TechCrunch Startup News
3,807 episodes — Page 16 of 77
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
Atlassian acquires Rewatch as it gets into AI meeting bots
Atlassian plans to integrate Rewatch into its recently launched Rovo AI platform so that transcripts become searchable within the overall business context. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The guy who sued NAR over real estate fees has co-founded a startup
One of the people who successfully sued the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to change real estate commissions has co-founded a new real estate startup. It all began in 2017 when Josh Sitzer and his wife listed their home for sale in Kansas City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bluesky adds ‘anti-toxicity’ tools and aims to integrate ‘a Community Notes-like’ feature in the future
Bluesky on Wednesday introduced the ability to hide replies, as well as a way to detach your original post from someone's quote post. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Fluid Truck’s board ousted its sibling co-founders amid allegations of mismanaging funds
Fluid Truck, a startup that was founded to disrupt the commercial vehicle rental industry, has ousted its sibling co-founders – CEO James Eberhard and chief legal counsel Jenifer Snyder – according to sources familiar with the matter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Planera raises $13.5M to help solve the gnarly problem of scheduling for construction contractors
Planera, scheduling and planning software for commercial construction projects, has raised $13.5 million to expand its reach and help general contractors with more features. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Supio brings generative AI to personal injury cases
Supio uses generative AI to automate bulk data collection and aggregation for legal teams. It emerged from stealth Tuesday with a $25 million investment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Food delivery is seeing more consolidation: GrubMarket snaps up FreshGoGo
GrubMarket, the $3.6 billion food delivery and supply chain startup backed by Tiger Global, BlackRock and nearly 100 other investors, has snapped up another food delivery startup on its consolidation march: It is acquiring FreshGoGo, a New York-based, B2C platform selling Asian groceries and ready-made dishes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Piramidal’s foundation model for brainwaves could supercharge EEGs
AI models are being applied to every dataset under the sun, but are inconsistent in their outcomes. This is as true in the medical world as anywhere else, but a startup called Piramidal believes it has a sure thing with a foundational model for analyzing brain scan data. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The founder building a wealth-management product her grandmother would have loved
Mical Jeanlys-White built WealthMore out of frustration. She spent years on Wall Street, building products at American Express and serving as a managing director at JPMorgan Chase. She realized the finance industry still had a long way to go when it came to helping consumers build and understand wealth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Travly lets travelers submit videos for a chance to earn a 5% commission from hotel bookings
Travly is a new social-first discovery and hotel booking platform designed to cater to the growing number of travelers who rely on short-form video content for trip ideas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tingit is building a marketplace for ‘zero-effort’ repairs, starting with fashion
Tingit, a startup out of Lithuania, wants to help people restore their used clothing to their former glory with its newly launched repairs marketplace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Openmart wants to make it easier for enterprises to sell to local businesses
In 2020, Kathryn Wu launched a side hustle while she was working as a product engineer at Pinterest. Wu started a milk tea company, Ohtea, with the hopes of connecting with local grocery stores and gift shops to get them to carry the tea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dropbox acquires Index Ventures-backed AI scheduling tool Reclaim.ai
Dropbox has acquired AI-powered scheduling tool Reclaim.ai, which counts Calendly and Index Ventures among its backers. The development was revealed in a blog post on Reclaim.ai’s website Tuesday. Dropbox hasn’t disclosed the terms of the deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Rounds scoops up $24M to bring its ‘household restocking’ delivery service to more markets
The Rounds, the startup that delivers recurring grocery and household essentials in reusable packaging, announced on Monday its $24 million Series B funding round. The new capital will go toward product development, hiring, and expanding the service to additional markets. Alongside the funding announcement, The Rounds introduced new features for customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
SleekFlow snaps up $7M to tap the conversational AI opportunity across Asia
SleekFlow, a Singapore- and Hong Kong-headquartered social commerce platform that has built a conversational AI suite for customer engagement targeted to Asian markets, said Wednesday it had secured a further $7 million in funding. The money will be used to continue developing its AI, as well as penetrate deeper into Southeast Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Beyond Math’s ‘digital wind tunnel’ puts a physics-based AI simulation to work on F1 cars
Simulating the real world is a tremendously complex problem if you want to do it at any useful level of fidelity. Traditional techniques are holding back design teams at vehicle and aerospace companies, but Beyond Math is putting AI on the task with a new way of simulating the world that could save them days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Defcon AI closes $44M seed round to solve a problem of ‘maximum complexity’: Military logistics
The U.S. Department of Defense is a mammoth organization. It not only employs millions of service members and hundreds of thousands of civilian employees, but also has the world’s largest military budget that’s used to buy and maintain more equipment than can likely fit into a single paragraph. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Procreate takes a stand against generative AI, vows to never incorporate the tech into its products
Popular iPad design app Procreate is coming out against generative AI, and has vowed never to introduce generative AI features into its products. The company said on its website that although machine learning is a “compelling technology with a lot of merit,” the current path that generative AI is on is wrong for its platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Keychain aims to unlock a new approach to manufacturing consumer goods
Brands can use Keychain to look up different products and see who actually manufactures them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Keychain aims to unlock a new approach to manufacturing consumer goods
Brands can use Keychain to look up different products and see who actually manufactures them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AI social media vetting startup Ferretly secures $2.5M, launches election personnel screening tool
An AI social media vetting startup Ferretly has raised $2.5 million in seed funding and is launching a new platform designed to screen election personnel. Founded in 2019, Ferretly leverages AI to scan social media and publicly available online data to uncover potential risks and behaviors that traditional background checks may overlook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Stoke Space’s initial launch plans at Cape Canaveral take shape
Stoke Space is nothing if not ambitious. The five-year-old launch startup has generated a lot of hype due to its bold plans to develop the first fully reusable rocket, with both the booster and second stage vertically returning to Earth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
CodeRabbit raises $16M to bring AI to code reviews
Code reviews — peer reviews of code that help devs improve code quality — are time-consuming. According to one source, 50% of companies spend two to five hours a week on them. Without enough people, code reviews can be overwhelming and take devs away from other important work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Move over SEO, Profound is helping brands with AI search optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) has been top of mind for brands for more than a decade to ensure their websites and products capture as many eyeballs as possible by ranking high up on search results pages. But search is changing, and as consumers increasingly turn to AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
EliseAI lands $75M for chatbots that help property managers deal with renters
EliseAI employs an army of chatbots to text with, email, and respond to calls from renters about things such as apartment tours, maintenance requests, lease renewals and delinquencies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
.ArborXR secures $12M to boost its management platform for AR and VR devices
ArborXR, a startup that helps companies remotely manage AR and VR devices, believed that enterprise customers would be the primary targets for AR and VR devices. Now, that bet is paying off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
PayZen secures $23M Series B, $200M debt facility to grow its “care now, pay later” product
PayZen aims to make healthcare more affordable by enabling patients to pay their bills in interest and fee-free instalments over time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ex-Clubhouse employees take another swing at a social networking startup
The ex-Clubhouse, Netflix employees raised $1.65M for an app that combines social media, networking, and dating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bandana lands new investment to help hourly wage workers find good jobs
Most startups are looking to solve a problem inside a business, but Bandana, a New York City-based startup has a different goal. It wants to help people at the lower end of the wage scale find better jobs with higher wages and good benefits, all while being closer to home to reduce commuting time Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices