When Alex Hawkinson was the CEO of SmartThings, the consumer-focused connected devices company he co-founded and sold to Samsung for around $200 million, he kept thinking that internet of things (IoT) technology could probably solve bigger issues. He left SmartThings in 2018 to figure out where connected devices could make the largest impact. He co-founded […]
Physical AI startup BrightAI bootstraps to $80m in revenue Read More »
For some, AI fatigue is real — but clearly venture investors haven’t grown tired of the category. AI deals continued to dominate venture funding during the third quarter. AI companies raised $18.9 billion in Q3, according to Crunchbase data. That figure represents 28% of all venture funding. The third quarter also saw the close of
Here’s the full list of 44 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2024 Read More »
In 2014, Ivan Crewkov moved his family from Serbia to the U.S. as his startup, Cubic.AI, was preparing to launch a Kickstarter campaign for its smart speaker. A week before the campaign was supposed to go live, Amazon launched its Echo smart speaker, rendering Cubic.AI essentially dead in the water. “It was a disaster,” Crewkov
Buddy.ai is using AI and gaming to help children learn English as a second language Read More »
The AI stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 got off to a fiery but constructive start on a panel about combating disinformation. But in a spirited exchange of views tempered by expressions of respect and agreement, all three panelists had harsh words for social media and generative AI. None was harsher, though, than Imran Ahmed, CEO
Clashing approaches to combat AI’s ‘perpetual bulls**t machine’ Read More »
Ashton Kutcher’s VC firm, Sound Ventures, co-led by general partners Guy Oseary and Effie Epstein, is betting on AI — including with an investment in Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs, the investors confirmed on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 on Tuesday. The startup, founded by Li, the Stanford professor dubbed the “Godmother of AI,” has already
Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures backs Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs in continued AI push Read More »
Ashton Kutcher, co-founder of Sound Ventures, believes that every company is going to become an AI company, but that there might not be a winner in the space. The actor and investor spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 on Tuesday alongside Sound co-founder Guy Oseary and partner Effie Epstein to detail what the firm is looking
Ashton Kutcher explains why he’s betting on AI, but not trying to pick a ‘winner’ Read More »
World models, also known as world simulators, are being touted by some as the next big thing in AI. AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs has raised $230 million to build “large world models,” and DeepMind hired one of the creators of OpenAI’s video generator, Sora, to work on “world simulators.” But what the heck
What are AI ‘world models,’ and why do they matter? Read More »
The co-founders who sold their last startup to Spotify are working on a new project: an AI-powered educational startup called Oboe backed by a $4 million seed investment. The new company, hailing from Nir Zicherman and Michael Mignano, aims to democratize access to learning the way that their prior startup, Anchor, made it possible for
Smashing, a new app curating the best of the web from Goodreads co-founder Otis Chandler, is now available to the public. Like Goodreads, the app aims to create a community around content. But this time, instead of books, the focus is on web content — like news articles, blog posts, social media posts, podcasts, and
From Goodreads’ founder, Smashing debuts its AI-powered app for online readers Read More »
Granola’s notepad app has become a popular tool among venture capitalists who use it to record meetings and augment notes using AI technology. That made it easier for the startup to raise funds from a crowd of investors for its $20 million Series A — something the team managed to do in about a week.
VCs love using the AI meeting notepad Granola, so they gave it $20M Read More »
