Venture firms raised $9.3 billion in Q1 according to PitchBook data, which means this year likely won’t match or surpass 2023’s $81.8 billion total. While emerging managers are feeling the fundraising market’s frost the most, some emerging VCs like A* have enough name recognition, and a good enough track record, to still find success. A*, […]
Kevin Hartz’s A* raises its second oversubscribed fund in three years Read More »
AI-powered language learning app Speak is on a tear. Since launching in its inaugural market of South Korea in 2019, Speak has grown to over 10 million users, CEO and co-founder Connor Zwick told TechCrunch. Its user base has doubled every year for the last five years, and Speak now has customers in more than 40
Language learning app Speak nets $20M, doubles valuation Read More »
Move over, Perplexity. There’s a new AI-powered search engine in town — and its creators think it can best the many, many other attempts out there. Called Genspark, the platform taps generative AI to write custom summaries in response to search queries. Type in a search like, “What’s the best baby formula for newborns?” and
Genspark is the latest attempt at an AI-powered search engine Read More »
Brothers Tobie Morgan Hitchcock and Jaime Hitchcock spent years building cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) systems together, ranging from tools to let golf courses measure “golfer engagement” to online platforms designed to assess job candidates. While the systems they built had wildly different functions, the unifying thread running through all of them was a dependence on databases
SurrealDB is helping developers consolidate their databases Read More »
AI systems and large language models need to be trained on massive amounts of data to be accurate but they shouldn’t train on data that they don’t have the rights to use. OpenAI’s licensing deals with The Atlantic and Vox last week show that both sides of the table are interested in landing these AI-training
Deal Dive: Human Native AI is building the marketplace for AI training licensing deals Read More »
Google has acquired Cameyo, a company developing virtualization tools to run Windows apps on ChromeOS devices, for an undisclosed amount. In a blog post, Cameyo CEO Andrew Miller and Google product lead Naveen Viswanatha wrote that the buy will benefit ChromeOS, Google’s lightweight Linux-based operating system, by giving ChromeOS users greater access to Windows apps
Google acquires Cameyo to bring Windows apps to ChromeOS Read More »
Databricks, the analytics and AI giant, has acquired data management company Tabular for an undisclosed sum. (CNBC reports that Databricks payed over $1 billion.) According to Tabular co-founder Ryan Blue, he and Tabular’s other two co-founders, Daniel Weeks and Jason Reid, will be joining Databricks in some capacity. There, they’ll work to unify Tabular’s and
Databricks acquires Tabular to build a common data lakehouse standard Read More »
The fashion industry has a huge problem: Despite many returned items being unworn or undamaged, a lot, if not the majority, end up in the trash. An estimated 9.5 billion pounds of returns ended up in landfills in 2022 alone, according to data from return logistics software company Optoro. New York-based (Re)vive wants to help
How (Re)vive grew 10x last year by helping retailers recycle and sell returned items Read More »
Don’t miss out: TechCrunch Disrupt early-bird pricing ends in 48 hours! The countdown is on! With only 48 hours left, the early-bird pricing for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 will end on May 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT. This is your final call to secure your tickets and get up to $800 in savings. Why attend TechCrunch
Ticktock! 48 hours left to nab your early-bird tickets for Disrupt 2024 Read More »
Lux, the startup behind popular pro photography app Halide and others, is venturing into video with its latest app launch. On Wednesday, the company announced Kino, a new video capture app for both professional and amateur videographers. The official launch comes six months after Lux teased the release back in December 2023. Halide users have long
Kino is a new iPhone app for videographers from the makers of Halide Read More »
