News from TechCrunch

Microsoft’s Mustafa Suleyman says he loves Sam Altman, believes he’s sincere about AI safety

Microsoft's AI CEO has a cozy relationship with the man who used to be his rival, he said on Tuesday.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 11:49:58 PM

10 of the most exciting digital health startups of 2024, according to VCs

In the post-COVID world, VCs say it’s not as easy to get excited about investing in digital health. Deal activity in healthcare IT was relatively flat in Q1 2024 at 74 total deals, valued at about $1 billion total, up only 3% from the year-ago quarter, according to PitchBook data. Still, promising startups have grabbed […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 11:49:53 PM

Welcome to the fediverse: Your guide to Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, and more

Once upon a time, in a galaxy not so far away (this one, in fact), a few internet rebels decided that they were tired of the corporate overlords controlling their online lives. Thus, the fediverse was born — an attempt to wrest control of microblogging services, such as Twitter and its ilk, away from centralized […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 10:52:49 PM

This smiling robot face made of living skin is absolute nightmare fuel

Giving robots a human-like exterior has been the standard for years — centuries even. But giving them actual, living skin that can be manipulated horrifying, slimy expressions? That’s new. The new work, published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, is very much just an experiment. This will not be the face of your next […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 9:58:31 PM

OpenAI delays ChatGPT’s new Voice Mode

In May, when OpenAI first demoed a far more realistic, nearly-real-time conversational experience for its AI-powered chatbot platform ChatGPT, called advanced Voice Mode, the company said that the capability would roll out to paying ChatGPT users within a few weeks. Months later, OpenAI says that it needs more time. In a post on OpenAI’s official […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 9:50:44 PM

GM’s Cruise taps Xbox video game veteran as next CEO

GM’s Cruise has appointed Marc Whitten — a video game veteran who was a founding engineer at Xbox and Xbox Live— as CEO. The Cruise CEO position has been vacant since December when co-founder Kyle Vogt resigned as part of a broader executive shakeup following an October 2 incident that saw one its robotaxis drag […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 9:48:53 PM

ChatGPT for Mac is now available to all

You can now more easily use ChatGPT on your Mac computer. OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot is available to all macOS users, the company announced on Tuesday. The app was first announced ahead of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June, where the companies jointly announced integrations between OpenAI’s chatbot and Apple’s operating systems for iPhone, […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 8:44:31 PM

VW to invest up to $5B into Rivian in software deal

VW Group invest $1 billion into EV startup Rivian as part of a software development deal that could expand to as much as $5 billion. The deal, which was announced Tuesday afternoon, sent Rivian’s shares up more than 36% in after-hours trading. The two companies will create a joint venture focused on next-generation electrical architecture […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 8:32:54 PM

Fearless Fund’s founder has resigned and it’s a sad reflection on the VC world for Black women

Fearless Fund’s cofounder and COO Ayana Parsons has announced that she was stepping down. The firm is being sued by a politically conservative group.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 7:14:42 PM

Reddit’s upcoming changes attempt to safeguard the platform against AI crawlers

Reddit says the update shouldn't affect the majority of users or good faith actors, like researchers and organizations, such as the Internet Archive.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 7:09:23 PM

The RIAA’s lawsuit against generative music startups will be the bloodbath AI needs

Unfortunately for Udio and Suno, the RIAA has a few thousand smoking guns in the lawsuit: songs it owns that are clearly being regurgitated by the music models.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 5:44:19 PM

From Brex exec to venture capitalist

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at a Brex exec’s jump to join venture firm a16z, Klarna selling off its payments unit and some mega-raises. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big story Ali Rathod-Papier […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 5:05:00 PM

All Threads users can now share to the open social web, aka the fediverse

Instagram’s Twitter/X rival Threads is furthering its expansion into the fediverse — the interconnected social network that includes apps like Mastodon, PeerTube, and others running the ActivityPub protocol. On Tuesday, Meta announced that it’s now opening up its beta for sharing to the fediverse to Threads users who are 18 and up and who are […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 5:00:42 PM

Firefox now lets you choose your preferred AI chatbot in its Nightly builds

As browsers continue to add AI features into their products, Mozilla is looking give users some choice in the matter. The company announced on Tuesday that it’s launching an opt-in experiment offering access to different AI services in Nightly, the experimental version of Firefox. The company plans to improve the experience before bringing it to […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 4:18:57 PM

Circular will pay competitor Oura royalties to sell its smart ring in the US

Smart ring makers Oura and Circular Tuesday announced a settlement in an ongoing patent suit. The agreed-upon terms find the French company entering into a multi-year agreement with Oura, wherein it will license the market leader’s intellectual property for devices sold in the U.S. Financial details of the agreement have been kept confidential. Oura has […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Inspired by Gen Z, Pinterest users can now turn boards into videos for sharing on Instagram and TikTok

The new addition was inspired by the video-sharing activity that was already taking place on apps like TikTok.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 3:52:47 PM

Stability AI lands a lifeline from Sean Parker, Greycroft

Stability AI, the beleaguered generative AI startup behind Stable Diffusion, has raised new cash. But it won’t reveal how much. Greycroft, Coatue Management, Sound Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, O’Shaughnessy Ventures and angel investors Prem Akkaraju, Napster founder Sean Parker, Eric Schmidt and Robert Nelsen have injected fresh capital into Stability, the company revealed Tuesday morning […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 3:51:27 PM

Internet goes dark in Kenya in the wake of major protests over finance bill

London-based internet rights monitoring group NetBlocks has reported a major internet disruption in Kenya following a wave of demonstrations across the country, as police violently cracked down on citizens taking to the streets to protest a government bill to hike taxes despite tough economic times and widespread corruption. The interruption in access comes as the […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 3:33:33 PM

Waymo opens up San Francisco robotaxi service to everyone

Waymo no longer has a waitlist for its San Francisco robotaxi service, removing the final obstacle for customers keen to use the self-driving technology. Waymo said Tuesday that anyone can download the app and then immediately hail one of its robotaxis in San Francisco — a move that mimics the Alphabet-owned company’s strategy in Phoenix, […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 3:01:00 PM

Notion Sites takes Notion sites up a level

Popular productivity tool, Notion, has long allowed its users to make any of their pages public. Now, the company is expanding on this with the launch of Notion Sites, which adds several new features to its existing publishing tools. For the most part, these are pretty straightforward, but together, they do make for a more […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Maximize your deal flow at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024

Investors, you know you need to keep your pipelines primed, and one of the best places to find early-stage startups with promising portfolio potential is, you guessed it, TechCrunch Disrupt. TechCrunch is here to help. Let’s take a look at all the ways you can pump up your pipeline at Disrupt and keep the deals […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Payabli is building payment management tools for software startups

Payabli builds the infrastructure that allows companies, specifically software companies, to embed and facilitate payments through APIs.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Patreon introduces a gifting feature and other creator tools

Patreon, the paid membership platform for creators, announced Tuesday the release of new features designed to help creators monetize their non-paying followers and tap into new revenue streams. This includes the ability to sell individual posts, a gifting feature for fans to gift limited-time subscriptions, and promotional tools for sharing clips on social media. The […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 2:55:35 PM

Google brings its Gemini AI to Gmail to help you write and summarize emails

Google is rolling out a new Gemini AI side panel in Gmail that can help you write emails and summarize email threads. The company is also adding the Gemini side panel to Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. The launch of the new features comes shortly after Google announced them last month at its I/O developer […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 2:44:34 PM

Apple launches iPhone Mirroring on Mac in latest iOS and Mac betas

iPhone mirroring, one of the more notable features arriving in Apple’s upcoming operating systems, is now available to developers testing the beta versions of iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia. The latest beta releases include support for mirroring your iPhone directly on the Mac, so you can use your phone on your computer, including launching and […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 2:40:57 PM

Tengo untangles the messy world of public sector procurement with AI

Tengo uses AI to find, evaluate and respond to public tenders. It is a software-as-service tool that helps companies handle public tenders at scale — a bit like Govly in the U.S. Originally created within the startup studio Hexa, the startup raised a €3 million funding round led by Point Nine ($3.2 million at today’s […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 2:03:15 PM

Smashing, from Goodreads’ co-founder, curates the best of the web using AI and human recommendations

Smashing is an AI and community-powered content recommendation app, now launching into an invite-only beta.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Boeing’s Wisk Aero buys Verocel to boost software safety for self-flying eVTOL

Wisk Aero, a subsidiary of Boeing, has acquired Verocel, a software verification and validation company with 25 years of experience in the aerospace industry. Wisk has an autonomous-first approach to eVTOL. The company’s Generation 6 aircraft, which is slated to begin airborne tests this year, is designed to be supervised by humans, but not physically […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Backed by David Sacks, Garry Tan and Walter Isaacson, Created by Humans helps people license their creative work to AI models

In 2024, it seems like no week goes by without a media organization, author group, or artist suing generative AI companies for using their work to train models without permission. The issue is, of course, that there’s still no clear framework on what constitutes copyright violation in the context of training GenAI. While these cases […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Coder nabs new funds to move dev environments to the cloud

Coder's open-source software has around 1.2 million monthly active users, and Dropbox, Discord and Skydio are among the company's paying customers.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 1:00:00 PM

How Jobright uses AI to help foreign workers navigate the US job market

Leveraging large languge models, Jobright created an AI agent that acts as a headhunter tailored to individual job seekers.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 1:00:00 PM

k-ID wins $45M to help game devs speedrun the child safety compliance puzzle

k-ID's platform makes it easy for game devs to comply with child safety and data privacy regulations.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 12:59:00 PM

EvolutionaryScale, backed by Amazon and Nvidia, raises $142M for protein-generating AI

A relatively new startup called EvolutionaryScale has secured a massive tranche of cash to build AI models to generate novel proteins for scientific research. EvolutionaryScale today announced that it raised $142 million in a seed round led by ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and Lux Capital with participation from Amazon and NVentures, Nvidia’s corporate […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 12:41:00 PM

General Catalyst leads $40M round for Local Kitchens, a different kind of restaurant kitchen startup

Don't call this company a "ghost kitchen." Since its Series A in 2021, Local Kitchens grew 5x and achieved unit-level profitability.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 12:30:00 PM

Foray Bioscience is breaking down the barriers of bringing biomanufacturing to plants

Ashley Beckwith spent years of her academic and professional career focused on the intersection of biology, materials and manufacturing to build medical solutions more efficiently. When she realized the tech could be applied to plants and plant-based materials, an area that desperately needed it, she decided to switch gears. “Life on earth is only as […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 12:03:01 PM

Etched is building an AI chip that only runs one type of model

As generative AI touches a growing number of industries, the companies producing chips to run the models are benefitting enormously. Nvidia in particular, which commands an estimated 70% to 95% of the market for AI chips, wields massive influence. Cloud providers from Meta to Microsoft are spending billions of dollars on Nvidia GPUs, wary of […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Sift is building a better platform for analyzing hardware telemetry data

Less than a year after closing its seed round, software-for-hardware startup Sift announced a $17.5 million Series A led by Google’s venture capital arm GV to scale their platform for analyzing real-time data from hardware systems. The company is developing a platform that provides a single source of truth for telemetry data. Such data is […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Gen Z photos app Swipewipe sells to French publisher MWM in its largest acquisition to date

The acquisition allows Swipewipe's founder to take some money off the table while also continuing to benefit financially from his work via an ongoing revenue-sharing agreement with MWM.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 12:00:00 PM

TestParty raises $4 million to help automate the coding for accessible websites

As of today, nearly all of the world’s most popular website homepages are not compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Uber Freight and self driving trucks startup Aurora partner for the long haul

Uber Freight and Aurora Innovation have announced a multi-year collaboration that will see Aurora’s autonomous driving technology offered on the Uber Freight network through 2030. The deal gives Aurora access to shipping customers as it prepares to launch its fully driverless commercial service later this year. It also helps Aurora also secure longer-term customers through […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 11:00:00 AM

EU accuses Microsoft of competition breach over Teams bundling

The European Union accused Microsoft of breaching competition rules Tuesday. In a formal statement of objections the bloc said it suspects the software giant of abusing antitrust rules by bundling its real-time comms and collaboration tool, Teams, with popular productivity apps, including its cloud-based suites for businesses Office 365 and Microsoft 365. The EU opened […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 10:30:20 AM

Snapchat introduces new safety features to limit bad actors from contacting users

Snapchat on Tuesday announced a new suite of safety features, including updates to its account blocking functionality and enhanced friending safeguards, making it difficult for strangers to contact users on its platform. The new move comes amid concerns over predators exploiting teens on social media apps, which often results in severe incidents, including sextortion. One […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 10:00:00 AM

Rocketlane snags $24M to bring AI-led experiences for professional services teams

Rocketlane initially aimed to support customer onboarding. However, it has broadened its scope and doubled down on addressing the needs of professional services teams.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 10:00:00 AM

Yelp updates app with AI-powered alt-text for images and new accessibility identifiers for businesses

Yelp is rolling out an app update to include more accessibility identifiers for businesses, improved screen-reader experiences, and AI-powered alt-text for images. The company said that from 2020 to 2023, there has been an average rise of 40% in searches for “wheelchair accessible” places. With the new update, the company is adding eight more attributes […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 10:00:00 AM

H Venture Partners launches venture studio focused on microbiome tech

The firm said on Friday that it will source talent who can solve health problems like depression, cancer, eczema and neurodegenerative diseases.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 10:00:00 AM

SkyCell nabs $59M more for its greener smart pharma transport containers

The most urgent moments of the Covid-19 pandemic may be in the past, but the need for fast and secure ways to send valuable, fragile medicines and their components around the world is still very current. SkyCell has developed hardware and software to run that transport process better — and greener, it says — than […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 7:42:33 AM

Chift lets SaaS companies integrate with dozens of financial tools with a unified API

Pennylane, Qonto, Agicap, Pleo and Mollie have one thing in common. They all use Chift in one way or another to manage integrations with other services. And this relatively young Belgium-based startup just raised a €2.3 million seed round ($2.5 million at today’s exchange rate). Many fintech startups rely on integrations to make their product […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 7:00:00 AM

Amazon to hold Prime Day sales on July 16 and 17

Amazon said today that its annual Prime Day sales event will take place on July 16 and 17.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 6:52:14 AM

Apple shelved the idea of integrating Meta’s AI models over privacy concerns, report says

Days after the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple and Meta were in talks to integrate the latter’s AI models, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said that the iPhone maker was not planning any such move. Apple held talks with Meta about the possibility of a partnership when it was also talking with other companies. However, the […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 4:08:48 AM

TechWolf raises $43M to take an AI-sized bite out of the internal recruiting game

TechWolf has built an AI engine that ingests data from internal workflows to learn about the people doing that work.

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 4:00:00 AM

Julian Assange is free

Julian Assange is free after being granted bail by the High Court in London, Wikileaks said on X. This is the result of a plea deal with the U.S. The Wikileaks founder is now said to have left the U.K. for Australia, his home country. This comes after a long-winded legal battle that saw Assange […]

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 3:22:14 AM

India’s Zyod raises $18M to expand its tech-enabled fashion manufacturing to more countries

The Gurugram-based startup works with Indian factories to help them manufacture fashion wear for global brands.

Monday, June 24, 2024 11:30:00 PM

TechCrunch Space: Building (and testing) for the future

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. It’s becoming a habit to open each TechCrunch Space newsletter with a bit of an update on Boeing’s Starliner mission, so bear with me. Per NASA officials, the spacecraft will now return its two-person crew to Earth no earlier than June 26, instead of the originally planned date […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 10:00:00 PM

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 9:20:00 PM

Experts say Telegram’s ’30 engineers’ team is a security red flag

Telegram's founder Pavel Durov says his company only employs around 30 engineers. Security experts say that raises serious questions about the company's cybersecurity.

Monday, June 24, 2024 8:04:02 PM

Emergence thinks it can crack the AI agent code

Yet another generative AI venture has raised a bundle of money. And, like the others before it, it’s promising the moon. Emergence, whose co-founders include Satya Nitta, the former head of global AI solutions at IBM’s research division, today emerged from stealth with $97.2 million in funding from Learn Capital plus credit lines totaling more […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 5:00:00 PM

OpenAI buys a remote collaboration platform

OpenAI is on an M&A tear. Days after acquiring database tech firm Rockset, OpenAI has purchased Multi (previously Remotion), a startup developing a enterprise-focused, video-first collaboration platform. A source familiar with the matter says that the deal is technically an acquihire and that most of Multi’s team — around five people — will join OpenAI […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 4:27:43 PM

Car dealership outages drag on after CDK cyberattacks

Car dealerships and auto shops around the U.S. enter a second week of disruption following cyberattacks at software maker CDK.

Monday, June 24, 2024 3:00:56 PM

Matt Rogers, Nest and Mill co-founder, talks mastering consumer tech at Disrupt 2024

Consumer technology is hard, but few people have mastered it as well as Matt Rogers, co-founder of Nest and now Mill, his new startup that promises to turn your table scraps into planet-saving treasure. Mill burst out of the gate last year after spending some time in stealth refining its waste bin, an easy to […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Google is bringing Gemini access to teens using their school accounts

Google announced on Monday that it’s bringing its AI technology Gemini to teen students using their school accounts, after having already offered Gemini to teens using their personal accounts. The company is also giving educators access to new tools alongside this release. Google says that giving teens access to Gemini, can help prepare them with the […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 2:55:14 PM

Target and Shopify team up to expand Target’s third-party marketplace

Shopify merchants can now sell their items to Target’s millions of shoppers, thanks to a new partnership. The companies announced on Monday that sellers on the commerce platform can apply to join Target Plus, the retail giant’s third-party marketplace where merchants can sell and manage orders. Target is the first major retailer to collaborate with […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 2:28:08 PM

Apple’s App Store breaches EU’s Digital Markets Act

A few months after opening a non-compliance case on Apple and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European Commission has shared its preliminary findings with Apple. And the bottom line is that the current App Store rules are in breach of the DMA. Confirmed violations of the DMA can lead to fines of up to […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 1:03:30 PM

Mixhalo’s latest feature uses AI to beam real-time translation to phones at events

Mixhalo Translate couples the startup’s ultra-low latency in-person streaming with AI-generated audio translations.

Monday, June 24, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Yelp updates app with AI-powered alt-text for images and new accessibility identifiers for businesses

Yelp is rolling out an app update to include more accessibility identifiers for businesses, improved screen-reader experiences, and AI-powered alt-text for images. The company said that from 2020 to 2023, there has been an average rise of 40% in searches for “wheelchair accessible” places. With the new update, the company is adding eight more attributes […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 10:11:11 AM

Prosus zeroes out 9.6% Byju’s stake

Major investor Prosus has written off its 9.6% stake in Indian edtech firm Byju’s to zero, signaling a loss of confidence in the once-promising startup. Prosus, the largest external investor in Byju’s, disclosed the adjustment in its assessment of Byju’s worth on Monday. Prosus wrote off the startup “due to the significant decrease in value […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 7:00:13 AM

What Vinod Khosla Says He’s ‘Worried About the Most’

Vinod Khosla is more popular than ever right now. The Sun Microsystems co-founder turned prominent investor — first at Kleiner Perkins and, for the last 20 years, at his venture firm Khosla Ventures — has always been sought after by founders thanks to his no-nonsense advice and his firm’s track record, including bets on Stripe, […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 1:46:43 AM

Meta makes its AI chatbot available to all users in India

After a few months of testing during the general elections, Meta is making its Llama-3-powered AI chatbot available to all users in India. However, Meta AI currently only supports English and no other local languages. The company started testing Meta AI in India across WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook in April by rolling it out […]

Monday, June 24, 2024 12:30:00 AM

Streaming execs think TV’s future looks a lot like its past

We’re at a transitional moment in streaming — user growth is slowing and major players are looking to consolidate, but the long-promised dream of profitability finally seems within reach (especially if you’re Netflix). The perfect time, then, for The New York Times to interview many of the industry’s big names — including Netflix co-CEO Ted […]

Sunday, June 23, 2024 7:13:45 PM

Women in AI: Anika Collier Navaroli is working to shift the power imbalance

Anika Collier Navaroli is working to shift the power imbalance. She is known for her research and advocacy work within technology.

Sunday, June 23, 2024 6:00:00 PM

The EU Digital Identity Wallet: Everything you need to know about the EU’s plans for a universal digital identity system

If all goes to plan, Europeans will be able to download and use a free EU Digital Identity Wallet to access a wide range of public and private services.

Sunday, June 23, 2024 5:00:00 PM

Silicon Valley leaders are once again declaring ‘DEI’ bad and ‘meritocracy’ good — but they’re wrong

Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang set off another debate with an anti-DEI post. It revealed a lot about the current state of DEI in tech.

Sunday, June 23, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Apple might partner with Meta on AI

As Apple enters the AI race, it’s also looking for help from partners. During the announcement of Apple Intelligence earlier this month, Apple said it would be partnering with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT into the revamped version of Siri. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that Apple and Facebook’s parent company Meta are in talks […]

Sunday, June 23, 2024 3:57:47 PM

How 2 high school teens raised a $500K seed round for their API startup (yes, it’s AI)

18-year-olds Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot have founded APIGen, a platform to build custom APIs from natural language prompts.

Sunday, June 23, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Ilya Sutskever isn’t done working on AI safety

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. This week, Ilya Sutskever launched a new AI company, Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), just one month after formally leaving OpenAI. Sutskever, alongside Jan Leike, was integral to OpenAI’s efforts to […]

Saturday, June 22, 2024 8:15:00 PM

X still has a Verified bot problem — this time they came for TechCrunch writers

Really, X should have learned its lesson by now.

Saturday, June 22, 2024 8:00:00 PM

OmniAI transforms business data for AI

OmniAI is a set of tools that transform unstructured enterprise data into a something that data analytics apps and AI can understand.

Saturday, June 22, 2024 7:00:00 PM

Women in AI: Charlette N’Guessan is tackling data scarcity on the African continent

Charlette N'Guessan is the Data Solutions and Ecosystem Lead at Amini, a deep tech startup leveraging space technology and artificial intelligence to tackle environmental data scarcity in Africa and the global South.

Saturday, June 22, 2024 6:00:00 PM

‘What’s in it for us?’ journalists ask as publications sign content deals with AI firms

Journalists understand the basic structure of the deals, but they still have questions.

Saturday, June 22, 2024 5:30:00 PM

This is your brain on Pink Floyd

The human brain has long been a subject of fascination for art and science, which are now both mixed into “Brainstorms: A Great Gig in the Sky,” a new live interactive experience to the tune of Pink Floyd. Interactivity is optional, but memorable. Exhibition visitors can opt in (and pay extra) to have their brain […]

Saturday, June 22, 2024 5:00:00 PM

Deal Dive: Sir Jack A Lot returns with a startup for retail traders

When former YouTube product manager Kevin Xu, known as “Sir Jack A Lot” on Reddit, turned $35,000 into $8 million trading stocks between 2020 and 2022, many people thought his fortunes, and his way of investing, had peaked, just like 2021’s memestock craze had. Xu doesn’t agree, though, and he’s now building a startup for […]

Saturday, June 22, 2024 4:11:13 PM

What does ‘open source AI’ mean, anyway?

The Open Source Initiative is trying to address the debate stirring around the notion of "open-source AI."

Saturday, June 22, 2024 3:00:00 PM

The fight over Fisker’s assets is already heating up

Fisker is just a few days into its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the fight over its assets is already charged, with one lawyer claiming the startup has been liquidating assets “outside the court’s supervision.” At issue is the relationship between Fisker and its largest secured lender, Heights Capital Management, an affiliate of financial services company […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 8:40:03 PM

Hacker claims to have 30 million customer records from Australian ticket seller giant TEG

A hacker is advertising customer data allegedly stolen from the Australia-based live events and ticketing company TEG on a well-known hacking forum. On Thursday, a hacker put up for sale the alleged stolen data from TEG, claiming to have information of 30 million users, including the full name, gender, date of birth, username, hashed passwords, […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 8:00:00 PM

Tesla makes Musk best-paid CEO of all time and Fisker bites the dust

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Elon Musk just convinced Tesla shareholders to approve his $56 billion pay package, making him the highest-paid CEO in history — assuming he can dodge a […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 7:05:00 PM

Dot’s AI really, really wants to get to know you

Dot is a new AI companion and chatbot that thrives on getting to know your innermost thoughts and feelings.

Friday, June 21, 2024 6:53:41 PM

E-fuels startup Aether Fuels is raising $34.3 million, per filing

The e-fuels startup is working on producing fuel for aviation and maritime shipping using carbon dioxide and other waste carbon streams.

Friday, June 21, 2024 6:31:31 PM

Fisker faced financial distress as early as last August

Fisker was facing “potential financial distress” as early as last August, according to a new filing in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, which the EV startup initiated earlier this week. The admission provides a clearer picture of Fisker’s troubles in 2023 as it struggled to ramp up deliveries of its flagship Ocean SUV, despite CEO […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 5:37:14 PM

Cruise clears key hurdle to getting robotaxis back on roads in California

Cruise, the self-driving subsidiary of General Motors, has agreed to pay a $112,500 fine for failing to provide full information about an accident involving one of its robotaxis last year. The settlement with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) not only avoids litigation, it puts Cruise in a position to restart operations in the state. […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 5:21:13 PM

Pitch Deck Teardown: Feel Therapeutics’ $3.5M seed deck

Feel Therapeutics has a pretty original deck, with some twists we rarely see; the company did a great job telling the overall story.

Friday, June 21, 2024 5:15:00 PM

OpenAI buys Rockset to bolster its enterprise AI

OpenAI has acquired a company, Rockset, building tools to drive real-time search and data analytics.In a post on its official blog, OpenAI said that it would integrate Rockset’s technology to “power [its] infrastructure across products.” Members of Rockset’s team will join OpenAI, and Rockset’s existing customers will be transitioned off of Rockset’s platform “gradually.” […]

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Friday, June 21, 2024 3:55:15 PM

U.S. government sanctions Kaspersky executives

The U.S. government announced Friday sanctions against twelve executives and senior leaders of the Russia-based cybersecurity giant Kaspersky. In a press release, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it designated the twelve company executives to protect internet users against malicious cyber threats. “Today’s action against the leadership of Kaspersky […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 3:55:04 PM

Style DNA gets a generative AI chatbot that suggests outfit ideas based on your color type

Style DNA, an AI-powered fashion stylist app, creates a personalized style profile from a single selfie. The app is particularly useful for people interested in seasonal color analysis, a process used to determine the best colors to complement an individual’s skin tone. This service can be expensive, with experts charging upwards of $300. However, the […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 3:15:04 PM

Khosla-backed Marble, built by former Headway founders, offers affordable group therapy for teens

Rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts are surging among U.S. teens. A recent report from the Center of Disease Control found that nearly one in three girls have seriously considered suicide, and a significant number, 13% have actually attempted it. Psychologists have various theories about what’s causing adolescent mental health crises. Some blame the […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 3:00:59 PM

A new startup from Figure’s founder is licensing NASA tech in a bid to curb school shootings

Cover says what sets it apart is the underlying technology it employs, which has been exclusively licensed from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Friday, June 21, 2024 2:55:00 PM

Spotify launches a new Basic streaming plan in the US

Spotify is introducing a new “Basic” streaming plan in the United States, the company announced on Friday. The new plan costs $10.99 per month and includes all of the benefits of a Premium plan but without the monthly audiobook listening time. The launch of the new streaming plans comes a few weeks after Spotify increased […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 2:31:13 PM

Meta is tagging real photos as ‘Made with AI,’ say photographers

Photographers say the social media giant is applying a ‘Made with AI’ label to photos they took, causing confusion for users.

Friday, June 21, 2024 2:25:11 PM

Squarespace sells restaurant reservation system Tock to American Express for $400M

Website building platform Squarespace is selling Tock, its restaurant reservation service, to American Express in a deal worth $400 million — the exact figure that Squarespace paid for the service three years ago. The news comes shortly after news emerged that private equity giant Permira was taking Squarespace private in a deal worth $6.9 billion […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 2:03:20 PM

Change Healthcare confirms ransomware hackers stole medical records on a ‘substantial proportion’ of Americans

The February ransomware attack on UHG-owned Change Healthcare stands as one of the largest-ever known digital thefts of U.S. medical records.

Friday, June 21, 2024 1:30:10 PM

Google is pausing its experiment of allowing real-money games on the Play Store

Google said today that it is globally pausing its experiment of allowing real-money games on the Play Store, where there was no central body for this kind of app. In January, the company said it would start allowing real-money apps widely in June in India, Brazil, and Mexico. Notably, India has had a pilot program […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 1:14:34 PM

Kevin Hartz’s A* raises its second oversubscribed fund in two years

Venture firms raised $9.3 billion in Q1 according to PitchBook data, which means this year likely won’t match or surpass 2023’s $81.8 billion total. While emerging managers are feeling the fundraising market’s frost the most, some emerging VCs like A* have enough name recognition, and a good enough track record, to still find success. A*, […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 11:00:00 AM

Kevin Hartz’s A* raises its second oversubscribed fund in three years

Venture firms raised $9.3 billion in Q1 according to PitchBook data, which means this year likely won’t match or surpass 2023’s $81.8 billion total. While emerging managers are feeling the fundraising market’s frost the most, some emerging VCs like A* have enough name recognition, and a good enough track record, to still find success. A*, […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 11:00:00 AM

Google is making your movie and TV reviews visible under a new profile page

Google is making all your movie, TV shows, books, albums and game reviews visible under one profile page starting June 24, according to an email sent to users last month. These profiles are also searchable through Google searches, which can lead to users’ being profiled based on their likes and dislikes. The company first launched […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 9:35:36 AM

Zepto, a 10-minute delivery app, raises $665 million at $3.6 billion valuation

Zepto has more than doubled its valuation to $3.6 billion from $1.4 billion in less than a year in a new funding round of $665 million as the Mumbai-based startup intensifies the quick commerce competition in the world’s second largest internet market. Zepto sells and delivers everything from grocery items to electronic gadgets within 10 […]

Friday, June 21, 2024 5:30:33 AM

Language learning app Speak nets $20M, doubles valuation

Speak, the AI-powered language learning app, has raised new money from investors at double its previous valuation.

Friday, June 21, 2024 4:48:19 AM

SpaceX debuts portable Starlink Mini for $599

SpaceX unveiled Starlink Mini, a more portable version of its satellite internet product that is small enough to fit inside a backpack. Early Starlink customers were invited to purchase the Starlink Mini kit for $599, according to an invitation sent to customers and viewed by TechCrunch. That’s $100 more than the standard Starlink kit. They […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 9:47:41 PM

Brex’s compliance head has left the fintech startup to join Andreessen Horowitz as a partner

Ali Rathod-Papier has stepped down from her role as global head of compliance at corporate card expense management startup Brex to join venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a partner and compliance officer, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. Rathod-Papier and a16z declined to comment on the move. According to her LinkedIn profile, Rathod-Papier now “oversees a16z’s […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 8:48:44 PM

US bans sale of Kaspersky software citing security risk from Russia

U.S. officials imposed the “first of its kind” ban arguing that Kaspersky threatens U.S. national security because of its links to Russia.

Thursday, June 20, 2024 8:15:00 PM

Apple releases Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 and Final Cut Camera

Apple has released Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 and Final Cut Camera, the company announced on Thursday. Both apps were previously announced during the company’s iPad event in May. Apple also released updates for Final Cut Pro for Mac. The iPad version has been updated with capabilities that are designed to take advantage of […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 6:33:22 PM

Poolside is raising $400M+ at a $2B valuation to build a supercharged coding co-pilot

Paris has quickly established itself as a major European center for AI startups, and now another big deal is in the works.

Thursday, June 20, 2024 6:30:58 PM

Gravitics prepares a testing gauntlet for a new generation of giant spacecraft

The space industry is all abuzz about how SpaceX’s Starship, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and other heavy-lift rockets will change just about everything. One likely consequence is that spacecraft will get bigger — much bigger — as engineers work outside the constraints of low mass requirements. There’s one problem: the current testing regime for spacecraft […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 6:16:48 PM

Influencer shopping app LTK gets an automatic direct message tool

LTK (formerly LiketoKnow.it and RewardStyle), the influencer shopping app with 40 million monthly users, announced on Thursday the launch of a free direct message tool for creators to instantly share pre-set responses with followers. The new tool, called LTK DM, is integrated into the posts section of the LTK app. When a creator shares an […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 6:13:49 PM

YouTube confirms crackdown on VPN users accessing cheaper Premium plans

YouTube appears to be taking a firm stance against Premium subscribers who attempt to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to access cheaper subscription prices in other countries. This week, a number of users took to Reddit to express their frustration after their Premium plans were canceled for using a VPN to purchase the subscription […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 5:55:44 PM

Why Fisker failed

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! I’m back from holiday in Denmark and Germany, where I managed to try just about every kind of transportation, from bikes to scooters, to driving on the […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 5:05:00 PM

EU Member States remain divided on controversial CSAM-scanning plan — but for how long?

A key body of European Union lawmakers remains stalled over a controversial legislative proposal that could see millions of users of messaging apps forced to agree to their photo and video uploads being scanned by AI to detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Critics of the plan — which run the gamut from tech industry […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 4:28:53 PM

Labor shortages are still fueling growth at automation firms like GrayMatter

GrayMatter self-reports that its systems currently produce “a 2~4x improvement in production line productivity [and a] 30% or more reduction in consumable waste.”

Thursday, June 20, 2024 4:18:11 PM

Boeing’s Starliner capsule took astronauts to space — now it needs to bring them back

The delays are not over for Boeing’s Starliner capsule. After years of delays, the aerospace giant finally launched the spacecraft earlier this month, but the two-person crew is currently due to spend more than double the planned amount of time in space due to continuing technical issues on orbit. On Tuesday, NASA and Boeing officials […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 3:41:59 PM

US car dealerships face ongoing outage after CDK cyberattacks

CDK said it "does not have an estimated time frame" for recovery, as car dealerships and auto shops face continued outages.

Thursday, June 20, 2024 3:29:45 PM

Instagram now lets users livestream exclusively to their Close Friends list

Instagram is introducing the ability for users to broadcast live to just their Close Friends list, the company announced on Thursday. The new “Close Friends on Live” feature allows users to go live with up to three other people. Instagram says the new feature can be used to share what’s on your mind, spontaneously catch […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Announcing the agenda for the Space Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024

We’re out-of-this-world excited to announce that we’ve added a dedicated Space Stage to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. It joins Fintech, SaaS and AI as the other industry-focused stages — all under one big roof. And we’re excited to share we’ll be hosting a pitch competition this year “The Space Challenge, powered by Aerospace” as part of […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 3:00:00 PM

PayPal Ventures leads $20M round into Gynger, which offers companies ‘buy now, pay later’ for technology purchases

Gynger, a platform that lends capital to companies for technology purchases, has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by PayPal Ventures, it told TechCrunch exclusively. The financing brings the New York-based startup’s total venture capital raised to $31.7 million and included participation from Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused venture fund), Velvet Sea Ventures, […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 2:30:00 PM

Pocket FM partners with ElevenLabs to convert scripts into audio content quickly

Lightspeed Ventures-backed audio platform Pocket FM just announced that it has partnered with voice cloning company ElevenLabs to quickly convert text content, such as script, into audio series using AI. Pocket FM, which raised $103 million in Series D funding in March, told TechCrunch at the time that it was already experimenting with the ability […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Anthropic claims its latest model is best-in-class

Claude 3.5 Sonnet can analyze both text and images as well as generate text, and it's Anthropic's best-performing model yet — at least on paper.

Thursday, June 20, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Roots introduces a screen time app for tracking ‘digital dopamine’

As the U.S. Surgeon General is calling for a warning label on social media sites, similar to those found on tobacco products, one startup is launching a set of new tools that put the power to fight app addiction into users’ own hands. Designed for iOS, Roots offers an improvement over traditional screen-time apps by […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 1:30:40 PM

Materia looks to make accountants more efficient with AI

The U.S. is facing an accountant shortage. Fewer first-time candidates took the CPA exam in 2022 than in 2006, according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. One possible reason people aren’t as interested in the field is the large amount of drudge work involved: Accountants have to rifle through large amounts of unstructured […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 1:06:39 PM

Ex-HubSpot exec builds an AI-powered CRM that learns for you, with $4M seed led by Sequoia

Christopher O’Donnell has hobbies. He likes music and playing guitar, but above all, he loves building software. Which is why three years after leaving HubSpot, he built Day.ai, a CRM for the age AI. Unlike modern CRMs, which are essentially giant spreadsheets that somebody needs to populate and keep updated, Day learns everything about a […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Semperis, a specialist in Active Directory security now worth more than $1B, raises $125M

Active Directory – the Microsoft directory service for connecting users with network resources – is used by more than 90% of all Fortune 1000 companies and many more besides. So it’s no surprise that it’s a giant target for malicious hackers. That also means a lot of attention for security companies that are building tools […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 12:33:06 PM

Daydream rakes in $50M seed funding to build an AI-powered search engine suited for e-commerce

For retailers, e-commerce is a bit of a puzzle at the moment. Online shopping trends are expected to stay strong this year, so companies can’t afford to curtail their e-commerce budgets, but at the same time, e-commerce is more fragmented than ever before. There is a seemingly endless number of avenues to exploit — from […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Spotify quietly lets all podcasters upload videos, surpasses 250K shows

Non-hosted podcasters can now upload videos to Spotify. Over 250K video podcasts are on the platform.

Thursday, June 20, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Cadana, an emerging markets payroll services provider for global hiring platforms, banks $7.1M seed

The global freelancer market, a $1.3 trillion industry fueled by over 200 million knowledge workers, drives demand for solutions that automate payroll and streamline employment and tax regulations worldwide. However, most existing products fail to address the legal landscape of emerging markets, such as differences in employment laws. This oversight means global hiring platforms, which […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 11:52:50 AM

Amazon extends generative AI-powered product listings to Europe

Amazon is bringing its generative AI listing smarts to more sellers, revealing today that those in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. can now access tools designed to improve product listings by generating product descriptions, titles, and associated details. Additionally, sellers can also “enrich” existing product listings by automatically adding missing information. The announcement […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 11:31:01 AM

Kenya closes its probe of Worldcoin, opening the door to a relaunch of its orbs after a year-long suspension

Worldcoin — the crypto startup co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman — has been given the green light to resume iris-scanning and other operations in Kenya after a year-long government probe over privacy concerns was dropped. Kenya was one of the Worldcoin’s launch countries for its iris-scanning scheme — which the startup was building out as […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 11:00:55 AM

Paris-based VC Breega hits first close of $75M Africa fund to back pre-seed and seed startups

Paris-based VC firm Breega is launching a $75 million fund to invest in early-stage startups in Africa, with 70% of the capital already committed at the first close, the firm revealed to TechCrunch. Since entering the VC scene in 2015, Breega has fully raised four funds: a first seed fund (€45 million), a second seed […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 8:47:05 AM

PQShield secures $37M more for ‘quantum resistant’ cryptography

Malicious hacking is getting increasingly sophisticated, and that’s leading to a very clear trend in security technology. To keep people and organizations safe, security also has to continue advancing its own complexity. Security startup PQShield has gotten an early start on that concept with a focus on “post-quantum” cryptography: software and hardware solutions that, in […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 7:22:15 AM

Hero wants to save the day for companies facing a working capital crunch

Hero, a new fintech startup based in Paris, is announcing an €11.3 million all-equity funding round led by Valar Ventures ($12.2 million at today’s exchange rate). For the past couple of years, the company has been quietly building an ambitious banking product for small companies that can essentially replace everything you’d expect from a traditional […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 7:00:00 AM

‘Lawyer-in-the-loop’ startup Wordsmith wants to bring AI paralegals to all employees

Wordsmith, a fledgling Scottish legal tech startup, has somehow managed to attract the backing of two well-known venture capital firms. The startup targets in-house legal teams and law firms with an AI platform that they can configure to help other workers in the company. This way, anyone in the company can solicit help with legal […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 7:00:00 AM

General Catalyst makes India push with Venture Highway merger

General Catalyst, a Silicon Valley venture capital group, is expanding its presence in India by joining forces with a local venture firm and earmarking more than $500 million for investments in the world’s most populous nation. The U.S. venture capital group is merging with Venture Highway, an India-based firm whose investments include social commerce startup […]

Thursday, June 20, 2024 3:30:00 AM

France leads the pack for Generative AI funding in Europe, London has 3X the number of GenAI startups

Like it or hate it, artificial intelligence – especially generative AI – is the technology story of 2024. OpenAI, with its rollouts of viral services like ChatGPT and billions in funding, may have gobbled up the lion’s share of attention and money so far. But according to a new report out from top VC Accel […]

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 11:43:17 PM

C12, the French quantum computing startup founded by two twin brothers, raises $19.4 million

C12 is announcing that it recently raised an €18 million funding round ($19.4 million at today’s exchange rate). Originally founded in 2020 as a spin-off from the Physics Laboratory of the École Normale Supérieure, the company has been working on a unique process to create quantum computers based on carbon nanotubes. While the concept of […]

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 8:30:00 PM

Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s former chief scientist, launches new AI company

Ilya Sutskever, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, launches Safe Superintelligence (SSI), just a month after leaving OpenAI.

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 7:05:20 PM

Internal SpaceX documents show the sweet stock deals offered to investors like a16z, Gigafund

Like many highly valued startups, SpaceX sometimes allows its employees to cash out some of their shares by selling to company-authorized outside investors. TechCrunch has gotten a peek at an internal SpaceX document about such a tender offer from May 2022. Musk posted on X last month that SpaceX holds such sales for employees about […]

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 6:11:41 PM

This Week in AI: Generative AI is spamming up academic journals

Hiya, folks, and welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. This week in AI, generative AI is beginning to spam up academic publishing — a discouraging new development on the disinformation front. In a post on Retraction Watch, a blog that tracks recent retractions of academic studies, assistant professors of philosophy Tomasz Żuradzk and Leszek Wroński […]

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 5:05:00 PM

In spite of hype, many companies are moving cautiously when it comes to generative AI

Companies are extremely interested in generative AI as vendors push potential benefits, but turning that desire from a proof of concept into a working product is proving much more challenging.

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 4:00:00 PM

The fall of EV startup Fisker: A comprehensive timeline

Here is a timeline of the events that led fledgling automaker Fisker to file for bankruptcy.

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck on reshaping the space economy at Disrupt 2024

The future of the space industry may look a lot like its past, or so believes Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco, he’ll be explaining how full-service, vertically integrated space companies will (again) be the big winners of this evolving space economy. Rocket Lab was started […]

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Société Générale to sell its freelancer challenger bank Shine to Ageras

Four years after acquiring Shine, a French fintech startup that offers bank accounts to freelancers and very small companies, Société Générale has announced plans to sell Shine to Ageras. In 2020, TechCrunch reported that Société Générale spent around €100 million to acquire Shine. It wasn’t a huge acquisition but it attracted quite a bit of […]

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 2:10:31 PM

UK probes HPE’s planned $14B Juniper Networks acquisition

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has initiated a formal “phase 1” investigation into Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) planned acquisition of Juniper Networks.HPE announced plans to acquire Juniper Networks back in January, a deal designed to unify their respective strengths in the networking and IT infrastructure realm, spanning servers, storage, consulting, routing, switching, […]

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 10:53:16 AM

Meta AI removes block on election-related queries in India while Google still applying limits

Meta AI removes restrictions in answering election-related queries in India while Google is still restricting them.

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 10:23:21 AM

How Abridge became one of the most talked about healthcare AI startups

Ask any of the health-focused VCs to name one of the top AI startups and one name comes up over and over again: a company based in Pittsburgh called Abridge. And it’s a startup that launched before OpenAI was a household name and LLMs entered the common Valley vocabulary. In 2019, Shiv Rao, a practicing […]

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 4:08:20 AM

Kilimo helps farmers save water and get paid for it

Cheap irrigation has transformed many regions around the world into breadbaskets, but it also means that there can be little left for other uses.

Wednesday, June 19, 2024 4:01:00 AM

Fisker failed because it wasn’t ready to be a car company

Two years ago, an employee at Fisker Inc. told me that the most pressing concern inside the EV startup was not whether its Ocean SUV would get built. Fisker was outsourcing the manufacturing of its first EV to highly respected automotive supplier Magna, after all. The startup’s November 2022 start-of-production target was aggressive, but not […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 10:02:37 PM

FTC refers TikTok child privacy case to Justice Department

The agency was investigating the company over potential violations of the Children's Online Privacy Act.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 9:01:59 PM

iOS 18 could ‘sherlock’ $400M in app revenue

Apple's changes may affect apps that today have an estimated $393 million in revenue and have been downloaded roughly 58 million times over the past year.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 7:52:42 PM

Snap previews its real-time image model that can generate AR experiences

At the Augmented World Expo on Tuesday, Snap teased an early version of its real-time, on-device image diffusion model that can generate vivid AR experiences. The company also unveiled generative AI tools for AR creators. Snap co-founder and CTO Bobby Murphy said on-stage that the model is small enough to run on a smartphone and […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 6:52:46 PM

Security bug allows anyone to spoof Microsoft employee emails

A researcher has found a bug that allows anyone to impersonate Microsoft corporate email accounts, making phishing attempts look credible and more likely to trick their targets. As of this writing, the bug has not been patched. To demonstrate the bug, the researcher sent an email to TechCrunch that looked like it was sent from […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 5:46:52 PM

Unit and Loop lay off staff and Brex ditches co-CEO model

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at layoffs at BaaS startup Unit and car insurance company Loop, as well as Brex’s decision to abandon its co-CEO model, Apple killing its Pay Later feature, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 5:05:00 PM

Meet Seen, a new app for friends to record reactions to TikToks and other content

We all know the feeling when we send a funny TikTok video, anticipating a response from a friend, only to receive a basic laughing emoji or, worse, no reaction at all. Seen aims to solve this with its new social app, where friends record a live video reaction to content you send them. The video […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 4:31:35 PM

Former Snap engineer launches Butterflies, a social network where AIs and humans coexist

Butterflies wants to let users create AI personas that then take on their own lives and coexist with others.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Genspark is the latest attempt at an AI-powered search engine

Genspark taps generative AI to write custom summaries in response to search queries.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Apple Developer Academy adds AI training for students and alumni

Apple is continuing its AI push, this time with its education offering. The company announced on Tuesday that it will train all Apple Developer Academy students and mentors on the fundamental of AI. Apple Developer Academy alumni can also take part in the training. Starting this fall, students will learn how to build, train, and […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 2:15:42 PM

UK national accused of hacking dozens of US companies arrested in Spain

TechCrunch has learned that the arrested hacker is the alleged leader of the group that masterminded the Twilio hacks in 2022.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 2:10:16 PM

Decagon claims its customers service bots are smarter than average

Decagon is a generative AI platform that automates various aspects of customer support channels.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 2:03:00 PM

Series A to B startups scale up at Disrupt 2024

Series A to B startups — check out the ScaleUp Startups Exhibitor Program at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! Why Join the ScaleUp Startups Exhibitor Program? Amplify Your ReachShowcase your groundbreaking innovation on the Disrupt Expo Floor, where you’ll catch the eye of 10,000 tech leaders and investors. This is your moment to shine and forge connections […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Now a Series A startup, kids app and ‘digital toy’ Pok Pok is coming to Android

Pok Pok, a kids app maker focused on building play-based learning experiences for the preschool set, has made a name for itself in the iOS developer community after winning both an App Store award for cultural impact and an Apple Design Award. But now the company is ready to expand its reach by bringing its […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 2:00:00 PM

SurrealDB is helping developers consolidate their databases

Brothers Tobie Morgan Hitchcock and Jaime Hitchcock spent years building cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) systems together, ranging from tools to let golf courses measure “golfer engagement” to online platforms designed to assess job candidates. While the systems they built had wildly different functions, the unifying thread running through all of them was a dependence on databases […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 1:00:00 PM

XReal introduces a $200 device that brings Android apps to its AR glasses

The $200 Beam pro looks like an Android phone, but instead it's a mobile device designed specifically for Xreal’s glasses.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Zal Bilimoria just raised a $50M fourth Refactor Capital fund, and still relishes his solo GP status

Being a solo GP hasn’t slowed Bilimoria a bit. He went on to raise three additional funds and has now closed a new fund to invest in biotech, climate and hard tech startups.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Loop Golf looks to take the stress out of booking a tee time

Golf has exploded in popularity in recent years thanks to the pandemic and the popularity of Netflix’s Full Swing documentary series. More than 531 million rounds of golf were played in the U.S. in 2023 alone, according to the National Golf Foundation. Because of this surge in interest, golfers are finding that nabbing a tee […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 12:42:04 PM

Bitsening raises $25M for its high-resolution radar in autonomous driving

Self-driving vehicles rely on many sensors to detect objects and the world around them. The conventional approach is to work with cameras and lidars. But some tech companies and startups have built advanced high-resolution radar technology for autonomous vehicles, also known as 4D imaging radar. Among them is a South Korea-based startup called bitsensing. The […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 12:22:41 PM

Dandelion co-founder is back to help you electrify your home for less

Balto Energy hopes to speed the electrification by helping homeowners choose and finance the projects that make the most sense for them.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 12:00:00 PM

SewerAI uses AI to spot defects in sewer pipes

SewerAI sells cloud-based, AI-powered subscription products designed to streamline field inspections and data management of sewer infrastructure.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Waabi’s genAI promises to do so much more than power self-driving trucks

For the last two decades, Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of autonomous trucking startup Waabi, has been developing AI systems that can reason as a human would. The AI pioneer had previously served as the chief scientist at Uber ATG before launching Waabi in 2021. Waabi launched with an “AI-first approach” to speed up the […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 9:00:00 AM

EV startup Fisker files for bankruptcy

Fisker Inc., the EV startup founded by famed designer Henrik Fisker, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — a capstone to months of problems with its Ocean SUV that included recalls and dozens of lemon law lawsuits. The California-based company, which filed for bankruptcy in the Delaware Court, had been seeking a deal with another […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 8:06:36 AM

Threads finally launches its API for developers

Meta said today that it finally launched its much-awaited API for Threads so developers can build experiences around it. In a blog post, Threads engineer Jesse Chen said that with the new API, developers can publish posts, fetch their own content, and deploy reply management tools. That means developers can let users hide/unhide or respond […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 7:12:11 AM

CuspAI raises $30M to create a Gen-AI-driven search engine for new materials

The company says its platform functions like a search engine for materials, enabling the fast evaluation of a “vast number of novel structures.”

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 7:01:00 AM

SUSE wants a piece of the AI cake, too

Suse on Tuesday is announcing its AI strategy and SUSE AI solutions, a new vendor- and LLM-agnostic generative AI platform.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 7:01:00 AM

Google brings Gemini mobile app to India with nine Indian language support

Google has released its dedicated AI mobile app Gemini in India — over four months after its debut in the U.S. — with support for nine Indian languages, including Hindi. The Gemini mobile app in India is based on Google’s AI Gemini 1.5 Pro and supports nine Indian languages alongside English: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, […]

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 5:14:14 AM

Finbourne taps $70M for tech that turns financial data dust into AI gold

Finbourne, founded out of London’s financial center, has built a platform to help financial companies organize and use more of their data in AI and other models.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024 12:14:23 AM

Can quick commerce leapfrog e-commerce in India?

Even as quick commerce startups are retreating, consolidating or shutting down in many parts of the world, the model is showing encouraging signs in India. Consumers in urban cities are embracing the convenience of having groceries delivered to their doorstep in just 10 minutes. The companies making those deliveries – Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy’s Instamart […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 10:01:00 PM

TechCrunch Space: A new era for human spaceflight research

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. We’ll have to wait a little longer for the return of Boeing’s Starliner capsule from the International Space Station — the capsule and its two astronauts will stay at the station for twice as much time as originally planned, to give mission operators additional time to conduct tests […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 10:00:00 PM

After 20 months of trying to raise funds, insurance startup Loop cuts staff

Loop, the car insurance company co-founded by Harlem Capital co-founder John Henry, has laid off staff as the company struggles with fundraising. Henry took to Instagram to post the email his co-founder Carey Nadeau sent to impacted staff on June 16th. Nadeu also posted the letter to LinkedIn. It stated that this was the “absolute […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 9:39:31 PM

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies. That growth has propelled OpenAI itself into […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 8:30:00 PM

Apple kills Pay Later feature ahead of Affirm integration

Apple announced at last week's WWDC 2024 that users would be able to access loans through third-party app Affirm through Apple Pay.

Monday, June 17, 2024 7:26:12 PM

Astroscale’s space junk inspection satellite snaps a close-up photo of a discarded rocket stage

Astroscale’s space junk observation satellite has moved within striking distance to a discarded rocket upper stage that’s been floating around Earth for nearly twenty years, taking close-up pictures — preliminary to actually deorbiting the object in a future mission. The company released an image captured by its satellite from a distance of just 50 meters […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 6:35:08 PM

DeepMind’s new AI generates soundtracks and dialogue for videos

DeepMind, Google’s AI research lab, says it’s developing AI tech to generate soundtracks for videos. In a post on its official blog, DeepMind says that it sees the tech, V2A (short for “video-to-audio”), as an essential piece of the AI-generated media puzzle. While plenty of orgs including DeepMind have developed video-generating AI models, these models […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 6:03:57 PM

US sues Adobe for hiding termination fees and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions

In the complaint filed on Monday, the DOJ wrote that "Adobe has harmed consumers by enrolling them in its default, most lucrative subscription plan without clearly disclosing important plan terms."

Monday, June 17, 2024 5:08:38 PM

Perplexity now displays results for temperature, currency conversion and simple math, so you don’t have to use Google

Perplexity could already fetch this data from the web and display results in a descriptive way, but the company is adding some visual flair to these results to make them more prominent and quick.

Monday, June 17, 2024 4:43:25 PM

From sperm freezing to accounting tools: Finaloop’s founder scores $35M to solve e-commerce retailers’ bookkeeping headaches

Finaloop’s solution is a platform that uses automation in the background to track transactions covering three different functions in one.

Monday, June 17, 2024 4:27:43 PM

Runway’s new video-generating AI, Gen-3, offers improved controls

The race to high-quality, AI-generated videos is heating up. On Monday, Runway, a company building generative AI tools geared toward film and image content creators, unveiled Gen-3 Alpha, its latest AI model for generating video clips from text descriptions and still images. Runway says that Gen-3 delivers a “major” improvement in generation speed and fidelity over […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 4:20:15 PM

YouTube is experimenting with Notes, a crowdsourced feature that lets users add context to videos

YouTube is introducing a new experimental feature that will allow viewers to add “Notes” to provide more context and information under videos, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. If the feature sounds similar, it’s because it follows the same concept as Community Notes on X (formerly Twitter). The Google-owned company says the feature can be used […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Plant-based ‘meat’ startup Tender has already nabbed a fast-food chain contract, and another $11M

Its technology involves spinning plant protein fibers, including soy proteins, similar to the way cotton candy is made, to create structured cuts of meat.

Monday, June 17, 2024 1:00:00 PM

TikTok ads and branded content will now include AI avatars of creators and stock actors

TikTok announced on Monday that it’s introducing generative AI avatars of creators and stock actors for branded content and ads on its platform. The company is also launching an “AI Dubbing” tool for creators and brands to expand the reach of their ads and branded content. The new “Custom Avatars” are designed to represent a […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Autify launches Zenes, an AI agent for software quality assurance

With the advent of generative AI, AI applications are transforming and reshaping various industries and changing how people work. Software development is no exception. San Francisco- and Tokyo-based startup Autify has built an autonomous AI agent for software quality assurance to help software engineers complete code quickly, streamline workflows and increase productivity. In other words, […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Today’s your last chance to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200

Today’s the day, startup founders. It’s your final opportunity to join Startup Battlefield 200, the world’s preeminent startup competition, at TechCrunch Disrupt in October. It’s your last chance to launch on a global stage like 900+ other Startup Battlefield companies have, including Vurb, Trello, Mint, Dropbox, Yammer, TripIt, Redbeacon, Qwiki, Getaround and Soluto. Startup Battlefield […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Stop playing games with online security, Signal president warns EU lawmakers

A controversial European Union legislative proposal to scan the private messages of citizens in a bid to detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a risk to the future of web security, Meredith Whittaker warned in a public blog post Monday. She’s the president of the not-for-profit foundation behind the end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging app […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 12:56:23 PM

SoftBank ties up with Perplexity

After announcing a strategic partnership with SoftBank in April, Perplexity — the AI search engine that has ambitions to take on Google — is now using the deal to expand its user base, and data touchpoints, in SoftBank’s home market. SoftBank and two of its mobile operations, Y!mobile (SoftBank’s mobile phone operator) and LINEMO (SoftBank’s […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 12:16:53 PM

YC-backed Hona looks to reduce the communication friction between law firms and their consumer clients

When Manny Griffiths worked with a personal injury lawyer after his wife’s car accident, he was surprised by the lack of information and communication from their lawyer regarding their claim. The couple sometimes wouldn’t hear from their lawyer for months and found the entire process to be really opaque. Griffiths dug deeper and learned that […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 12:01:35 PM

Privacy app maker Proton transitions to non-profit foundation structure

Proton, the Swiss company behind a suite of privacy-focused apps such as ProtonMail, is following in the footsteps of Signal and Mozilla by transitioning to a new non-profit foundation model. The newly setup Proton Foundation will serve as the main shareholder to the existing corporate entity that is Proton AG, which will continue as a […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 11:34:06 AM

Tinybird raises another $30 million to transform data into real-time APIs

Tinybird is not so tiny anymore. The enterprise data startup TechCrunch first covered three years ago has been growing at a rapid pace and recently raised a $30 million Series B funding round. According to a source, the company is now valued at $240 million. Originally from Madrid and now also based in New York, […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 11:00:00 AM

India’s Oyo, once valued at $10B, finalizes new funding at $2.5B valuation

Oyo, the Indian budget-hotel chain startup, is finalizing a fresh fundraise of about $100 million to $125 million that slashes its valuation to $2.5 billion, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. That’s a steep decline in the Gurgaon-headquartered startup’s value, which was worth $10 billion in 2019. The startup, struggling to raise from […]

Monday, June 17, 2024 2:17:03 AM

Black founders are creating tailored ChatGPTs for a more personalized experience

ChatGPT, one of the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence tools, struggles with cultural nuance.

Sunday, June 16, 2024 5:05:00 PM

Startup Battlefield 200 applications close tomorrow

Holy procrastination, startup founders! Tomorrow’s your last chance to apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Your last chance for a shot to stand on the Disrupt stage and pitch to a huge audience packed with global tier-1 investors, hundreds of media outlets and plenty of other influential movers and shakers. Cut […]

Sunday, June 16, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Hands-on with the BlackBerry-style Clicks keyboard for iPhone

The Clicks keyboard case has arrived, and it’s delightful, if not entirely practical for everyday use — at least, not without weeks of practice.

Sunday, June 16, 2024 3:00:00 PM

YouTube is testing another way to combat ad blockers

YouTube continues its efforts to circumvent ad blockers. Earlier this week, ad blocker SponsorBlock posted that the Google-owned video service is testing out server-side ad injection with a limited number of users. Essentially, this means that both the ad is injected into the video before it arrives on your device (in contrast to client-side ad […]

Sunday, June 16, 2024 2:53:58 PM

Subscription vitamin company Care/of is shutting down

Care/of, a company offering personalized subscription vitamin packs, says it will be canceling all subscriptions as of Monday, June 17 and will no longer be accepting new orders. The news doesn’t come completely out of the blue, as Care/of had previously disclosed in a New York Department of Labor filing that it planned to lay […]

Saturday, June 15, 2024 9:55:58 PM

Apple ushers in a new era with Apple Intelligence

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference had a sizable focus on AI. Apple unveiled its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, which will be available in iOS later this year. iOS 18 will […]

Saturday, June 15, 2024 8:15:00 PM

Apple joins the race to find an AI icon that makes sense

No one knows what AI looks like, or even is supposed to look like. It does everything, but looks like nothing.

Saturday, June 15, 2024 6:01:00 PM

Deal Dive: BeReal got its best-case scenario exit

There has been a lot of bad news about social media startups lately. Multiple companies, including Twitter alternative Post News, and IRL have shut down. And ShareChat’s valuation has dropped more than 50% after a recent funding round. But amid the negative headlines, the recent exit of French social network BeReal looks like a bright […]

Saturday, June 15, 2024 4:00:00 PM

How much does ChatGPT cost? Everything you need to know about OpenAI’s pricing plans

OpenAI offers an array of plans for ChatGPT, both paid and free.

Saturday, June 15, 2024 3:00:00 PM

FTC Chair Lina Khan on startups, scaling, and ”innovations in potential law breaking”

FTC Chair Lina Khan was the youngest person appointed to her position when she assumed the job in 2021. But once her term ends in September – after which she’ll stay until a successor is named – her age might be the last thing that people remember about her reign at the agency. It’s more […]

Saturday, June 15, 2024 7:17:00 AM

Albedo takes Earth observation up close and personal from very low Earth orbit

Satellite imagery startup Albedo is preparing for its up close and personal debut. Albedo’s first satellite will take to orbit next spring as the company looks to turn the commercial Earth observation industry upside down with its novel approach and ultra-high resolution cameras. The satellite, called Clarity, will hitch a ride to very low Earth […]

Friday, June 14, 2024 10:14:45 PM

Tempus soars 15% on the first day of trading, demonstrating investor appetite for a health tech with a promise of AI

Tempus, a genomic testing and data analysis company started by Eric Lefkosky, who previously founded Groupon, debuted on Nasdaq on Friday, rose about 15% on the opening The company priced its IPO on Thursday at $37 apiece, at the top of its $35 to $37 price range, raising nearly $411 million at a fully-diluted valuation […]

Friday, June 14, 2024 7:29:26 PM

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized […]

Friday, June 14, 2024 7:20:00 PM

Startups Weekly: Clash of the AI titans, and Europe is firing on all cylinders

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Hold on to your Apple Watches, folks! At WWDC 2024, Apple finally decided to give Siri a brain transplant with something they’re calling “Apple Intelligence” (AI—get […]

Friday, June 14, 2024 7:01:00 PM

Pitch Deck Teardown: Kinnect’s $250K angel deck

How well did the company do tell its own story in the form of its angel pitch deck? Let's take a look.

Friday, June 14, 2024 5:00:00 PM

Arc now features a live calendar button to help you stay punctual for meetings

The Browser Company’s Arc, a web browser that aims to have a less cluttered user interface, launched a “Live Calendar” feature to ensure you never miss a call or run late to a meeting. The feature rolled out yesterday on Mac and is available in the latest Arc update with version 1.47.1. The new feature […]

Friday, June 14, 2024 3:41:07 PM

Meta pauses plans to train AI using European users’ data, bowing to regulatory pressure

Meta has confirmed that it will pause plans to start training its AI systems using data from its users in the European Union (EU) and U.K. The move follows pushback from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), Meta’s lead regulator in the EU, which is acting on behalf of several data protection authorities (DPAs) across […]

Friday, June 14, 2024 3:33:47 PM

Brave integrates its own search results with its Leo AI assistant

Privacy-focused search engine and web browser company Brave is integrating search results into its Leo chatbot. Search results are based on the Brave Search API and Leo is integrated into the company’s browser. The company said that this integration will help users find more up-to-date information. People can use this integration to fetch information like […]

Friday, June 14, 2024 10:10:13 AM

Enveda raises $55M to combine ancient remedies with AI for drug discovery

For centuries, people chewed willow tree bark to relieve pain, but scientists at chemical firm Bayer didn’t isolate its active ingredient until the 1800s and eventually patented its modified version as Aspirin. Aspirin is just one example of a medicine derived from natural sources. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that around 40% of […]

Friday, June 14, 2024 10:00:00 AM

We’re about to learn a whole lot more about how the human body reacts to space

We could be entering a renaissance for human spaceflight research, as a record number of private citizens head to space — and as scientists improve techniques for gathering data on these intrepid test subjects. A sign that the renaissance is imminent appeared earlier this week, when the journal Nature published a cache of papers detailing […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 10:35:39 PM

Former NSA head joins OpenAI board and safety committee

The high-profile addition is likely intended to satisfy critics who think that OpenAI is moving faster than is wise for its customers and possibly humanity.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 10:17:27 PM

Tesla shareholders vote yes again to approve Elon Musk’s $56B pay plan

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has secured enough shareholder votes to have his 2018 stock option compensation package approved. Shareholders also approved the company’s decision to re-incorporate of Tesla in Texas, moving it away from the state where Musk’s pay package was struck down: Delaware. Shareholders present at the company’s annual meeting Thursday, held at Tesla’s […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 9:30:06 PM

Apple gives developers a way to nominate their apps for editorial consideration on the App Store

From a new Nominations dashboard in App Store Connect, developers will be able to create their nominations, either one by one or by uploading a spreadsheet to nominate apps in bulk.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 7:43:32 PM

What StepStone’s $3.3B venture secondaries fund tells us about LPs’ current appetite for venture

StepStone raised the largest fund dedicated to investing in venture secondaries ever, the firm announced last week. This fundraise doesn’t just say a lot about StepStone’s venture secondaries investing prowess, but also about how LPs are thinking about the current venture market. The fund, StepStone VC Secondaries Fund VI, raised $3.3 billion. This marks a […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 7:19:53 PM

Spotify announces an in-house creative agency, tests generative AI voiceover ads

Spotify announced on Thursday that it’s venturing further into the ad space with its first in-house creative agency called Creative Lab, helping brands create custom marketing campaigns. It will also begin testing generative AI ads, the company said. The launch of Creative Lab shows that Spotify is ramping up its efforts to attract advertisers to […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 7:14:11 PM

Here’s everything Apple announced at the WWDC 2024 keynote, including Apple Intelligence, Siri makeover

The TechCrunch team runs down all of the biggest news from the Apple WWDC 2024 keynote in an easy-to-skim digest.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 7:00:00 PM

Tesla shareholders sue Musk for starting competing AI company

Tesla shareholders are suing CEO Elon Musk and members of the automaker’s board of directors over Musk’s decision to start xAI, which they say is a competing AI company, and then divert talent and resources from Tesla to the new startup. The lawsuit is one of the most direct challenges to Musk’s decision to start […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 6:44:09 PM

Apple’s Spotlight Search gets better at natural language queries in iOS 18

With the Core Spotlight framework, developers can donate content they want to make searchable via Spotlight.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 5:33:48 PM

Tesla and its fans waged an unprecedented battle over Elon Musk’s $56B pay package

It's all part of an effort to say that, this time, when the shareholders vote to approve his monster $56 billion compensation package, they were fully informed.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 5:16:10 PM

Tesla shareholders to vote today on $56B pay package

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Kirsten Korosec is still off on holiday, so you’ve got me once again! Today is the big Tesla shareholder vote. We’ll finally get to learn, among other […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 5:05:00 PM

GPTZero’s founders, still in their 20s, have a profitable AI detection startup, millions in the bank and a new $10M Series A

GPTZero's growth and financials made it one of the AI startups ruthlessly pursued by VCs. And Footwork's Nikhil Basu Trivedi won the deal.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Here are the best WWDC 2024 features you missed

Apple announced a number of new features and updates onstage during its keynote address at WWDC 2024, including updates to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, VisionOS and the introduction of Apple Intelligence. Now that people are using developer betas and exploring the sessions at the event, more features that were not announced onstage are surfacing. Remember that […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 3:58:30 PM

WhatsApp adds new features to the calling experience, including support for 32-person video calls

WhatsApp updated the video calling experience across devices on Thursday by introducing screen sharing with audio support, and a new speaker spotlight feature. It’s increasing the limit for video call participants to up to 32 people. In August last year, WhatsApp introduced screen-sharing support for video calls. The instant messaging app has now enhanced that […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 3:54:57 PM

Amazon says it’ll spend $230 million on generative AI startups

Amazon says that it’ll commit up to $230 million to startups building generative AI-powered applications. The investment, roughly $80 million of which will fund Amazon’s second annual AWS Generative AI Accelerator program, aims to position AWS as an attractive cloud infrastructure choice for startups developing generative AI models to power their products, apps and services. […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 3:43:11 PM

Picsart partners with Getty Images to develop a custom AI model

Picsart, a photo-editing startup backed by SoftBank, announced on Thursday that it’s partnering with Getty Images to develop a custom model to bring AI imagery to its 150 million users. The company says the model will bring responsible AI imagery to creators, marketers and small businesses that use its platform. The model will be built from […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Here are the best WWDC features you missed

Apple announced a number of new features and updates onstage during its keynote address at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) this week, including updates to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, VisionOS, and the introduction of Apple Intelligence. Now that people are using developer betas and exploring the sessions at the event, more features that were not announced […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 2:18:01 PM

After the Yahoo News app revamp, Yahoo preps AI summaries on homepage, too

Yahoo’s AI push isn’t over just yet. The company, also TechCrunch’s parent, recently launched AI-powered features for Yahoo Mail, including its own take on Gmail’s Priority Inbox and AI summaries of emails, and today it’s rolling out an AI-powered version of its Yahoo News app, leveraging technology it acquired from its latest acquisition, Artifact. Still, […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 2:07:29 PM

Unigrid wants to make batteries cheaper and safer using sodium

Sodium-ion isn’t quite ready for widespread use, but one startup thinks it has surmounted the battery chemistry's key hurdles.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 2:00:00 PM

LinkedIn leans on AI to do the work of job hunting

LinkedIn is launching new AI tools to help you look for jobs, write cover letters and job applications, personalize learning, and a new search experience.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Court halts Byju’s second rights issue as $200M fundraise falters

An Indian court has restrained Byju's from proceeding with its second rights issue amid allegations of oppression and mismanagement by its shareholders.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 12:07:19 PM

Aepnus wants to create a circular economy for key battery manufacturing materials

The specter of wastewater threatens to stall the construction of battery factories. One startup, though, says the solution isn’t to dispose of it, but recycle it.

Thursday, June 13, 2024 10:00:00 AM

AccountsIQ takes in $65M to boost its bookkeeping tools with AI

The economy remains on shaky ground in Europe, but there is some silver lining for enterprise startups: those building tools to help businesses run their finances in more steady and predictable ways are seeing a boost to their business. In the latest development, AccountsIQ, a Dublin-founded accounting technology company that has been in business, and […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 6:38:04 AM

Android Engineering VP Dave Burke steps down, as he explores “AI/bio” roles within the company

Long-time Android Engineering VP Dave Burke said today that he is stepping down from the role. Burke, who spent 14 years building Android, is not leaving Alphabet and is exploring “AI/bio” projects within the company. Burke was involved in pivotal projects, including building Nexus/Pixel phones, developing Chrome for mobile phones, starting Android TV, and spearheading […]

Thursday, June 13, 2024 4:56:27 AM

Why being the last company to launch in a category can pay off

When Jordan Nathan launched his DTC nontoxic cookware company, Caraway, in 2019, he knew he was not the only founder trying to sell a new brand of pots and pans to millennials scrolling through Instagram. But he found that launching after his peers ended up being a blessing in disguise in all areas but one. […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 11:48:52 PM

This humanoid robot can drive cars — sort of

Out of an abundance of caution, the car took two minutes to turn a corner.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 10:32:00 PM

Ahead of Tesla’s big shareholder vote, let’s re-read the judge’s opinion that got us here

There has been a silly amount of drama in the run-up to Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting on Thursday. The company is set to hold a vote on “re-ratifying” the $56 billion compensation package awarded to Elon Musk in 2018, which was struck down by a Delaware Chancery Court judge earlier this year. It will also […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 7:22:00 PM

iOS 18 cracks down on apps asking for full address book access

To give users more control over the contacts an app can and cannot access, the permissions screen has two stages.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 7:05:14 PM

Generative AI takes robots a step closer to general purpose

The push to produce a robotic intelligence that can fully leverage the wide breadth of movements opened up by bipedal humanoid design has been a key topic for researchers.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 6:44:30 PM

Ford’s secretive low-cost EV team is growing with talent from Rivian, Tesla and Apple

A TechCrunch review of LinkedIn data found that Ford has built this team up to around 300 employees over the last year.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 6:38:00 PM

Tern AI wants to reduce reliance on GPS with low-cost navigation alternative

The most critical systems of our modern world rely on GPS, from aviation and road networks to emergency and disaster response, from precision farming and power grids to weather forecasting and military defense. That dependence is becoming a problem. “We’ve got an increased threat from foreign adversaries who have shown capabilities to jam, to destroy, […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 6:27:42 PM

Fintech Brex abandons co-CEO model, talks IPO, cash burn and plans for a secondary sale

Since fintech startup Brex’s inception in 2017, its two co-founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi have run the company as co-CEOs. But starting today, the pair told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview, the San Francisco-based corporate credit card and expense management company is shifting to a more traditional — and what they say should be […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 6:00:00 PM

This Week in AI: Apple won’t say how the sausage gets made

Hiya, folks, and welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. This week in AI, Apple stole the spotlight. At the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino, Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence, its long-awaited, ecosystem-wide push into generative AI. Apple Intelligence powers a whole host of features, from an upgraded Siri to AI-generated emoji to photo-editing tools that […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 5:05:00 PM

India’s 360 One acquires mutual fund app ET Money for $44M

360 One WAM, India’s largest wealth manager focused on ultra-high-net-worth individuals, has agreed to acquire popular Indian mutual fund investment app ET Money for about $44 million. 360 One disclosed (PDF) the deal in a stock exchange filing Wednesday evening. ET Money boasts over 900,000 transacting clients and tracks assets under management of approximately $8.3 […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 4:53:23 PM

Helen Toner worries ‘not super functional’ Congress will flub AI policy

Helen Toner, a former OpenAI board member and the director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, is worried Congress might react in a “knee-jerk” way where it concerns AI policymaking, should the status quo not change. “Congress right now — I don’t know if anyone’s noticed — is not super functional, […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 4:25:24 PM

Layoffs Got You Down? Get a Half-Price Expo+ Pass at Disrupt 2024

Layoffs are tough. This year alone, we’ve already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies according to layoffs.fyi. Looking for ways to grow your network can be even harder during uncertain times. To help those who’ve been impacted by a layoff within the last year (from any company, region, or industry) and are still looking […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 4:00:00 PM

YouTube creators can now test multiple video thumbnails

YouTube announced this week the rollout of “Thumbnail Test & Compare,” a new tool for creators to see which thumbnail performs the best. The feature first launched to select creators last year but is now widely available. When creators publish a new video (or update an existing video), they can test up to three thumbnails, […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 3:21:30 PM

Waymo issues second recall after robotaxi hit telephone pole

Waymo has voluntarily issued a software recall to all 672 of its Jaguar I-Pace robotaxis after one of them collided with a telephone pole. This is Waymo’s second recall. The Alphabet-owned company recalled previous software in February after two of its robotaxis crashed into the same pickup truck that was being towed by a tow […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 2:41:42 PM

Insight Partners backs Canary Technologies’ mission to elevate hotel guest experiences

The hotel guest management technology company’s platform digitizes the hotel guest journey from post-booking through checkout.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 1:41:30 PM

Here’s everything Apple announced at the WWDC 2024 keynote, including Apple Intelligence, Siri makeover

The TechCrunch team runs down all of the biggest news from the Apple WWDC 2024 keynote in an easy-to-skim digest.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 1:35:00 PM

VC Sheel Mohnot leads $4.3M seed in automated financial reporting fintech InScope

InScope leverages machine learning and large language models to provide financial reporting and auditing processes for mid-market and enterprises.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 1:05:00 PM

Foresite Capital raises $900M sixth fund for investing in healthcare and life sciences companies

Venture fundraising has been a slog over the last few years, even for firms with a strong track record. That’s Foresite Capital’s experience. Despite having 47 IPOs, 28 M&As and 58 FDA-approved drugs under its belt, the 13-year-old multi-stage healthcare and life sciences firm took two years to raise its sixth fund. “Almost all of […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Databricks expands Mosaic AI to help enterprises build with LLMs

A year ago, Databricks acquired MosaicML for $1.3 billion. Now rebranded as Mosaic AI, the platform has become integral to Databricks’ AI solutions. Today, at the company’s Data + AI Summit, it is launching a number of new features for the service. Ahead of the announcements, I spoke to Databricks co-founders CEO Ali Ghodsi and […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 1:00:00 PM

YC grad, RetailReady raises $3.3M for an AI warehouse app that hopes to save brands billions

RetailReady targets the $40 billion compliance market to help reduce the number of retail compliance losses that shippers incur annually due to incorrectly shipped packages.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Databricks launches LakeFlow to help its customers build their data pipelines

Since its launch in 2013, Databricks has relied on its ecosystem of partners, such as Fievtran, Rudderstack, and dbt, to provide tools for data preparation and loading. But now, at its annual Data + AI Summit, the company announced LakeFlow, its own data engineering solution that can handle data ingestion, transformation and orchestration and eliminates […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Bonus: An extra week to apply to Startup Battlefield 200

A big shoutout to the early-stage founders who missed the application window for the Startup Battlefield 200 (SB 200) at TechCrunch Disrupt. We have exciting news just for you! You procrastinators can thank your lucky stars — we’re giving you (a little) more time to get your application together. Pro tip: Applying to and participating […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Restate raises $7M for its lightweight workflows-as-code platform

When one of the co-creators of the popular open-source stream-processing framework Apache Flink launches a new startup, it’s worth paying attention. Stephan Ewen was among the founding team of the open source project back in 2010 and then later became the CTO of Data Artisans, which aimed to monetize Flink. Alibaba then acquired the company […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Civic Renewables is rolling up residential solar installers to improve quality and grow the market

With most residential solar panels installed by smaller companies, customer experience can be a mixed bag. To try to address the quality and consistency problem, Civic Renewables is buying small installers.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 11:01:12 AM

Friends & Family Capital, a fund founded by ex-Palantir CFO and son of IVP’s founder, unveils third $118M fund

Small VC firms require deep trust, mutual support, and long-term commitment among the partners —a kinship that, in many ways, resembles a family dynamic. Colin Anderson (Palantir’s ex-CFO and former research VP at Peter Thiel’s Clarium Capital) and John Fogelsong (the son of IVP co-founder Norm Fogelsong) didn’t need to cultivate a family-like relationship before […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 11:00:00 AM

Fisker’s troubled Ocean SUV gets its first recall

Fisker is issuing the first recall for its all-electric Ocean SUV because of problems with the warning lights, according to new information published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The safety agency says that the Fisker Ocean’s instrument panel displays the brake, park, and antilock brake system warning lights in the wrong font size […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 10:25:33 AM

Gorilla, a Belgian startup that helps energy providers crunch big data, raises $25M

Gorilla, a Belgian company that serves the energy sector with real-time data and analytics for pricing and forecasting, has raised €23 million ($25 million) in a Series B round led by U.S. venture capital firm Headline. Founded in 2018, Antwerp-based Gorilla works with energy providers across Europe, the U.S. and Australia, including British Gas’ parent […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 9:51:21 AM

Fabless AI chip makers Rebellions and Sapeon to merge as competition heats up in global AI hardware industry

South Korea’s fabless AI chip industry saw a slew of fundraising events over the last couple of years as demand for hardware to power AI applications skyrocketed, and it seems the space is already consolidating. Two of the country’s prominent fabless AI chip startups, Rebellions and Sapeon, have agreed to merge, the companies said on […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 9:15:52 AM

The apps that Apple Sherlocked at WWDC

Here's a list of third-party apps that were Sherlocked by Apple at this year's WWDC.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 8:16:42 AM

Germany’s Black Semiconductor raises $273M for graphene-based chip tech

Tech sovereignty has become a looming priority for a number of nations these days, and now a startup working in semiconductors has received a major boost in aid of that effort for Germany and Europe. Black Semiconductor, which is developing a new kind of chip-connecting technology based on graphene, has raised €254.4 million (around $273 […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 7:01:18 AM

Let there be Light! Danish startup exits stealth with $13M seed funding to bring AI to general ledgers

It’s not the sexiest of subject matters, but someone needs to talk about it: The CFO tech stack — software used by the chief financial officers of the world — is ripe for disruption. That’s according to Jonathan Sanders, CEO and co-founder of fledgling Danish startup Light, which exits stealth Wednesday with $13 million in […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 7:00:00 AM

Apex’s off-the-shelf satellite bus business attracts $95M in new funding

Fresh off the success of its first mission, satellite manufacturer Apex has closed $95 million in new capital to scale its operations. The Los Angeles-based startup successfully launched and commissioned its first spacecraft, a model called Aries, in March. That mission has gone off seemingly without a hitch — a rarity in the space industry […]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 4:01:00 AM

Washington doesn’t know Y Combinator exists, but it’s trying to change that

After educating the D.C. market, YC aims to leverage its influence, particularly in areas like competition policy.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 2:13:03 AM

DC’s political class doesn’t know Y Combinator exists, but it’s trying to change that

After educating the D.C. market, YC aims to leverage its influence, particularly in areas like competition policy.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 2:13:03 AM

FTC Chair Lina Khan says the agency is going after the ‘mob bosses’ in Big Tech

Lina Khan says the FTC wants to be effective in its enforcement strategy, which is why it has been taking on lawsuits that “go up against some of the big guys.”

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 12:03:48 AM

FTC Chair Lina Khan shares how the agency is looking at AI

With dozens of antitrust cases and close to a hundred on the consumer protection side, the agency is now turning to innovative tactics to help it fight fraud, particularly in the AI space.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 11:53:48 PM

Apple Watch is finally adding a feature I’ve been requesting for years

The ability to pause your activity rings is a minor feature update for most, but for those of us who obsess about such things to an unhealthy degree, it’s the best Apple Watch update in years.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 11:41:17 PM

Why Apple is taking a small model approach to generative AI

It’s a very Apple approach in the sense that it prioritizes a frictionless user experience above all.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 10:51:14 PM

Linq raises $6.6M to use AI to make research easier for financial analysts

When generative AI tools started making waves in late 2022 after the launch of ChatGPT, the finance industry was one of the first to recognize these tools’ potential for speeding up the data-gathering and research process. Speed, after all, is vital when you’re advising investors who need to respond quickly to market changes. Now a […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 10:30:00 PM

Biden administration looks to give Rocket Lab $24M to boost space-grade solar cell production

In addition to the federal funding, the state of New Mexico — where SolAero is based — committed to providing financing and incentives that value $25.5 million.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 9:12:52 PM

Apple’s AI, Apple Intelligence, is boring and practical — that’s why it works

Some of the new Apple Intelligence features that Apple debuted at WWDC 2024 don’t even feel like AI, they just feel like smarter tools.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 8:30:00 PM

Spawning wants to build more ethical AI training data sets

Jordan Meyer and Mathew Dryhurst founded Spawning AI to create tools that help artists exert more control over how their works are used online. Their latest project, called Source.Plus, is intended to curate “non-infringing” media for AI model training. The Source.Plus project’s first initiative is a data set seeded with nearly 40 million public domain […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 7:27:40 PM

TikTok comes for Google as it quietly rolls out image search capabilities in TikTok Shop

After leading the social media landscape, TikTok appears to be interested in challenging Google’s dominance in search. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing the ability for users to take or upload a photo to find similar products in TikTok Shop. The feature, which was first spotted by X user Jonah Mazano, is available […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 6:40:53 PM

GM gives Cruise $850M lifeline as it relaunches robotaxis in Houston

General Motors is investing $850 million into Cruise as the autonomous vehicle subsidiary slowly makes its way back to testing in Phoenix, Dallas and, as of Tuesday, Houston. GM’s CFO Paul Jacobson announced the capital infusion on stage at Deutsche Bank’s Global Automotive Industry Conference on Tuesday. “This will help bridge Cruise funding until we […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 6:25:28 PM

At last, Apple’s Messages app will support RCS and scheduling texts

These messaging features, announced at WWDC 2024, will have a significant impact on how people communicate every day.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 5:57:00 PM

Rippling’s tender offer decision draws mixed — and strong — reactions

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at Rippling’s controversial decision to ban some former employees from selling their stock, Carta’s massive valuation drop, a GenZ-focused fintech raise, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 5:05:00 PM

Google’s June Pixel feature drop brings Gemini Nano AI model to Pixel 8 and 8a users

Google is finally making its Gemini Nano AI model available to Pixel 8 and 8a users after teasing it in March.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Apple adds win-back subscription offers and improved search suggestions to the App Store

At WWDC 2024, Apple introduced new options for developers to promote their apps and earn more from them in the App Store.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 3:45:16 PM

Here are all the devices compatible with iOS 18

iOS 18 will be available in the fall as a free software update.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 3:30:30 PM

BeReal is being acquired by mobile apps and games company Voodoo for €500M

The acquisition comes as BeReal was struggling to grow its user base and was looking for a buyer.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 3:28:12 PM

Light introduces its latest minimalist phone, now with an OLED screen but still no addictive apps

Unlike Light's older phones, the Light III sports a larger OLED display and an NFC chip to make way for future payment tools, as well as a camera.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 3:00:00 PM

The mystery of an alleged data broker’s data breach

Since April, a hacker with a history of selling stolen data has claimed a data breach of billions of records — impacting at least 300 million people — from a U.S. data broker, which would make it one of the largest alleged data breaches of the year. The data, seen by TechCrunch, on its own […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 2:17:58 PM

Crunchbase expands its diversity tracking feature to Europe

Diversity Spotlight is a feature on Crunchbase that lets companies add tags to their profiles to label themselves.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 2:10:00 PM

The top AI features Apple announced at WWDC 2024

Today marked the kickoff of Apple’s WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC), the annual event where Apple announces some of the biggest features headed to its devices, apps and software. And this year’s WWDC is a doozy. Thanks to Apple’s newfound — and heavy — investment in generative AI tech, the company had loads to showcase on […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 1:07:21 PM

Flow claims it can 100x any CPU’s power with its companion chip and some elbow grease

A Finnish startup called Flow Computing is making one of the wildest claims ever heard in silicon engineering: by adding its proprietary companion chip, any CPU can instantly double its performance, increasing to as much as 100x with software tweaks. If it works, it could help the industry keep up with the insatiable compute demand […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 1:01:00 PM

The VC queen of portfolio PR, Masha Bucher, has raised her largest fund yet: $150M

Five years ago, Day One Ventures had $11 million under management, and Bucher and her team have grown that to just over $450 million.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 1:00:00 PM

AI news reader Particle adds publishing partners and $10.9M in new funding

Particle announced it has partnered with news organization Reuters to collaborate on new business models and experiments in monetization.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Here’s everything Apple announced at the WWDC 2024 keynote, including Apple Intelligence, Siri makeover

The TechCrunch team runs down all of the biggest news from the Apple WWDC 2024 keynote in an easy-to-skim digest.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Paris-based AI startup Mistral AI raises $640 million

Mistral AI has closed its much rumored Series B funding round with General Catalyst leading the round. The company has secured €600 million (around $640 million at today’s exchange rate) in a mix of equity and debt. As TechCrunch previously reported, the startup is now valued at $6 billion following this funding round. As a […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 12:43:49 PM

Cognigy lands cash to grow its contact center automation business

Cognigy is helping create AI that can handle the highly repetitive, rote processes center workers face daily.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 12:00:00 PM

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies for more wide-ranging needs. And that growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Raspberry Pi is now a public company as its shares pop after IPO pricing

Who would have thought that Raspberry Pi, the maker of cheap, single-board computers, would become a public company? And yet, this is exactly what’s happening this week as Raspberry Pi priced its IPO this morning at £2.80 per share, which values the company at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate. Shortly after […]

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 11:08:33 AM

TechCrunch Space: A week that will go down in history

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. What a week! In the same seven-day period, we watched Boeing’s Starliner launch astronauts to space for the first time, and then we got to watch those two astronauts dock with the International Space Station. And we also got to see SpaceX launch Starship for the fourth time […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 10:00:00 PM

Elon Musk threatens to ban Apple devices from his companies over Apple’s ChatGPT integrations

Elon Musk is threatening to ban iPhones from all his companies over the newly announced OpenAI integrations Apple announced at WWDC 2024 on Monday. In a series of posts on X, the Telsa, SpaceX and xAI exec wrote that “if Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level,” Apple devices would be banned from his businesses […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 9:54:51 PM

Apple confirms plans to work with Google’s Gemini ‘in the future’

Following a keynote presentation that both introduced Apple Intelligence and confirmed a partnership that brings GPT access to Siri through an deal with OpenAI, SVP Craig Federighi confirmed plans to work with additional third-party models. The first example given by the executive was one the companies with whom Apple was exploring a partnership. “We’re looking […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 9:50:17 PM

How Urvashi Barooah broke into venture after everyone told her she couldn’t

When Urvashi Barooah applied to MBA programs in 2015, she focused her applications around her dream of becoming a venture capitalist. She got rejected from every school, and was told she was being unrealistic about her prospects in the venture industry, but she didn’t let that deter her. Now, eight years later, Barooah, 33, is […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 9:27:19 PM

Slack CEO Denise Dresser is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt this October

Slack CEO Denise Dresser Speaking At TechCrunch Disrupt 2024

Monday, June 10, 2024 8:00:00 PM

Watch the Apple Intelligence reveal, and the rest of WWDC 2024 right here

Apple kicked off its weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2024) event today with the customary keynote at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. The presentation focused on the company’s software offerings and the developers that power them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS. But the biggest news came with the […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 7:10:00 PM

Apple brings Apple Intelligence to developers via SiriKit and App Intents

Apple Intelligence, Apple’s new generative AI offering, won’t only be a consumer-facing feature — developers will be able to take advantage of the latest technology too. In its keynote address at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, the company announced that developers would be able to integrate the experience powered by Apple Intelligence into their […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 7:00:26 PM

Apple Intelligence features will be available on iPhone 15 Pro and devices with M1 mac

Apple announced a ton of new AI features under the new Apple Intelligence moniker. While the features are free to use, only a limited number of devices will get access to them. These devices include on iPhone 15 Pro along with iPad and Mac with M1 or newer chips. So older iPhones or iPhone 15 […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:45:43 PM

Apple brings ChatGPT to its apps, including Siri

Apple is bringing ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot experience, to Siri and other first-party apps and capabilities across its operating systems. The tech giant announced the news during a keynote at its annual WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino this morning. “We’re excited to partner with Apple to bring ChatGPT to their users in a new […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:38:53 PM

Apple debuts AI-generated … Bitmoji?

An “Apple Intelligence” (aka AI)-powered feature coming in iOS 18 will allow iPhone users to create AI images of people they’re messaging with — a feature that works something like an AI-upgraded Bitmoji. The feature will help to make your “everyday conversations more enjoyable,” according to Apple. It announced the new tech at WWDC 2024. […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:26:32 PM

Apple TV+ introduces InSight, a new feature similar to Amazon’s X-Ray, at WWDC 2024

To use InSight, Apple TV+ subscribers can swipe down on their remote to bring up a display with actor names and character information in real time.

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:21:13 PM

Apple gives Siri a makeover

Siri got a makeover at Apple’s annual WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino, courtesy of the tech giant’s overarching generative AI push this year. Siri is now more natural, more relevant and more personal — and it has new look, including a reveamped icon. The assistant pops up with a glowing light that wraps around […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:19:15 PM

Apple Intelligence is the company’s new generative AI offering

Apple Tuesday unveiled Apple Intelligence, its long awaited, ecosystem-wide push into generative AI. As earlier rumors suggested, the new feature is called Apple Intelligent (A.I., get it?). The company promised the feature will be built with safety at its core, along with highly personalized experiences. “Most importantly, it has to understand you and be grounded […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:08:05 PM

Apple is launching its own password manager app

In addition to all the features you can find in the Passwords menu today, there’s a new column on the left that lets you more easily navigate your password collection.

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:05:37 PM

Smart Script in iPadOS 18 will clean up your handwriting when using an Apple Pencil

Apple announced at WWDC on Monday that iPadOS 18 will include a new “Smart Script” feature that will clean up your handwriting when using an Apple Pencil to write in Notes. With Smart Script, Apple says it’s making handwriting your notes even smoother and straighter. The feature improves the appearance of your writing as you […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:05:14 PM

Calculator for iPad does the math for you

iOS' perennial tips calculating app is finally coming to the larger screen.

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:04:27 PM

With macOS Sequoia, you can mirror your iPhone on your Mac

The new OS, announced at WWDC 2024, will allow users to mirror their iPhone screen directly on their Mac and even control it.

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:03:48 PM

Apple unveils MacOS Sequoia

MacOS got a few noteworthy upgrades at Apple’s WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) this year in Cupertino. The latest version is MacOS Sequoia. One of the biggest is iPhone mirroring. Now, through MacOS’ Continuity feature, you can mirror your iPhone’s screen and control it right from your Mac. Notifications on Mac bring up iPhone mirror mode, […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:53:37 PM

iPhones will soon text via satellite

"Messages via Satellite," announced at Apple's WWDC 2024 keynote, works much like the SOS feature did.

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:45:44 PM

Apple revamps its Photos app for iOS 18

Apple says the new design will lead to less time searching for photos.

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:42:46 PM

iOS 18 will let you hide and lock apps

Users will be able to lock an app when they hand over their phone.

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:34:10 PM

Tap to Cash lets you pay by touching iPhones

Today’s WWDC keynote has been packed so for, including a number of key new updates for iOS 18. One of the more interesting additions is Tap to Pay, which is more or less what it sounds like, letting users pay for things by tapping together a pair of iPhones. As the name also suggests, the […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:30:47 PM

iOS 18 will finally let you customize your icons and unlock them from the grid

In iOS 18, Apple will now support long-requested functionality, like the ability to set app icons and widgets wherever you want.

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:26:43 PM

Apple unveils iOS 18 with more customization options

Apple is sharing the first details for the upcoming major release of iOS, its operating system specifically designed for the iPhone. The company is holding its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this week, and it starts with an online conference focused on software releases. As expected, this is a pivotal moment for the mobile platform as […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:23:50 PM

VisionOS can now make spatial photos out of 3D images

Apple today kicked off what it promised would be a packed WWDC 2024 with a handful of VisionOS announcements. At the top of the list, is the ability to turn existing images into spatial photos. The new feature utilizes machine learning to build out additional angles, marking a change from the existing method, which required […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:19:06 PM

Apple to release Vision Pro in international markets

The Apple Vision Pro is now available in eight new countries.

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:18:56 PM

Here’s everything Apple announced at the WWDC 2024 keynote, so far

The TechCrunch the team runs down all of the biggest news from the Apple WWDC 2024 keynote in an easy-to-skim digest.

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:15:45 PM

Apple debuts VisionOS 2 at WWDC 2024

Today at its annual WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino, Apple announced updates to VisionOS, the operating system running on the Vision Pro. The upgraded VisionOS — VisionOS 2 — brings with it productivity enhancements and “new immersive experiences,” as Apple describes them. One lets you “spatialize” photos from regular photos, leveraging AI and machine […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 5:11:39 PM

Mandiant says hackers stole a ‘significant volume of data’ from Snowflake customers

The security firm said the attacks targeting Snowflake customers is "ongoing," suggesting the number of affected companies may rise.

Monday, June 10, 2024 4:05:07 PM

Kelvin wants to help save the planet by applying AI to home energy audits

French startup Kelvin, which uses computer vision and machine learning to make it easier to audit homes for energy efficiency, has raised $5.1M.

Monday, June 10, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Only hours left to apply to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt

A last call and a major shoutout to any and all early-stage founders. It’s time to dig deep and take advantage of an unparalleled opportunity at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 — the Startup Battlefield 200. Applications to Startup Battlefield 200 close today The Startup Battlefield 200 experience isn’t just good — it’s great. But you’ll never […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 4:00:00 PM

UK and Canada privacy watchdogs investigating 23andMe data breach

Privacy watchdogs in the U.K. and Canada have launched a joint investigation into the data breach at 23andMe last year. On Monday, the U.K,’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) announced their investigation into the genetic testing company, saying the organizations will leverage “the combined resources and […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 3:11:14 PM

Stake raises $14M to bring its fractional property investment platform to Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi

Dubai-based fractional property investment platform Stake has raised $14 million in Series A funding.

Monday, June 10, 2024 1:40:44 PM

After hits like Reddit and Scopley, Collaborative Fund easily raised a $125M fund to tackle climate, health and food

“We were motivated to fundraise because we think the ’24 vintage is going to be a good one,” founder Craig Shapiro said.

Monday, June 10, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Sources: Wasoko-MaxAB e-commerce merger faces delays amid headwinds in Africa

The merger has yet to close due to extended due diligence amid ongoing restructuring and macroeconomic headwinds across multiple countries.

Monday, June 10, 2024 11:39:33 AM

Watch Apple kick off WWDC 2024 right here

The keynote will be focused on Apple's software offerings and the developers that power them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS.

Monday, June 10, 2024 11:05:00 AM

What to expect from WWDC 2024: iOS 18, macOS 15 and so much AI

Apple is hoping to make WWDC 2024 memorable as it finally spells out its generative AI plans.

Monday, June 10, 2024 10:00:00 AM

With €50 million to invest, Italian Founders Fund looks for entrepreneurs with global ambitions

While funding for Italian startups has been growing, the country still ranks eighth in Europe by VC investment, according to Dealroom. Newly created Italian Founders Fund (IFF) hopes to help with the catching up, both in quantity and in quality. With €50 million to invest into 25 companies, it also positions itself as a sector […]

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:00:00 AM

William Anders, astronaut who took the famous ‘Earthrise’ photo, dies at 90

William A. Anders, the astronaut behind perhaps the single most iconic photo of our planet, has died at the age of 90. On Friday morning, Anders was piloting a small plane that dove into the water near Roche Harbor, Wash. His son Greg confirmed his death. Anders retired from the Air Force Reserve as a […]

Sunday, June 9, 2024 8:12:25 PM

Startup Battlefield 200 applications close tomorrow

You’re running out of time to join the Startup Battlefield 200, our curated showcase of top startups from around the world and across multiple industries. This elite cohort — 200 companies strong — absolutely owns (and slays) the exhibition floor at TechCrunch Disrupt. Tomorrow is the last day to apply to Startup Battlefield 200 We’re […]

Sunday, June 9, 2024 4:00:00 PM

New York moves to limit kids’ access to ‘addictive feeds’

New York’s state legislature has passed a bill that would prohibit social media companies from showing so-called “addictive feeds” to children under 18, unless they obtain parental consent. The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act defines an addictive feed as one where the content is recommended or prioritized based on information about the […]

Sunday, June 9, 2024 3:49:55 PM

Cat-sitting startup Meowtel clawed its way to profitability despite trouble raising from dog-focused VCs

Dogs are the most popular pet in the U.S.: 65.1 million households have one, according to the American Pet Products Association. But while cats are not far off, with 46.5 million households with one, a lot of innovation in the pet category has focused exclusively on dogs. And even if the service serves both species, […]

Sunday, June 9, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Anterior grabs $20M from NEA to expedite health insurance approvals with AI

Anterior, a company that uses AI to expedite health insurance approval for medical procedures, has raised a $20 million Series A round at a $95 million post-money valuation led by NEA, according to two people familiar with the deal. Existing investors Sequoia, which led Anterior’s $3.2 million seed round last September, and Neo, an accelerator […]

Saturday, June 8, 2024 9:03:40 PM

How India’s most valuable startup ended up being worth nothing

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. There’s more bad news for Byju’s. In a research note, HSBC estimates that the Indian edtech giant, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing. The write-down in its […]

Saturday, June 8, 2024 8:15:00 PM

Bereave wants employers to suck a little less at navigating death

If death and taxes are inevitable, why are companies so prepared for taxes, but not for death? “I lost both of my parents in college, and it didn’t initially spark this interest to go start a business around my experience,” said Bereave co-founder Elijah Linder. In the immediate aftermath of Linder’s loss, founding a company […]

Saturday, June 8, 2024 7:30:00 PM

Apple needs to focus on making AI useful, not flashy

Google and Microsoft have made their developer conferences a showcase of their generative AI chops, and now all eyes are on next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference, which is expected to mark the debut of Apple Intelligence. The Cupertino-based company is facing a lot of pressure. Apple has fallen behind its peers in the AI race, […]

Saturday, June 8, 2024 5:31:51 PM

Deal Dive: Human Native AI is building the marketplace for AI training licensing deals

AI systems and large language models need to be trained on massive amounts of data to be accurate but they shouldn’t train on data that they don’t have the rights to use. OpenAI’s licensing deals with The Atlantic and Vox last week show that both sides of the table are interested in landing these AI-training […]

Saturday, June 8, 2024 5:00:00 PM

Wazer Pro is making desktop water jetting more affordable

Before Wazer came along, “water jet cutting” and “affordable” didn’t belong in the same sentence. That changed in 2016, when the company launched the world’s first desktop water jet cutter, pre-selling $1.3 million worth of units. Fast-forward to today, and Wazer says it has over 3,000 cutters in the field across 60 countries, used by […]

Saturday, June 8, 2024 4:44:26 PM

Autonomy’s Mike Lynch acquitted after US fraud trial brought by HP

Former Autonomy chief executive Dr Mike Lynch issued a statement Thursday following his acquittal of criminal charges, ending a 13-year legal battle with Hewlett-Packard which became one of Silicon Valley’s biggest fraud cases. He had been accused of falsely inflating revenues at the UK startup ahead of its $11 billion sale to HP in 2011. […]

Saturday, June 8, 2024 1:59:41 AM

What Snowflake isn’t saying about its customer data breaches

As another Snowflake customer confirms a data breach,

Saturday, June 8, 2024 1:40:55 AM

Rippling bans former employees who work at competitors like Deel and Workday from its tender offer stock sale

Investor demand has been so strong for Rippling's shares that it is letting former employees particpate in its tender offer. With one exception.

Friday, June 7, 2024 10:20:55 PM

NASA puts $10M down on Mars sample return proposals from Blue Origin, SpaceX and others

It turns out the space industry has a lot of ideas on how to improve NASA’s $11 billion, 15-year plan to collect and return samples from Mars. Seven of these proposals have caught the agency’s attention. Announced today, NASA has awarded $1.5 million contracts to seven companies to further develop their plans for the revamped […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 10:10:58 PM

In 2024, many Y Combinator startups only want tiny seed rounds — but there’s a catch

When Bowery Capital general partner Loren Straub started talking to a startup from the latest Y Combinator accelerator batch a few months ago, she thought it was strange that the company didn’t have a lead investor for the round it was raising. Even stranger, the founders didn’t seem to be looking for one. She thought […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 7:20:08 PM

Watch Apple kick off WWDC 2024 right here

The keynote will be focused on Apple's software offerings and the developers that power them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS.

Friday, June 7, 2024 7:05:00 PM

Startups Weekly: Ups, downs, and silver linings

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje’s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Anna will be covering for him this week. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Most interesting startup stories from the week As the end of 0% interest rates keeps taking its toll, […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 7:00:00 PM

BlackRock has slashed the value of stake in Byju’s, once worth $22 billion, to zero

HSBC and BlackRock estimate that the Indian edtech giant Byju's, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing.

Friday, June 7, 2024 6:30:00 PM

Apple’s generative AI offering might not work with the standard iPhone 15

Apple is set to board the runaway locomotive that is generative AI at next week’s World Wide Developer Conference. Reports thus far have pointed to a partnership with OpenAI that will, among other things, help supercharge Siri. A fresh round of rumors reported by Bloomberg shed more light on the news expected to be unveiled […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 5:09:40 PM

LinkedIn to limit targeted ads in EU after complaint over sensitive data use

LinkedIn has confirmed it will no longer allow advertisers to target users based on data gleaned from their participation in LinkedIn Groups. The move comes more than three months after a collective of civil society groups filed a complaint with the European Commission (EC) over a potential violation of the Digital Services Act (DSA). The […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 4:45:08 PM

Startup Battlefield 200 applications due Monday

Founders: Need plans this weekend? What better way to spend your time than applying to this year’s Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt. With Monday’s deadline looming, this is a must-add for your weekend to-do list. Accepting both applications and referrals We’re accepting both quality applications and referrals for Startup Battlefield 200. If you are […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 4:00:04 PM

Novel battery manufacturer EnerVenue is raising $515M, per filing

The company is in the process of building a gigawatt-scale factory in Kentucky to produce its nickel-hydrogen batteries.

Friday, June 7, 2024 2:49:47 PM

Meta quietly rolls out Communities on Messenger

Meta is quietly rolling out a new “Communities” feature on Messenger, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The feature is designed to help organizations, schools and other private groups communicate in a more organized and structured way. The rollout comes as Meta introduced Communities on WhatsApp back in 2022. The feature lets people connect with others […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 1:52:38 PM

Siri and Google Assistant look to generative AI for a new lease on life

Voice assistants in general are having an existential moment, and generative AI is poised to be the logical successor.

Friday, June 7, 2024 12:28:00 PM

PowerSchool, provider of K-12 education software, to go private in $5.6B deal

Cloud-based education software vendor PowerSchool is being taken private by investment firm Bain Capital in a $5.6 billion deal. The announcement comes amid a swathe of take-private deals led by private equity firms seeking a bargain on under-performing enterprise software firms. PowerSchool is a web-based platform that helps educational institutions manage operations such as enrolment, […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 12:09:55 PM

Shopify acquires Threads (no, not that one)

Shopify has acquired Threads.com, the Seqiuoa-backed Slack alternative, Threads said on its website. The companies didn’t disclose the terms of the deal but said that the Threads.com team will join Shopify. Threads added that after the launch of Meta’s social network with the same name last year, the startup had “the opportunity to sell our […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 10:05:33 AM

Bangladeshi police agents accused of selling citizens’ personal information on Telegram

Two senior police officials in Bangladesh are accused of collecting and selling citizens' personal information to criminals on Telegram.

Friday, June 7, 2024 2:00:00 AM

Carta’s valuation to be cut by billions in an upcoming secondary sale

Carta, a once-high-flying Silicon Valley startup that loudly backed away from one of its businesses earlier this year, is working on a secondary sale that would value the company at $2 billion. Carta is working with the investment bank Jeffries on the sale and initially hoped to find demand for the offering at a valuation […]

Friday, June 7, 2024 12:24:49 AM

Boeing’s Starliner overcomes leaks and engine trouble to dock with ‘the big city in the sky’

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has successfully delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station, a key milestone in the aerospace giant’s quest to certify the capsule for regular crewed missions. Starliner safely docked at 10:34 AM Pacific Time. After taking some time to equalize pressure between Starliner and the station, the hatch opened at around 12:46 […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 9:04:07 PM

Rivian’s path to survival is now remarkably clear

Rivian needs to sell its new revamped vehicles at a profit in order to sustain itself long enough to get to the cheaper mass market R2 SUV on the road.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 8:13:12 PM

What to expect from WWDC 2024: iOS 18, macOS 15 and so much AI

Apple is hoping to make WWDC 2024 memorable as it finally spells out its generative AI plans.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 7:49:41 PM

HSBC believes that $22 billion Byju’s is now worth zero

In a research note, HSBC estimates that the Indian edtech giant Byju's, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 7:40:07 PM

What to expect from Apple’s AI-powered iOS 18 at WWDC 2024

As WWDC 2024 nears, all sorts of rumors and leaks have emerged about what iOS 18 and its AI-powered apps and features have in store.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 7:38:55 PM

Apple’s Design Awards winners highlight indies and startups

Apple's annual list of what it considers the best and most innovative software available on its platform is turning its attention to the little guy.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 7:29:00 PM

Apple’s Design Awards winners highlight indies and startups

Apple's annual list of what it considers the best and most innovative software available on its platform is turning its attention to the little guy.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 7:29:00 PM

Meta rolls out Meta Verified for WhatsApp Business users in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia

Meta launched its Meta Verified program today along with other features, such as the ability to call large businesses and custom messages.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 5:49:49 PM

Meta adds AI-powered features to WhatsApp Business app

Last year, during the Q3 2023 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg talked about leveraging AI to have business accounts respond to customers for purchase and support queries. Today, Meta announced AI-powered features for WhatsApp Business apps, such as helping with the creation of click-to-WhatsApp ads and generating responses to frequent customer messages. Mark Zuckerberg announced these […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 5:48:17 PM

TikTok is testing Snapchat-like streaks

TikTok is testing streaks that are similar to Snapchat's in order to boost engagement, including how long people stay on the app.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 5:38:20 PM

Inside Fisker’s collapse and robotaxis come to more US cities

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Your usual host Kirsten Korosec is taking a much deserved vacation, so I’ll be walking you through this week’s transportation news. Top of mind is my colleague […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 5:05:00 PM

Revel’s latest pivot: Ditching all-employee ride-hail in favor of gig worker model

New York-based Revel has made a lot of pivots since initially launching in 2018 as a dockless e-moped sharing service. The BlackRock-backed startup briefly stepped into the e-bike subscription business. It launched and now operates a handful of electric vehicle charging stations across the five boroughs. And it started an all-Tesla, all-employee ride-hail service, in […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 4:43:37 PM

Google Play cracks down on AI apps after circulation of apps for making deepfake nudes

Google today is issuing new guidance for developers building AI apps distributed through Google Play, in hopes of cutting down on inappropriate and otherwise prohibited content. The company says apps offering AI features will have to prevent the generation of restricted content — which includes sexual content, violence, and more — and will need to […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 4:19:30 PM

UK retailers file a £1.1B collective action against Amazon over claims of data misuse

E-commerce behemoth Amazon recently reached a wide-ranging settlement with the UK competition watchdog over how it uses Marketplace sellers’ data, with commitments to more transparent and fair practices going forward. But Amazon is not out of hot water over these issues just yet. Today the British Independent Retailers Association, a retailer association with thousands of […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 4:14:57 PM

Rivian overhauled the R1S and R1T to entice new buyers ahead of cheaper R2 launch

Rivian has changed 600 parts on its R1S SUV and R1T pickup truck in a bid to drive down manufacturing costs, while improving performance of its flagship vehicles. The end goal, which will play out over the coming year, is an existential one. Rivian lost about $38,784 on every vehicle it delivered in the first […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 4:00:15 PM

Twitch DJs will now have to pay music labels to play songs in livestreams

Twitch has come up with a solution for the ongoing copyright issues that DJs encounter on the platform. The company announced Thursday a new program that enables DJs to stream millions of tracks in a new DJ Category, giving them more clarity on which songs are safe to use in their streams. The only catch […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Google partners with RapidSOS to enable 911 contact through RCS

Google said today it is partnering with RapidSOS, a platform for emergency first responders, to enable users to contact 911 through RCS (Rich Messaging Service).

Thursday, June 6, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Atlassian now gives startups a year of free access

Long before product-led growth became a buzzword, Atlassian offered free tiers for virtually all of its productivity and developer tools. Today, that mostly means free access for up to ten users and some other limitations. For startups, that’s a good way to get started with the company’s tools like Jira and Bitbucket, but they also […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 4:00:00 PM

A social app for creatives, Cara grew from 40k to 650k users in a week because artists are fed up with Meta’s AI policies

Artists have finally had enough with Meta’s predatory AI policies, but Meta’s loss is Cara’s gain. An artist-run, anti-AI social platform, Cara has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users within the last week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts. Instagram is a necessity for many artists, who use the platform to […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 3:44:33 PM

Google looks to AI to help save the coral reefs

Google has developed a new AI tool to help marine biologists better understand coral reef ecosystems and their health, which can aid in conversation efforts. The tool, SurfPerch, created with Google Research and DeepMind, was trained on thousands of hours of audio reef recordings that allow scientists studying the reef to be able to “hear […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 3:01:42 PM

Tektonic AI raises $10M to build GenAI agents for automating business operations

Only a few years ago, one of the hottest topics in enterprise software was ‘robotic process automation’ (RPA). It doesn’t feel like those services, which tried to automate a lot of repetitive business processes, ever quite lived up to their promise. The rise of generative AI, however, may just be the missing key to building […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 3:00:00 PM

SpaceX launches mammoth Starship rocket and brings it back for the first time

SpaceX achieved a key milestone in its Starship flight test campaign: returning the booster and the upper stage back to Earth.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 2:33:26 PM

Sirion, now valued around $1B, acquires Eigen in enterprise AI tooling consolidation play

There’s a lot of buzz right now about generative AI and what impact it might have on businesses. But look beyond the hype and high-profile deals like the one between OpenAI and PwC last week, and you’ll see that the world is already years into using customer-facing, no-code AI tools for extracting information and working […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 2:26:48 PM

Kleiner Perkins leads $14.4M seed round into Fizz, a credit-building debit card aimed at Gen Z college students

Carlo Kobe and Scott Smith believed so strongly in the need for a debit card product designed specifically for Gen Zers that they dropped out of Harvard and Cornel at ages 19 and 21, respectively, in 2021 to build a startup called Fizz. The pair wanted to go beyond creating a debit card for the […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 2:15:00 PM

How many Earths does your lifestyle require?

A new app called MyGlimpact is intended not only to help people understand their environmental footprint, but why they shouldn’t feel guilty about it.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Prolific Machines, with a $55M Series B, shines ‘light’ on a better way to grow lab proteins for food and medicine

Prolific Machines believes it has a way of transitioning away from molecules to something better: light.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Punk singer Shira Yevin pushes for fair pay with InPink, a women-only job marketplace for artists

It’s been 20 years since Shira Yevin, the lead singer of punk band Shiragirl drove a pink RV into the Vans Warped Tour grounds, the now-defunct punk rock festival notorious for being male-dominated. In response to the festival’s lack of female-fronted bands, Yevin’s band crashed the festival and set up an impromptu all-female stage. This […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 1:18:53 PM

Qargo raises $14M to digitize and decarbonize the trucking industry

While the transport industry does use legacy software, many of these platforms are from an earlier era. Qargo hopes its newer technologies can help it leapfrog the competition.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 1:16:49 PM

Greptile raises $4M to build an AI-fueled code base expert

When you look at how generative AI is being implemented across developer tools, the focus for the most part has been on generating code, as with Github Copilot. Greptile, an early stage startup from a group of recent Georgia Tech grads, decided to take a different approach: using AI to help developers understand the code […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Study finds that AI models hold opposing views on controversial topics

The models tended to answer questions inconsistently, which reflects biases embedded in the data used to train the models.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Cube is building a ‘semantic layer’ for company data

A growing number of businesses are embracing data models — abstract models that organize elements of data and standardize how they relate to one another. But as the data analytics and AI boom drives organizations to expect more of data models, many of the old paradigms are proving difficult to manage — and exceptionally brittle. […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Robinhood acquires global crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200M

Stock-trading platform Robinhood is diving deeper into the cryptocurrency realm with the acquisition of crytpo exchange Bitstamp. Robinhood said it expects the deal to close in the first half of 2025, with the final transaction value to be in the region of $200 million. While Robinhood is better known for its stock-trading services, allowing ordinary consumers to […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 12:46:24 PM

Fintech Torpago has a unique way to compete with Brex and Ramp: turning banks into customers

Torpago's Powered By product is geared for regional and community banks, with under $20 billion in assets, to launch their own branded cards and spend management programs.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 12:45:00 PM

Eyebot raised $6M for AI-powered kiosks that provide 90-second eye exams without optometrist

Over half of Americans wear corrective glasses or contact lenses. While there isn’t a shortage of low-cost and luxury frames available online or in stores, consumers can only buy them with a current eyeglass prescription. That means that they first need an eye exam from an optometrist to receive that prescription. But, due to a […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Google’s updated AI-powered NotebookLM expands to India, UK and over 200 other countries

Google on Thursday said it is rolling out NotebookLM, its AI-powered note-taking assistant, to over 200 new countries, nearly six months after opening its access in the U.S. The platform, powered by Google’s multimodal LLM Gemini 1.5 Pro, has also been upgraded with new features and languages to help more people use AI to generate […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 11:00:00 AM

Founded in war-torn Sudan, YC-backed Elevate now provides fintech to freelancers globally

Inflation and currency devaluation have always been a growing concern for Africans with bank accounts.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 10:07:51 AM

Amazon buys Indian video streaming service MX Player

Amazon has agreed to acquire Indian video streaming service MX Player from the local media powerhouse Times Internet, the latest step by the e-commerce giant to make its services and brand popular in smaller cities and towns in the key overseas market. The two firms reached a definitive agreement for the deal on Wednesday evening, […]

Thursday, June 6, 2024 8:19:02 AM

Dealt turns retailers into service providers and proves that pivots sometimes work

Dealt is now building a service platform for retailers instead of end customers.

Thursday, June 6, 2024 6:30:00 AM

Hundreds of Snowflake customer passwords found online are linked to info-stealing malware

Snowflake is the latest company in a string of high-profile security incidents and sizable data breaches caused by the lack of MFA.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 11:00:31 PM

Google acquires Cameyo to bring Windows apps to ChromeOS

Google has acquired Cameyo, a company developing virtualization tools to run Windows apps on ChromeOS devices, for an undisclosed amount. In a blog post, Cameyo CEO Andrew Miller and Google product lead Naveen Viswanatha write that the buy will benefit ChromeOS, Google’s lightweight Linux-based operating system, by giving ChromeOS users greater access to Windows apps […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 10:48:25 PM

Mistral launches new services, SDK to let customers fine-tune its models

French AI startup Mistral is introducing new AI model customization options, including paid plans, to let developers — and enterprises — fine-tune its generative models for particular use cases. The first is self-service. Mistral has released a software development kit (SDK), Mistral-Finetune, for fine-tuning its models on workstations, servers and small datacenter nodes. In the […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 9:35:53 PM

Humane urges customers to stop using charging case, citing battery fire concerns

The warning for the Ai Pin was issued “out of an abundance of caution,” according to Humane.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 9:32:51 PM

Watch Apple kick off WWDC 2024 right here

The keynote will be focused on Apple's software offerings and the developers that power them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 9:11:42 PM

What to expect from Apple’s AI-powered iOS 18 at WWDC 2024

As WWDC 2024 nears, all sorts of rumors and leaks have emerged about what iOS 18 and its AI-powered apps and features have in store.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 9:07:14 PM

Elon Musk’s X: A complete timeline of what Twitter has become

Welcome to Elon Musk’s X. The social network formerly known as Twitter where the rules are made up and the check marks don’t matter. Or do they? The Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced his bid to buy Twitter in April 2022, zealously driven to rid the platform of spam bots and protect free speech. Musk […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 8:45:00 PM

Fearless Fund’s Arian Simone coming to Disrupt 2024

TechCrunch has kept readers informed regarding Fearless Fund’s courtroom battle to provide business grants to Black women. Today, we are happy to announce that Fearless Fund CEO and co-founder Arian Simone will speak at the Disrupt 2024 Builders Stage in a fireside chat discussing her organization’s fight for racial equity. Fearless Fund was sued last […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 8:00:00 PM

Bluesky and Mastodon users can now talk to each other with Bridgy Fed

Bridgy Fed is one of the efforts aimed at connecting the fediverse with the web, Bluesky and, perhaps later, other networks like Nostr.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 7:27:58 PM

Zoox to test self-driving cars in Austin and Miami

Zoox, Amazon’s self-driving unit, is bringing its autonomous vehicles to more cities. The self-driving technology company announced Wednesday plans to begin testing in Austin and Miami this summer. The two cities mark Zoox’s fourth and fifth test cities, following Las Vegas, San Francisco and Seattle. The news comes as federal regulators increase their scrutiny of […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 5:59:29 PM

Stability AI releases a sound generator

Stability AI, the startup behind the AI-powered art generator Stable Diffusion, has released an open AI model for generating sounds and songs that it claims was trained exclusively on royalty-free recordings. Called Stable Audio Open, the generative model, trained using ~486,000 samples from free music libraries FreeSound and the Free Music Archive, takes a text […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 5:39:06 PM

SoftBank-backed grocery startup Oda lays off 150, resets focus on Norway and Sweden

It’s not just instant-delivery startups that are struggling. Oda, the Norway-based online supermarket delivery startup, has confirmed layoffs of 150 jobs as it drastically scales back its expansion ambitions to focus on just two markets, its homebase and Sweden, the homebase of Mathem, an online grocery that Oda merged with last year. Oda, which has […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 5:30:34 PM

Substack brings video to its Chat feature

Newsletter platform Substack is introducing the ability for writers to send videos to their subscribers via Chat, its direct messaging feature, the company announced on Wednesday. The rollout of video in Chat comes two months after the newsletter platform brought videos to Notes, its X/Twitter copycat that lets users share short-form content. Substack continues to […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 5:06:05 PM

This Week in AI: Ex-OpenAI staff call for safety and transparency

Hiya, folks, and welcome to TechCrunch’s inaugural AI newsletter. It’s truly a thrill to type those words — this one’s been long in the making, and we’re excited to finally share it with you. With the launch of TC’s AI newsletter, we’re sunsetting This Week in AI, the semiregular column previously known as Perceptron. But […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 5:05:00 PM

Cameo fumbles on Ms. Rachel fundraiser as fans receive credits instead of videos

Ms. Rachel isn’t a household name, but if you spend a lot of time with toddlers, she might as well be a rockstar. She’s like Steve from Blues Clues for the next generation – instead of a network TV show, she has a YouTube channel with 10 million subscribers. Ms. Rachel – a music teacher […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 5:03:06 PM

Cartwheel generates 3D animations from scratch to power up creators

Animating a 3D character from scratch is generally both laborious and expensive, requiring the use of complex software and motion capture tools. Cartwheel wants to make basic animations as simple as describing them, generating a basic movement with AI and letting creators focus on more expressive tasks. “There hasn’t been a lot of new stuff […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 5:01:11 PM

Wix’s new tool taps AI to generate smartphone apps

Wix, the platform known chiefly for its web design tools, is launching a generative AI feature that’ll let customers create and edit iOS or Android apps by describing what they want to see in plain English. Set to arrive in Wix’s app builder tool this week, the capability guides users through a chatbot-like interface to […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 4:59:08 PM

ClickUp wants to take on Notion and Confluence with its new AI-based Knowledge Base

ClickUp Knowledge Management combines a new wiki-like editor and with a new AI system that can also bring in data from Google Drive, Dropbox, Confluence, Figma and other sources.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 4:22:00 PM

Whizz wants to own the delivery e-bike subscription space, starting with NYC

New York City, home to over 60,000 gig delivery workers, has been cracking down on cheap, uncertified e-bikes that have resulted in battery fires across the city. Some e-bike providers may see such regulations as a problem for business. But e-bike subscription startup Whizz sees it as an opportunity. “I think the market is moving […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 4:08:57 PM

Boeing’s Starliner astronaut capsule is en route to the ISS

This is the last major step before Starliner can be certified as an operational crew system, and the first Starliner mission is expected to launch in 2025.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 3:18:15 PM

Three ways founders can shine at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco is the must-attend event for startup founders aiming to make their mark in the tech world. This year, founders have three exciting ways to participate, each tailored to maximize exposure, networking, and growth opportunities. Here’s how founders can join us this October: Attend with a Founder Pass Investing in […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Google’s new startup program focuses on bringing AI to public infrastructure

Google’s newest startup program, announced on Wednesday, aims to bring AI technology to the public sector. The newly launched “Google for Startups AI Academy: American Infrastructure” will offer participants hands-on training from AI experts and other support for companies solving problems in areas like agriculture, energy, education, public safety, healthcare, telecommunications, transportation, urban development, and […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 2:11:34 PM

eBay debuts AI-powered background tool to enhance product images

eBay’s newest AI feature allows sellers to replace image backgrounds with AI-generated backdrops. The tool is now available for iOS users in the U.S., U.K., and Germany. It’ll gradually roll out to Android users over the coming months. Following in Amazon’s and Google’s footsteps, the e-commerce company announced on Tuesday the launch of its new […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 1:51:07 PM

Hoop uses AI to automatically manage your to-do list

If you’re anything like me, you’ve tried every to-do list app and productivity system, only to find yourself giving up sooner than later because sooner than later, managing your productivity system becomes another drain on your productivity. Hoop, a productivity startup founded by a group of early Trello employees, wants to use AI to help […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 1:30:00 PM

Asana introduces ‘AI teammates’ designed to work alongside human employees

Asana is using its work graph to train LLMs with the goal of creating AI assistants that work alongside human employees in company workflows.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Taloflow puts AI to work on software vendor selection to reduce cost and save time

Taloflow, an early stage startup changing the way companies evaluate and select software, has raised $1.3M in a seed round.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 1:00:00 PM

SiTration uses silicon wafers to reclaim critical minerals from mining waste

The startup is hoping its durable filters can make metals refining and battery recycling more efficient, too.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Dive goes cloud-native for its computational fluid dynamics simulation service

Spun out of Bosch, Dive wants to change how manufacturers use computer simulations by both using modern mathematical approaches and cloud computing.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Insurance provider Understory gets into renewable energy following $15M Series A

After growing 500% year-over-year in the past year, Understory is now launching a product focused on the renewable energy sector.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 1:00:00 PM

When foes become friends: Capital One partners with fintech giants Stripe, Adyen to prevent fraud

The tension between incumbents and fintechs has existed for decades. But every once in a while, the two groups decide to put their competition aside and work together. In an unusual move, Capital One is teaming up with payment giants (and rivals) Stripe and Amsterdam-based Adyen to offer a free product aimed at fraud reduction, […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Alphabet’s new CFO is Eli Lilly’s Anat Ashkenazi

Alphabet has announced who its new chief financial officer (CFO) will be, revealing today that it has hired pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company’s CFO Anat Ashkenazi. Ashkenazi will start her new role at Google’s parent company on July 31, 2024, according to an SEC filing today, after 23 years at Eli Lilly. Developing story, […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 12:17:56 PM

With $21.8M in funding, Tobiko aims to build a modern data platform

Tobiko aims to reimagine how teams work with data by offering a dbt-compatible data transformation platform.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Eko Health scores $41M to detect heart disease earlier and more accurately

In 1816, French physician René Laennec invented an instrument that allowed doctors to listen to human hearts and lungs. That device — a stethoscope — eventually evolved from a simple wooden tube to a lightweight two-earpiece version most doctors today wear on their necks. Eko Health, a startup founded in 2013, is bringing this ubiquitous […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 11:00:00 AM

DARPA and Slingshot build system to detect ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ adversary satellites

The number of satellites on low Earth orbit is poised to explode over the coming years as more mega-constellations come online, and it will create new opportunities for bad actors to hide weapons or spy satellites amongst their fleet. That’s according to DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which tasked space startup Slingshot Aerospace […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 11:00:00 AM

SAP to acquire digital adoption platform WalkMe for $1.5B

Enterprise software giant SAP is acquiring “digital adoption” platform providerWalkMe in an all-cash transaction worth $1.5 billion. WalkMe was valued at less than $880 million at the close of the markets yesterday, and the offer of $14 per share represents a 45% premium. Founded out of San Francisco in 2011, companies use WalkMe’s software to […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 9:18:22 AM

Modi’s third term signals policy continuity in India – but with spending cuts

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has emerged victorious in India’s 2024 general election, but with a smaller majority compared to 2019. According to post-election analysis by Goldman Sachs, UBS, Bernstein and Citi, this slimmer mandate may push the government – known for transforming India into a global manufacturing powerhouse and making investments in sectors […]

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 2:28:27 AM

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 8:55:00 PM

What to expect from WWDC 2024: iOS 18, macOS 15 and so much AI

Apple is hoping to make WWDC 2024 memorable as it finally spells out its generative AI plans.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 8:18:44 PM

The votes are in: Meet the Disrupt 2024 audience choice roundtable winners

We just announced the breakout session winners last week. Now meet the roundtable sessions that really “rounded” out the competition for this year’s Disrupt 2024 audience choice program. With five stellar sessions securing their spot among thousands of votes from across the globe, these finalists proved they’ve got what it takes to make things happen. […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 8:00:00 PM

TikTok acknowledges exploit targeting high-profile accounts

The malicious attack appears to have involved malware transmitted through TikTok's DMs.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 6:33:18 PM

A look at LoanSnap’s troubles and which neobanks are having a moment

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at LoanSnap’s woes, Nubank’s and Monzo’s positive milestones, a plethora of fintech fundraises and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big story AI mortgage startup LoanSnap is […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 5:05:00 PM

Databricks acquires Tabular to build a common data lakehouse standard

Databricks, the analytics and AI giant, has acquired data management company Tabular for an undisclosed sum. According to Tabular co-founder Ryan Blue, he and Tabular’s other two co-founders, Daniel Weeks and Jason Reid, will be joining Databricks in some capacity. There, they’ll work to unify Tabular’s and Databrick’s customer bases and communities. “Joining Databricks means […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 5:04:10 PM

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies for more wide-ranging needs. And that growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 4:30:00 PM

Worldcoin faces pivotal EU privacy decision within weeks

The next few weeks could be pivotal for Worldcoin, the controversial eyeball-scanning crypto venture co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, whose operations remain almost entirely shuttered in the European Union following a series of privacy complaints — including in France, Germany, Portugal and Spain. The only EU market where Worldcoin is still scanning eyeballs according to […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 4:24:32 PM

AI apocalypse? ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity are all down at the same time

After a multi-hour outage that took place in the early hours of the morning, OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot is down again — but this time, it’s not the only AI provider impacted. As of Tuesday morning, both Anthropic’s Claude and Perplexity are seeing issues, too. Google’s Gemini still appears to be operating for the time being. […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 4:15:17 PM

True Fit leverages generative AI to help online shoppers find clothes that fit

True Fit, the AI-powered size-and-fit personalization tool, has offered its size recommendation solution to thousands of retailers for nearly 20 years. Now, the company is venturing into the generative AI space with “Fit Hub,” a new tool that aims to improve the way online shoppers find clothing that fits their body type. Sizing issues continue […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Discord and TuneIn partner to bring live radio to the social platform

Audio streaming service TuneIn is teaming up with Discord to bring free live radio to the platform. This is TuneIn’s first collaboration with a social platform and one that is likely to help it reach a larger audience. Discord has a vast user base of 200 million, while TuneIn today touts 75 million monthly active […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 3:30:00 PM

Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang is coming to Disrupt 2024

The early victors in the AI gold rush are selling the picks and shovels needed to develop and apply artificial intelligence. Just take a look at data-labeling startup Scale AI — and its long and diverse list of customers and investors. The San Francisco-based startup, founded in 2016, developed software that labels image, text, voice […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Engineer brothers found Forge to modernize hardware procurement

Try to imagine the number of parts that go into making a rocket engine. Now imagine requesting and comparing quotes for each of those parts, getting approvals to purchase the part you eventually do select, and tracking those parts until they arrive at your HQ. It’s exactly as complex as it sounds – but it […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Raspberry Pi partners with Hailo for its AI extension kit

The Raspberry Pi 5, the small-but-mighty computer that has become quite popular with tech hobbyists and industrial companies, is now also an AI computer. The company just released the AI Kit, a $70 extension kit with a neural network inference accelerator that can be used for local inferencing. For this new extension module, Raspberry Pi […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 1:46:03 PM

Stacklet sees demand grow as companies take cloud cost control more seriously

When Stacklet’s founders, Travis Stanfield and Kapil Thangavelu, came out of Capital One in 2020 to launch their startup, most companies weren’t all that concerned with constraining cloud costs. But in the ensuing years, as they experienced economic headwinds, first from the pandemic, and then rising interest rates, it became an imperative. As such, Stacklet’s […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Fivetran launches a managed data lake service

Fivetran's Managed Data Lake Service aims to remove the repetitive work of managing data lakes.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 1:00:00 PM

How a couple of former Pinterest search experts caught Biz Stone’s attention

Lance Riedel and Nigel Daley both spent decades in search discovery, but it was while working at Pinterest that they began trying to understand how to use search engines to do personalized searches for online shopping.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 1:00:00 PM

GetWhy, a market research AI platform that extracts insights from video interviews, raises $34.5M

GetWhy helps businesses carry out market studies and extract insights from video-based interviews using AI.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 12:07:03 PM

Sword Health raises $130 million and its valuation soars to $3 billion

AI-powered virtual physical therapy platform Sword Health has seen its valuation soar 50% to $3 billion.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 12:00:00 PM

WndrCo officially gets into venture capital with fresh $450M across two funds

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Sujay Jaswa, along with three general partners, manage $1.5 billion in assets today through their Build, Venture and Seed strategies.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 11:30:00 AM

Storyblok raises $80M to bring more AI into its ‘headless’ CMS aimed at non-technical people

If content is king, then the focus today is on how the king is expanding the empire: print and traditional media first got augmented by websites, and now websites are being augmented by an exponential landscape of apps, social media platforms, new kinds of screens, and content created not by humans, but by, artificial intelligence. […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 11:13:27 AM

‘Star Wars’ lasers and waterfalls of molten salt: How Xcimer plans to make fusion power happen

The startup has been pursuing a ground-up redesign of a well-understood technology.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 10:00:00 AM

Travel app Sékr wants to help you plan your next road trip with its new AI tool

Sékr, a startup that offers a mobile app for outdoor enthusiasts and campers, is launching a new AI tool for planning road trips. The new tool, called Copilot, is available on the startup’s updated website and app, which is used by more than 100,000 users. Sékr was founded in 2016 with the goal of helping […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 10:00:00 AM

ChatGPT is down for several users, OpenAI is working on a fix

OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT has been down for several users across the globe for the last few hours.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 9:31:02 AM

Microsoft hit with EU privacy complaints over schools’ use of 365 Education suite

Microsoft’s education-focused flavor of its cloud productivity suite, Microsoft 365 Education, is facing investigation in the European Union where privacy rights non-profit noyb has just lodged two complaints with Austria’s data protection authority. The complaints target use of Microsoft’s cloud software by schools. The first one focuses on transparency and legal basis issues. noyb says […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 9:16:46 AM

Samara is accelerating the energy transition in Spain one solar panel at a time

Since the shock of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, solar energy has been having a moment in Europe. Electricity prices have been going up while the investment required to get solar panels installed on your roof has been going down. This is due to new subsidies, better technology and several European startups that are working […]

Tuesday, June 4, 2024 8:00:00 AM

DEI backlash: Stay up-to-date on the latest legal and corporate challenges

It's clear that this year will be a turning point for DEI.

Monday, June 3, 2024 10:58:32 PM

Watch Apple kick off WWDC 2024 right here

The keynote will be focused on Apple's software offerings and the developers that power them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS.

Monday, June 3, 2024 10:02:23 PM

TechCrunch Space: China’s victory

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. Unfortunately, Boeing’s Starliner launch was delayed yet again, this time due to issues with one of the three redundant computers used by United Launch Alliance, the rocket provider, to initiate the launch sequence. Those computers are supposed to work in sync, but one of them was moving a […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 10:00:00 PM

An appeals court rules that VC Fearless Fund cannot issue grants to Black women, but the fight continues

The court ruling said that Fearless Fund’s Strivers Grant likely violates the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which bans the use of race in contracts.

Monday, June 3, 2024 9:45:00 PM

You can now customize your For You feed on Threads using swipes

Instagram Threads is rolling out the ability for users to signal which sort of posts they wanted to see more or less of by swiping.

Monday, June 3, 2024 8:38:18 PM

Japanese billionaire pulls plug on private ‘dearMoon’ lunar Starship mission

The Japanese billionaire who commissioned SpaceX for a private mission around the moon on a Starship rocket has abruptly canceled the project, citing ongoing uncertainties around when the launch vehicle will be ready to fly. “I signed the contract in 2018 based on the assumption that dearMoon would launch by the end of 2023,” Yusaku […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 7:52:57 PM

People are using AI music generators to create hateful songs

Malicious actors are abusing generative AI music tools to create homophobic, racist, and propagandic songs — and publishing guides instructing others how to do so. According to ActiveFence, a service for managing trust and safety operations on online platforms, there’s been a spike in chatter within “hate speech-related” communities since March about ways to misuse […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 7:19:19 PM

What to expect from Apple’s AI-powered iOS 18

As WWDC 2024 nears, all sorts of rumors and leaks have emerged about what iOS 18 and its AI-powered apps and features have in store.

Monday, June 3, 2024 6:46:01 PM

GM’s Cruise is testing robotaxis in Dallas again

Dallas is the second city that Cruise is easing its way back into after pulling its entire U.S. fleet late last year.

Monday, June 3, 2024 6:24:41 PM

After raising $100M, AI fintech LoanSnap is being sued, fined, evicted

The company has been sued by at least seven creditors, including Wells Fargo.

Monday, June 3, 2024 6:21:13 PM

Sonos Ace review: A high-priced contender

The Ace are a contender in a crowded market, but they're still in search of that magic bullet to truly let them stand out from the pack.

Monday, June 3, 2024 6:18:09 PM

Instagram confirms test of ‘unskippable’ ads

The change would see Instagram becoming more like the free version of YouTube, which requires users to view ads before and in the middle of watching videos.

Monday, June 3, 2024 4:49:11 PM

Shopify acquires Checkout Blocks, a checkout customization app

Commerce platform Shopify has acquired Checkout Blocks, allowing Shopify Plus merchants to make no-code customizations in their checkout to enhance customer experience and potentially boost sales. Checkout Blocks, which debuted on Shopify in September 2022, lets merchants customize their checkout by adding things such as AI recommendations, custom content (like information banners, images, headlines, and […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 4:46:41 PM

One week left: Apply to TC Disrupt Startup Battlefield 200

Time is relentless and, right now, it’s no friend to procrastination-prone early-stage startup founders. The application window for Startup Battlefield 200 (SB 200) at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 slams shut in just one week. Can you afford to miss this potentially life-changing opportunity? We think not. Startup Battlefield 200 applications close in 7 days Our 2023 […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Aptoide launches its alternative iOS game store in EU

After the Digital Markets Act (DMA) forced Apple to allow third-party app stores for iOS in Europe, several developers have launched alternative stores, like the AltStore and MacPaw’s Setapp (currently in closed beta). The latest entrant on the list is Aptoide, the longstanding Android app store upstart, which is launching a game store in Europe. […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Cloudera acquires Verta to bring some AI chops to its data platform

Cloudera, the once high flying Hadoop startup, raised $1 billion and went public in 2018 before being acquired by private equity for $5.3 billion 2021. Today, the company announced that it is acquiring Verta, an AI startup that helps customers manage machine learning models, including large language models used in generative AI. Cloudera, which launched […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 2:42:44 PM

Spend management startup SiFi raises $10M to grow further in Saudi Arabia

The global spend management sector is experiencing a tailwind of sorts. North America is arguably the biggest market in this space, but spend management companies have seen demand rise across the world, thanks to increasing internet penetration, tech advancements and businesses’ increasing focus on making sure they spend wisely. Indeed, the space is expected to […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 1:03:35 PM

Swiss startup Neural Concept raises $27M to cut EV design time to 18 months

Neural Concept lets designers model how components will perform before they can be manufactured.

Monday, June 3, 2024 12:15:03 PM

Don’t miss StrictlyVC in DC next week

The StrictlyVC roadtrip continues! Coming off of sold-out events in London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, we’re heading to Washington, D.C. for a cozy-vc-packed, evening at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre on Tuesday, June 11 in partnership with Revolution. StrictlyVC events are known for delivering exclusive insights and fostering meaningful connections among top investors, entrepreneurs, and […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 12:00:00 PM

X tweaks rules to formally allow adult content

X will now allow users to post consensually produced NSFW content as long as it is prominently labeled as such.

Monday, June 3, 2024 11:36:58 AM

Ashby injects recruiting with a dose of AI

Ashby consolidates existing talent acquisition tools and leans heavily on AI to automate the more repetitive steps in the recruitment pipeline.

Monday, June 3, 2024 11:00:00 AM

Spotify to increase premium pricing in the US to $11.99 per month

Spotify has announced that it’s hiking subscriptions for customers in the U.S., the second such price increase in the space of a year. The music-streaming giant reports that premium pricing will increase in July from $10.99 to $11.99, representing a near-10% rise. The Duo and Family plans will go up to $16.99 and $19.99, representing […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 10:47:31 AM

UK neobank Monzo reports first full (pre-tax) profit, prepares for EU expansion with Dublin hub

Monzo has announced its 2024 financial results, revealing its first full-year pre-tax profit. The company also confirmed that it’s in the early stages of expanding into the broader European market via a new base in Ireland. The news comes shortly after the U.K.-based neobank raised a couple of hefty tranches of funding, starting with $430 […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 10:34:21 AM

Inside Apple’s efforts to build a better recycling robot

Last week, TechCrunch paid a visit to Apple’s Austin, Texas manufacturing facilities. Since 2013, the company has built its Mac Pro desktop about 20 minutes north of downtown. The 400,000 square foot facility sits in a maze of industry parks, a quick trip south from the company’s in-progress corporate campus. In recent years, the capital […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 9:23:00 AM

Binit is bringing AI to trash

Early attempts at making dedicated hardware to house artificial intelligence smarts have been criticized as, well, a bit rubbish. But here’s an AI gadget-in-the-making that’s all about rubbish, literally: Finnish startup Binit is applying large language models’ (LLMs) image processing capabilities to tracking household trash. AI for sorting the stuff we throw away to boost […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 8:00:52 AM

Temasek and Fidelity value Lenskart at $5 billion in $200 million stake purchase

Temasek and Fidelity have purchased shares worth $200 million in Indian eyewear startup Lenskart, financial advisor Avendus said in a statement Monday. The transaction valued Lenskart, which leads the Indian market and is increasingly expanding overseas, at $5 billion, the startup’s founder and chief executive Peyush Bansal told TechCrunch in a text message. Temasek is […]

Monday, June 3, 2024 7:31:03 AM

French startup ten ten finds viral success and controversy in reinventing walkie-talkies

Less than one year after its iOS launch, French startup ten ten has gone viral with a walkie talkie app that allows teens to send voice messages to their close friends — even when their phone is locked.

Sunday, June 2, 2024 8:54:27 PM

Unicorn-rich VC Wesley Chan owes his success to a Craigslist job washing lab beakers

While all of Wesley Chan's success has been well-documented over the years, his personal journey…not so much. Chan spoke to TechCrunch about the ways his life impacts how he invests in startups.

Sunday, June 2, 2024 5:15:00 PM

Trump takes off on TikTok

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump now has an account on the short-form video app that he once tried to ban. Trump’s TikTok account, which launched on Saturday night, features just one post as of publication time on Sunday morning. In the video, UFC CEO Dana White declares, “The President is now on TikTok,” then […]

Sunday, June 2, 2024 4:07:53 PM

Iceland’s startup scene is all about making the most of the country’s resources

With fewer than 400,000 inhabitants, Iceland receives more than its fair share of tourists — and of venture capital.

Sunday, June 2, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Kobo’s new e-readers are a sidegrade most can skip (with one exception)

Kobo put out a handful of new e-readers a few weeks back: color versions of the excellent Libra 2 and Clara, as well as an updated monochrome version of the latter. But after testing them all out, I can say that for most users, there’s no reason to switch. First, the color editions. I’ve been […]

Sunday, June 2, 2024 2:31:00 PM

Unity co-founder David Helgason’s next act: Gaming the climate crisis

In an interview at his home near Reykjavík, the entrepreneur-turned-VC shared thoughts on his ventures and the journey that led him from Unity to climate tech, a homecoming of sorts.

Sunday, June 2, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Fisker collapsed under the weight of its founder’s promises

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Over the past eight years, famed vehicle designer Henrik Fisker suggested his EV startup would deliver on a lot of promises, but none came true. As Fisker looks for an […]

Saturday, June 1, 2024 8:15:00 PM

WTF is AI?

What is AI? We've put together this non-technical guide to give anyone a fighting chance to understand how and why today's AI works.

Saturday, June 1, 2024 8:00:29 PM

WTF is AI?

What is AI? We've put together this non-technical guide to give anyone a fighting chance to understand how and why today's AI works.

Saturday, June 1, 2024 8:00:29 PM

President Biden vetoes crypto custody bill

President Joe Biden has vetoed H.J.Res. 109, a congressional resolution that would have overturned the Securities and Exchange Commission’s current approach to banks and crypto. Specifically, the resolution targeted the SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, which presents rules around how banks can handle customers’ crypto assets — in effect, they must treat those assets as […]

Saturday, June 1, 2024 7:13:11 PM

Industries may be ready for humanoid robots, but are the robots ready for them?

How large a role humanoids will play in that ecosystem is, perhaps, the biggest question on everyone’s mind at the moment.

Saturday, June 1, 2024 6:00:00 PM

VCs are selling shares of hot AI companies like Anthropic and xAI to small investors in a wild SPV market

VCs are clamoring to invest in hot AI companies, willing to pay exorbitant share prices for coveted spots on their cap tables. Even so, most aren’t able to get into such deals at all. Yet, small, unknown investors, including family offices and high-net-worth individuals, have found their own way to get shares of the hottest […]

Saturday, June 1, 2024 5:00:00 PM

Deal Dive: How (Re)vive grew 10x last year by helping retailers recycle and sell returned items

The fashion industry has a huge problem: Despite many returned items being unworn or undamaged, a lot, if not the majority, end up in the trash. An estimated 9.5 billion pounds of returns ended up in landfills in 2022 alone, according to data from return logistics software company Optoro. New York-based (Re)vive wants to help […]

Saturday, June 1, 2024 4:00:00 PM

You can no longer use Tumblr’s tipping feature

Tumblr officially shut down “Tips,” an opt-in feature where creators could receive one-time payments from their followers. As of today, the tipping icon has automatically disappeared from all posts and blogs with the feature enabled. Creators that use the feature should note that June 15 is the last day they can withdraw money they received […]

Saturday, June 1, 2024 4:00:00 PM

AI training data has a price tag that only Big Tech can afford

Generative AI improvements are increasingly being made through data curation and collection — not architectural — improvements. Big Tech has an advantage.

Saturday, June 1, 2024 1:00:00 PM

This Week in AI: Can we (and could we ever) trust OpenAI?

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own. By the way, TechCrunch plans to launch an AI newsletter […]

Saturday, June 1, 2024 12:56:00 PM

General Catalyst-backed Jasper Health lays off staff

Jasper Health, a cancer care platform startup, laid off a substantial part of its workforce, TechCrunch has learned.

Friday, May 31, 2024 11:10:44 PM

Live Nation confirms Ticketmaster was hacked, says personal information stolen in data breach

Live Nation says its Ticketmaster subsidiary was hacked. A hacker claims to be selling 560 million customer records.

Friday, May 31, 2024 10:13:19 PM

Inside EV startup Fisker’s collapse: how the company crumbled under its founders’ whims

An autonomous pod. A solid-state battery-powered sports car. An electric pickup truck. A convertible grand tourer EV with up to 600 miles of range. A “fully connected mobility device” for young urban innovators to be built by Foxconn and priced under $30,000. The next Popemobile. Over the past eight years, famed vehicle designer Henrik Fisker […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 9:57:52 PM

Hugging Face says it detected ‘unauthorized access’ to its AI model hosting platform

Late Friday afternoon, a time window companies usually reserve for unflattering disclosures, AI startup Hugging Face said that its security team earlier this week detected “unauthorized access” to Spaces, Hugging Face’s platform for creating, sharing and hosting AI models. In a blog post, Hugging Face said that the intrusion related to Spaces secrets, or the […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 9:51:49 PM

Hacked, leaked, exposed: Why you should never use stalkerware apps

Using stalkerware is creepy, unethical, potentially illegal, and puts your data and that of your loved ones in danger.

Friday, May 31, 2024 9:05:00 PM

Mill’s redesigned food waste bin really is faster and quieter than before

The design brief was simple: each grind and dry cycle had to be completed before breakfast. Here's how Mill made it happen.

Friday, May 31, 2024 8:20:00 PM

Google admits its AI Overviews need work, but we’re all helping it beta test

Google is embarrassed about its AI Overviews, too. After a deluge of dunks and memes over the past week, which cracked on the poor quality and outright misinformation that arose from the tech giant’s underbaked new AI-powered search feature, the company on Thursday issued a mea culpa of sorts. Google — a company whose name […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 7:54:55 PM

Startups Weekly: Musk raises $6B for AI and the fintech dominoes are falling

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. In a twist that shocks absolutely no one and thrills pyromaniacs who love seeing money burn, Elon Musk’s newest venture, xAI, has snagged a casual $6 […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 7:05:00 PM

A16z-backed ZeroMark wants to give soldiers guns that don’t miss against drones

The product, which ZeroMark calls a “fire control system,” has two components: a small computer that has sensors, like lidar and electro-optical, and a motorized buttstock.

Friday, May 31, 2024 6:56:56 PM

Pitch Deck Teardown: RAW Dating App’s $3M angel deck

The RAW Dating App aims to shake up the dating scheme by shedding the fake, TikTok-ified, heavily filtered photos and replacing them with a more genuine, unvarnished experience. The app targets young professionals and students, particularly women aged 21 to 27, who seek genuine interactions. The company’s team claims it raised a $3 million friends […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 5:00:00 PM

‘ThreadsDeck’ arrived just in time for the Trump verdict

Yes, we’re calling it “ThreadsDeck” now. At least that’s the tag many are using to describe the new user interface for Instagram’s X competitor, Threads, which recalls the column-based format of Twitter’s old app TweetDeck (now X Pro). Two weeks after first testing the functionality that allows Threads users to pin columns to the home […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 4:46:13 PM

Hackers steal $305 million from DMM Bitcoin crypto exchange

Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin confirmed on Friday that it had been victim of a hack resulting in the theft of 4,502.9 bitcoin, or about $305 million. According to crypto security firm Elliptic, this is the eighth largest crypto theft in history. DMM Bitcoin said it detected “an unauthorized leak of Bitcoin (BTC) from our […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 4:38:53 PM

Disrupt 2024 early-bird prices end at midnight

This is not a drill! Today marks the final day to secure your early-bird tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 at a significantly reduced rate. At midnight tonight, May 31, ticket prices will increase, so act now to save up to $800 on admission to one of the most anticipated technology conferences of the year. Disrupt […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Instagram tests ‘trial reels’ that don’t display to a creator’s followers

Instagram is testing a way for creators to experiment with reels without committing to having them displayed on their profiles, giving the social network a possible edge over TikTok and a way for creators to test new content without pressure to perform. The company this week began global tests of this new “trial reels” feature […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 3:37:59 PM

Feds tell Zoox to send more info about autonomous vehicles suddenly braking

U.S. federal regulators have requested more information from Zoox, Amazon’s self-driving unit, as part of an investigation into rear-end crash risks posed by unexpected braking. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened a preliminary investigation into Zoox on May 10 after it received two reports of Zoox vehicles unexpectedly braking, leading to rear-end collisions […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 3:31:10 PM

Canva’s cringey rap battle was actually a marketing win

You thought the hottest rap battle of the summer was between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. You were wrong. It’s between Canva and an enterprise CIO. At its Canva Create event last week, Canva unveiled its new enterprise offerings. But few people would be talking about that if not for an unexpected rap battle that took […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 3:09:38 PM

ElevenLabs debuts AI-powered tool to generate sound effects

Voice cloning startup ElevenLabs introduced a new tool for users to generate sound effects through prompts today after announcing the project back in February.

Friday, May 31, 2024 3:00:00 PM

VC firm Antler’s CEO says Asia presents ‘biggest opportunity’ in the world for growth

We caught up with Antler founder and CEO Magnus Grimeland about the startup scene in Asia, the current tech startup trends in the region, and investment approaches during the rise of AI technology.

Friday, May 31, 2024 1:28:10 PM

Chinese e-commerce marketplace Temu faces stricter EU rules as a ‘very large online platform’

Temu is to face Europe's strictest rules after being designated as a "very large online platform" under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Friday, May 31, 2024 11:27:13 AM

Spain bans Meta from launching election features on Facebook, Instagram over privacy fears

Meta has been banned from launching features on Facebook and Instagram that would have collected data on voters in Spain using the social networks ahead of next month’s European Elections. The local data protection authority, the AEPD, has used emergency powers to protect local users’ privacy. Meta confirmed to TechCrunch it has complied with the […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 10:52:42 AM

Stripe curbs India ambitions over regulatory changes

Stripe, the global fintech giant, said on Friday that it will temporarily move to an invite-only model for new account sign-ups in India, “a tough decision” it’s making as it navigates the country’s evolving regulatory landscape. In a statement posted on its website, Stripe said that businesses in India will no longer be able to […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 10:45:07 AM

Voice cloning of political figures is still easy as pie

The 2024 election is likely to be the first in which faked audio and video of candidates is a serious factor. As campaigns warm up, voters should be aware: voice clones of major political figures, from the President on down, get very little pushback from AI companies, as a new study demonstrates. The Center for […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 8:01:00 AM

OneScreen.ai brings startup ads to billboards and NYC’s subway

When Alex Ewing was a kid growing up in Purcell, Oklahoma, he knew how close he was to home based on which billboards he could see out the car window. Now, as the CEO of OneScreen.ai, he’s helping startups like fintech Ramp and technical recruiter Karat advertise on billboards and beyond. “I think billboards are […]

Friday, May 31, 2024 1:34:13 AM

SpaceX sent Starship to orbit — the next launch will try to bring it back

SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket could take to the skies for the fourth time on June 5, with the primary objective of evaluating the second stage’s reusable heat shield as the vehicle tries to safely reenter the atmosphere for the first time. CEO Elon Musk“ said on his social media platform X that “There are many […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 9:50:00 PM

Billionaire Groupon founder Lefkofsky is back with another IPO: AI healthtech Tempus

Eric Lefkofsky knows the public listing rodeo well and is about to enter it for a fourth time. The serial entrepreneur, whose net worth is estimated at nearly $4 billion, has already taken three businesses he’s founded public. Today he’s the founder of Tempus, a genomic testing and data analysis company preparing to IPO. But […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 9:34:54 PM

You’ve spoken! Meet the Disrupt 2024 breakout session audience choice winners

TechCrunch Disrupt showcases cutting-edge technology and innovation, and this year’s edition will not disappoint. Among thousands of insightful breakout session submissions for this year’s Audience Choice program, five breakout sessions have soared to the top and were selected by thousands of people from around the globe to speak at this year’s event. Without further ado, […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 8:00:00 PM

Zero-day flaw in Check Point VPNs is ‘extremely easy’ to exploit

Check Point is the latest security vendor to fix a vulnerability in its technology, which it sells to companies to protect their networks.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 6:30:06 PM

Spotify begins offering Car Thing refunds as it faces lawsuit over bricking the streaming device

Though Spotify never shared official numbers, it's likely that Car Thing underperformed or was just not worth continued investment in today's tighter economic market.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 6:01:35 PM

Misinformation works, and a handful of social ‘supersharers’ sent 80% of it in 2020

The studies, by researchers at MIT, Ben-Gurion University, Cambridge and Northeastern, were independently conducted but complement each other well.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 6:01:00 PM

Tesla shareholder sweepstakes and EV layoffs hit Lucid and Fisker

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Okay, okay — remember last week when I suggested Tesla was being a bit extra in its bid to convince shareholders to vote in favor of relocating […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 5:05:00 PM

Paul Graham claims Altman wasn’t fired from Y Combinator

In a series of posts on X on Thursday, Paul Graham, the co-founder of startup accelerator Y Combinator, brushed off claims that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was pressured to resign as president of Y Combinator in 2019 due to potential conflicts of interest. “People have been claiming [Y Combinator] fired Sam Altman,” Graham writes. “That’s […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 4:42:09 PM

AI manufacturing startup funding is on a tear as Switzerland’s EthonAI raises $16.5M

In its three-year history, EthonAI has amassed some fairly high-profile customers including Siemens and chocolate-maker Lindt.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 4:04:57 PM

Ticktock! 48 hours left to nab your early-bird tickets for Disrupt 2024

Don’t miss out: TechCrunch Disrupt early-bird pricing ends in 48 hours! The countdown is on! With only 48 hours left, the early-bird pricing for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 will end on May 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT. This is your final call to secure your tickets and get up to $800 in savings. Why attend TechCrunch […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Valar Labs debuts AI-powered cancer care prediction tool and secures $22M

Biotech startup Valar Labs has built a tool that accurately predicts certain treatment outcomes, potentially saving precious time for patients.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 3:59:00 PM

Basalt plans to hack a defunct satellite to install its space-specific OS

Space startup Basalt Technologies started in a shed behind a Los Angeles dentist’s office, but things have escalated quickly: soon it will try to hack a derelict satellite and install its space-specific OS. The startup’s cofounder, Alex Choi, found himself living in said shed after suddenly getting kicked out of his MIT dorm due to […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Former teen model co-created app Frich to help Gen Z be more realistic about finances

As a teen model, Katrin Kaurov became financially independent at a young age. Aleksandra Medina, whom she met at NYU Abu Dhabi, also learned to manage money early on. The pair bonded as students over what they viewed as a lack of a space for open conversations for people their age to have around financial […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 2:30:00 PM

Autobiographer’s app uses AI to help you tell your life story

Can an AI help you tell your story? That’s the idea behind a startup called Autobiographer which leverages AI technology to engage users in meaningful conversations about the events in their lives and how they felt about them, and then turns those into prose, effectively creating your own autobiography. The startup is dabbling in an […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 2:15:09 PM

Perplexity AI’s new feature will turn your searches into shareable pages

AI-powered summaries of webpages are a feature that you will find in many AI-centric tools these days. The next step for some of these tools is to prepare detailed and well-formatted web pages for your search queries. The Arc browser is doing this to some extent through its Arc Search app. Apple is rumored to […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 2:00:00 PM

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies for more wide-ranging needs. And that growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Cylib wants to own EV battery recycling in Europe

A surge of battery recycling startups have emerged in Europe in a bid to tap into the next big opportunity in the EV market: battery waste. Among them is Cylib, a German-based startup with a pitch automakers may find financially compelling. The company says it can extract pure forms of all materials in a battery […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 1:55:00 PM

Amazon gets FAA approval to expand US drone deliveries

Amazon has received approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly its delivery drones longer distances, the company announced on Thursday. Amazon says it can now expand its Prime Air service, which uses delivery drones to fly individual packages, to more customers. The FAA requires that operators maintain a line of sight to […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 1:31:59 PM

Former Priceline execs debut Plannin, a booking platform that uses travel influencers to help plan trips

With Plannin, creators can tell their audience about their latest trip, which hotels they liked and post photos of their travels.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 1:05:00 PM

Amazon is rolling out AI voice search to Fire TV devices

Amazon is rolling out its AI voice search feature to Alexa, which lets it answer open-ended questions about content.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Redpanda acquires Benthos to expand its end-to-end streaming data platform

Redpanda has already integrated Benthos into its own service and has made it the core technology of its new Redpanda Connect service.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Fintech startup Forward grabs $16M to take on Stripe, lead future of integrated payments

It’s a lofty goal to take on legacy payments infrastructure, however, Forward’s model has an advantage by shifting the economics back to SaaS companies.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Rhea reaps $10M more led by Thiel

Fertility remains a pressing concern around the world — birthrates are down in many countries, and infertility rates (that is, the ability to conceive at all) are up. And given the emotional struggles people face when coping with infertility, it’s not surprising that the opportunity is so big. Yet equally so that the sector remains […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 12:00:24 PM

Tech giants form an industry group to help develop next-gen AI chip components

Microsoft, Meta, Intel, AMD and others have formed a new group to design next-gen interconnects for AI accelerator hardware.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Ambani fires opening salvo in fintech battle, launches JioFinance app

With JioFinance, the Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani is making his boldest consumer-facing move yet into financial services.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 11:42:10 AM

Filing: Salesforce paid $419M to buy Spiff in Feb

Salespeople live and die by commissions, which typically form a big chunk of how they are paid, so it’s no surprise that Salesforce paid a premium to buy a platform to manage this for customers more easily. Several months ago, it acquired Spiff, to help companies build out and manage incentive-based compensation schemes. Salesforce’s 10-K […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 11:32:05 AM

YoLa Fresh, a GrubMarket for Morocco, digs up $7M to connect farmers with food sellers

YoLa Fresh works with over a thousand retailers across Morocco and records up to $1 million in gross merchandise volume.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 11:15:13 AM

Instagram now lets teens limit interactions to their ‘Close Friends’ group to combat harassment

Instagram is expanding the scope of its "Limits" tool specifically for teenagers that would let them restrict unwanted interactions with people.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 10:00:00 AM

Archer, Kakao Mobility partner to bring electric air taxis to South Korea in 2026

Archer Aviation is partnering with ride-hailing and parking company Kakao Mobility to bring electric air taxi flights to South Korea starting in 2026, if the company can get its aircraft developed in time. The move to South Korea is part of an international strategy that will also see Archer commercially launch in the United Arab […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 10:00:00 AM

Iyris makes fresh produce easier to grow in difficult climates, raises $16M

2023 was the hottest year on record, it doesn’t look like we’re cooling down anytime soon. Rising temperatures have made farming increasingly difficult in areas that were once prime agricultural resources where heat and drought have severely impacted crops. For most farmers who rely on traditional methods and lack access to high-tech greenhouses, the need […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 8:13:40 AM

Exactly.ai secures $4M to help artists use AI to scale up their output

Exactly.ai says it uses generative AI to help artists retain legal ownership of their art while being able to reproduce their designs faster and at scale.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 8:00:00 AM

Romanian startup FintechOS raises $60M to help old banks fight back against neobanks

FintechOS competes with other companies such as Ncino, Meridian Link, Abrigo and Backbase.

Thursday, May 30, 2024 8:00:00 AM

India’s Agnikul launches 3D-printed rocket in sub-orbital test after initial delays

After two years of preparation and four delays over the past several months due to technical glitches, Indian space startup Agnikul has successfully launched its first sub-orbital test vehicle, powered by its unique 3D-printed rocket engines, space agency Indian Space Research Organisation said Thursday. Called Agnibaan SOrTeD (Sub-Orbital Technology Demonstrator), the single-stage launch vehicle lifted […]

Thursday, May 30, 2024 4:04:31 AM

Fisker cuts hundreds of workers in bid to keep EV startup alive

Struggling EV startup Fisker has laid off hundreds of employees in a bid to stay alive, as it continues to search for funding, a buyout or prepare for bankruptcy. Workers suspected layoffs were coming when the company directed everyone to work from home on Wednesday — an out-of-character directive, according to multiple current and former […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 10:17:19 PM

Chinese EV makers, and their connected vehicles, targeted by new House bill

Chinese EV manufacturers face a new challenge in their pursuit of U.S. customers: a new House bill that would limit or ban the introduction of their connected vehicles. The bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, comes as the trade war between the U.S. and China heightens in the aftermath of the Biden administration’s decision […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 9:50:00 PM

Is Apple planning to ‘sherlock’ Arc?

With the release of iOS 18 later this year, Apple may again borrow ideas third-party apps. This time it's Arc that could be among those affected.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 8:35:56 PM

Meet Visa, Mercury, Artisan, Golub Capital and more at TC Disrupt 2024

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 will be in San Francisco on October 28–30, and we’re already excited! This is the startup world’s main event, and it’s where you’ll find the knowledge, tools and connections you need to grow a successful business. Helping startups reach their full potential takes a global village, and we could not bring you […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 8:05:00 PM

The women in AI making a difference

As a part of a multi-part series, TechCrunch is highlighting women innovators — from academics to policymakers —in the field of AI.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 7:50:00 PM

The Cadillac Optiq EV starts at $54,000 and is designed to hook young hipsters

Cadillac may seem a bit too traditional to hang its driving cap on EVs. And yet, that hasn’t stopped the GM brand from rolling out — or at least showing off — four all-electric vehicle models since 2022. The latest is the 2025 Optiq, a mid-size crossover that could finally snag the young, hipster customers […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 7:00:00 PM

Mental health insurance platform ifeel raises a $20 million Series B

Ifeel is being offered as part of an employer’s or insurance provider’s healthcare coverage.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 6:32:49 PM

Google Chrome becomes a ‘picture-in-picture’ app

Instead of opening the user's actual browser or a WebView, Custom Tabs let users remain in their app while browsing.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 6:00:17 PM

Creator fintech Slingshot raises $2.2 million

Sanil Chawla remembers the meetings he had with countless artists in college. Those creatives were looking for one thing: sustainable economic infrastructure that could help them scale rather than drown them in paperwork, filings and tracking down receipts. Chawla thought he might have a solution and launched a music monetization platform in 2020. During the […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 5:38:00 PM

After co-founder’s murder at the hands of Hamas, cloud startup Firefly raises $23M

A startup called Firefly tackling the thorny and growing issue of cloud asset management with an “infrastructure as code” solution has raised $23 million in funding on the heels of strong demand for its tech and increasing revenues four-fold in 2023. The firm’s latest success comes on the heels of tragedy, as co-founder CTO Joseph […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 4:56:48 PM

Mistral releases its first generative AI model for code

Mistral, the French AI startup backed by Microsoft and reportedly valued at $6 billion, has released its first generative AI model for coding, dubbed Codestral. Codestral — which is designed to help developers write and interact with code, like the many other code-generating models out there — was trained on a data set of over […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 4:55:27 PM

Pinterest expands its Creator Fund to allow founders

Pinterest announced today that it is evolving its Creator Inclusion Fund. Pinterest teamed up with Shopify’s Build Black & Narrative program to allow small business owners from or who serve underrepresented backgrounds to now apply for the Creator Inclusion Fund. Previously, only traditional content creators applied. This is a new iteration of the fund, which […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 4:50:31 PM

The Cadillac Optiq is an entry-level luxury EV designed to hook young buyers

Cadillac may seem a bit too traditional to hang its driving cap on EVs. And yet, that hasn’t stopped the GM brand from rolling out — or at least showing off — four all-electric vehicle models since 2022. The latest is the 2025 Optiq, a mid-size crossover that could finally snag the young, hipster customers […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 4:45:08 PM

This founder says memetech is the next big thing

Alex Taub, a longtime founder with multiple exits under his belt, believes it’s time to disrupt the meme industry. “I have this big thesis that memetech is going to be the next big category,” Taub told TechCrunch. “Like, there’s healthtech, there’s proptech, there’s adtech, there’s fintech… I think memetech is about to have a big […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 4:00:01 PM

Kino is a new iPhone app for videographers from the makers of Halide

Lux, the startup behind popular pro photography app Halide and others, is venturing into video with its latest app launch. On Wednesday, the company announced Kino, a new video capture app for both professional and amateur videographers. The official launch comes six months after Lux teased the release back in December 2023. Users of Halide have […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Harness snags Split.io, as it goes all in on feature flags and experiments

DevOps startup Harness has shown itself to be an ambitious company, building a broad platform of services while also dabbling in M&A when it made sense to fill in functionality. On Wednesday, the company announced it was ready for a much bigger M&A bite, acquiring feature flag startup Split.io for an undisclosed amount of money. […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 4:00:00 PM

House bill would ban Chinese connected vehicles over security concerns

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin will introduce a bill to Congress that would limit or ban the introduction of connected vehicles built by Chinese companies if found to pose a threat to national security. The bill comes as the trade war between the U.S. and China heightens in the aftermath of the Biden administration’s decision to […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 3:55:49 PM

Chinese EVs – and their connected tech – are the next target of US lawmakers

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin will introduce a bill to Congress that would limit or ban the introduction of connected vehicles built by Chinese companies if found to pose a threat to national security. The bill comes as the trade war between the U.S. and China heightens in the aftermath of the Biden administration’s decision to […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 3:55:49 PM

Microsoft’s Copilot is now on Telegram

Microsoft’s Copilot, a generative AI-powered tool that can generate text as well as answer specific questions, is now available as an in-app chatbot on Telegram, the instant messaging app. Currently in beta, Copilot for Telegram allows you to talk with the AI chatbot as if you’re having a normal, one-on-one conversation with a friend. It […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 3:37:51 PM

MoviePass co-founders speak their truth in HBO’s new documentary

HBO’s new documentary, “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” tells a story that many of us know about: how MoviePass, the subscription-based movie ticketing startup, was a catastrophic failure. After a series of mishaps and deception, it filed for bankruptcy in 2020. However, the movie also tells the underreported tale of two Black men who aimed to disrupt the […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 3:01:29 PM

Fitbit’s new kid smartwatch is a little Wiimote, a little Tamagachi

The watch features a variety of different 3D games, unlocking more play time the more kids move.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 2:00:00 PM

From Viggle to MidJourney, Discord is an unlikely foundation for the GenAI boom

In the video, a crowd is roaring at a packed summer music festival. As a beat starts playing over the speakers, the performer finally walks on stage: it’s the Joker. Clad in his red suit, green hair and signature face paint, the Joker pumps his fist and dances across the stage, hopping down a runway […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 1:41:11 PM

Germany’s financial regulator ends anti-money laundering cap on N26 signups after $10M fine

After the Wirecard scandal, Germany’s financial regulator BaFin started to look more closely at young fintech startups that wanted to grow at a rapid pace — it’s better to be safe than sorry. In particular, N26, a Berlin-based banking startup that raised hundreds of millions of euros and quickly became a unicorn, has had a […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 1:32:42 PM

JFrog and GitHub team up to closely integrate their source code and binary platforms

Among other things, this includes the ability to trace code from source to binary packages across both platforms, single sign-on support and unified project structures.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 1:15:00 PM

Tech startup Odyssey goes on journey to help states implement school choice programs

The company's public fund disbursement and e-commerce platform makes accepting school tuition and enabling educational enrichment more accessible.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Kinnect’s new app aims to help families record and store generational memories

A new startup called Kinnect aims to help people privately save generational memories, traditions, recipes, and more. The company’s app, launched this month, lets people create invite-only spaces where they can share images, videos, audio, text, and more with their entire family. Kinnect was founded in May 2023 by Omar Alvarez, an entrepreneur who has […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Spotify hikes subscription price in France by 1.2% to match new music-streaming tax

Spotify has hiked its premium subscription in France by an eye-watering €0.13, in response to a new music-streaming tax.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 12:17:38 PM

With the EU AI Act incoming this summer, the bloc lays out its plan for AI governance

The European Union has taken the wraps off the structure of the new AI Office, the ecosystem-building and oversight body that’s being established under the bloc’s AI Act. The risk-based regulatory framework for artificial intelligence is expected to enter into force before the end of July — following the regulation’s final approval by EU lawmakers […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 12:12:41 PM

Bootstrapped for over a decade, this Dallas company just secured $110M to help people pay bills by text

Solutions by Text, a company that gives people a way to pay their bills and apply for loans via text messaging, has secured $110 million in new growth funding. Edison Partners and StepStone Group co-led the equity portion of the raise while Stifel Venture Bank provided a lending facility, which made up less than 15% […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Relay raises $24 million to help smaller businesses manage their cashflow

Owners of small- and medium-sized businesses check their bank balances daily to make financial decisions. But it’s enterpreneur Yoseph West’s assertion that there’s typically information and functions missing from bank accounts that owners could really use. “SMBs make up 44% of U.S. GDP, underpin the economy and have a deep impact on all of us,” […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 12:00:00 PM

How Clean Energy Ventures avoided the pandemic bubble and raised a $305M fund

When other firms were investing and raising eye-popping sums, Clean Energy Ventures took a different approach. It appears to be paying off.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 11:00:00 AM

OpenAI signs on 100K PwC workers to its ChatGPT enterprise tier, as the consultant becomes its first resale partner

ChatGPT has changed the game for how ordinary people regard and interact with AI, and today its creator announced a new, major enterprise customer that it hopes will be a signal of how a similar effect could play out in the world of work. PwC, the management consulting giant, has signed on as a customer […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 8:59:54 AM

72 hours left of the Disrupt early-bird sale

Tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, the clock is ticking! With just 72 hours remaining until the early-bird ticket deadline for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, now is the time to secure your spot and save big on this premier tech event. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to join us in San Francisco for an unforgettable experience filled […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 7:00:00 AM

Avendus, India’s top venture advisor, confirms it’s looking to raise a $350 million fund

Avendus, the top investment bank for venture deals in India, confirmed on Wednesday it is looking to raise up to $350 million for its new private equity fund. The new fund, called Future Leaders Fund III, will enable the Mumbai-headquartered firm to write larger checks and maintain a meaningful position in the startups it backs, […]

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 2:03:20 AM

China’s $47B semiconductor fund puts chip sovereignty front and center

China has closed a third state-backed investment fund to bolster its semiconductor industry and reduce reliance on other nations, both for using and for manufacturing wafers — prioritizing what is called chip sovereignty. China’s National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, also known simply as ‘the Big Fund,’ had two previous vintages: Big Fund I (2014 […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 9:15:42 PM

Apple’s Design Awards nominees highlight indies and startups, largely ignore AI (except for Arc)

Apple's annual list of what it considers the best and most innovative software available on its platform is turning its attention to the little guy.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 8:51:55 PM

Spyware maker pcTattletale shutters after data breach

The spyware maker's founder, Bryan Fleming, said pcTattletale is "out of business and completely done," following a data breach.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 8:45:26 PM

AI models have favorite numbers, because they think they’re people

AI models are always surprising us, not just in what they can do, but what they can’t, and why. An interesting new behavior is both superficial and revealing about these systems: they pick random numbers as if they’re human beings. But first, what does that even mean? Can’t people pick a number randomly? And how […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 8:00:27 PM

Rock band’s hidden hacking-themed website gets hacked

On Friday, Pal Kovacs was listening to the long-awaited new album from rock and metal giants Bring Me The Horizon when he noticed a strange sound at the end of the record’s last track. Being a fan of solving riddles and breaking encrypted codes, Kovacs wondered: does this sound contain a hidden message? His hunch […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 5:37:44 PM

Anthropic hires former OpenAI safety lead to head up new team

Jan Leike, a leading AI researcher who earlier this month resigned from OpenAI before publicly criticizing the company’s approach to AI safety, has joined OpenAI rival Anthropic to lead a new “superalignment” team. In a post on X, Leike said that his team at Anthropic will focus on various aspects of AI safety and security, […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 5:24:43 PM

The demise of BaaS fintech Synapse could derail the funding prospects for other startups in the space

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the long-term implications of Synapse’s bankruptcy on the fintech sector, Majority’s impressive ARR milestone, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big story Last week, we […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 5:05:00 PM

YouTube’s free games catalog ‘Playables’ rolls out to all users

YouTube's free Playables don't directly challenge the app store model or break Apple's rules. However, they do compete with the App Store's free games.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 4:56:21 PM

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 4:30:00 PM

OpenAI’s new safety committee is made up of all insiders

In light of criticism over its approach to AI safety, OpenAI has formed a new committee to oversee “critical” safety and security decisions related to the company’s projects and operations. But, in a move that’s sure to raise the ire of some ethicists, OpenAI’s chosen to staff the committee exclusively with company insiders — including […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 4:10:40 PM

Early bird gets the savings — 4 days left for Disrupt sale

Time is running out for tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs to secure their early-bird tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! With only four days left until the May 31 deadline, now is the perfect time to purchase your tickets and save up to $800 before prices increase. This event will be held in San Francisco, drawing 10,000 […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Skej’s AI meeting scheduling assistant works like adding an EA to your email

AI may not be up to the task of replacing Google Search just yet, but it can be useful in more specific contexts — including handling the drudgery that comes with performing everyday tasks, like scheduling meetings. That’s the premise behind the new startup, Skej, which offers an AI assistant you can loop into your […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 3:04:04 PM

Faircado raises $3M to nudge people to buy pre-owned goods

Faircado has built a browser extension that suggests pre-owned alternatives for ecommerce listings.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Tumblr launches its semi-private ‘Communities’ in open beta

Tumblr, the blogging site acquired twice, is launching its “Communities” feature in open beta, the Tumblr Labs division has announced. The feature offers a dedicated space for users to connect with others on different topics, outside of Tumblr’s main dashboard. The open beta comes six months after Communities launched in closed beta and represents a shift […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 1:36:39 PM

Félix Pago raises $15.5 million to help Latino workers send money home via WhatsApp

Remittances from workers in the U.S. to their families and friends in Latin America amounted to $155 billion in 2023. With such a huge opportunity, banks, money transfer companies, retailers, and fintechs are all trying make transfers more convenient on both sides of the transaction.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 1:35:05 PM

Google adds AI-powered features to Chromebook

Google said today it's adding new AI-powered features such as a writing assistant and a wallpaper creator and providing easy access to Gemini chatbot to its Chromebook Plus line of devices.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 1:00:00 PM

The Chainsmokers light up Disrupt 2024

The dynamic duo behind the Grammy Award–winning music group the Chainsmokers, Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, are set to bring their entrepreneurial expertise to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Known for their chart-topping hits, Pall and Taggart have expanded their influence into the world of venture capital. In 2020, they launched Mantis Venture Capital, a firm managing […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 1:00:00 PM

LumApps, the French ‘intranet superapp,’ sells majority stake to Bridgepoint in a $650M deal

Big news today for LumApps, the French startup that has described itself as an “intranet superapp” with a platform for building and provisioning internal communications and apps for workforces. The company — which is used by some 5 million people across 700 organizations — announced that Bridgepoint, the private equity investment firm, is taking a […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 12:33:45 PM

More neobanks are becoming mobile networks — and Nubank wants a piece of the action

Nubank is taking its first tentative steps into the mobile network realm, as the NYSE-traded Brazilian neobank rolls out an eSIM (embedded SIM) service for travelers. The service will give customers access to 10GB of free roaming internet in more than 40 countries without having to switch out their own existing physical SIM card or […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 9:00:00 AM

MARS doubles down on India’s Infra.Market with new $50M investment

Infra.Market, an Indian startup that helps construction and real estate firms procure materials, has raised $50M from MARS Unicorn Fund.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 7:03:52 AM

Cloover wants to speed solar adoption by helping installers finance new sales

Small operations can lose customers by not offering financing, something the Berlin-based startup wants to change.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 6:00:00 AM

Adani to battle Reliance, Walmart in India’s e-commerce, payments race, report says

India’s Adani Group is in discussions to venture into e-commerce and digital payments, according to Financial Times, as the conglomerate seeks to diversify its portfolio and compete with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance, Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart and PhonePe. The Adani Group is considering applying for a license to operate on India’s Unified Payments Interface, a public […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 4:45:51 AM

Ledger starts shipping its high-end hardware crypto wallet

Ledger, a French startup mostly known for its secure crypto hardware wallets, has started shipping new wallets nearly 18 months after announcing the latest Ledger Stax devices. The updated wallet features an E-Ink display and has been designed in partnership with Tony Fadell, one of the main designers behind the iPod. E-Ink technology is generally […]

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 4:45:00 AM

EU’s ChatGPT taskforce offers first look at detangling the AI chatbot’s privacy compliance

A data protection taskforce that’s spent over a year considering how the European Union’s data protection rulebook applies to OpenAI’s viral chatbot, ChatGPT, reported preliminary conclusions Friday. The top-line takeaway is that the working group of privacy enforcers remains undecided on crux legal issues, such as the lawfulness and fairness of OpenAI’s processing. The issue […]

Monday, May 27, 2024 4:01:03 PM

LatAm startups: Apply to Startup Battlefield 200

Here’s a shoutout to LatAm early-stage startup founders! We want YOU to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. But you’d better hurry — time is running out. The application window closes on June 10 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. LatAm — Join the Startup Battlefield 200 Startup Battlefield 200 (SB 200) is […]

Monday, May 27, 2024 4:00:00 PM

5 days left to get your early-bird Disrupt passes

The countdown to early-bird savings for TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place October 28–30 in San Francisco, continues. You have just five days left to save up to $800 on the price of admission. The window closes on Friday, May 31 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Grab your tickets today. Find the best early-bird pass for you Why […]

Monday, May 27, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Spanish startups reached €100 billion in aggregated value in 2023, consolidating the country’s position as a midsize European tech ecosystem

Venture investment into Spanish startups also held up quite well, with €2.2 billion raised across some 850 funding rounds.

Monday, May 27, 2024 3:45:31 PM

Onyx Motorbikes was in trouble — and then its 37-year-old owner died

James Khatiblou, the owner and CEO of Onyx Motorbikes, was watching his e-bike startup fall apart. Onyx was being evicted from its warehouse in El Segundo, Los Angeles. The company’s unpaid bills were stacking up. His chief operating officer had abruptly resigned. A shipment of around 100 CTY2 dirt bikes from Chinese supplier Suzhou Jindao […]

Monday, May 27, 2024 3:02:07 PM

Iyo thinks its gen AI earbuds can succeed where Humane and Rabbit stumbled

Iyo represents a third form factor in the push to deliver standalone generative AI devices: Bluetooth earbuds.

Monday, May 27, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Women in AI: Arati Prabhakar thinks it’s crucial to get AI ‘right’

Arati Prabhakar, profiled as part of TechCrunch's Women in AI series, is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Monday, May 27, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Doly lets you generate 3D product videos from your iPhone

AniML, the French startup behind a new 3D capture app called Doly, wants to create the PhotoRoom of product videos, sort of. If you’re selling sneakers on an online marketplace or need to create Instagram ads for your direct-to-consumer wares, Doly helps you generate 3D models with your phone and turn them into professional-looking product […]

Monday, May 27, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B from Valor, a16z, and Sequoia

Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has raised $6 billion in a new funding round, it said today, in one of the largest deals in the red-hot nascent space, as he shores up capital to aggressively compete with rivals including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity, Prince Alwaleed […]

Monday, May 27, 2024 6:57:59 AM

Indian EV startup Zypp Electric secures ENEOS backing to fund expansion to Southeast Asia

Indian startup Zypp Electric plans to use fresh investment from Japanese oil and energy conglomerate ENEOS to take its EV rental service into Southeast Asia early next year, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The company aims to be in 15 markets over the next two years. Of those 15 markets, Zypp Electric plans to launch its […]

Monday, May 27, 2024 3:30:23 AM

A venture capital firm looks back on changing industry norms, from board seats to backing rival startups

Last month, one of the Bay Area’s better-known early-stage venture capital firms, Uncork Capital, marked its 20th anniversary with a party in a renovated church in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, where 420 guests showed up to help the firm to celebrate, trade tips, and share war stories. There’s no question the venture scene has changed […]

Monday, May 27, 2024 1:14:54 AM

Families of Uvalde shooting victims sue Activision and Meta

The families of victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas are suing Activision and Meta, as well as gun manufacturer Daniel Defense. The families bringing the lawsuits are represented by attorney Josh Koskoff, who previously won a settlement from Remington for the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims. The suit against […]

Sunday, May 26, 2024 4:58:25 PM

Y Combinator’s Garry Tan supports some AI regulation but warns against AI monopolies

Like most Silicon Valley VCs, what Garry Tan sees is opportunities for new, huge, lucrative businesses.

Sunday, May 26, 2024 3:00:00 PM

How Maven’s AI-run ‘serendipity network’ can make social media interesting again

Everything in society can feel geared toward optimization – whether that’s standardized testing or artificial intelligence algorithms. We’re taught to know what outcome you want to achieve, and find the path towards getting there. Kenneth Stanley, a former OpenAI researcher and co-founder of a new social media platform called Maven, has been preaching for years […]

Sunday, May 26, 2024 2:30:00 PM

Women in AI: Miriam Vogel stresses the need for responsible AI

Miriam Vogel, profiled as part of TechCrunch's Women in AI series, is the CEO of the nonprofit responsible AI advocacy organization EqualAI.

Sunday, May 26, 2024 2:00:00 PM

What are Google’s AI Overviews good for?

Google has been taking heat for some of the inaccurate, funny, and downright weird answers that it’s been providing via AI Overviews in search. AI Overviews are the AI-generated search results that Google started rolling out more broadly earlier this month, with mixed results — apparently, a user looking for help in getting cheese to […]

Sunday, May 26, 2024 12:28:43 PM

The ups and downs of investing in Europe, with VCs Saul Klein and Raluca Ragab

When it comes to the world of venture-backed startups, some issues are universal, and some are very dependent on where the startups and its backers are located. It’s something we talked about this week in London, when TechCrunch took its StrictlyVC series of more intimate, more investor-focused events on the road. Sitting down with Saul […]

Saturday, May 25, 2024 11:20:39 PM

Scarlett Johansson brought receipts to the OpenAI controversy

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. OpenAI announced this week that it’s removing Sky, one of the voices used by its new GPT-4o model, after users found it sounded eerily similar to Scarlett Johansson’s AI character […]

Saturday, May 25, 2024 8:15:00 PM

Deal Dive: Can blockchain make weather forecasts better? WeatherXM thinks so

Accurate weather forecasts are critical to industries like agriculture, and they’re also important to help prevent and mitigate harm from inclement weather events or natural disasters. But getting forecasts right is extremely difficult. That’s why the founders of WeatherXM have been looking to make weather forecasts more accurate for the past 12 years. In 2012, […]

Saturday, May 25, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Spyware app pcTattletale was hacked and its website defaced

pcTattletale's website was briefly defaced and contained links containing files from the spyware maker's servers, before going offline.

Saturday, May 25, 2024 3:29:05 PM

With a16z-backed Synapse’s collapse, BaaS fintech is a mess and 10 million consumers could be hurt

Synapse's bankruptcy shows just how treacherous things are for the often-interdependent fintech world when one key player hits trouble.

Saturday, May 25, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Women in AI: Sarah Myers West says we should ask, ‘Why build AI at all?’

Sarah Myers West, profiled as part of TechCrunch's Women in AI series, is managing director at the AI Now institute.

Saturday, May 25, 2024 2:00:00 PM

This Week in AI: OpenAI and publishers are partners of convenience

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own. By the way, TechCrunch plans to launch an AI newsletter […]

Saturday, May 25, 2024 1:15:00 PM

AI tutors are quietly changing how kids in the US study, and the leading apps are from China

Evan, a high school sophomore from Houston, was stuck on a calculus problem. He pulled up Answer AI on his iPhone, snapped a photo of the problem from his Advanced Placement math textbook, and ran it through the homework app. Within a few seconds, Answer AI had generated an answer alongside a step-by-step process of […]

Saturday, May 25, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Startups Weekly: Drama at Techstars. Drama in AI. Drama everywhere.

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Well, folks, it looks like Techstars’ drama just got a new plot twist. CEO Maëlle Gavet is making her exit, leaving co-founder David Cohen to swoop […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 7:05:00 PM

From Plaid to Figma, here are the startups that are likely — or definitely — not having IPOs this year

Last year’s investor dreams of a strong 2024 IPO pipeline have faded, if not fully disappeared, as we approach the halfway point of the year. 2024 delivered four venture-backed tech IPOs, Reddit, Astera Labs, Ibotta and Rubrik, in March and April, which made it seem like this year could spur the momentum investors had hoped […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 6:00:00 PM

Feds add nine more incidents to Waymo robotaxi investigation

Federal safety regulators have discovered nine more incidents that raise questions about the safety of Waymo’s self-driving vehicles operating in Phoenix and San Francisco. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened an investigation earlier this month into Waymo’s autonomous vehicle software after receiving 22 reports of robotaxis making unexpected moves […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 5:06:20 PM

Pitch Deck Teardown: Terra One’s $7.5M Seed deck

Terra One's pitch deck has a few wins, but also a few misses. Here's how to fix that.

Friday, May 24, 2024 5:00:00 PM

Women in AI: Chinasa T. Okolo researches AI’s impact on the Global South

Chinasa T. Okolo researches AI policy and governance in the Global South.

Friday, May 24, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Disrupt 2024 early-bird tickets fly away next Friday

TechCrunch Disrupt takes place on October 28–30 in San Francisco. While the event is a few months away, the deadline to secure your early-bird tickets and save up to $800 is fast approaching. You have until May 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT to take advantage of this great deal! The countdown is on. With only […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Big tech companies are plowing money into AI startups, which could help them dodge antitrust concerns

Another week, and another round of crazy cash injections and valuations emerged from the AI realm. DeepL, an AI language translation startup, raised $300 million on a $2 billion valuation; Scale AI, a data-labeling platform for machine learning models, secured $1 billion as its valuation nearly doubled to $13.8 billion; and H, a fledgling French […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 3:05:17 PM

Harlem Capital is raising a $150 million fund

If raised, this new fund, the firm’s third, would be its largest to date.

Friday, May 24, 2024 2:30:00 PM

US drug maker Cencora says Americans’ health information stolen in data breach

About half a million patients have been notified so far, but the number of affected individuals is likely far higher.

Friday, May 24, 2024 1:40:29 PM

Last day to vote for TC Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice program

Attention, tech enthusiasts and startup supporters! The final countdown is here: Today is the last day to cast your vote for the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice program. Voting closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT, so this is your last chance to make your voice heard and help select the most promising startups to take […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Signal’s Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash and the “edge lords” at OpenAI

Meredith Whittaker has had it with the “frat house” contingent of the tech industry. I sat down with the CEO of Signal at VivaTech in Paris to go over the wide range of serious, grown-up issues society is facing, from disinformation, to who controls AI, to the encroaching surveillance state. In the course of our […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 12:45:59 PM

Lucid Motors slashes 400 jobs ahead of crucial SUV launch

Lucid Motors is laying off about 400 employees, or roughly 6% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring ahead of the launch of its first electric SUV later this year. The company said in a regulatory filing on Friday morning that it expects to complete the restructuring by the end of the third quarter […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 12:19:39 PM

Google invests $350 million in India’s Flipkart

Google is investing nearly $350 million in Flipkart, becoming the latest high-profile name to back the Indian e-commerce startup. The Android-maker will also provide the Bengaluru-headquartered e-commerce startup with cloud offerings. The investment is part of a nearly $1 billion investment, much of which Flipkart raised late last year.

Friday, May 24, 2024 11:57:38 AM

Jio Financial unit to buy $4.32B of telecom gear from Reliance Retail

A Jio Financial unit plans to purchase customer premises equipment and telecom gear worth $4.32 billion from Reliance Retail.

Friday, May 24, 2024 5:43:38 AM

Foursquare just laid off 105 employees

Foursquare, the location-focused outfit that in 2020 merged with Factual, another location-focused outfit, is joining the parade of companies to make cuts to one of its biggest cost centers – employees – in 2024. Per an email sent out to staffers this afternoon by current CEO Gary Little and viewed by TechCrunch, 105 employees were […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 4:27:10 AM

Using memes, social media users have become red teams for half-baked AI features

“Running with scissors is a cardio exercise that can increase your heart rate and require concentration and focus,” says Google’s new AI search feature. “Some say it can also improve your pores and give you strength.” Google’s AI feature pulled this response from a website called Little Old Lady Comedy, which, as its name makes […]

Friday, May 24, 2024 12:21:39 AM

ESA prepares for the post-ISS era, selects The Exploration Company, Thales Alenia to develop cargo spacecraft

The European Space Agency selected two companies on Wednesday to advance designs of a cargo spacecraft that could establish the continent’s first sovereign access to space. The two awardees, major aerospace prime Thales Alenia Space and French startup The Exploration Company, will receive €25 million ($27 million) each to advance concepts for vehicles that can […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 10:03:42 PM

Expressable brings speech therapy into the home

Expressable is a platform that offers one-on-one virtual sessions with speech language pathologists.

Thursday, May 23, 2024 9:49:33 PM

The biggest French startups in 2024 according to the French government

The French Secretary of State for the Digital Economy as of this year, Marina Ferrari, revealed this year’s laureates during VivaTech week in Paris. According to its promoters, this fifth class was the most selective since the inception of the program.

Thursday, May 23, 2024 7:41:07 PM

Spotify to shut off Car Thing for good, leading users to demand refunds

Spotify is notifying customers who purchased its Car Thing product that the devices will stop working after December 9, 2024. The company discontinued the device back in July 2022, but had said at the time that it would still support the units that had already been sold. The company’s plans for the device have changed, […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 7:35:07 PM

X should bring back stars, not hide ‘Likes’

Elon Musk’s X is preparing to make “Likes” private on the social network, in a change that could potentially confuse users over the difference between something they’ve favorited and something they’ve bookmarked. According to new posts by company employees, the decision to hide “Likes” is meant to incentivize engagement, by allowing people to favorite content […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 6:44:48 PM

$6M fine for robocaller who used AI to clone Biden’s voice

The FCC has proposed a $6 million fine for the scammer who used voice-cloning tech to impersonate President Biden in a series of illegal robocalls during a New Hampshire primary election. It’s more about robocalls than AI, but the agency is clearly positioning this as a warning to other would-be high-tech scammers. As you may […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 6:09:13 PM

Tesla lobbies for Elon and Kia taps into the GenAI hype

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Is it me, or is the Tesla board being a bit extra these days as it tries to convince shareholders to vote in favor of relocating the […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 5:05:00 PM

App developer Crowdaa raises €1.2 million and plans a U.S. expansion

Crowdaa is an app that allows non-developers to easily create and release apps on the mobile store.

Thursday, May 23, 2024 4:34:10 PM

Canva launches a proper enterprise product — and they mean it this time

Back in 2019, Canva, the wildly successful design tool, introduced what the company was calling an enterprise product, but in reality it was more geared towards teams than fulfilling true enterprise requirements. On Thursday, the company changed that, announcing a new enterprise version that is truly geared towards the needs of larger organizations. That includes […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 4:30:00 PM

2 days left to vote for Disrupt Audience Choice

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 isn’t just an event for innovation; it’s a platform where your voice matters. With the Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice Program, you have the power to shape the future of tech by voting for your favorite thought leaders and sessions. But with just 48 hours left until the May 24 deadline, now is […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 4:00:00 PM

The U.S. government sues to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster

The United States Department of Justice and 30 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, for alleged monopolistic practices. Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010, creating a dominant entertainment machine that controls the majority of ticket sales and venue bookings in the country. But Taylor Swift […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 3:58:01 PM

‘Pro-competition’ rules for Big Tech make it through UK’s pre-election wash-up

The UK will shortly get its own rulebook for Big Tech, after peers in the House of Lords agreed Thursday afternoon to pass the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer bill (DMCC) — removing the last obstacle to the bill becoming law in the limited parliamentary time remaining for the government. The pro-competition reform, which has […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 3:32:07 PM

Spotify experiments with an AI DJ that speaks Spanish

Spotify’s addition of its AI DJ feature, which introduces personalized song selections to users, was the company’s first step into an AI future. Now, Spotify is developing an alternative version of that DJ that will speak Spanish. References to the new AI DJ were spotted in the app’s code by tech veteran and reverse engineer […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 3:11:16 PM

Arc Search’s new Call Arc feature lets you ask questions by ‘making a phone call’

Call Arc can help answer immediate and small questions, according to the company.

Thursday, May 23, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Paris transit passes now available in iPhone’s Wallet app

After multiple delays, Apple and the Paris area transportation authority rolled out support for Paris transit passes in Apple Wallet. It means that people can now use their iPhone or Apple Watch as a Navigo pass to ride the metro, train, tram or bus. This is important news for Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) — the transportation […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 1:50:47 PM

Redwood Materials is partnering with Ultium Cells to recycle GM’s EV battery scrap

Redwood Materials, the battery recycling startup founded by former Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, will be recycling production scrap for batteries going into General Motors electric vehicles. The company announced Thursday that it’s working with Ultium Cells, the joint battery manufacturing venture between GM and LG Energy Solution, to recycle cathode, anode and cell scrap from […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 1:02:26 PM

Auggie’s new app helps parents find community and shop

A new startup called Auggie is aiming to give parents a single platform where they can shop for products and connect with each other. The company’s new app, which launched this week, offers parents a platform where they can share product recommendations, shop vetted products and find community amongst each other to get real-time advice […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Lumos helps companies manage their employees’ identities — and access

Andrej Safundzic, Alan Flores Lopez and Leo Mehr met in a class at Stanford focusing on ethics, public policy and technological change. Safundzic — speaking to TechCrunch — says that the class drove home the point that few people, particularly in the corporate sector, have control over their online identities. “The future of software is […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Remark puts thousands of human product experts into AI form

Remark trains AI models on human product experts to create personas that can answer questions with the same style of their human counterparts.

Thursday, May 23, 2024 12:45:00 PM

ZeroPoint’s nanosecond-scale memory compression could tame power-hungry AI infrastructure

ZeroPoint claims to have solved compression problems with hyper-fast, low-level memory compression that requires no real changes to the rest of the computing system.

Thursday, May 23, 2024 12:01:00 PM

Finout lands cash to grow its cloud spend management platform

In 2021, Roi Ravhon, Asaf Liveanu and Yizhar Gilboa came together to found Finout, an enterprise-focused toolset to help manage and optimize cloud costs. (We covered the company’s launch out of stealth in 2022.) Ravhon, Finout’s CEO and previously the director of engineering at observability platform Logz.io, says that he was spurred to start Finout […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Bugcrowd, the crowdsourced white-hat hacker platform, acquires Informer to ramp up its security chops

On the heels of raising $102 million earlier this year, Bugcrowd is making good on its promise to use some of that funding to make acquisitions to strengthen its security chops. The company — which crowdsources skills from more than half a million hackers to find and fix security vulnerabilities and other operational loopholes in […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 11:31:25 AM

Google to build first subsea fibre optic cable connecting Africa with Australia

Google is preparing to build what will be the first subsea fibre optic cable connecting the continents of Africa and Australia. The news comes as the major cloud hyperscalers battle it out for business dollars, with Google playing catchup with AWS and Microsoft’s Azure. Notably, Google’s announcement follows widespread outages across Eastern Africa, which have […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 11:21:38 AM

The new Kia EV3 will have an AI assistant with ChatGPT DNA

The Kia EV3 — the new all-electric compact SUV revealed Thursday — illustrates a growing appetite among global automakers to bring generative AI into their vehicles. The automaker said the Kia EV3 will feature a new voice assistant that is built off ChatGPT, the text-generating AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. The Kia EV3, and its […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 10:00:00 AM

Bing’s API is down, bringing Microsoft Copilot, DuckDuckGo and ChatGPT’s web search feature down

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, isn’t working properly right now. At first, it wasn’t possible to perform a web search at all. It seems like search results now load properly. But this outage also seems to affect Bing’s application programming interface (API), which means that other services that rely on Bing aren’t working properly. For instance, […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 9:05:32 AM

Autonomous shipping startup Orca AI tops up with $23M led by OCV Partners and MizMaa Ventures

If you thought autonomous driving was just for cars, think again. The so-called ‘autonomous navigation’ market — where ships steer themselves guided by AI, resulting in fuel and time savings — is projected to grow from $4.46 billion in 2023 to $5.33B in 2024 alone. Orca AI is a London-based startup that claims to have […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 8:53:29 AM

Meet the Finnish biotech startup bringing a long lost mycoprotein to your plate

The best known mycoprotein is probably Quorn, a meat substitute that’s fast approaching its 40th birthday. But Finnish biotech startup Enifer is cooking up something even older: Its proprietary single-cell fungus-based protein, branded Pekilo, was originally developed in the 1960s and ’70s — by, of all things, the local paper industry. The focus back then […]

Thursday, May 23, 2024 5:45:00 AM

Food supply chain software maker Silo lays off ~30% of staff amid M&A discussions

Silo, a Bay Area food supply chain startup, has hit a rough patch. TechCrunch has learned that the company on Tuesday laid off roughly 30% of its staff, or north of two dozen employees. Silo has confirmed the headcount reductions, clarifying the cuts were across the board and not focused on individual departments. Silo shared […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 11:14:04 PM

The Biden campaign is looking to hire a seasoned meme lord

President Joe Biden needs a meme manager.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 10:32:15 PM

Meta’s new AI council is comprised entirely of white men

Meanwhile, women and people of color are disproportionately impacted by irresponsible AI.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 9:37:23 PM

Garry Tan has revealed his ‘secret sauce’ for getting into Y Combinator

If you’ve ever wanted to apply to Y Combinator, here’s some inside scoop on how the iconic accelerator goes about choosing companies.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 8:56:16 PM

India’s BluSmart is testing its ride-hailing service in Dubai

Indian ride-hailing startup BluSmart has started operating in Dubai, TechCrunch has exclusively learned and confirmed with its executive. The move to Dubai, which has been rumored for months, could help counter the likes of Careem, Uber and Hala in the United Arab Emirates’ most populous city. The Gurugram-based startup quietly enabled the new Dubai service […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 8:12:23 PM

FCC proposes all AI-generated content in political ads must be disclosed

The FCC has floated a requirement that AI-generated content be disclosed in political ads — but not banned. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel made the official proposal Wednesday that the FCC investigate and seek comment on such a rule. (The agency already ruled AI-generated robocalls illegal, but that was more about them not conforming to automated call […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 8:06:06 PM

Refer a founder to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2024

Want to make a founder’s day, week, month, and possibly career? Refer them to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2024! Applications close June 10 at 11:59 p.m. PT. TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200 is the world’s preeminent competition for early-stage startups. It’s also the absolute best way for an entrepreneur to get the most out of […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 8:00:00 PM

Bluesky now has DMs

Social networking startup and X competitor Bluesky is officially launching DMs (direct messages), the company announced on Wednesday. Later, Bluesky plans to “fully support end-to-end encrypted messaging down the line,” it also said. The launch comes two weeks after the social network teased it would soon be introducing direct messaging capabilities. Up until now, all […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 7:50:03 PM

Peter Thiel-founded Valar Ventures raised a $300 million fund, half the size of its last one

The perception in Silicon Valley is that every investor would love to be in business with Peter Thiel. But the venture capital fundraising environment has become so difficult, that even Valar Ventures, one of the VC firms he helped found, has raised a much smaller fund this year compared to previous ones. Thiel set up […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 7:45:35 PM

Spyware found on US hotel check-in computers

Several hotel check-in computers are running a remote access app, which is leaking screenshots of guest information to the interne

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 6:05:54 PM

Techstars CEO Mäelle Gavet is out

Gavet has had a rocky tenure at Techstars and her leadership was the subject of much controversy.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 5:43:43 PM

Connected fitness is adrift post-pandemic

The struggle isn’t universal, however.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 4:56:27 PM

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 4:30:46 PM

HoundDog.ai helps developers prevent personal information from leaking

HoundDog actually looks at the code a developer is writing, using both traditional pattern matching and large language models to find potential issues.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 4:06:37 PM

Google Pay will now display card perks, BNPL options and more

The changes are designed to enhance the consumer experience of using Google Pay and make it a more competitive option against other payment methods.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 3:45:57 PM

Vinod Khosla is coming to Disrupt to discuss how AI might change the future

Few figures in the tech industry have earned the storied reputation of Vinod Khosla, founder and partner at Khosla Ventures. For over 40 years, he has been at the center of Silicon Valley, building or backing some of the biggest, most influential tech companies. His career stems from his days as founder of Sun Microsystems […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 3:30:00 PM

Truecaller partners with Microsoft to let its AI respond to calls in your own voice

AI has already started replacing voice agents’ jobs. Now, companies are exploring ways to replace the existing computer-generated voice models with synthetic versions of human voices. Truecaller, the widely known caller ID service, is the latest to take this approach with its announcement that it will now allow customers to use its AI-powered Assistant to […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 3:25:17 PM

Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses now let you share images directly to your Instagram Story

Meta is updating its Ray-Ban smart glasses with new hands-free functionality, the company announced on Wednesday. Most notably, users can now share an image from their smart glasses directly to their Instagram Story without needing to take out their phone. After you take a photo with the smart glasses, you can say, “Hey Meta, share […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 3:17:17 PM

Why Spotify is launching its own font, Spotify Mix

Spotify launched its own font, the company announced on Wednesday. The music streaming service hopes that its new typeface, “Spotify Mix,” will help Spotify distinguish its own unique visual identity. Spotify Mix is a sans-serif typeface designed in partnership with Dinamo Typefaces, a Berlin-based type design studio that has worked with major companies, including Burberry, […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 3:05:44 PM

Hydrolix seeks to make storing log data faster and cheaper

In 2008, Marty Kagan, who’d previously worked at Cisco and Akamai, co-founded Cedexis, a (now-Cisco-owned) firm developing observability tech for content delivery networks. Fellow Cisco veteran Hasan Alayli joined Kagan at Cedexis in 2012 as a technical lead, and the two worked together for a number of years. As Cedexis grew and began collaborating with […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Bolster, creator of the CheckPhish phishing tracker, raises $14M led by Microsoft’s M12

A dodgy email containing a link that looks “legit” but is actually malicious remains one of the most dangerous, yet successful, tricks in a cyber criminal’s handbook. Now, an AI startup called Bolster that has built a novel approach to tackle that trick has raised $14 million in funding to expand its work, both across […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 2:54:18 PM

Boeing, NASA indefinitely delay crewed Starliner launch

If you’ve been looking forward to seeing Boeing’s Starliner capsule carry two astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. The mission, which has already been beset by issues with both the rocket and helium tanks, is now delayed indefinitely, NASA said in a statement late […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 2:53:49 PM

TikTok turns to generative AI to boost its ads business

TikTok is the latest tech company to incorporate generative AI into its ads business, as the company announced on Tuesday that it’s launching a new “TikTok Symphony” AI suite for brands. The tools will help marketers write scripts, produce videos, and enhance current assets. The suite includes a new AI video generator called the “Symphony […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Space VC closes $20M Fund II to back frontier tech founders from day zero

Gone are the days when space and defense were considered fundamentally antithetical to venture investment. Now, the country’s largest venture capital firms are throwing larger portions of their money behind so-called hard tech startups at the earliest stages. This about-face has led some in the industry to question whether smaller investing shops will be able […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Patronus AI is off to a magical start as LLM governance tool gains traction

These days every company is trying to figure out if their large language models are compliant with whatever rules they deem important, and with legal or regulatory requirements. If you’re in a regulated industry, the need is even more acute. Perhaps that’s why Patronus AI is finding early success in the marketplace. On Wednesday, the […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 1:40:06 PM

Linktree surpasses 50M users, rolls out its social commerce program to more creators

Link-in-bio startup Linktree has crossed 50 million users and is rolling out the beta of its social commerce program.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 1:19:57 PM

Immigrant banking platform Majority secures $20M following 3x revenue growth

For a $5.99 per month, immigrants have a bank account and debit card with fee-free international money transfers and discounted international calling.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 1:03:21 PM

Unify helps developers find the best LLM for the job

When developers have a particular job that AI can solve, it’s not typically as simple as just pointing an LLM at the data. There are other considerations such as cost, speed and accuracy and finding ways to balance all of those has been particularly challenging, especially with so many new models coming online all the […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Aerodome is sending drones to the scene of the crime

Response time is Aerodome’s immediate value prop for potential clients.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Granola debuts an AI notepad for meetings

Granola takes a more collaborative approach to working with AI.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 1:00:00 PM

DeepL, the AI language translation startup, nabs $300M on a $2B valuation to focus on B2B growth

Yet more major funding is being poured into a startup focused on AI. Today, DeepL – the company that builds automated text translation and writing tools that compete against the likes of Google Translate and Grammarly – announced that it’s raised an additional $300 million. It is now valued at $2 billion, post-money. This round […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 12:57:41 PM

Praktika raises $35.5M to use AI avatars to make learning languages feel more natural

Praktika has secured a $35.5M Series A round to apply AI-powered avatars to language-learning apps.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 12:25:49 PM

Humane, the creator of the $700 Ai Pin, is reportedly seeking a buyer

Humane, the company behind the hyped Ai Pin that launched to less-than-glowing reviews last month, is reportedly on the hunt for a buyer.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 12:13:08 PM

Oyo, once valued at $10 billion, shelves IPO plans for second time

India's Oyo, once valued at $10 billion, has withdrawn its IPO application from the market regulator for the second time.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 9:15:28 AM

Ore Energy emerges from stealth to build utility-scale batteries that last days, not hours

Where Aytac Yilmaz lives in the Netherlands, the sun might not appear for days on end, which can really crimp the output of the country’s solar panels. Wind turbines might make up some of the shortfall, but what if the wind disappears at the same time? Enter long-duration energy storage, or massive batteries tailored to […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 8:00:00 AM

Paytm counts costs of regulatory clampdown as losses swell

One 97 Communications, the parent company of India’s leading digital payments platform Paytm, reported a widening of its consolidated net loss to $66.1 million in the quarter ending March, compared to a loss of $20.11 million in the same quarter last year as it grappled with a regulatory clampdown. For the full fiscal year 2024, […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 4:17:37 AM

In Seoul summit, heads of states and companies commit to AI safety

Government officials and AI industry executives agreed on Tuesday to apply elementary safety measures in the fast-moving field, and establish an international safety research network. Nearly six months after the inaugural global summit on AI safety at Bletchley Park in England, Britain and South Korea are hosting the AI safety summit this week in Seoul. The […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 11:16:19 PM

Microsoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCs

Copilot, Microsoft's brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 9:29:00 PM

VCs wanted FarmboxRx to become a meal kit, the company bootstrapped instead

Some startups choose to bootstrap from the beginning while others find themselves forced into self funding by a lack of investor interest or a business model that doesn’t fit traditional VC. FarmboxRx decided to bootstrap because founder Ashley Tyrner didn’t like the advice she was getting from potential backers. Tyrner told TechCrunch’s Found podcast that […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 9:07:18 PM

Uber and Lyft’s ride-hailing deal with Minnesota comes with a cost

Uber and Lyft drivers in Minnesota will see higher pay thanks to a deal between the state and the country’s two largest ride-hailing companies. The upshot: a new law that gives some protections to drivers while placing limits on state government. The bill, which Gov. Tim Walz has supported publicly and is expected to sign, […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 9:06:58 PM

a16z’s American Dynamism team launches program to introduce technical minds to VC

Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism fund has established a new fellowship program aimed at introducing top engineers and technologists to venture investing, a move that could help the firm less obvious sources for VC talent. The American Dynamism fund launched in 2023 with the broad aim of supporting companies building in the nation’s interest across hard […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 8:44:05 PM

Teen fintech Copper had to emergency discontinue its banking, debit products

Another fintech startup, and its customers, has been gravely impacted by the implosion of banking-as-a-service startup Synapse. Copper Banking, a digital banking service aimed at teens, notified its customers on May 12 that it would be discontinuing bank deposit accounts and debit cards on May 13. In a letter to customers, CEO and co-founder Eddie […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 8:00:03 PM

Autodesk acquires AI-powered VFX startup Wonder Dynamics

3D tools behemoth Autodesk has acquired Wonder Dynamics, a startup that let creators quickly and easily make complex characters and visual effects using AI-powered image analysis. The two companies have worked closely together for years, but are making it official today. Wonder Dynamics, founded by VFX artist Nikola Todorovic and actor Tye Sheridan, basically made […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 8:00:00 PM

Farcaster, a crypto-based social network, raised $150M with just 80K daily users

Farcaster, a blockchain-based social protocol founded by two Coinbase alumni, announced on Tuesday that it closed a $150 million fundraise. Led by Paradigm, the platform also raised money from a16z crypto, Haun Ventures, USV, Variant, Standard Crypto and others, according to a blog post by founder Dan Romero. Farcaster, the social protocol, invites developers to […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 7:58:43 PM

Microsoft’s new ‘Volumetric Apps’ for Quest headsets extend Windows apps into the 3D space

Microsoft announced on Tuesday during its annual Build conference that it’s bringing “Windows Volumetric Apps” to Meta Quest headsets. The partnership will allow Microsoft to bring Windows 365 and local PC connectivity to Quest headsets, enabling developers to extend their apps into the 3D space. “We’re deepening our partnership with Meta to make Windows a […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 7:20:36 PM

The ‘vote Trump’ spam that hit Bluesky in May came from decentralized rival Nostr

The spam reached Bluesky by first crossing over two other decentralized networks: Mastodon and Nostr.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 5:44:28 PM

There’s a real appetite for a fintech alternative to QuickBooks

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the continued fallout from Synapse’s bankruptcy, how Layer wants to disrupt SMB accounting, and much more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big story The prospects for […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 5:05:00 PM

Bill Gates-backed wind startup AirLoom is raising $12M, filings reveal

The company is hoping to produce electricity at $13 per megawatt hour, which would be more than 50% cheaper than traditional onshore wind.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 4:30:00 PM

WitnessAI is building guardrails for generative AI models

Generative AI makes stuff up. It can be biased. Sometimes, it spits out toxic text. So can it be “safe”? Rick Caccia, the CEO of WitnessAI, believes it can. “Securing AI models is a real problem, and it’s one that’s especially shiny for AI researchers, but it’s different from securing use,” Caccia, formerly SVP of […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 4:19:00 PM

French AI startup H raises $220 million seed round

It’s not often that you hear about a seed round above $10 million. H, a startup based in Paris and previously known as Holistic AI, has announced a $220 million seed round just a few months after the company’s inception. The reason why this company managed to raise so much money so quickly is that […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 4:06:34 PM

Boost your startup’s growth with a ScaleUp package at TC Disrupt 2024

Hey there, Series A to B startups with $35 million or less in funding — we’ve got an exciting opportunity that’s tailor-made for your growth journey! If you’re looking to elevate your presence at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 without breaking the bank, look no further than our ScaleUp Startups Exhibitor Program. Why should you consider ScaleUp […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 4:00:00 PM

As a U.S. ban looms, TikTok announces a $1M program for socially driven creators

TikTok is pulling out all the stops to prevent its impending ban in the United States. Aside from initiating legal challenges against the government, that means shaping up its public image. On Tuesday, the platform announced its TikTok Change Makers Program, which includes fifty global creators who “create a positive impact on and beyond the […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:42:24 PM

Microsoft’s Power Automate no-code platform adds AI flows

Microsoft wants to put its Copilot everywhere. It’s only a matter of time before Microsoft renames its annual Build developer conference to Microsoft Copilot. Hopefully, some of those upcoming events will be a bit less lackluster than this year’s edition, which lacks any real standout announcements after Microsoft already announced its new Arm-based laptops and […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:30:00 PM

GitHub Copilot gets extensions

Build is Microsoft’s largest developer conference and of course, it’s all about AI this year. So it’s no surprise that GitHub’s Copilot, GitHub’s “AI pair programming tool,” is taking center stage for a bit today with the launch of Copilot Extension. As the name suggests, Copilot Extensions allow developers to extend Copilot with third-party skills. […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:30:00 PM

Microsoft intros a Copilot for teams

Microsoft wants to make its brand of generative AI more useful for teams — specifically teams across corporations and large enterprise organizations. This morning at its annual Build dev conference, Microsoft announced Team Copilot, the latest expansion of its Copilot family of generative AI tech. Unlike Microsoft’s previous Copilot-branded products, Team Copilot isn’t so much […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:30:00 PM

Microsoft upgrades its AI app-building platforms

Microsoft’s big focus at this year’s Build conference is generative AI. And to that end, the tech giant announced a series of updates to its platforms for building generative AI-powered apps and experiences: Azure AI Studio and Copilot Studio. First, a quick refresher on Azure AI Studio and Copilot Studio. Azure AI Studio is a […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:30:00 PM

UK data protection watchdog ends privacy probe of Snap’s GenAI chatbot, but warns industry

The UK’s data protection watchdog has closed an almost year-long investigation of Snap’s AI chatbot, My AI — saying it’s satisfied the social media firm has addressed concerns about risks to children’s privacy. At the same time, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued a general warning to industry to be proactive about assessing risks to […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:25:54 PM

Conservative cell carrier Patriot Mobile hit by data breach

U.S. cell carrier Patriot Mobile experienced a data breach that included subscribers’ personal information, including full names, email addresses, home zip codes, and account PINs, TechCrunch has learned. Patriot Mobile, which reportedly has fewer than 100,000 subscribers, bills itself as “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider and our mission is to passionately defend our God-given […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:22:24 PM

Spotify’s ‘Listening Party’ feature falls short of expectations

It’s been three years since Spotify acquired live audio startup Betty Labs, and yet the music streaming service isn’t leveraging the technology to its fullest potential—at least not in our opinion. Betty Labs-owned Locker Room launched in 2020 as a sports-focused social audio app where sports fans could engage in live conversations, create watch parties, […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:09:32 PM

Alchemist’s latest batch puts AI to work as accelerator expands to Tokyo, Doha

Alchemist Accelerator has a new pile of AI-forward companies demoing their wares today, if you care to watch, and the program itself is making some international moves into Tokyo and Doha. Read on for our picks of the batch. Chatting with Alchemist CEO and founder Ravi Belani ahead of demo day (today at 10:30 Pacific) […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:01:00 PM

Kickstarter now lets you pledge after a campaign closes

“Late Pledge” allows campaign creators to continue collecting money even after the campaign has closed.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Stack AI wants to make it easier to build AI-fueled workflows

Stack AI’s co-founders, Antoni Rosinol and Bernardo Aceituno, were PhD students at MIT wrapping up their degrees in 2022 just as large language models were becoming more mainstream. ChatGPT would be released to the world at the end of the year, but even before that, they recognized a problem inside companies putting data together with […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Pinecone launches its serverless vector database out of preview

Pinecone, the vector database startup founded by Edo Liberty, the former head of Amazon’s AI Labs, has long been at the forefront of helping businesses augment large language models (LLMs) with their own data. Most recently, though, the company completely rearchitected its product to launch Pinecone Serverless, which frees its customers from having to think […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Special mud helps XGS Energy get more power out of geothermal wells

Young geothermal energy wells can be like budding prodigies, each brimming with potential to outshine their peers. But like people, most decline with age. In California, for example, the amount of electricity generated by geothermal power plants declined by 15% between 2001 and 2018, partly because existing wells degraded. “The history of geothermal has been […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Sonos finally made some headphones

The market play is clear from the outset: The $449 headphones are firmly targeted at an audience that would otherwise be purchasing the Bose QC Ultra or Apple AirPods Max.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Adobe brings Firefly AI-powered Generative Remove to Lightroom

Adobe says the feature is up to the task, regardless of how complex of a background the object is set against.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Porsche invests in battery startup South 8 to boost cold-weather EV performance

All cars suffer when the mercury drops, but electric vehicles suffer more than most as heaters draw more power and batteries charge more slowly as the liquid electrolyte inside thickens. Drivers in Chicago found this out the hard way last January after many Teslas failed to charge during a deep freeze. One startup, South 8 […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Data-labeling startup Scale AI raises $1B as valuation doubles to $13.8B

Scale AI, a company that provides data-labeling services for training machine learning models, has raised a $1 billion Series F round from a slew of big-name institutional and corporate investors including Amazon and Meta. The raise, which constitutes a mix of primary and secondary funding, comes amid a boom in AI venture capital megarounds, with […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 11:11:03 AM

Meta, Match, Coinbase and others team up to fight online fraud and crypto scams

The new coalition, Tech Against Scams, will work together to find ways to fight back against the tools used by scammers and to better educate the public against financial scams.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 11:00:00 AM

EU Council gives final nod to set up risk-based regulations for AI

It's a wrap: European Union lawmakers have given the final approval to set up the bloc's flagship, risk-based regulations for artificial intelligence.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 10:49:51 AM

Vitesse, a payments and treasury management platform for insurers, raises $93M to fuel US expansion

London-based fintech Vitesse has closed a $93 million Series C round of funding led by investment giant KKR.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 8:54:48 AM

Zen Educate raises $37M and acquires Aquinas Education as it tries to address the teacher shortage

Zen Educate, an online marketplace that connects schools with teachers, has raised $37 million in a Series B round of funding. The raise comes amid a growing teacher shortage crisis both sides of the pond, with a recent report from ADP Research Institute noting that the global pandemic exacerbated the existing supply/demand imbalance due to […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 4:00:00 AM

Aurora unveils self-driving truck with Volvo

A new self-driving truck — manufactured by Volvo and loaded with autonomous vehicle tech developed by Aurora Innovation — could be on public highways as early as this summer. The Volvo VNL Autonomous truck, which was revealed Monday evening at the ACT Expo in Las Vegas, is the product of a partnership between Aurora and […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 1:00:00 AM

Aurora and Volvo unveil self-driving truck designed for a driverless future

A new self-driving truck — manufactured by Volvo and loaded with autonomous vehicle tech developed by Aurora Innovation — could be on public highways as early as this summer. The Volvo VNL Autonomous truck, which was revealed Monday evening at the ACT Expo in Las Vegas, is the product of a partnership between Aurora and […]

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 1:00:00 AM

ETF Partners raises €284M for climate startups that will be effective quickly—not 20 years down the road

The European venture capital firm raised its fourth fund as fund as climate tech "comes of age."

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 12:01:00 AM

Microsoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCs

Copilot, Microsoft's brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience.

Monday, May 20, 2024 11:52:00 PM

Scarlett Johansson says that OpenAI approached her to use her voice

OpenAI is removing one of the voices used by ChatGPT. Users found that it sounded similar to Scarlett Johansson, the company announced on Monday, and Johansson herself released a statement saying she hired legal council to inquire about the Sky voice and get exact details about how it was developed. Sky is now being paused […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 11:50:00 PM

Microsoft Build 2024: All the AI and hardware products Microsoft announced

Copilot, Microsoft's brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience.

Monday, May 20, 2024 10:03:50 PM

TechCrunch Space: Star(side)liner

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. For those who haven’t heard, the first crewed launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule has been pushed back yet again to no earlier than May 25. From NASA: “The additional time allows teams to further assess a small helium leak in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft’s service module traced to […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 10:00:00 PM

These 81 robotics companies are hiring

When I attended Automate in Chicago a few weeks back, multiple people thanked me for TechCrunch’s semi-regular robotics job report. It’s always edifying to get that feedback in person. While it’s true that the industry has seen ups and downs in terms of both funding and hiring in recent years, there’s never been a more […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 9:37:43 PM

VinFast crash that killed family of four now under federal investigation

The top vehicle safety regulator in the U.S. has launched a formal probe into an April crash involving the all-electric VinFast VF8 SUV that claimed the lives of a family of four, TechCrunch has learned. The crash happened in Pleasanton, California at about 9 p.m. on April 24. Police told local news outlets at the […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 9:02:14 PM

NYC-Dublin real time video portal reopens with some fixes to prevent inappropriate behavior

When putting a video portal in a public park in the middle of New York City, some inappropriate behavior will likely occur. The Portal, the vision of Lithuanian artist and entrepreneur Benediktas Gylys, was designed to bring people together and let them share common experiences. After it opened earlier this month, the vast majority of […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 8:55:27 PM

Contour Venture Partners, an early investor in Datadog and Movable Ink, lowers the target for its fifth fund

Longtime New York-based seed investor, Contour Venture Partners, is making progress on its latest flagship fund after lowering its target. The firm closed on $42 million, raised from 64 backers, for Contour Venture Partners Fund V, according to an SEC filing from May 17. The New York-based firm is targeting $70 million for its fifth […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 8:20:44 PM

Meta’s Oversight Board takes its first Threads case

Meta’s Oversight Board has now extended its scope to include the company’s newest platform, Instagram Threads. Designed as an independent appeals board that hears cases and then makes precedent-setting content moderation decisions, the board to date has decided on cases like Facebook’s ban of Donald Trump, Covid-19 misinformation, the removal of breast cancer photos, and […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 6:28:25 PM

SeekOut, a recruiting startup last valued at $1.2 billion, lays off 30% of its workforce

The company says it's refocusing and prioritizing fewer initiatives that will have the biggest impact on customers and add value to the business.

Monday, May 20, 2024 5:47:01 PM

UK’s autonomous vehicle legislation becomes law, paving the way for first driverless cars by 2026

The U.K.’s self-proclaimed “world-leading” regulations for self-driving cars are now official, after the Automated Vehicles (AV) Act received royal assent — the final rubber stamp any legislation must go through before becoming enshrined in law. The government says that fully self-driving vehicles could be on U.K. roads within two years. “While this doesn’t take away […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 4:39:32 PM

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies for more wide-ranging needs. And that growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 4:30:00 PM

Fintech lender Solo Funds is being sued again by the government over its lending practices

SoLo Funds CEO Travis Holoway: “Regulators seem driven by press releases when they should be motivated by true consumer protection and empowering equitable solutions.”

Monday, May 20, 2024 4:14:54 PM

Rollup wants to be the hardware engineer’s workhorse

Hard tech startups generate a lot of buzz, but there’s a growing cohort of companies building digital tools squarely focused on making hard tech development faster, more efficient, and — well, a whole lot more like software development. California-based Rollup is the latest startup to come out as part of this ensemble. While the company […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Disrupt Audience Choice vote closes Friday

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is not just about groundbreaking innovations, insightful panels, and visionary speakers — it’s also about listening to YOU, the audience, and what you feel is top of mind for the tech community. With the Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice Program, your vote can make a difference and propel your favorite thought leaders to […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Google launches a new Android feature to drive users back into their installed apps

Google says the new SDK would help Google expand on its core mission of connecting the right audience to the right content at the right time.

Monday, May 20, 2024 3:55:07 PM

Jolla debuts privacy-focused AI hardware

Jolla has taken the official wraps off the first version of its personal server-based AI assistant in the making. The reborn startup is building a privacy-focused AI device — aka the Jolla Mind2, which TechCrunch exclusively revealed at MWC back in February. At a livestreamed launch event Monday, it also kicked off preorders, with the […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 3:30:00 PM

OpenAI to remove ChatGPT’s Scarlett Johansson-like voice

OpenAI is removing one of the voices used by ChatGPT after users found that it sounded similar to Scarlett Johansson, the company announced on Monday. The voice, called Sky, is now being paused after OpenAI used it when demoing its new GPT-4o model last week. “We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 3:08:38 PM

ChatGPT’s mobile app revenue saw biggest spike yet following GPT-4o launch

Consumer demand for the latest AI technology is heating up. The launch of OpenAI’s latest flagship model, GPT-4o, has now driven the company’s biggest-ever spike in revenue on mobile, despite the model being freely available on the web. GPT-4o, launched last Monday, can handle text, speech, and video, and delivers real-time responsiveness and a range […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 2:27:18 PM

Bumble buys community building app Geneva to expand further into friendships

Dating app maker Bumble has acquired Geneva, an online platform built around forming real-world groups and clubs. The company said that the deal is designed to help it expand its focus from “one-to-one connections to groups and communities” — friendships, in other words. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the announcement comes shortly […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 1:11:42 PM

CyberArk snaps up Venafi for $1.54B to ramp up in machine-to-machine security

More cybersecurity consolidation coming your way, with bigger players picking up startups that will help them bolt on tech to meet the ever-expanding attack surface for enterprises as they move more activity into the cloud. In the latest development, CyberArk — one of the army of larger security companies founded out of Israel — is […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 12:12:57 PM

OpenseedVC, which backs operators in Africa and Europe starting their companies, reaches first close of $10M fund

Founder-market fit is one of the most crucial factors in a startup’s success, and operators (someone involved in the day-to-day operations of a startup) turned founders have an almost unfair advantage in finding that fit. Data shows that a lack of expertise and business acumen in founders contributes to failed VC investments. The same principle applies […]

Monday, May 20, 2024 7:34:23 AM

Pine Labs gets Singapore court approval to shift base to India

A Singapore High Court has effectively approved Pine Labs' request to shift its operations to India.

Monday, May 20, 2024 6:09:59 AM

UK opens office in San Francisco to tackle AI risk

Ahead of the AI safety summit kicking off in Seoul, South Korea later this week, its co-host the United Kingdom is expanding its own efforts in the field. The AI Safety Institute – a U.K. body set up in November 2023 with the ambitious goal of assessing and addressing risks in AI platforms – said […]

Sunday, May 19, 2024 11:24:00 PM

Why companies are turning to internal hackathons

Companies are always looking for an edge, and searching for ways to encourage their employees to innovate. One way to do that is by running an internal hackathon around a theme and having employees attack a problem together. It not only brings in new ideas and new ways to solve problems for the company and […]

Sunday, May 19, 2024 6:49:47 PM

I’m rooting for Melinda French Gates to fix tech’s broken ‘brilliant jerk’ culture

Women in tech still face a shocking level of mistreatment at work. Melinda French Gates is one of the few working to change that.

Sunday, May 19, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Blue Origin successfully launches its first crewed mission since 2022

Blue Origin has successfully completed its NS-25 mission, resuming crewed flights for the first time in nearly two years. The mission brought six tourist crew members to the edge of space, including artist and former Air Force Captain Ed Dwight. In 1961, Dwight was selected by President John F. Kennedy to be the country’s first […]

Sunday, May 19, 2024 2:47:29 PM

Hollywood agency CAA aims to help stars manage their own AI likenesses

Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the top entertainment and sports talent agencies, is hoping to be at the forefront of AI protection services for celebrities in Hollywood. With many stars having their digital likeness used without permission, CAA has built a virtual media storage system for A-list talent — actors, athletes, comedians, directors, musicians, […]

Sunday, May 19, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Expedia says two execs dismissed after ‘violation of company policy’

Expedia says Rathi Murthy and Sreenivas Rachamadugu, respectively its CTO and senior vice president of core services product & engineering, are no longer employed at the travel booking company. In a statement shared with TechCrunch and other publications, Expedia said Murthy and Rachamadugu are “no longer employed at Expedia Group” due to an unspecified “violation […]

Sunday, May 19, 2024 1:30:00 PM

OpenAI and Google lay out their competing AI visions

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review. This week had two major events from OpenAI and Google. OpenAI’s spring update event saw the reveal of its new model, GPT-4o, which has voice and vision capabilities that can turn ChatGPT into a virtual assistant seemingly aspiring to be “Her.” Hot off OpenAI’s tail, Google’s I/O conference […]

Saturday, May 18, 2024 8:15:00 PM

Expedia says two execs dismissed after ‘violation of company policy’

Expedia says Rathi Murthy and Sreenivas Rachamadugu, respectively its CTO and senior vice president of core services product & engineering, are no longer employed at the travel booking company. In a statement shared with Bloomberg and elsewhere, Expedia said Murthy and Rachamadugu are “no longer employed at Expedia Group” due to an unspecified “violation of […]

Saturday, May 18, 2024 6:05:56 PM

With AI startups booming, nap pods and Silicon Valley hustle culture are back

When Jeffrey Wang posted to X asking if anyone wanted to go in on an order of fancy-but-affordable office nap pods, he didn’t expect the post to go viral.

Saturday, May 18, 2024 6:00:00 PM

OpenAI created a team to control ‘superintelligent’ AI — then let it wither, source says

OpenAI’s Superalignment team, responsible for developing ways to govern and steer “superintelligent” AI systems, was promised 20% of the company’s compute resources, according to a person from that team. But requests for a fraction of that compute were often denied, blocking the team from doing their work. That issue, among others, pushed several team members […]

Saturday, May 18, 2024 4:01:00 PM

VCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don’t need roads

A new crop of early-stage startups — along with some recent VC investments — illustrates a niche emerging in the autonomous vehicle technology sector. Unlike the companies bringing robotaxis to city streets, these startups are taking their tech off-road. Two recent entrants — Seattle-based Overland AI and New Brunswick-based Potential — are poised to get […]

Saturday, May 18, 2024 3:00:00 PM

Deal Dive: Sagetap looks to bring enterprise software sales into the 21st century

When the founders of Sagetap, Sahil Khanna and Kevin Hughes, started working at early-stage enterprise software startups, they were surprised to find that the companies they worked at were trying to sell their innovative tech through old-school methods like repeated cold emails and calls. Khanna, a former product marketer, and Hughes, a former sales manager, […]

Saturday, May 18, 2024 2:26:59 PM

This Week in AI: OpenAI moves away from safety

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own. By the way, TechCrunch plans to launch an AI newsletter […]

Saturday, May 18, 2024 1:31:00 PM

Adobe comes after indie game emulator Delta for copying its logo

After Apple loosened its App Store guidelines to permit game emulators, the retro game emulator Delta — an app 10 years in the making — hit the top of the App Store’s charts. But the increased attention also brought the threat of legal action, as Adobe targeted Delta for sporting a logo that looked too […]

Friday, May 17, 2024 9:41:33 PM

Meta’s latest experiment copies BeReal and Snapchat’s core ideas

Meta is once again taking on its competitors by developing a feature that borrows concepts from others — in this case, BeReal and Snapchat. The company is developing a feature for Instagram called “Peek” that would allow users to post authentic pictures that can only be viewed once. While Snapchat popularized the idea of ephemeral […]

Friday, May 17, 2024 8:35:42 PM

Startups Weekly: It’s the dawning of the age of AI — plus, Musk is raging against the machine

Welcome to Startups Weekly! We've been drowning in AI news this week, with Google's I/O setting the pace. And Elon Musk rages against the machine.

Friday, May 17, 2024 7:00:00 PM

Indiebio’s SF incubator lineup is making some wild biotech promises

IndieBio’s Bay Area incubator is about to debut its 15th cohort of biotech startups; here are a few we took special notice of, making some major, bordering on ludicrous, claims that could pay off in a big way. Biotech has been creeping out in recent years to touch adjacent industries, as companies find how much […]

Friday, May 17, 2024 6:22:13 PM

YouTube TV’s ‘multiview’ feature is now available on Android phones and tablets

YouTube TV has announced that its ‘multiview’ feature for watching four streams at once is now available on Android phones and tablets. The Android launch comes two months after YouTube TV rolled out the feature to iPhones and iPads. The feature, which first launched in March 2023, is aimed at sports viewers who want to […]

Friday, May 17, 2024 4:43:33 PM

Two students uncover security bug that could let millions do their laundry for free

CSC ServiceWorks provides laundry machines to thousands of residential homes and universities, but the company ignored requests to fix a security bug.

Friday, May 17, 2024 4:05:16 PM

OpenAI created a team to control ‘superintelligent’ AI —then let it wither, source says

OpenAI’s Superalignment team, responsible for developing ways to govern and steer “superintelligent” AI systems was promised 20% of the company’s compute resources, according to a person from that team. But requests for a fraction of that compute were often denied, blocking the team from doing their work. That issue, among others, pushed several team members […]

Friday, May 17, 2024 4:01:00 PM

Harness the TechCrunch Effect: Host a Side Event at Disrupt 2024

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is just around the corner, and the buzz is palpable. But what if we told you there’s a chance for you to not just attend, but also take your brand center stage with your own event during the most anticipated tech gathering of the year? Yes, you read that right — you […]

Friday, May 17, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Pitch Deck Teardown: Goodcarbon’s $5.5M seed deck

Decks are all about telling a compelling story and Goodcarbon does a good job on that front. But there's important information missing too.

Friday, May 17, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Slack under attack over sneaky AI training policy

Slack is making it difficult for its customers if they want the company to stop using its data for model training.

Friday, May 17, 2024 3:34:34 PM

Healthcare company WebTPA discloses breach affecting 2.5 million people

A Texas-based company that provides health insurances and benefit plans disclosed a data breach affecting almost 2.5 million people, some of whom had their Social Security number stolen. WebTPA said in a data breach notice published earlier this month that the company detected “evidence of suspicious activity” on December 28, 2023, which prompted the company […]

Friday, May 17, 2024 2:44:15 PM

Microsoft dodges UK antitrust scrutiny over its Mistral AI stake

Microsoft won't be facing antitrust scrutiny in the U.K. over its recent investment into French AI startup Mistral AI.

Friday, May 17, 2024 2:21:33 PM

Embedded finance is still trendy as accounting automation startup Ember partners with HSBC UK

Ember has partnered with HSBC in the U.K. so that the bank's business customers can access Ember’s services from their online accounts.

Friday, May 17, 2024 1:28:24 PM

Kudos lands $10M for an AI smart wallet that picks the best credit card for purchases

Kudos uses AI to figure out consumer spending habits so it can then provide more personalized financial advice, like maximizing rewards and utilizing credit effectively.

Friday, May 17, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Microsoft warned it could be fined billions by EU over missing GenAI risk info

The European Union has warned Microsoft it could be fined up to 1% of its global annual turnover under the bloc’s online governance regime, the Digital Services Act (DSA), after the company failed to respond to a legally binding request for information that focused on its generative AI tools. Back in March the EU asked […]

Friday, May 17, 2024 11:58:19 AM

A US trustee wants troubled fintech Synapse to be liquidated via Chapter 7 bankruptcy, cites ‘gross mismanagement’

The prospects for troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse have gone from bad to worse this week after the United States Trustee filed an emergency motion on Wednesday. The trustee is asking to convert the company’s debt reorganization Chapter 11 bankruptcy Synapse into a liquidation Chapter 7, according to court documents. The trustee wrote that the need […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 11:01:54 PM

Seraphim’s latest space accelerator welcomes nine companies

U.K.-based Seraphim Space is spinning up its 13th accelerator program, with nine participating companies working on a range of tech from propulsion to in-space manufacturing and space situational awareness. The intense 12-week program is designed to get seed and Series A companies “investment ready,” the firm says, by providing specialist mentorship, networking opportunities and intensive […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 10:33:20 PM

OpenAI inks deal to train AI on Reddit data

OpenAI and Reddit have reached a deal to allow OpenAI to train its generative AI models on Reddit’s data. In a blog post on OpenAI’s press relations site, OpenAI said that, through a newly formed partnership with Reddit, it’ll gain access to “real-time, structured and unique content” — e.g. posts and replies — from Reddit, […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 10:04:09 PM

X pushes more users to Communities

X, formerly Twitter, is rolling out a revamped version of its Communities feature, which lets users network around topics of interest, each with its own dedicated space and timeline. Today, the company announced a number of changes to Communities, including improved discovery tools, recommendations, search, and sorting options, with other updates on the way. The […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 7:50:30 PM

Mark Zuckerberg’s makeover: midlife crisis or carefully crafted rebrand?

For Mark Zuckerberg’s fortieth birthday, his wife got him a photoshoot. Zuckerberg gives the camera a sly smile as he sits amid a carefully crafted recreation of his childhood bedroom. It’s appropriately childish – a lava lamp, a participation trophy, a white stuffed dog – yet the surroundings foreshadow the culture-shifting, technological force Zuckerberg would […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 6:58:19 PM

Strava taps AI to weed out leaderboard cheats; unveils ‘family’ plan, dark mode and more

Strava announced a slew of features, including AI to weed out leaderboard cheats, a new 'family' subscription plan, dark mode and more.

Thursday, May 16, 2024 6:00:00 PM

Astronauts fall over. Robotic limbs can help them back up.

We all fall down sometimes. Astronauts are no exception. You need to be in peak physical condition for space travel, but bulky space suits and lower gravity levels can be a recipe for disaster, causing them to trip over themselves. The answer to this very specific issue may well be robotic limbs. They won’t prevent […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 5:46:32 PM

Microsoft’s custom Cobalt chips will come to Azure next week

Microsoft will launch its custom Cobalt 100 chips to customers as a public preview at its Build conference next week, TechCrunch has learned. In an analyst briefing ahead of Build, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive VP of the Microsoft Cloud and AI group, directly compared Cobalt to AWS’s Graviton chips, which have been available to developers […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 5:38:53 PM

Tesla keeps cutting jobs and the feds probe Waymo

What a wild week for transportation news! It was a smorgasbord of news that seemed to touch every sector and theme in transportation.

Thursday, May 16, 2024 5:00:00 PM

Sony Music warns tech companies over ‘unauthorized’ use of its content to train AI

Sony Music Group has sent letters to more than 700 tech companies and music streaming services to warn them not to use its music to train AI without explicit permission. The letter, which was obtained by TechCrunch, says Sony Music has “reason to believe” that the recipients of the letter have “may already have made […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 4:49:14 PM

GrubMarket buys Butter to give its food distribution tech an AI boost

Winston Chi, Butter's founder and CEO, told TechCrunch that "most parties, including our investors and us, are making money" from the exit.

Thursday, May 16, 2024 4:43:12 PM

Bolt founder Ryan Beslow wants to settle an investor lawsuit by returning $37 million worth of shares

The investor lawsuit is related to Bolt securing a $30 million personal loan to Ryan Breslow, which was later defaulted on.

Thursday, May 16, 2024 4:37:46 PM

With the end of Workspace, it’s fair to wonder if Meta was ever serious about the enterprise

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, launched an enterprise version of the prominent social network in 2015. It always seemed like a stretch for a company built on a consumer product that made most of its money from ads, making a go of it in the enterprise. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that it lasted […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 4:33:58 PM

ThreadsDeck? Threads in testing pinned columns on the web

X, formerly Twitter, turned TweetDeck into X Pro and pushed it behind a paywall. But there is a new column-based social media tool in the town, and it’s from Instagram Threads. Mark Zuckerberg announced today that the social network is testing pinned columns on the web. While the Meta CEO didn’t mention what you can […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 4:17:33 PM

Meta Threads is testing pinned columns on the web, similar to the old TweetDeck

X, formerly Twitter, turned TweetDeck into X Pro and pushed it behind a paywall. But there is a new column-based social media tool in the town, and it’s from Instagram Threads. Mark Zuckerberg announced today that the social network is testing pinned columns on the web. While the Meta CEO didn’t mention what you can […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 4:17:33 PM

Google’s expands hands-free and eyes-free interfaces on Android

As part of 2024’s Accessibility Awareness Day, Google is showing off some updates to Android that should be useful to folks with mobility or vision impairments. Project Gameface allows gamers to use their faces to move the cursor and perform common click-like actions on desktop, and now it’s coming to Android. The project lets people […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 4:03:00 PM

Hacker claims theft of India’s Samco account data

A hacker listed the data allegedly breached from Samco on a known cybercrime forum.

Thursday, May 16, 2024 3:55:40 PM

Ireland privacy watchdog confirms Dell data breach investigation

A top European privacy watchdog is investigating following the recent breaches of Dell customers’ personal information, TechCrunch has learned. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) deputy commissioner Graham Doyle confirmed to TechCrunch that the DPC has received “a breach notification on this matter” — referring to Dell — which is “currently under assessment.” Asked to elaborate, […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 3:33:15 PM

Ampere teams up with Qualcomm to launch an Arm-based AI server

Ampere and Qualcomm aren’t the most obvious of partners. Both, after all, offer Arm-based chips for running data center servers (though Qualcomm’s largest market remains mobile). But as the two companies announced today, they are now combining forces to offer an AI-focused server that uses Ampere’s CPUs and Qualcomm’s Cloud AI100 Ultra AI inferencing chips […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 3:31:30 PM

Google I/O was an AI evolution, not a revolution

At Google’s I/O developer conference, the company made its case to developers – and to some extent, consumers – why its bets on AI are ahead of rivals’. At the event, the company unveiled a revamped AI-powered search engine, an AI model with an expanded context window of 2 million tokens, AI helpers across its […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 3:31:21 PM

Meet the Magnificent Six: A tour of the stages at Disrupt 2024

TechCrunch Disrupt has always been the ultimate convergence point for all things startup and tech. In the bustling world of innovation, it serves as the “big top” tent, where entrepreneurs, tech enthusiasts, and industry leaders gather to witness the unveiling of groundbreaking technologies, engage in thought-provoking discussions, and forge invaluable connections. As we gear up […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 3:30:00 PM

Khosla Ventures, Pear VC triple down on Honey Homes, a smart way to hire a handyman

There’s apparently a lot of demand for an on-demand handyperson. Khosla Ventures and Pear VC have just tripled down on their investment in Honey Homes, which offers up a dedicated handyman to take care of all the random tasks on a homeowner’s to-do list. The company raised $9 million last June in a Series A […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 3:00:00 PM

TikTok tests 60-minute video uploads as it continues to take on YouTube

TikTok is testing the ability for users to upload 60-minute videos, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. The feature is available to a limited group of users in select markets, and TikTok says it doesn’t have any immediate plans to make the feature available widely. The feature, which was first spotted by social media […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 2:59:26 PM

Flock Safety’s solar-powered cameras could make surveilliance more widespread

Flock Safety is a multi-billion dollar startup that’s got eyes everywhere. As of Wednesday, with the company’s new Solar Condor cameras, those eyes are solar-powered and using wireless 5G networks to make them all that much easier to install. Adding solar power to the mix means that the company’s mission to blanket the country with […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 2:29:00 PM

Agora raises $34B Series B to keep building the Carta for real estate

Since he was very young, Bar Mor knew that he would inevitably do something with real estate. His family was involved in all types of real estate projects, from ground-up construction to managing residential, commercial and retail properties. But unlike his parents, Mor also had a passion for technology. His interest in tech was reinforced […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Poshmark’s ‘Promoted Closet’ tool lets sellers boost all their listings at once

Poshmark, the social commerce site that lets people buy and sell new and used items to each other, launched a paid marketing tool on Thursday, giving sellers the ability to promote their entire shop at once. Poshmark’s new feature, called “Promoted Closet,” uses machine learning to automatically promote individual product listings from a seller’s entire […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 1:00:00 PM

YC-backed Recall.ai gets $10M Series A to help companies use virtual meeting data

More money for the generative AI boom: Y Combinator-backed developer infrastructure startup Recall.ai announced Thursday it’s raised a $10 million Series A funding round, bringing its total raised to over $12M. The startup has built infrastructure and a unified API that enables companies to access raw data from virtual meeting platforms like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Colab’s collaborative tools for engineers line up $21M in new funding

Engineers Adam Keating and Jeremy Andrews were tired of using spreadsheets and screenshots to collab with teammates — so they launched a startup, Colab, to build a better way. The two met as undergraduates at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where they studied mechanical engineering together. While they were completing their last internships prior to graduating […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Google adds Gemini to its Education suite

Google is launching a Gemini add-on for educational institutes through Google Workspace.

Thursday, May 16, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Reddit reintroduces its awards system

Reddit announced on Wednesday that it is reintroducing its awards system after shutting down the program last year. The company said that most of the mechanisms related to awards will remain the same, with some new additions. For instance, there’s a new design for awards, a new award button under eligible posts, and a leaderboard […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 12:48:23 PM

Sigma is building a suite of collaborative data analytics tools

Sigma Computing, a startup building a range of data analytics and business intelligence tools, has raised $200 million in a fresh VC round.

Thursday, May 16, 2024 12:35:00 PM

EU ‘closely’ monitoring X in wake of Fico shooting as DSA disinfo probe rumbles on

European Union enforcers of the bloc’s online governance regime, the Digital Services Act (DSA), said Thursday they’re closely monitoring disinformation campaigns on the Elon Musk-owned social network X (formerly Twitter) following the Wednesday shooting of Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico. The bloc has been formally investigating X since last December over disinformation in civic discourse and […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 12:08:28 PM

Spoor uses AI to save birds from wind turbines

Wind is the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but wind farms come with an environmental cost as wind turbines can wreak havoc on bird populations. Meet Spoor, the startup using AI to help wind farms mitigate that risk. Spoor is a software that uses machine […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 12:03:17 PM

Cannabis and gaming payments startup Aeropay is now offering an alternative to Mastercard and Visa

The key to taking on legacy players in the financial technology industry may be to go where they have not gone before. That’s what Chicago-based Aeropay is doing. The provider of pay-by-bank solutions for businesses started out helping cannabis retailers and gaming companies with their payments and is now entering into Visa and Mastercard’s territory […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 11:00:00 AM

EU opens child safety probes of Facebook and Instagram, citing addictive design concerns

Facebook and Instagram are under formal investigation in the European Union over child protection concerns, the Commission announced Thursday. The proceedings follow a raft of requests for information to parent entity Meta since the bloc’s online governance regime, the Digital Services Act (DSA), started applying last August. The development could be significant as the formal […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 10:35:31 AM

Forget EVs: Why Bedrock Materials is targeting gas-powered cars for its first sodium-ion batteries

Bedrock Materials is developing a new type of sodium-ion battery, which promises to be dramatically cheaper than lithium-ion.

Thursday, May 16, 2024 10:30:00 AM

Thoma Bravo’s LogRhythm merges with Exabeam in more cybersecurity consolidation

Private equity giant Thoma Bravo has announced that its security information and event management (SIEM) company LogRhythm will be merging with Exabeam, a rival cybersecurity company backed by the likes of Cisco and Lightspeed Venture Partners. SIEM is the business of using real-time data gleaned from servers, network devices, and applications to flag abnormal activity […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 10:19:26 AM

Temu accused of breaching EU’s DSA in bundle of consumer complaints

Consumer protection groups around the European Union have filed coordinated complaints against Temu, accusing the Chinese-owned ultra low-cost e-commerce platform of a raft of breaches related to the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA). Temu only launched in the region about a year ago but recently reported blasting past 75 million monthly users. Penalties for confirmed […]

Thursday, May 16, 2024 4:30:00 AM

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 10:05:00 PM

Senate study proposes ‘at least’ $32B yearly for AI programs

The AI industry moves faster than the rest of the technology sector, which means it outpaces the federal government by several orders of magnitude.

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 8:09:11 PM

FBI seizes hacking forum BreachForums — again

The FBI along with a coalition of international law enforcement agencies seized the notorious cybercrime forum BreachForums on Wednesday. For years, BreachForums has been a popular English-language forum for hackers and cybercriminals who wanted to advertise, sell and trade stolen data. Just recently, a threat actor advertised Dell customers’ personal information and data stolen from […]

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 7:43:25 PM

Netflix to take on Google and Amazon by building its own ad server

The announcement signifies a significant shake-up in the streaming giant's advertising approach.

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 7:19:58 PM

Matt Garman taking over as CEO with AWS at crossroads

It’s tough to say that a $100 billion business finds itself at a critical juncture, but that’s the case with Amazon Web Services, the cloud arm of Amazon, and the clear market leader in the cloud infrastructure market. On Tuesday, the company announced that CEO Adam Selipsky was stepping down to spend more time with […]

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 7:02:48 PM

Google still hasn’t fixed Gemini’s biased image generator

Back in February, Google paused its AI-powered chatbot Gemini’s ability to generate images of people after users complained of historical inaccuracies. Told to depict “a Roman legion,” for example, Gemini would show an anachronistic group of racially diverse soldiers while rendering “Zulu warriors” as stereotypically Black. Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologized, and Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of […]

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 6:36:55 PM

Google’s call-scanning AI could dial up censorship by default, privacy experts warn

A feature Google demoed at its I/O confab yesterday, using its generative AI technology to scan voice calls in real time for conversational patterns associated with financial scams, has sent a collective shiver down the spines of privacy and security experts who are warning the feature represents the thin end of the wedge. They warn […]

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 5:25:10 PM

The top AI announcements from Google I/O

Google’s going all in on AI — and it wants you to know it. During the company’s keynote at its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google mentioned “AI” more than 120 times. That’s a lot! But not all of Google’s AI announcements were significant per se. Some were incremental. Others were rehashed. So to help […]

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 5:15:17 PM

Uber has a new way to solve the concert traffic problem

Uber is taking a shuttle product it developed for commuters in India and Egypt and converting it for an American audience. The ride-hail and delivery giant announced Wednesday at its annual Go-Get event in New York City that it will launch a shuttle service in certain U.S. cities this summer. The service will eventually cater […]

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 5:08:37 PM

Google takes aim at Android malware with an AI-powered live threat detection service

Google is preparing to launch a new system to help address the problem of malware on Android. Its new live threat detection service leverages Google Play Protect’s on-device AI to analyze apps for malicious behavior. The service, announced following the Google I/O developer event on Tuesday, examines various signals related to an app’s use of […]

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 5:00:00 PM

Google Maps is getting geospatial AR content later this year

Users will be able to access the AR content by first searching for a location in Google Maps.

Wednesday, May 15, 2024 5:00:00 PM

Slack under attack over sneaky AI training policy

Slack is making it difficult for its customers if they want the company to stop using its data for model training.

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