Thrift shopping is always a gamble. That cool shirt could wash out sooner than later, and there’s no knowing where those rugged jeans have been. Sure, some stores or websites try to filter out the bad apples, but it’s hard to get a good deal on the internet when there are so many options. Berlin-based
Month: May 2024
Google announced new AI-powered features today for its Chromebook Plus line of devices, such as a writing assistant, a wallpaper creator and an easy access to Google’s Gemini chatbot. As a reminder, Chromebook Plus laptops are productivity-focused devices with minimum spec requirements. The company also unveiled new Chromebook Plus models from HP, Acer, and Asus.
Infra.Market, an Indian startup that helps construction and real estate firms procure materials, has raised $50 million from MARS Unicorn Fund as it looks to expand operations overseas, the companies told TechCrunch on Tuesday. MARS Unicorn Fund, a joint venture between AI-driven fund Liquidity Group and Japanese bank MUFG, is an existing backer of the
Solar panels practically sold themselves in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent electricity prices skyrocketing. Now, as prices have begun to fall, solar installers have found themselves spending more on marketing to attract customers. One proven way to win more business has been to offer financing. But small operations usually don’t have the resources
Ledger, a French startup mostly known for its secure crypto hardware wallets, has started shipping new wallets nearly 18 months after announcing the latest Ledger Stax devices. The updated wallet features an E-Ink display and has been designed in partnership with Tony Fadell, one of the main designers behind the iPod. E-Ink technology is generally
AniML, the French startup behind a new 3D capture app called Doly, wants to create the PhotoRoom of product videos, sort of. If you’re selling sneakers on an online marketplace or need to create Instagram ads for your direct-to-consumer wares, Doly helps you generate 3D models with your phone and turn them into professional-looking product
If 11 figures is your attention threshold, you may be interested in learning that the combined enterprise value (EV) of Spanish startups surpassed €100 billion in 2023, according to Dealroom’s latest report on the Spanish tech ecosystem. As we’ll see, venture investment into Spanish startups also held up quite well, with €2.2BN raised across some
The countdown to early-bird savings for TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place October 28–30 in San Francisco, continues. You have just five days left to save up to $800 on the price of admission. The window closes on Friday, May 31 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Grab your tickets today. Find the best early-bird pass for you ATTENDEE
A month after launching its first product, Humane’s co-founders have reportedly put their well-funded startup on the market. While even the firm’s biggest cheerleaders didn’t expect the Ai Pin to change the world in such a short timeframe, few of its many detractors expected things to go so sideways, so quickly. Humane’s biggest competitor, the
Indian startup Zypp Electric plans to use fresh investment from Japanese oil and energy conglomerate ENEOS to take its EV rental service into Southeast Asia early next year, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The company aims to be in 15 markets over the next two years. Of those 15 markets, Zypp Electric plans to launch its
Garry Tan, president and CEO of Y Combinator, told a crowd at The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. this week that “regulation is likely necessary” for artificial intelligence. Tan spoke with Teresa Carlson, a General Catalyst board member as part of a one-on-one interview where he discussed everything from how to get into Y Combinator
Everything in society can feel geared toward optimization – whether that’s standardized testing or artificial intelligence algorithms. We’re taught to know what outcome you want to achieve, and find the path towards getting there. Kenneth Stanley, a former OpenAI researcher and co-founder of a new social media platform called Maven, has been preaching for years
Google is investing nearly $350 million in Flipkart, becoming the latest high-profile name to back the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce startup. The Android-maker will also provide Flipkart with cloud offerings as part of the deal, the Bengaluru-headquartered startup said in a brief statement Friday. The Google investment is part of a nearly $1 billion funding round
Last year, the fintech startup world — star of the 2021 venture capital heydays — began to unravel as VC funding grew tight. As we step into mid-2024, large chunks of the sector today are a downright mess, especially the banking-as-a-service area which, ironically enough, experts last year told us was the bright spot. The
Accurate weather forecasts are critical to industries like agriculture, and they’re also important to help prevent and mitigate harm from inclement weather events or natural disasters. But getting forecasts right is extremely difficult. That’s why the founders of WeatherXM have been looking to make weather forecasts more accurate for the past 12 years. In 2012,
Meredith Whittaker has had it with the “frat house” contingent of the tech industry. I sat down with the President of Signal at VivaTech in Paris to go over the wide range of serious, grown-up issues society is facing, from disinformation, to who controls AI, to the encroaching surveillance state. In the course of our
Attention, tech enthusiasts and startup supporters! The final countdown is here: Today is the last day to cast your vote for the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice program. Voting closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT, so this is your last chance to make your voice heard and help select the most promising startups to take
Another week, and another round of crazy cash injections and valuations emerged from the AI realm. DeepL, an AI language translation startup, raised $300 million on a $2 billion valuation; Scale AI, a data-labeling platform for machine learning models, secured $1 billion as its valuation nearly doubled to $13.8 billion; and H, a fledgling French
Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Well, folks, it looks like Techstars’ drama just got a new plot twist. CEO Maëlle Gavet is making her exit, leaving co-founder David Cohen to swoop
Terra One aims to reduce the quantity of clean energy created significantly and then lost from the German grid owing to a lack of storage capacity. Lacking storage capacity is an entirely pressing need and one desperate for solutions, so it’s great to see companies thinking up ways to fix it and going after the
Last year’s investor dreams of a strong 2024 IPO pipeline have faded, if not fully disappeared, as we approach the halfway point of the year. 2024 delivered four venture-backed tech IPOs, Reddit, Astera Labs, Ibotta and Rubrik, in March and April, which made it seem like this year could spur the momentum investors had hoped
Shopping is fun, but making a decision on one set of skis among thousands of possibilities is not. That’s where Remark comes in. The two-year-old startup is helping shoppers buy with more confidence, said Theo Satloff, co-founder and CEO of Remark. It does this by pairing shoppers with high-quality product experts via an asynchronous live
Andrej Safundzic, Alan Flores Lopez and Leo Mehr met in a class at Stanford focusing on ethics, public policy and technological change. Safundzic — speaking to TechCrunch — says that the class drove home the point that few people, particularly in the corporate sector, have control over their online identities. “The future of software is
There are many ways countries can go about supporting their tech industries. In France it involves picking a yearly cohort of 120 high-potential startups — the French Tech 120 — including 40 private companies deemed as most promising, dubbed the Next40. The French secretary of state for Digital Affairs, as of this year, Marina Ferrari,
Leanne Sherred, a pediatric speech therapist, has long encountered challenges putting caregiver-led therapy into practice in traditional care settings. Research suggests that caregiver-led speech therapy, which involves training the caregivers of patients in skill-building therapeutic techniques to use at home, can be highly effective. But as Sherred observed in the course of her practice, therapists
Spotify’s addition of its AI DJ feature, which introduces personalized song selections to users, was the company’s first step into an AI future. Now, Spotify is developing an alternative version of that DJ that will speak Spanish. References to the new AI DJ were spotted in the app’s code by tech veteran and reverse engineer
A new startup called Auggie is aiming to give parents a single platform where they can shop for products and connect with each other. The company’s new app, which launched this week, offers parents a platform where they can share product recommendations, shop vetted products and find community amongst each other to get real-time advice
Vigile Hoareau is a musician, cognitive psychologist and computer programmer. Jimmy Thomas is a multi-platinum rap producer who has worked with Tupac and Motown Records. Together, they are the founders of Crowdaa, a French company that allows non-developers to easily create and release apps on mobile. The two were introduced eight years ago and bonded
Redwood Materials, the battery recycling startup founded by former Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, will be recycling production scrap for batteries going into General Motors electric vehicles. The company announced Thursday that it’s working with Ultium Cells, the joint battery manufacturing venture between GM and LG Energy Solution, to recycle cathode, anode and cell scrap from
The United States Department of Justice and 30 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, for alleged monopolistic practices. Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010, creating a dominant entertainment machine that controls the majority of ticket sales and venue bookings in the country. But Taylor Swift
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