Asheem Chandna says he was so impressed with founder Bipul Sinha’s grit and tech, he led Rubrik’s $40 million Series B in 2015. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
EyeEm, the Berlin-based photo-sharing community that exited last year to Spanish company Freepik after going bankrupt, is now licensing its users’ photos to train AI models. Earlier this month, the company informed users via email that it was adding a new clause to its Terms & Conditions that would grant it the rights to upload … Read more
Meta’s new large language model, Llama 3, powers the imaginatively named “Meta AI,” a newish chatbot that the social media and advertising company has installed in as many of its apps and interfaces as possible. How does this model stack up against other all-purpose conversational AIs? It tends to regurgitate a lot of web search … Read more
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Ticktock, TikTok: It’s been a wild week for TikTok. Even as the company starts testing its Twitter competitor in certain markets and launches its luxury secondhand shop … Read more
At a quick glance the IBM-HashiCorp deal seems like a good one for both sides, but upon closer inspection, perhaps not. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
AI may be inching its way into the newsroom, as outlets like Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, CNET and others have experimented with articles written by AI. But while most respectable journalists will condemn this use case, there are a number of startups that think AI can enhance the news experience — at least on … Read more
After a successful unveiling at CES, Rabbit is letting journalists try out the R1 — a small orange gadget with an AI-powered voice interface. This comes just weeks after the launch of the Humane Ai Pin, which is similarly pitched as a new kind of mobile device with AI at its center. While we’re still … Read more
Act fast! Applications for our Call for Content close today, April 26 at 11:59 p.m. PT. If you’re a seasoned startup pro ready to lead a session at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 28-30, now’s your chance to apply! Send in your proposal to speak at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 before the deadline hits. Your topic should … Read more
Aside from the crucial omission of an Ask and Use of Funds slide, just about every slide in the deck felt almost very good — but then stumbled by overlooking an important detail. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The OpenAI Startup Fund, a venture fund related to — but technically separate from — OpenAI that invests in early-stage, typically AI-related companies across education, law, and the sciences, has quietly closed a $15 million tranche. According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, two unnamed investors contributed the $15 million in … Read more
Google is testing a new “Speaking practice” feature in Search that helps users improve their conversational English skills. The company told TechCrunch that the feature is available to English learners in Argentina, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Venezuela who have joined Search Labs, its program for users to experiment with early-stage Google Search experiences. The … Read more
Jeff Lawson, the co-founder and recently departed CEO of enterprise infrastructure software company Twilio, is the proud new owner of satirical online newspaper The Onion. “Alright, the news is out — yes, I bought The Onion,” Lawson wrote in a LinkedIn post earlier today, after it first emerged in The New York Times yesterday. The … Read more
Apple’s App Store isn’t always as trustworthy as the company claims. The latest example comes from RockAuto, an auto parts dealer popular with home mechanics and other DIYers, which is upset that a fake app masquerading as its official app has not been removed from the App Store, despite numerous complaints to Apple. RockAuto Co-Founder … Read more
Rubrik’s strong IPO pricing and warm reception by the public markets after its listing add more weight to the perspective that the public markets are not as closed to tech startups as some thought. If Rubrik’s result isn’t enough to break the logjam, well, maybe there’s something else going on. But there was a lot more that … Read more
Darktrace is set to go private in a deal that values the U.K.-based cybersecurity giant at around $5 billion. A newly-formed entity called Luke Bidco Ltd, formed by private equity giant Thoma Bravo, has tabled an all-cash bid of £6.20 ($7.75) per share, which represents a 44% premium on its average price for the three-month … Read more
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed a long-standing investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system after reviewing hundreds of crashes involving its misuse, including 13 that were fatal and “many more involving serious injuries.” At the same time, NHTSA is opening a new investigation to evaluate whether the Autopilot recall fix that Tesla implemented … Read more
Ultra-fast fashion ecommerce giant Shein will be subject to an additional layer of governance rules targeted at very large online platforms (VLOPs) under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), the Commission announced Friday. Shein had reported passing an average of 45 million monthly users in the region — which is the threshold for the … Read more
Global Founders Capital, the Berlin-based early stage VC firm with close ties to the German startup factory Rocket Internet, is going to become the venture arm of Rocket Internet. The VC previously raised two $1 billion funds and, just a few years ago, its name appeared in dozens of deals per year. But then, things … Read more
xAI, Elon Musk’s 10-month-old competitor to the AI phenom OpenAI, is raising $6 billion on a pre-money valuation of $18 billion, according to one trusted source close to the deal. The deal – which would give investors one quarter of the company – is expected to close in the next few weeks unless the terms … Read more
Goldman Sachs said in a report late Thursday that Indian food delivery giant Zomato’s quick commerce arm Blinkit is now more valuable than its core food delivery business, as per the bank’s sum-of-the-parts analysis. The investment bank estimates Blinkit’s implied value at 119 Indian rupees per share ($1.43) or about $13 billion, while Zomato’s food … Read more
The Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 to ban the use of most noncompete agreements on Tuesday. This ruling means companies can’t require their employees, that aren’t senior executives, to wait a set amount of time before joining a competitor or launching their own company in the same category. While the FTC’s ruling will impact industries … Read more
Norwest Venture Partners, a 65-year-old firm backed solely by Wells Fargo, has raised its 17th fund at $3 billion. That’s a noteworthy number, given that NVP last raised the same amount in December 2021. That was the peak of the venture boom, and at that time, the firm said it increased its capital pool by … Read more
Space and defense startup True Anomaly has laid off around 25% of its workforce and cancelled its summer internship program, TechCrunch has learned. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
This will mark Starliner’s second flight to the ISS: The first, an uncrewed mission called Orbital Flight Test-2, took place in May 2022. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
As part of its Q1 2024 earning release, Snap revealed that total watch time on its TikTok competitor, Spotlight, increased more than 125% year-over-year. Snapchat launched the TikTok-like feed in late 2020 as a way to compete with the rising popularity of TikTok. The company is touting the success of its short-from video feed a … Read more
Google Cloud had a blockbuster quarter, driving parent company Alphabet’s revenues — and stock price — to impressive highs. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Meta’s move into the open social web, also known as the fediverse, is puzzling. Does the Facebook owner see open protocols as the future? Will it embrace the fediverse only to shut it down, shifting people back to its proprietary platforms and decimating startups building in the space? Will it bring its advertising empire to … Read more
Kaiser, one of the largest healthcare organizations in the United States, said it was notifying 13.4 million members of a data breach earlier in April. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Sanctuary AI often isn’t mentioned in the same breath as humanoid robotics firms like Boston Dynamics, Agility, Figure and 1X, but the Canadian company has been operating in the space for some time. In fact, a new robot introduced on Thursday is actually the seventh-generation of its Phoenix line. While a recent iteration introduced legs … Read more
The contract is part of a larger push from the Force to procure space capabilities from private industry on timelines that have been previously unheard of. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.