Travly is a new social-first discovery and hotel booking platform designed to cater to the growing number of travelers who rely on short-form video content for trip ideas. The platform features user-generated content that provides authentic reviews of hotels instead of generic information and often outdated images. Creators who submit videos of hotels have the […]
For some businesses, there is a clear path to growth that doesn’t involve acquiring other companies or expanding organically: franchising. The U.S. has more than 800,000 franchise businesses, according to Statista, and that number is predicted to keep growing year over year. But franchising a business — licensing a business model and brand to an
Harmonyze wants to build AI agents to help franchisors make sense of unstructured data Read More »
The release of ChatGPT in November 2022 sparked a new wave of AI companies. It also brought attention to the companies that were already building in the space like Etched. Etched co-founder and CEO Gavin Uberti said on a recent episode of TechCrunch’s Found podcast that his company “stands on the shoulders of giants.” While
Etched founder Gavin Uberti thinks his company stands on the “shoulders of giants” Read More »
When AI companion startup Friend revealed it had spent $1.8 million on buying the www.friend.com domain name last week, it set off a debate around what exactly branding is worth, and how startups should be spending cash. Founders of other companies like Loom and Public came forward to share stories of their own quests to
Maybe Friend wasn’t crazy for spending $1.8M on a domain after all Read More »
Thursday seeks to shake up conventional online dating in a crowded market. The app, which recently expanded to San Francisco, fosters intentional dating by restricting user access to Thursdays. At midnight, all matches disappear. The idea is that by restricting usage to one day a week, potential matches will be encouraged to set up real-life meetings
Thursday, the dating app that you can use only on Thursdays, expands to San Francisco Read More »
AI companies are gobbling up investor money and securing skyhigh valuations early in their lifecycle. This dynamic has many calling the AI industry a bubble. Nick Frosst, a co-founder of Cohere, which builds custom AI models for enterprise customers, recently said on TechCrunch’s Found podcast that he doesn’t think the AI industry is in a
In a sign that big tech companies are ready and willing to shell out cash for database tech, Neon, a startup building an open source alternative to AWS Aurora Postgres, on Wednesday announced that Microsoft’s venture arm M12 led a $25 million strategic investment in its business. The capital will go toward R&D, Neon co-founder
Database startup Neon nabs a Microsoft investment Read More »
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at Revolut’s reported valuation hike, fintech unicorns, the Disrupt Fintech Stage, and more. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big story Revolut reportedly told staff last week of
Europe’s most valuable fintech, and which startups became unicorns this year Read More »
It’s not easy for organizations to become data-driven, despite the aspirations many have to get there. Even orgs with data analytics teams often struggle to make effective use of their data. According to a recent Gartner survey, fewer than half of data and analytics leaders say their teams are effective in providing value to their
German computer scientists raise $30 million to help companies make sense of their data Read More »
Groq, a startup developing chips to run generative AI models faster than conventional processors, said on Monday that it’s raised $640 million in a new funding round led by Blackrock. Neuberger Berman, Type One Ventures, Cisco, KDDI and Samsung Catalyst Fund also participated. The tranche, which brings Groq’s total raised to over $1 billion and
AI chip startup Groq lands $640M to challenge Nvidia Read More »
