Daily Crunch: OpenAI, Anthropic and Stability AI receive half of Sound Ventures’ $240M AI fund
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Happy Google Day! There’s been a wall of interesting news coming out of the search-and-everything-else-too giant at its I/O event. Christine summarized everything Google has announced at I/O thus far, so that’s […]
The Mint, started by Better Tomorrow Ventures, wants to be the accelerator fintech needs
Better Tomorrow Ventures’ Sheel Mohnot landed some of his biggest wins before he ever started a venture firm. The investor previously worked as a partner at 500, previously known as 500 Startups, where he raised and ran a dedicated fintech fund as well as helped build an accelerator. There he met his eventual founding partner […]
SoLo Funds settles lawsuit over predatory lending accusations in District of Columbia
The District of Columbia Attorney General today announced an agreement with SoLo Funds, a fintech company that enables peer-to-peer lending, to settle a lawsuit that alleged SoLo Funds engaged in predatory lending practices. The practices alleged include Los Angeles-based SoLo Funds not telling customers “the true cost of the loans on its platform” and that […]
Yeah, tech growth is slowing down
Shares of Amplitude, Airbnb and Twilio are down sharply this morning following their earnings results yesterday. It might seem odd to group these companies together given the different sectors they operate in: Amplitude does digital product analytics, Airbnb provides a marketplace for consumer lodging rentals, and Twilio sells communications services for software products via APIs. […]
Triumph raises $14M for an SDK to add real-money tournaments into games
The surge of interest in e-sports, online fantasy leagues and more extensive online financial infrastructure have made the concept of real-money gaming more popular among consumers and games developers. Today a startup called Triumph — which has built an engine, and accompanying SDK, to power real-money tournaments — is announcing $14.1 million funding to continue […]
3 days left until Disrupt prices increase
Three days, 72 hours or 4,320 minutes. No matter how you calculate it, time is running out for you to score an early-bird pass to TechCrunch Disrupt and save up to $800. Go to TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 for a lot less Early-bird pricing disappears this Friday, May 12 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Buy your pass […]
Vanguard trims Indian ride-hailing giant Ola’s valuation by 35%
Ola, an Indian ride-hailing startup, has seen its valuation trimmed by its backer Vanguard amid a weakening global economy that has significantly impacted market capitalizations across numerous public companies. Vanguard cut the valuation of Ani Technologies, Ola’s holding firm, by 35% as of the end of the February, it disclosed in its semi-annual report to […]
AI2 Incubator’s new $30M fund triples down on early stage AI startups
The AI startup world may be getting hotter by the day, but there’s a difference between a startup that uses AI and an AI-first startup — and the Allen Institute for AI prides itself on fostering the latter in its AI2 Incubator. Their previous $10 million fund did so well that the backers have returned […]
Last call to register for today’s filming of TechCrunch Live with Persona and Index Ventures
Identity management used to mean making sure you had your drivers license when you left the house, but these days it’s not so easy: identity fundamentally underpins how we engage with the digital world, and identity services can take on many forms (and abuses). Now things are getting even more interesting: the big advances we’re […]
How do you know when it’s time to shut down?
Hello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha spoke to Kristen Anderson, the co-founder and CEO […]
