobal AI’s result also comes as the country puts AI at the center of its digital development agenda and looks to connect more of its technology companies with international markets. “AI is creating an opportunity for countries like Kazakhstan to compete globally in ways that were not possible a decade ago,” said Zhaslan Madiyev, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development of Kazakhstan. “Our task is to make sure talented founders have the infrastructure, skills, and international connections to take advantage of that opportunity. Road to Battlefield is one of those bridges, connecting entrepreneurs from Kazakhstan and across Central Eurasia directly with the global technology ecosystem.” LOOQ (Japan) Third-place winner LOOQ, founded by Ayan Sakenov and Yudai Ishida, is building camera-based hardware and an “attention API” to measure how many people actually see billboards and other out-of-home advertisements. The technology is designed to give advertisers a clearer measure of real-world attention to outdoor advertising. “LOOQ started with a simple but ambitious idea: If we can measure every click online, why can’t we measure what happens in the physical world? Since then, we’ve taken that idea from a prototype to real-world deployments, customers, and now third place at Road to Battlefield. Earning our way to San Francisco is a huge milestone, but for us, it’s really just the beginning. Startup life is basically building, testing, learning, and occasionally sleeping — and now we’re excited to bring LOOQ to the U.S. and show what Google Analytics for the physical world can become,” said Ayan Sakenov, founder and CEO. The three winners will also share a $100,000 investment pool, funded jointly by Astana Hub Ventures, IT Park Ventures, and Silkroad Innovation Hub. Cerberus will receive a $50,000 investment, WeGlobal AI $30,000, and LOOQ $20,000, invested on standard market terms in exchange for equity. OpenAI awarded $280,000 in API credits across the 22 finalists. The three winners received $100,000 in total, matching the investment prize structure, while each of the other 19 finalists received $10,000 in API credits. “Founders across Central Eurasia showed real ambition, a clear focus on solving real problems, and strong technical skill in building with AI,” said Thomas Jeng, Head of Startups APAC at OpenAI. “It’s great to see competitions like this connecting them with the global networks they need to turn their ideas into products that reach people far beyond the region.” For the three winners, the regional final marks the end of Road to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2026, but the beginning of a much bigger competition in San Francisco. Check out the broadcast of the final round:

As AI agents gain access to the same sensitive corporate data and systems as human workers while operating at machine speed, enterprises are prone to new security risks. Storied venture firm Sequoia Capital is betting big on that shift, backing startup Cymphony as it emerges with $30 million in funding to help companies keep their growing AI workforce in check. The funding includes a $25 million Series A co-led by Sequoia and SMBC Fin Atlas Beyond Fund, valuing the New York- and Tel Aviv-based startup at more than $100 million after investment. The round follows a previously undisclosed seed investment from Sequoia. AI agents do not necessarily go through the same access and identity controls as employees, but they have access to multiple systems and handle large amounts of corporate data. This makes it hard for enterprises to track who has access to what. Cymphony is trying to address that gap by giving security teams a single view of employees, AI agents, and other non-human identities, including the systems and sensitive data they can access. At the core of its platform, the two-year-old startup has built what it calls a “workforce graph”. This brings together identity, data, and activity signals. “Enterprise security was designed for human employees,” Cymphony co-founder and CEO Shy Dekel (pictured above, center) said in an exclusive interview. “More and more, there start to be independent entities that are practically joining the workforce, but they’re no longer people.” Cymphony says it is already finding those risks inside large companies. At one U.S. public company, the startup said it found about 85,000 files that had become accessible to AI tools and agents. Cymphony stated it helped close the exposure and verified that none of the files had been accessed through those AI systems. In another case, Dekel told TechCrunch that an external collaborator had installed an unsanctioned instance of Anthropic’s Claude that used the collaborator’s existing access to scan thousands of sensitive files. Beyond identifying risks, Cymphony uses AI agents to investigate incidents, prioritize what security teams should address, and automate some remediation, including correcting access permissions. The platform can operate largely automatically, Dekel said, adding that customers can also opt for a managed service that brings Cymphony’s security experts into the loop for more complex cases. Why Sequoia doubled down Sequoia’s initial bet on Cymphony came before the startup had settled on the problem it wanted to solve. When the venture firm led its seed round more than two years ago, Cymphony had no product or even a clear product direction, Sequoia partner Bogomil Balkansky told TechCrunch. The investment was largely a bet on Dekel and his co-founders, Idan Berkovits (pictured above, right) and Edi Gotlieb (pictured above, left), all three of whom came through Talpiot, the Israeli military’s highly selective technology and leadership program. Sequoia was already familiar with the program through previous cybersecurity investments, including Wiz. “We just saw three amazing young people with the kind of pedigree that we at Sequoia have experienced a lot of success with,” Balkansky said. Nonetheless, Sequoia, Balkansky said, wanted to see more than the founders’ pedigree by the Series A. Cymphony had built a product, signed a double-digit number of enterprise customers, and reached seven figures in annual recurring revenue within its first year of sales, the startup told TechCrunch. Its customers include KKR, Syngenta, Cass Information Systems, and Athennian. Sequoia has also been using Cymphony’s product internally since early in its development, Balkansky said. He noted the quality and range of Cymphony’s customers, and that existing customers are expanding their use of the platform, as among the key reasons the venture firm decided to invest again. Cymphony is entering an increasingly crowded market as cybersecurity companies strive to address risks emerging from the growing use of AI agents. Recent incidents have added to those concerns. In July, OpenAI disclosed that agents being tested for cybersecurity capabilities had circumvented safeguards and compromised systems at AI platform Hugging Face. Late last week, OpenAI-linked agents made thousands of edits to a German programming wiki, using parts of the site to communicate and share ways to evade restrictions. Balkansky acknowledged that scores of companies are already positioning themselves around AI and agent security. He said, however, that Cymphony’s approach stands out by treating identity and data security as part of the same problem. That distinction, Dekel and Balkansky both argue, becomes more important as companies deploy more AI agents across their operations. Unlike human employees with relatively stable roles and permissions, agents can take different routes to complete a task, acquire new capabilities, and, in some cases, create other agents, making their access harder to govern with security systems designed around people. “Agents are very different actors,” Balkansky said, arguing that existing identity tools were not designed for agents that can change their behavior and capabilities at runtime. Cymphony is also in a race against established security companies that are expanding their offerings around identity, data, and AI, including Microsoft, Okta, CyberArk, Wiz, and Varonis. Dekel told TechCrunch that Cymphony is already replacing some existing security products at customers. At one enterprise, he said without disclosing specifics, the company helped consolidate two existing tools and eliminated the need to buy a third. However, Balkansky sees Cymphony’s role, at least for now, as more complementary than replacement. “Nobody’s going to get rid of their Okta,” he said, adding that customers are largely adopting Cymphony as an additional layer today. Over time, however, he told TechCrunch that the startup could begin displacing some point solutions, particularly in areas such as data loss prevention. Cymphony has about 30 employees across Tel Aviv and New York. Most of its customers are currently in North America, though Dekel told TechCrunch that the startup is beginning to see demand from enterprises in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. That said, as Cymphony moves beyond its Series A and expands among large enterprise customers, it now has to prove that AI agent security can become a market of its own rather than a feature offered by larger security platforms. Balkansky believes spending in the area will grow as companies put more AI agents to work. “If companies are not spending money on agent security, I don’t know what else they’ll be spending money on in the next five to 10 years,” he said.