TechCrunch Startup News
3,873 episodes — Page 26 of 78
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
Zest Equity, a UAE-based startup digitizing private market deals, raises $3.8M seed funding
UAE-based Zest Equity, a startup digitizing private market dealings, has raised $3.8 million seed funding to build more tools for enabling fast and transparent transactions by ecosystem players while increasing their liquidity through secondary deals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Orus offers business insurance products to restaurant owners and other small companies
French startup Orus has raised an $11.6 million Series A funding round (€11 million). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Heura adds ‘York ham style slices’ to its 100%-plant-based vegan mix
Barcelona-based Heura, a disrupter in the plant-based protein space since 2017, has a product hitting shelves shortly in Spain and France that it reckons will have the most committed meat eaters sitting up in disbelief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Wanda Fish navigates VC waters to catch $7M for production of cultivated bluefin tuna
The company aims to create whole-cut cultivated fish filets, starting with bluefin tuna, using muscle and fat cells. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Singapore’s tech subscription service Circular wants to keep devices out of the landfill
Circular, backed by Y Combinator, is a service that offers consumers in Singapore and Australia subscriptions to high-end electronics, like iPhones, Samsung Galaxy, iPad Pros and MacBook Pros. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Consumer brand accelerator SuperOrdinary gets $58M Series B at $800M valuation
The average shopper probably hasn’t heard of SuperOrdinary, but if they are a beauty or skincare fan, they’ve definitely heard of some of the brands the startup works with. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ohm’s Quest is an electronic puzzle console inspired by escape rooms
Ohm’s Quest is a steampunk-inspired cubical device that acts as a sort of escape game console. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Amazon shutters its live radio app Amp
Amazon has shut down its Clubhouse competitor’s live radio app Amp almost 18 months after its launch. The app allowed users to play DJ and provide commentary alongside playing tracks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
CoPilot, a training app that matches users with remote fitness coaches, raises $6.3M
CoPilot, a digital training app that matches users with one-on-one remote fitness coaches, has raised $6.3M in Series A-1 funding led by Jackson Square Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sam Altman backs teens’ AI startup automating browser-native workflows
Sam Altman, Peak XV, and Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman’s AI grant are among backers of an AI startup, founded by two teenagers, that’s aiming to assist businesses in automating numerous workflows in previously unexplored ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Science lab automation and robotics startup Automata raises $40M
Automata, a company that combines software and hardware to automate science labs around the globe, has raised $40 million in an equity-based round of funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ten Key Labs wants to simplify managing equity for startups
Amar Varma, a three-time entrepreneur and VC, experienced firsthand the challenge of dealing with administering equity stakes within a startup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Greener for Business launches to help Australian SMBs move to net zero
Greener, the Australian cleantech startup that creates custom action plans to help its customers become more environmentally sustainable, is launching Greener for Business today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices