Spotify’s AI DJ feature, an AI guide that introduces personalized song selections, is now available in its first language outside of English. On Tuesday, Spotify announced the launch of an AI DJ that speaks Spanish, confirming TechCrunch’s earlier reports of the feature under development. Like the original AI DJ “X,” whose voice was based on
Silicon Valley VC firm Menlo Ventures, one of the biggest investors in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, on Wednesday said the two companies are teaming up to set up a $100 million initiative dubbed “the Anthology Fund” to invest in pre-seed and Series A artificial intelligence companies. Menlo recently climbed to the top of Anthropic’s list
A new app called The Way is aiming to help people explore the deeper side of meditation through a single, structured path guided by an authorized Zen Master. Founded by uncle-and-nephew duo Henry Shukman and Jack Shukman, The Way wants to help people move beyond modern mindfulness practices offered by popular meditation apps like Headspace
South Korean prosecutors said on Wednesday that they have filed an arrest warrant for Brian Kim, the founder of Korean internet giant Kakao, as part of an investigation into alleged stock market manipulation related to a high-profile bidding war for SM Entertainment, one of the country’s biggest music labels, in 2023. The warrant comes a
The current secondary ticket exchange system is fraught with several issues, such as tickets being resold at prices much higher than their face value, exorbitant fees and other additional costs. Not to mention the risk of purchasing counterfeit or invalid tickets, resulting in a disappointing user experience. CrowdVolt wants to disrupt the space with its
Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of one of the most prominent venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, says he’s been a Democrat most of his life. He says he has endorsed and voted for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. However, he says he’s no longer loyal to the Democratic Party.
Community colleges aren’t immune from the current reckoning higher education is facing. Student enrollment is declining while institutions keep raising tuition prices which can prevent students from finishing their programs. Clearly, it’s time for the industry to try something new. Tade Oyerinde thinks startups can help. Oyerinde is the founder and CEO at Campus, a
Andrej Karpathy, former head of AI at Tesla and researcher at OpenAI, is launching Eureka Labs, an “AI native” education platform. In tech speak, that usually means built from the ground up with AI at its core. And while Eureka Labs’s AI ambitions are lofty, the company is starting with a more traditional approach to
While there’s no shortage of startups aiming to replace Google with AI-powered search (we’re looking at you, Perplexity), a startup called Exa has a different idea: a Google for AI. Humans aren’t the ones who desperately need a new kind of search engine, Exa’s founders believe. Rather, as AI increasingly takes hold in corporate and
Among her friends, Lindsay Dorf is the one with the superpower of being able to understand retail investing. So much so that she became the go-to person for advice. “I had a lot of friends come to me asking for investing advice,” Dorf told TechCrunch. “There were two things I really saw: One, the people
The smart ring has long played second fiddle to the smart watch. While tech giants like Apple and Google duked it out over wrists for years, the ring has been significantly quieter, a space where plucky startups have a chance to make their mark. Things are quickly changing, however. Samsung will debut its first finger-worn
Former President Donald Trump picked Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate on Monday, as he runs to reclaim the office he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020. Vance, who’s best known for his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” spent years as a venture capitalist before leaving the industry when elected to the U.S. Senate
A lack of affordable housing is a growing problem worldwide, even in emerging markets with significant demand. That’s in part because traditional developers and real estate companies focus on serving people looking for luxury houses, and want to avoid the immense operating expenses associated with affordable housing, which eat into gross margins over time. Enter
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
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is in advanced talks to acquire Wiz for $23 billion, a person close to the company told TechCrunch. The deal discussions were previously reported by the Wall Street Journal. Wiz, a cybersecurity startup founded in 2020, was approached a few weeks ago by Thomas Kurian, head of Google’s cloud division, the
When VanMoof declared bankruptcy last year, it left around 5,000 customers who had pre-ordered e-bikes in the lurch. Now VanMoof is up and running under new management, and the company’s current owners are courting those same customers by offering them a €1,000 discount off a new bike. It’s an audacious strategy, one that bets on
The construction industry has a slow payments problem. Studies have found that it takes anywhere from two to three months on average for construction companies to get paid, due to factors such as delays, multiple payment layers and cost overruns. The cost of sluggish construction contract payments climbed to $273 billion in 2023, representing 14%
Rice is the staple crop of more than half of the world’s population. Demand is growing with the rising population in South and Southeast Asia. However, a significant portion of rice farming still relies on traditional cultivation methods that lead to substantial methane emissions, which are a major contributor to climate change — methane is
The collapse and bankruptcy of BaaS fintech Synapse has revealed how treacherous things are for the often-interdependent fintech world when one key player hits trouble. Synapse operated a service that allowed others (mainly fintechs) to embed banking services into their offerings. For instance, a software provider that specialized in payroll for 1099 contractor-heavy businesses used
For some, AI fatigue is real — but clearly venture investors haven’t grown tired of the category. In the first half of 2024 alone, more than $35.5 billion was invested into AI startups globally, recent Crunchbase data found. Five of the six venture rounds of more than $1 billion raised in the first half of 2024
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
Archer Aviation and Southwest Airlines are teaming up to figure out what it will take to build out a network of electric air taxis at California airports. Southwest’s customer data is at the heart of it. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding Friday, which sets the foundation for Archer to tap Southwest’s customer
When Keith Rabois announced he was leaving Founders Fund to return to Khosla Ventures in January, it came as a shock to many in the venture capital ecosystem — and not just because Rabois is a big name in the industry. It was surprising because unlike in many other fields, venture capitalists don’t traditionally move
Meta announced former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will no longer be subject to heightened suspension penalties, according to an updated blog post on Friday. The company says it made the decision to ensure all Presidential nominees were on equal footing on their platform ahead of the 2024 Presidential election. When Meta reinstated
Canadian private equity firm PartnerOne has acquired HeadSpin in a fire sale, TechCrunch has learned exclusively. And most of its former employees received nothing for their options, according to multiple sources. HeadSpin is the mobile app testing company whose founder was sentenced to prison for fraud earlier this year. In total, HeadSpin raised $117 million
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. This week we’re looking at an AI startup that wants to help people get creative with video; Kudos, which raised $3 million to help get rid
The founders of HERO Software didn’t start out to help small tradespeople in construction with a platform. They started out to fight the climate crisis. But in doing so, they stumbled on a way to help the whole business. Now, the company has closed a €40 million Series B financing round, and plans to expand
Joby Aviation is still a year away from commercially launching its electric air taxi designed for urban environments, but the startup is already looking toward its next chapter: intercity flight, powered by hydrogen. To get the conversation started with regulators and demonstrate hydrogen’s capabilities, Joby told TechCrunch that it completed a 523-mile test flight with
Medal, a startup that is better known for its video game clipping product, just announced that it has raised $13 million at a valuation of $333 million from several investors, including Horizons Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Peak6 and Arcadia Investment Partners. The company also unveiled Highlight, a new cross-platform desktop app that acts as a contextual
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is shipping a pair of its specialized magnets to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the startup exclusively told TechCrunch. The move comes years before CFS anticipates starting its demonstration reactor, SPARC. It’s the first such deal, though possibly not the last, suggesting that the fusion sector has matured to the point where it
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