TechCrunch Startup News

Anthropic, OpenAI’s close rival, has raised an additional $4 billion from Amazon, and has agreed to make Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud computing division, the primary place it’ll train its flagship generative AI models. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The company chose Chapter 11 in an effort to right its listing finances. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic, OpenAI’s close rival, has raised an additional $4 billion from Amazon, and has agreed to make Amazon Web Services — Amazon’s cloud computing division — the sole place it’ll train its flagship generative AI models. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here is yet one more sign of the travel industry’s noticeable boom: a major growth round for one of the B2B startups servicing it. Lighthouse, a data analytics platform for hotels and others in the hospitality industry, has closed a Series C of $370 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Manufacturing has been one of the hottest categories in venture this year, but there are still many innovative materials and processes yet to scale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bling Capital, one of the more prolific and well-connected seed VC firms, has nabbed another $270 million for a new flagship, fourth fund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dual-use drone startup Tekever has raised €70 million ($74 million) to develop its product and expand into new markets, specifically the U.S.. The news is part of a trend of smaller tech-driven startups moving into markets normally dominated by large ‘defense primes’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As college tuition increases and the student loan debt crisis continues, three former executives from language learning app Duolingo are building a new startup aimed at making college education more affordable and accessible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AIOps, short for artificial intelligence in operations, is a process that uses AI to automate IT tasks. More organizations are embracing it as AI commodifies, yet adoption is still lagging. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the wake of the U.S. 2024 presidential election, one fact became clear: Disinformation proliferated online at a startling rate, shaping Americans’ views about each candidate as well as a diverse set of topics, including public health, climate change, and immigration. Generative AI – with its ability to produce deepfakes in seconds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Moonvalley, a new generative video startup, claims it's building models using more ethical and transparent approaches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the influencer economy grows, startups like PassionFroot, Agentio, and One Impression, along with social platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are trying to build marketplaces to connect brands with creators. Miami-based startup Influur, is banking on two unique aspects of its platform: quick response from creators and financial tools to ensure they are paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you board a plane, the pilot already knows the weather on the flight path and can steer clear, or at least warn you it’s coming. The same can’t be said of “space weather” from solar events, which can seriously affect satellites and even passenger planes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

India's ePlane Company has raised $14 million in a Series B round as it plans to commercialize its air taxi in 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Startup inspiration can strike anywhere. But for Atlas.co*, a freemium browser-based, real-time mapping tool that’s being built by an Oslo, Norway-based team of (initially student) engineers, the realization that there might be a business opportunity in competing with expensive legacy mapping software hit the founders during class. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway announced today that it is selling Grubhub to Wonder in a deal valued at $650 million. The company said that it expects the deal to be completed by Q1 2025. “The sale of Grubhub to Wonder will increase the cash generation capabilities of Just Eat Takeaway.com and will accelerate our growth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shares of Swiggy dropped 4% to 401 rupees on Wednesday as the food delivery and quick commerce startup concluded India’s second-largest IPO this year, in a closely watched debut that puts it in direct comparison with what analysts have long considered the benchmark Indian internet stock: Zomato. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Luggage storage as a vector for piling into convenience-based revenue opportunities in the business of global travel continues to put a spring in San Francisco-based Bounce‘s step. The startup has just tucked $19 million in Series B funding into its suitcase, with a plan to keep rolling revenue that’s grown 20x since its $12M Series Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The majority of the aging population in Japan still prefers using cash for transactions, according to a recent report citing government data. In 2023, cashless transactions in Japan totaled 126.7 trillion yen ($885 billion), accounting for 39.3 percent of all spending in the country, said the Japanese government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Equal, an Indian startup founded by Keshav Reddy, has raised $10M in its maiden funding round led by Prosus Ventures to scale identity verification and financial data sharing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Running payroll is hard in any country, but perhaps especially so in Brazil thanks to consistently changing laws and extremely influential unions that make it significantly harder to get it right. Fernando Gadotti struggled with this as the co-founder and CEO of DogHero, LatAm’s version of Rover. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yelp, which made a name for itself giving restaurant recs, just bought an auto services website. In the company’s earnings report on Thursday, Yelp revealed that it agreed to buy RepairPal, a site for car repair estimates, for $80 million in cash Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Exosonic, a startup developing supersonic commercial air travel and UAV tech, is winding down after five years of operation. In an update posted to its website, Exosonic said it was unable to find the traction necessary to continue operations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Solar energy is booming, which is good news for Glint Solar. The Norwegian software-as-a-service startup has built a platform that’s helping energy giants and large solar developers such as E.ON, Recurrent Energy, and Statkraft cut the time it takes to plan and pre-design solar installations to accelerate the transition to renewables. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Seagrass punches above its weight. The marine plant only occupies 0.1% of the ocean floor but can be credited with supporting marine ecosystems of plants and fish, filtering ocean water and capturing quite a bit of carbon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Many people who want to have children can’t, or shouldn’t, carry a pregnancy for a variety of reasons. Gestational surrogacy can be a great option for those individuals — if they can endure the lengthy wait times and afford to pay for the costly service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amber Hill spent 14 years as a medical researcher. She didn’t mind the work, but there was one thing she consistently hated: administrative tasks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French tech startup Alan held a press conference this morning to announce three product updates. While it is better known as a health insurance company, the startup has always been trying to offer more than insurance coverage. It wants to build a super app for all things related to healthcare Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The end of zero-interest rates has driven companies to look for savings wherever they can, but one area continues to be a major budget drain. Observability — collecting and understanding data and systems — typically remains an organization’s second-highest cloud expenditure, right after cloud provisioning itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

CareYaya, a platform that matches people who need caregivers with healthcare students, is working to disrupt the caregiving industry. The startup, which exhibited as part of the Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt, is looking to enhance affordable in-home support, while also helping students prepare for their future healthcare careers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

CoffeeSpace is on a mission to help people find partners for their startup ideas online. The startup, which exhibited as part of the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, has launched a social networking app that matches people exploring startup ideas and looking for co-founders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Buying a home has always been complicated. You have to figure out how much money to put down and how that down payment will affect a monthly mortgage bill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2014, Ivan Crewkov moved his family from Serbia to the U.S. as his startup, Cubic.AI, was preparing to launch a Kickstarter campaign for its smart speaker. A week before the campaign was supposed to go live, Amazon launched its Echo smart speaker, rendering Cubic.AI essentially dead in the water. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hummingbirds is a female-founded startup that connects hyperlocal content creators with locally-based brands that reward them for sharing products with their small and highly engaged communities via social media. The company announced Wednesday its latest funding round of $5.4 million, bringing the total amount raised to $10 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MealMe, a unified API that embeds food and retail ordering into consumer apps and websites, announced on Thursday that it secured $8 million in Series A funding. The newly raised capital brings the total amount raised to $16 million. MealMe has undergone several changes since its launch in 2019. Initially, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new startup setting out to combat the scourge of deepfakes and spoofed evidence in the age of AI is showing off its wares on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet Luna, a health and well-being app for teen girls that is designed to help them navigate teenhood. The app lets teens ask questions about their health and wellness and get responses from experts. It also lets them track their periods, moods, and skin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It might not be the sexiest of subjects, but facilities management is central to any business that has a physical premises — the bigger that footprint becomes, the more complex it gets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fixing the climate crisis is a vast, world-sized puzzle. But one particularly large piece of this ginormous conundrum is construction and real estate — which collectively amount for around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Enter Munich-based data startup Emidat, which has built a software platform for automating the generation of validated Environmental Product Declaration Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are plenty of startups now that have AI bots that will listen to your meetings, transcribe them, make notes, and create insights. That means companies in this area must differentiate themselves by offering additional feature sets and integrations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lithuania’s Vinted has secured a new valuation of €5 billion (around $5.4 billion at current exchange rates), after the second-hand fashion marketplace closed a secondary share sale worth €340 million ($367 million). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. venture capital giant General Catalyst has announced a fresh $8 billion in funds as it looks to ramp up its investments in multi-sector early-stage startups globally, with a specific focus on the U.S., Europe, and India. The capital constitutes around $4.5 billion for its “core VC funds” which spans seed and growth equity funding, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new app called Screenable will help parents introduce their children to technology by turning an iPhone or iPad into a starter phone. The app is designed to grow over time with a child, as it offers different modes for kids of different ages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Each year, supply chain disruptions cost the global economy trillions of dollars. In a recent McKinsey poll, nine in ten businesses said they had encountered logistics challenges over the past 12 months. Headwinds have only grown stronger as chaos reigns in key shipping corridors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Upflow, a French startup we’ve been covering for quite a while, originally focused on managing outstanding invoices. The company is now announcing a shift in its strategy to become a B2B payment platform with its own payment gateway to complement its accounts receivable automation solution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Interface.ai, a customer automation platform for banks and other financial institutions, today announced that it closed a $30 million funding round led by Avataar Venture Partners. $20 million of the round was equity, while the remaining $10 million was in the form of debt. It’s Interface’s first outside capital; the startup had been completely bootstrapped Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Furno’s micro-kilns promise to reduce pollution and eliminate transportation costs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back in 2022, João Moura was directing AI engineering efforts at Clearbit, a startup creating a unified hub for business intelligence tools. There, Moura was responsible for leading the development of AI integrations, as well as defining Clearbit’s AI product roadmap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The software supply chain, which comprises the components and processes used to develop software, has become precarious. According to one recent survey, 88% of companies believe poor software supply chain security presents an “enterprise-wide risk” to their organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the current unemployment crisis in Hollywood, many TV and film crew members are concerned about finding their next job. This is particularly the case for freelancers, who often face unstable work and irregular pay. Shobizzy is the latest professional networking app for the entertainment industry that aims to address this challenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices