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03

Xaira, an AI drug discovery startup, launches with a massive $1B, says it’s ‘ready’ to start developing drugs

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Advances in generative AI have taken the tech world by storm. Biotech investors are making a big bet that similar computational methods could revolutionize drug discovery. On Tuesday, ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs, an affiliate…

02

Anduril moves ahead in Pentagon program to develop unmanned fighter jets

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Anduril Industries has taken another step forward in its quest to become the next great American prime, this time by beating out major defense companies to develop and test small unmanned fighter jet prototypes. The venture capital darling…

Wednesday, Apr 24

23

IBM moves deeper into hybrid cloud management with $6.4B HashiCorp acquisition

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With HashiCorp, Big Blue gets a set of cloud lifecycle management and security tools, and a company that is growing considerably faster than any of IBM’s other businesses.

Rabbit’s R1 is a little AI gadget that grows on you

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If there’s one overarching takeaway from last night’s Rabbit R1 launch event, it’s this: Hardware can be fun again. After a decade of unquestioned smartphone dominance, there is, once again, excitement to be found in consumer electronics.…

22

JioCinema, the Indian streaming service, launches 35-cent tier to box out Netflix and Prime Video

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JioCinema introduced new monthly subscription plan on Thursday, with the lowest tier costing just 35 cents.

Eric Schmidt-backed Augment, a GitHub Copilot rival, launches out of stealth with $252M

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Augment, a startup developing an AI-powered platform similar to GitHub's Copilot, has launched out of stealth valued at nearly $1 billion.

21

Radical thinks the time has come for solar-powered, high-altitude autonomous aircraft

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Though many eyes are on space as orbit develops into a thriving business ecosystem, Radical is keeping things a little closer to the ground — but not too close. Its high-altitude, solar-powered aircraft aim to succeed where Facebook’s…

Stripe, doubling down on embedded finance, de-couples payments from the rest of its stack

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Stripe continues to hold the title of being the biggest financial technology business still in private hands, with a current valuation of about $65 billion and a whopping $1 trillion in total processed payment volume last year alone. But…

Why code-testing startup Nova AI uses open source LLMs more than OpenAI

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Enterprises still don't trust OpenAI, while open source AI models are cheaper and more than sufficient for targeted specific tasks, Nova AI founder says.

TikTok ban signed into law by President Biden: How we got here, and what comes next

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TikTok faces an uncertain fate in the U.S. once again. A bill including a deadline for TikTok parent company Bytedance to divest within nine months or face a ban on app stores to distribute the app in the U.S., was signed by President Joe…

20

WhatsApp adds global support for passkeys on iOS

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WhatsApp is introducing support for passkey verification on iOS, removing the need for users to deal with SMS two-factor authentication.

Reddit is making it easier to navigate conversations on its mobile apps

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The company is launching a new unified media player, along with instant comment loading and a direct shortcut to conversations.

19

Dripos raises $11M Series A to replace Square, Toast and 8 other pieces of software

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Dripos brings together point-of-sale, mobile payments, employee management and payroll, loyalty and marketing automation and administrative functions like accounting and banking.

TechCrunch Minute: Perplexity AI could be worth up to $3B. Here’s why

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Perplexity AI‘s latest, large fundraising event could be quickly superseded by another, even larger chunk of capital, TechCrunch reports. Yes, the $62.7 million that the startup raised at just over a $1 billion valuation could be quickly…

Seed-stage firm Eniac Ventures raises $220M across two funds

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Eniac has raised $60 million for Select 1, the firm’s vehicle for follow-on later-stage investments, and $160 million for Eniac VI.

Stainless is helping OpenAI, Anthropic and others build SDKs for their APIs

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Stainless, a startup building a platform to generate SDKs from APIs, has raised a seed round of funding from Sequoia.

18

Biden signs bill that would ban TikTok if ByteDance fails to sell the app

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President Biden has signed a bill that would ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, fails to sell it within a year. The bill, which includes aid for Ukraine and Israel, was passed by the U.S. Senate in a 79-18 vote late…

Fintech gaming startup Sanlo’s webshop tool could help developers avoid costly app store fees

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Sanlo, a fintech startup that helps gaming companies manage finances, announced Wednesday the closed beta launch of its webshop tool, giving select game developers and studios a plug-and-play solution that works alongside their existing…

Anon is building an automated authentication layer for the GenAI age

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As the notion of the AI agent begins to take hold, and more tasks will be completed without a human involved, it is going to require a new kind of authentication to make sure only agents with the proper approval can access particular…

17

The TikTok ban clears key hurdle while Perplexity AI continues to shake up search

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Well, if you are a big TikTok fan and live in the United States, I have some bad news for you: A bill that would force a sale of TikTok or ban it in the United States passed the Senate. And the President is expected to sign it. Given that…

Nvidia acquires AI workload management startup Run:ai for $700M, sources say

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Nvidia is acquiring Run:ai, a Tel Aviv-based company that makes it easier for developers and operations teams to manage and optimize their AI hardware infrastructure, for an undisclosed sum. Two sources close to the matter tell TechCrunch…

Security bugs in popular phone-tracking app iSharing exposed users’ precise locations

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The location-sharing app iSharing, which has 35 million users, fixed vulnerabilities that exposed users' personal information and precise location data.

Block lets Square merchants convert a part of their daily sales to bitcoin

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Block, the company behind Square, Cash App and other services, announced a new program today allowing merchants using Square’s solutions to convert a percentage of their daily sales to bitcoin. The feature, rolling out in the U.S. starting…

Diddo’s new funding will bring its shoppable TV API to streaming platforms

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The company has developed an API that uses proprietary computer vision AI technology to identify products in TV shows and movies.

16

Spotify submits a new update to Apple with pricing information for EU users

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The music streaming company said it is not opting into Apple's new DMA changes that charge a "core technology fee" for developers with more than 1 million annual downloads.

Snowflake releases a flagship generative AI model of its own

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All-around, highly generalizable generative AI models were the name of the game once, and they arguably still are. But increasingly, as cloud vendors large and small join the generative AI fray, we’re seeing a new crop of models focused on…

Tomorrow, TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 takes over Boston

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Tomorrow is the day we’ve all been waiting for! TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 kicks off in Boston, and we can’t wait to see you there! We’re expecting 1,000+ attendees for a full day of all things early-stage startups. As you gear up for an…

15

UK probes Amazon and Microsoft over AI partnerships with Mistral, Anthropic and Inflection

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The UK is launching initial enquiries into Amazon and Microsoft over partnerships with AI companies Mistral, Anthropic, and Inflection.

Tines taps $50M to expand its workflow automation beyond security teams

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Automation continues to be a major theme in the enterprise — underscored not least by the rise of AI as a tool to help fix some of the more routine, resource-intensive and fragmented aspects of how security and other IT functions operate.…

Former Magic Leapers launch a platform for AR experiences

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When Trace’s future co-founders Greg Tran, Martin Smith and Sean Couture joined Magic Leap in Spring/Summer 2015, it was about as hot as startups come. After years of secrecy, the augmented reality company captured Silicon Valley’s…