TechCrunch Startup News
3,836 episodes — Page 25 of 77
3D generative AI platform Atlas emerges from stealth with $6M to accelerate virtual worldbuilding
Atlas, a 3D generative AI platform, is launching today after two years in stealth with $6 million in seed funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Interplay secures $45M for third fund focused on B2B marketplaces, vertical software
Mark Peter Davis, Interplay founder and managing partner, says the firm stands out with its outsized value proposition relative to its check size. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Etaily is a “one stop solution” for consumer brands that want to enter Southeast Asia
E-commerce in Southeast Asia grew rapidly during the pandemic, and that momentum is continuing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Upciti helps cities level up their data strategy
Upciti is a French startup that has been working on a hardware sensor for city centers that is easy to install and maintain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Picsart launches a suite of AI-powered tools that let you generate videos, backgrounds, GIFs and more
Picsart, a photo-editing startup backed by SoftBank, is launching a new suite of AI-powered tools for businesses and individuals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chptr, a memorialization app for gathering and sharing memories of loved ones, raises $1.5M
Chptr, an app for sharing and holding onto memories of lost loved ones, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ozone raises $7.1M to scale its AI-powered collaborative video editor in the cloud
Ozone, the maker of an AI-powered collaborative video editor in the cloud, has raised $7.1 million in seed funding and is launching in open beta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
mogul club raises $3.6M toward its effort to make real estate investing more accessible
While the idea of owning rental properties is appealing to many Americans, the ability to vet and afford such investments in single-family homes is out of reach for a large part of the population. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Popular video chat service Omegle shuts down
Omegle, an online service that allowed individuals to connect and chat with strangers, has shut down after 15 years citing growing misuse of the platform, including in committing “unspeakably heinous crimes.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Vanguard slashes Ola valuation by 60%-plus; NB reduces Pharmeasy’s by over 90%
Written by Manish Singh - The U.S. index fund pioneer Vanguard has cut the worth of its holding in the Indian ride-hailing startup Ola by nearly two thirds since original investment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Meta taps Hugging Face for startup accelerator to spur adoption of open source AI models
Written by Pete Sawers - Facebook parent Meta is teaming up with Hugging Face and European cloud infrastructure company Scaleway to launch a new AI-focused startup program at the Station F startup megacampus in Paris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lidl owner and Bosch Ventures co-lead $500M Series B into German AI startup Aleph Alpha
German AI startup Aleph Alpha has raised a Series B funding round of $500 million from a consortium of seven new investors, as well as existing investors from previous rounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Enable, a platform for managing B2B rebates, is now worth $1B
There’s a new unicorn in town, and its name is Enable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Appetite wants to help you and your friends discover, plan and book a meal out
Appetite, an app for discovering and booking restaurants, is aiming to streamline the process of planning nights out with friends and family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Revel ends moped sharing, focuses on EV charging and ride-hail
Electric mobility startup Revel is officially shutting down its shared moped business in New York City and San Francisco, according to a company-wide email that CEO and co-founder Frank Reig sent Friday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Blackbird invests in Carepatron’s “radically accessible” healthcare management platform
When TechCrunch covered Carepatron’s pre-seed last year, it was focused on serving solo practitioners and small health practices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Flavrs, a shoppable video app for foodies, launches a new takeout feature and AI-powered recommendations
Flavrs, an iOS app that lets foodies discover recipes and and then shop for ingredients, is introducing a new takeout feature and AI-powered recommendation systems thanks to a custom integration with OpenAI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Flexport acquires technology of former digital freight unicorn Convoy
Supply chain logistics platform Flexport is acquiring the assets of shuttered digital freight network Convoy, according to a memo Flexport CEO Ryan Peterson sent to staff Wednesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
EarlyBird raises $4.5M, partially from its users, to scale its investment gifting platform for families
EarlyBird, an app that lets families and friends gift investments to children, has raised $4.5 million in a seed extension round that was partially funded by its user base. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Grant Assistant wants to apply generative AI to grant proposals
By Kyle Wiggers. Grants are the lifeblood of many organizations. But procuring them often turns out to be a time-consuming, labor-intensive process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Charlie’s senior-focused banking puts new funding toward stopping fraud
By Mary Ann Azevedo. Less than six months after launching to the public and announcing a $7.5 million seed raise, a startup providing banking services to Americans over the age of 62 has raised additional funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Guidde’s AI automatically generates software documentation videos
Organizations today rely on a growing number of apps to get work done. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Yuzu wants to make health plans cheaper by letting insurers mix and match benefits
In the U.S., figuring out ways to pay for health insurance is a perennial problem — not just for individuals, but for the businesses employing them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Stealthy social commerce startup taps into Meta roots to create AI-first brand messaging
Nectar AI will help brands find new ways to personally engage and convert consumers where they spend the most time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Soundboks is scaling high-volume, high-energy speakers across borders and cultures
Norway-based Soundboks just released its latest $1,000 Bluetooth speaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Outset is using GPT-4 to make user surveys better
Getting answers to tough, qualitative questions about products from users can be costly, both in terms of time and money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
India’s bike taxi startup Rapido is getting into the cab business
Rapido, the eight-year-old Indian bike taxi startup, is expanding into the cab market in the South Asian nation, where Uber and its homegrown competitor Ola dominate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Blackbird backs Heidi Health’s AI platform for overworked doctors
Many doctors are overwhelmed by paperwork, leaving them stretched thin, with less time to see patients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Temasek and SBI pour $384 million into India’s Ola Electric
Ola Electric said on Thursday that it has raised $384.43 million in a funding round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Triple-A gets funding from Peak XV to help more businesses use crypto
Created by the founder of Thunes, global digital currency payments institution Triple-A wants to close the gap between traditional finance and blockchain-based payments with its white-label solutions for businesses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lab-grown leather scales up as Gozen raises $3.3M from Happiness Capital, SoSV and others
Whether we like it or not, the leather industry significantly contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and global waste generation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Oxolo bags €13M for Gen AI-driven video platform which can optimise engagement on the fly
Much has been made of AI-powered videos which can either make a real person speak different words or other languages, or generate a synthetic person which can speak on-demand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Smart upcycling machine dissects batteries to save them
Circu Li-ion cofounder and CEO Antoine Welter says his startup’s upcycling machine can diagnose batteries in seconds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ternary, a cloud spend management startup, raises $12M
Ternary, a platform that helps companies manage how much they’re spending on cloud resources across multiple public cloud providers, today announced that it raised $12 million in a Series A funding round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
‘Household restocking’ startup The Rounds uses tech and AI to make sustainable e-commerce profitable
The Rounds, a sustainable “household restocking” service, wants to prove that last-mile logistics can be done both efficiently and profitably. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Citi inks deal with fintech Navan, says ‘not having to file an expense report is like nirvana’
Expense management startup Navan has inked an exclusive deal with Citi that executives say will open its addressable market significantly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Warmly pivots from Zoom tool to directing warm leads to sales
When Warmly started a couple of years ago, people were meeting regularly in Zoom and the company provided a custom background and information about the participants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Statement, a cash flow management platform for enterprises, raises $12M
Statement, a startup developing a platform for enterprise cash flow management, today announced that it raised $12 million in seed funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Passwordless authentication startup SecureW2 raises $80M from Insight Partners
Passwordless authentication offers a host of advantages over traditional pins, passphrases and passcodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Stack Overflow cuts 28% of its staff
Developer community site Stack Overflow has laid off 28% of its staff, the Prosus-owned company announced Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Flanks grabs additional capital to automate wealth services in Europe
Flanks gathers global wealth data under one API so that clients can have a complete view of their investment portfolio in real time and make more intelligent investment decisions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AI-generating music app Riffusion turns viral success into $4M in funding
Nearly a year ago, developers Seth Forsgren and Hayk Martiros released a hobby project called Riffusion that could generate music using not audio but images of audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Reality Defender raises $15M to detect text, video and image deepfakes
Reality Defender, one of several startups developing tools to attempt to detect deepfakes and other AI-generated content, today announced that it raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by DCVC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Accessercise’s app makes it easier for people with disabilities to exercise
Accessercise, which developed a fitness app for people who want to exercise despite their disabilities, was one of the Startup Battlefield 200 finalists at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Creative Force, now with $8.9M, gives e-commerce workflows an AI treatment
Creative Force helps retailers and brands create content at scale for marketing campaigns and online merchandising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lanch, which creates food delivery brands for influencers, gobbles up $6.9M
Two of the biggest drivers of growth on social and e-commerce platforms have been food and influencers, so it should come as no surprise that startups are now getting in on the act in trying to combine how these two work together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Israeli biotech startup mana.bio launches AI-fueled programmable drug therapy
Israeli biotech startup Mana.bio has been planning to launch its programmable drug treatment solution for months, and decided to forge ahead in spite of the attacks that happened this past weekend in the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
KIT Plugins, an audio software startup that help producers and musicians enhance their sound, raises $1 million
KIT Plugins, a music software development startup, has raised $1 million in Series A funding led by Copycat Holdings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
10 Minute School aims to democratize education for Bangladeshi students
Access to education in Bangladesh is filled with inequalities, say the founders of edtech 10 Minute School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AI revolutionizing MRI scans — A Munich startup banked $32M to scan eggs, and says humans are next
Germany, France, and Italy are among the countries which last year enacted laws to stop the practice of culling male day-old chicks, because, as they do not lay eggs, are considered surplus to requirements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices