TechCrunch Startup News
3,808 episodes — Page 30 of 77
Clubhouse needs to fix things, and today it cut more than half of staff
Clubhouse, a once skyrocketing social audio app built by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, has laid off more than half of its staff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bastion is an all-in-one cybersecurity solution for small businesses
Meet Bastion, a French startup that was created in October 2022 to help small companies tackle cybersecurity risks without too many complexities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Operant is changing the way you secure cloud native applications
Containers and micro services may not be a new concept at this point, but lots of companies are struggling with the transition to cloud native applications, and the impact of that approach on their security. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Luup raises $30M ahead of Japan’s new micromobility rules
Japanese shared micromobility startup Luup has raised $30 million in a Series D financing round, which consists of 3.8 billion yen in equity and 700 million yen in debt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
UniSieve’s filters use special crystals to reduce industrial emissions
The energy-intensive process of separating and purifying chemicals and gases is a big reason why industries like plastic manufacturing cause so much pollution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
ZEBOX, an incubator for supply chain startups, launches its Asia hub in Singapore
ZEBOX, an international accelerator network founded by shipping conglomerate CMA CGM to introduce more tech innovation into the supply chain industry, announced today the launch of its APAC headquarters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Greywing’s new SeaGPT solves email overwhelm for maritime crew managers
Every time a member of their crew changes, maritime crew managers need to handle immigration regulations, COVID requirements and travel plans for each person. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Constrafor, a construction procurement company, goes ‘SAFE’ route with new capital
Constrafor provides embedded financing and software to keep payments flowing between contractors and their subcontractors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Super.com targets $85M equity, debt raise into new savings super app
Super.com's super app is focused on helping “everyday Americans” find deals and savings across multiple categories, including travel and shopping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Home energy assessment startup Enter raises €19.4M Series A to expand in Germany and beyond
Largely because of their age, houses in Europe can be notoriously hard to heat. Most were built for an era when the knowledge about energy consumption just wasn’t available in the way it is today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Betterdata uses synthetic data to keep real data safe
Betterdata, a Singapore-based startup that uses programmable synthetic data to keep real data secure, announced today it has raised $1.55 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Kate raises $7.6 million for its electric micro-cars
French startup Kate has raised a $7.6 million (€7 million) funding round from a bunch of business angels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Primo is the IT tool for companies that are too small for an IT manager
Primo, a French startup that recently raised a $3.4 million funding round to build a software-as-a-service product that handles the IT needs of small and medium companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Cortical Labs raises $10M for its Pong-playing stem cells which eventually could power AI
While Generative AI is buzzy right now, what OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are doing may be only part of the story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rally bags $12M to build the future of e-commerce checkout
Rally provides one-click checkout and post-purchase offers that allow the merchant to inject offers after the checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Remote working means this startup can use brains in emerging markets to disrupt management consultants
The global management consulting industry is worth billions of dollars but to this day it’s been tough to disrupt with technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
B Capital leads Odeko’s $53M Series D to help small coffee shops scale
Odeko has operations software for coffee shops to manage inventory, get data insights and order equipment and supplies from over 400 vendors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
LLMs come to workplace morale monitoring, as Loopin raises $1.9M for its platform
There have been several startup attempts to measure staff morale, some more halting that others. We reported on Plasticity Labs back in 2014, though their web site seems no longer functioning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Device-as-a-service startup Fleet expands beyond laptop leasing
French startup Fleet has been growing nicely over the past four years as the company has deployed nearly 10,000 devices with long-term leasing contracts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Stability AI’s new model is slightly better at generating hands
Stability AI, the startup funding a range of generative AI experiments, has released a new version of Stable Diffusion, the text-to-image AI system that was among the first to rival OpenAI’s DALL-E 2. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Zoom acquires Ireland-based employee communications platform Workvivo
Zoom today announced that it has acquired Workvivo, a six-year-old Irish startup focused on improving companies’ internal communications and culture. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Thynk wants to upgrade hotel stays with a vertical software platform
Meet Thynk, a new company that wants to build the definite enterprise software solution for the hospitality industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Otterize raises $11.5M to help developers securely connect software services
Tomer Greenwald, Uri Sarid and Ori Shoshan, software developers by trade, found themselves building and configuring software authentication and authorization mechanisms repeatedly — each time with a different tech stack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
General Atlantic invests another $100 million in PhonePe
General Atlantic has poured another $100 million in PhonePe, three months after leading a $350 million investment in the Indian fintech startup that has so far raised $750 million in an ongoing financing round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Fintech startup Clear Street raises $270M at a $2B valuation
Clear Street, which says it is building “modern infrastructure” for capital markets, has raised $270 million in the second tranche of a Series B funding round at a $2 billion valuation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Graneet raises $8.7 million for its vertical SaaS for construction companies
French startup Graneet is building an all-in-one software-as-a-service product focused on small construction companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In edtech, history matters: Reach Capital just closed its largest fund to date
Reach Capital, one of the first venture firms to focus exclusively on edtech, closed its last investment vehicle during an unprecedented boom within tech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Gradient Ventures backs Axle’s ‘Plaid for insurance’ approach to data verification
Axle allows users to connect their insurance account to trusted companies in seconds and then automates insurance verification. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Honeycomb scores $50M investment as observability platform thrives
Honeycomb was founded in 2016 by two former Facebook engineers to create a new way of looking at application monitoring based on the internal tooling they had seen at Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Anthropic’s $5B, 4-year plan to take on OpenAI
AI research startup Anthropic aims to raise as much as $5 billion over the next two years to take on rival OpenAI and enter over a dozen major industries, according to company documents obtained by TechCrunch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Alternative seafood startup Aqua Cultured Foods reels in $5.5M
Aqua Cultured Foods is using proprietary mycoprotein (fungi) fermentation processes to create whole cuts of calamari, shrimp, scallops and filets of tuna and whitefish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
SetSail adds ChatGPT questioning capabilities on top of sales data
SetSail set out to build a new way to compensate sales people, where based on the data, companies could pay salespeople on where they were in the pipeline, not in just one big chunk when they landed the sale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Alga Biosciences wants to help climate change, one bovine burp at a time
Cows are a significant source of methane emissions, primarily due to their unique digestive system. Milk and beef cows are ruminants, which means they have a specialized stomach chamber (called the rumen), which houses billions of microbes that facilitate the breakdown of fibrous plant material. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ensemble raises $100M debut fund to bet on startup teams — but not in the way you think
The firm uses an in-house data algorithm it hopes will help it find startups that have teams designed to scale — beyond just the founders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
New funding helps CarmaCare accelerate its ‘healthcare-for-your-car’ service
CarmaCare take over where traditional car insurance leaves off to provide an easier way to buy extended warranties for car repairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AirTree backs generative AI content creation and management platform Narrato
Generative AI is hot among venture capital firms now, with $4.5 billion invested in 2022. Narrato, a AI content creation and collaboration platform, announced today it has joined the ranks of other generative AI startups with VC funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Amazon wants to boost ten generative AI startups around the globe
Amazon’s first foray into the world of accelerator programs, designed to help early-stage startups build and launch, was focused on conversational AI back in 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tencent backs Singapore’s Horizon Quantum Computing in $18M round
Quantum computers have the potential to carry out highly complicated calculations in minutes that would have taken classical computers thousands of years to work out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Artie sidesteps the app stores by putting high-quality games in your browser
When you play a game, how do you play it? Monopoly or Settlers of Catan around the dining table? Mario Kart on your Nintendo Switch? Assassin’s Creed on your Xbox? Among Us on your phone? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
DataDome, which uses AI to protect against bot-based attacks, raises $42M
Online businesses are at risk of bad bot activity, certainly more now than they used to be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Qualcomm-backed Aravita wants to help Brazilian supermarkets control food waste
Aravita's AI-powered solution for supermarkets looks at variables, including climate, seasonality and consumer behavior, to manage the purchasing of fresh food. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Crypto wallet company Ledger raises another $108 million
French startup Ledger has added more money to its Series C funding round. The company designs and manufactures so-called hardware wallets to secure crypto assets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Green Labs secures $38.4M in debt financing
Green Labs, a Seoul-based agritech startup, has secured $38.4 million (50 billion won) in debt financing from existing investors BRV Capital Management and Skylake Incuvest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Krisp expands from noise canceling to on-device transcription
Krisp got its start as an AI-powered noise cancellation service, but now the startup is moving beyond that with instant on-device transcription of all your calls and meetings — and of course it integrates ChatGPT now for quick summaries as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Amazon-backed Acko nears $120 million in new funding
Indian insurtech Acko is in late-stage discussions to secure $120 million in a funding round at a time when weak global market conditions have subdued large financing deliberations in the South Asian market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Isar Aerospace raises $165 million to bring more sovereign launch to Europe
German launch startup Isar Aerospace has scored $165 million (€155 million) in new funding as it races toward the inaugural flight of its Spectrum small rocket later this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Neubility plans to roll out 400 lidar-free delivery and security robots by year-end
Last-mile robotics startup Neubility — which makes autonomous delivery robots that work without lidar — says that it plans bump its fleet up to 400 by the end of this year, up from the 50 it currently has in circulation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
OpenAI connects ChatGPT to the internet
OpenAI’s viral AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, can now browse the internet — in certain cases. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Snap quietly acquired 3D scanning startup Th3rd last year
Snap quietly acquired Amsterdam-based 3D scanning studio Th3rd in the second quarter of last year, at a time when the company was looking to bolster its AR-powered commerce ambitions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Workera double downs on AI for upskilling with $23.5M infusion
Workera, an upskilling platform geared toward enterprise customers, today announced that it raised $23.5 million in a Series B round led by Jump Capital with participation from existing investors NEA, Owl Ventures, the AI Fund and Sozo Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices