TechCrunch Startup News
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AirOps is an all-in-one platform for generating and managing AI-based marketing content
To some degree, every business that has a presence on the web is in the content business — whether that’s for informing customers, finding new clients, or for SEO. That means managing the production of those texts and images, updating them, and potentially optimizing them for a search engine to index and rank. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Voyage AI is building RAG tools to make AI hallucinate less
AI tends to make things up. That’s unappealing to just about anyone who uses it on a regular basis, but especially to businesses, for which fallacious results could hurt the bottom line. Half of workers responding to a recent survey from Salesforce say they worry answers from their company’s generative AI-powered systems are inaccurate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Spill, the Black-owned Twitter alternative, scores investment from Kerry Washington
As the second anniversary of Spill rolls around, Spill has something else to celebrate: Emmy-winning actress Kerry Washington has made an investment in his app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Pallet uses AI to bring logistics into the 21st century
Transportation and warehousing are multi-trillion-dollar industries, but the technologies that power them are often outdated, inefficient and siloed. Pallet, which is announcing an $18 million Series A funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures today, has built an all-in-one transportation and warehouse management system that uses AI to help these businesses streamline their operations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Numa raises $32M to bring AI and automation to car dealerships
Numa, a startup developing AI-powered automation tech for car dealerships, has raised fresh capital in a Series B round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Eon emerges from stealth with $127M to bring a fresh approach to back up cloud infrastructure
A team of founders who sold their last company to Amazon to build a new business within AWS is setting out to reinvent the tricky business of backing up an organization’s cloud infrastructure. Today, Eon — as their new startup is called — is coming out of stealth with a product, a set of customers, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Beta Technologies unveils first passenger carrying electric aircraft
Beta Technologies unveiled Monday the next electric aircraft in its lineup — a passenger-carrying version of its ALIA vertical takeoff and landing and fixed-wing vehicles. Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles don’t rely on a runway, whereas fixed-wing aircraft do. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
.Airship wants to build better sales tools for HVAC contractors
The HVAC industry is going through a transformation. The old guard of tradespeople are on the cusp of retiring while private equity firms are consolidating the industry. Airship is building a software solution for HVAC’s next chapter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Podcasting startup Podeo gets $5.4M to go beyond the Arab world
Podcast listeners crossed half a billion people at the end of last year as listenership maintained steady growth. With countries in the Arab world having some of the most engaged listeners, a podcasting startup out of Dubai is doubling down on the opportunity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
HungryPanda, a food ordering app for the Asian diaspora, picks up $55M
Apps catering to the Chinese and wider Asian diaspora, especially urban consumers focused on food, can be big business. Now, HungryPanda, one of the trailblazing startups in that market is announcing more funding. The food ordering and delivery app, founded in London and aimed squarely at Chinese and other Asian consumers living outside their home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Why Index Ventures is bulking up its investment team in NYC
While online discourse would make it seem that venture has retreated to the Bay Area, with San Francisco being the most important place to build a startup, Index Ventures is looking to bulk up its New York-based investing team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Indian game streaming startup Loco sells majority stake to Redwood
UAE-based Redwood has acquired a majority stake in the game streaming platform Loco as the Indian firm looks to expand focus to international markets, TechCrunch has learned and confirmed. Redwood, a newly-formed investment firm, has signed a $65 million deal with Loco, an investment that also gives full exit to all existing Loco backers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Prepared, which wants to ‘revolutionize’ emergency 911 calls, raises $27M
A company that claims its tech can “revolutionize” emergency calls has raised $27 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company, Prepared, enables 911 dispatchers to get a caller’s real-time GPS location if their phone supports it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dinii, a cloud-based restaurant management platform, raises $45M Series B
Japan has always been a strong market for bringing technology into the experience of consuming food, and now one of the startups leading on this idea is attracting investors from across the ocean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
WhatFix raises a whopping $125M for its in-app user guides
Digital transformation — upgrading a company’s legacy apps and processes with new tech — has long been a buzzy and lucrative business. But the pandemic supercharged the market. Covid pandemic lockdowns and the widespread move to work-from-home spurred brands relying on old technology to modernize their organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Radian Aerospace completes ground tests of prototype space plane
Radian Aerospace has moved one step closer to achieving the “holy grail” of spaceflight: a reusable space plane that can take-off from an airfield and land on a runway like a conventional airplane. The startup just announced completion of a series of ground tests in Abu Dhabi earlier this summer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Fintech Mesa promises 1% cash back on mortgages, up to 3x on other home needs
Mortgage fintech Mesa has emerged from stealth on Tuesday with $9.2 million in seed capital and a novel idea for homeowners. It’s offering cash back and rewards on all spending done on the home, including the mortgage itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Torq, which automates cybersecurity workflows, raises $70M in new capital
As the volume of cyberattacks grows, there’s increasing interest from the corporate sector in tech to help automate responses to breaches. Per a 2023 survey from analytics firm Devo, 80% of security leaders expected expanded investments in security automation technology this year; most cited the tech’s potential to support cyber threat mitigation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jump raises $12M to help freelancers get benefits just like employees
Jump offers full-time contracts to freelancers looking for some stability and the benefits involved with a full-time job. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
David Energy is going up against Goliath energy incumbents
James McGinniss has been obsessed with decarbonization and the energy grid since he was a high schooler over a decade ago. Now, his startup David Energy has a lofty goal: getting the energy grid to run entirely on clean energy in the next 10 years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
FTC report on predatory social media data hoarding hints at future regulations
A new FTC report on how social media and streaming sites collect and monetize their hoards of user data doesn’t really feature a lot of surprises for anyone who’s followed the space Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Health insurance startup Alan reaches $4.5B valuation with new $193M funding round
Belfius is leading Alan’s Series F funding round of €173 million (around $193 million at current exchange rates). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tidal Metals sees seawater as the solution to a critical mineral shortage
The startup, previously known as GreenBlu, was working on desalination when it realized there was more value in the minerals that were left behind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Brightband sees a bright (and open-source) future for AI-powered weather forecasting
With an explosion of weather and climate data that the last generation of tools can’t handle, is AI the future of forecasting? Research certainly suggests so, and a newly funded startup called Brightband is taking a shot at turning machine learning forecast models into both a business and open source standard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nurture wants to teach kids important life skills through interactive gameplay and entertainment
Parents understand the challenge of keeping young kids engaged in online learning. Nurture is a new app designed for children aged 4 to 7 that features interactive content and games to capture their interest. The company’s mission is to equip children with critical life skills such as socializing, basic financial understanding, mindfulness, fitness, nutrition, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Neuralink’s ‘breakthrough device’ clearance from FDA does not mean they have cured blindness
Neuralink, the Elon Musk-owned brain-computer interface company, has received “breakthrough device” clearance from the FDA. But this does not mean they have developed a cure for blindness, whatever Musk might say. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Quick-commerce startup Flink raises another $150M at a valuation of nearly $1B
Flink, a quick-commerce startup out of Berlin that was an acquisition target of Gorillas, Getir, Amazon, and Gopuff, is spelling out how it plans to go forth on its own. TechCrunch has exclusively learned that the company has raised $150 million, which it will use to double down on business in Germany and the Netherlands Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Greenlite, founded by an ex-Gopuff exec, automates construction permitting
Construction permitting often involves drafting lengthy applications, leading to unpredictable timelines for developers and businesses. There are tens of thousands of jurisdictions — each with their own different forms and application processes for building permits. Ben Allen knows a thing or two about permitting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AI coding assistant Supermaven raises cash from OpenAI and Perplexity co-founders
Supermaven, an AI coding assistant, has raised $12 million in a funding round that had participation from OpenAI and Perplexity co-founders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Life360’s Tile introduces its first new Bluetooth trackers since its acquisition
It’s been three years since Life360’s $205 million acquisition of AirTag competitor Tile. The company announced Monday its new lineup of lost-item Bluetooth trackers, featuring a sleeker redesign in new colors—aqua blue, green, navy blue, and pink Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
OffDeal wants to help small businesses find big exits with AI agents
Small businesses are the unsung heroes of the American economy, employing nearly half of America’s workforce and making up 44% of the country’s GDP. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Humanz brings its influencer marketing platform to the U.S.
Humanz, a marketing platform for content creators and brands, has entered the U.S. market, the company announced on Thursday. Having launched in Israel in 2017, Humanz has gained strong traction in global markets, including Europe, Latin America, South Africa, and the Middle East. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nuro pivots to license self-driving tech to carmakers, mobility companies
After multiple rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023, Nuro is pivoting its business strategy to focus more on the startup’s core autonomous driving technology instead of owning and operating a fleet of low-speed, on-road delivery bots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tune.FM wants to take on Spotify by using crypto to pay artists up to 100x more per stream
Tune.FM is a decentralized music streaming service where users pay for each song they stream using Tune.FM's crypto token JAM. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Paymob, started by three college friends, lands another $22 million and is profitable in Egypt
Paymob has evolved into an omnichannel gateway offering over 50 methods for offline and online payments to more than 350,000+ merchants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Atomico backs Tem to help businesses buy renewable energy directly from sources
Tem wants to do for utilities what neobanks have done for the financial sector: disrupt an industry using tech, streamline it, and cut out the middlemen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Qualifyze swallows $54M to improve pharmaceutical supply chains
In the world of pharmaceuticals, companies aim to operate under GMP guidelines — a set of production and manufacturing measures to assure standards for medicinal products. But too often, the reality is anything but that. “Officially, GMP stands for ‘Good Manufacturing Practices,’” said Dr. David Schneider, the founder and CEO of Qualifyze. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Neurode wants to treat and track ADHD symptoms through a wearable headband
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects more than 366 million adults globally, according to a 2020 study, but beyond medicating with stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin, there are few alternatives for people who suffer from the disorder. Therapy, education, and lifestyle changes are usually also advised, but those avenues can prove difficult as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sunamp’s thermal battery uses a chemical found in salt-and-vinegar potato chips
The startup has devised a durable way to store solar power as heat that can then be used for household heating or hot water. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The coolest startup in the Bay Area is a baseball team called the Oakland Ballers
This year, the B’s made their debut in the Pioneer League, a professional baseball organization that’s partnered with the MLB, but unlike the minor leagues, it’s not tied to any existing MLB teams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
All Hands AI raises $5M to build open source agents for developers
As with many open source startups, All Hands AI expects to monetize its service by offering paid, closed-source enterprise features. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Driverless car-sharing startup Vay steers toward B2B services
The new business-to-business division is a bet on what co-founder and CEO Thomas von der Ohe thinks is the future of mobility. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Reonic raises €13 million to help small installers of green tech like heat pumps and solar panels
European regulators are pushing hard for greener energy. The REPowerEU plan calls for 10 million additional heat pumps to be added by 2027, and solar panels are also on the rise. But most installations are done by small businesses that could be more productive with better work processes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
As remote working keeps rolling, Oyster raises $59M Series D at $1.2B valuation
No one is putting the remote working genie back in the bottle. Which is good news for Oyster, a payroll and HR platform that specializes in distributed workforces – or “global employment” as its marketing paints it Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
You.com ‘refocuses’ from AI search to deeper productivity agents with new $50M round
If you build an AI search product, you compete with Google. But Google has a lot easier time answering queries with a single, simple answer, such as “how many is a dozen?” than it does answering complex questions like “what influence did Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ have on Enlightenment ideals?”x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dutch clean energy investor SET Ventures lands new €200 million fund, which will go toward digital tech
New climate tech VC firms have emerged in recent years, but existing ones are also raising larger funds. Founded in 2007, Dutch firm SET Ventures is one of the latter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
‘Hospital at home’ startup Doccla raises $46 million for its European expansion
Hospitals around the world regularly face bed shortages — an issue that can get exacerbated to breaking point when a health scare or other large-scale disaster occurs. A startup called Doccla is bringing technology to bear address the issue: it’s building “virtual bed” tech to help doctors remotely manage patients who have either been discharged or not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Laptop-leasing startup Fleet wants to become the IT companion for small companies
Fleet is launching several software services on top of its hardware-as-a-service proposition, from device management to cybersecurity and insurance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Generative AI coding startup Magic lands $320M investment from Eric Schmidt, Atlassian and others
Magic, an AI startup developing models to generate code and automate a range of software development tasks, says that it’s raised a large tranche of cash from investors including ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt. In a blog post this morning, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
‘Emotion AI’ may be the next trend for business software, and that could be problematic
As businesses experiment with embedding AI everywhere, one area starting to gain more attention is Emotion AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices