AI hardware has taken on a new shape with Friend’s $99 necklace — a pendant that gives you an AI friend to talk to and … that’s about it. Friend’s pitch is that its wearable can help combat loneliness, but other AI hardware products that have come to market lately – like Humane’s Ai Pin […]
AI Friends, deepfake foes, and which Tiger Global partner is leaving now Read More »
Global startup funding was up 16% in the second quarter, according to Crunchbase data, led by an uptick in mega-rounds. That increase was led, unsurprisingly, by the AI sector. Funding to companies in AI made up 30% of all dollars invested and actually doubled quarter over quarter to $24 billion. On today’s episode of TechCrunch’s
Global startup funding is picking up with AI still in the spotlight Read More »
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is packed with some significant fundraises, a potentially massive acquisition falling apart and looking at what happens when a fintech company suddenly stops serving certain customers. To kick things off, Mary Ann Azevedo walked everyone through Clio’s huge
Alphabet is clearly looking to buy, so who’s selling, and why did Wiz say no? Read More »
Maven Ventures General Partner Sara Deshpande has been investing in the consumer tech space for a decade. Over time, the seed-stage venture firm has backed the likes of Zoom, Cruise, Hello Heart, Perplexity and x.AI and has grown to over $200 million in assets under management. Now, with a new $60 million fund — and
Cracking the AI and consumer code with early Zoom-backer Maven Ventures Read More »
On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan did a deep dive into the CrowdStrike outage that affected around 8.5 million Windows devices around the world, causing disruptions in air travel, banking, hospitals, media outlets, federal agencies and businesses of all kinds. The outage began when CrowdStrike, a cloud security giant, sent out a defective software
CrowdStrike’s fallout, Harris’s stance on tech and Yandex’s rise from the ashes Read More »
On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan did a deep dive into the CrowdStrike outage that affected around 8.5 million Windows devices around the world, causing disruptions in air travel, banking, hospitals, media outlets, federal agencies and businesses of all kinds. The outage began when CrowdStrike, a cloud security giant, sent out a defective software
CrowdStrike’s fallout, Harris’s stance on tech and Yandex’s rise from the ashes Read More »
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is packed with deals, antitrust musings, AI and more. To kick things off, Kirsten walked us through Elon Musk’s recent declaration of his intent to move both SpaceX and X’s headquarters out of California to Texas. Whether or
Silicon Valley’s impact on the election and an acquisition making our HeadSpin Read More »
Renegade Partners co-founders Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek have seen it all in their careers — notably over the past four years when they launched their first fund as the COVID pandemic took hold and navigated the economic roller coaster that followed. Now, with a second $128 million fund — and a plan to write
On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan explored Google’s reported talks to acquire Wiz, a cloud security company, for around $23 billion. Wiz provides an “all-in-one approach to cloud security,” pulling data from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and others, then scanning it all for security risk factors — something that Google might
Google’s talks to buy Wiz, and the gap between AI spending and AI revenue Read More »
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is packed with deals, antitrust musings, AI and more. To kick things off, Kirsten walked us through a recent court decision that provided a bit of relief for Elon Musk. Earlier this week, one of the many lawsuits
There’s always something happening to OpenAI’s board Read More »
