AI hardware has taken a new form with the $99 Friend necklace, a pendant that gives you an AI friend you can talk to, but that's it. Friend's pitch is that the wearable helps fight loneliness, but other AI hardware products that have recently hit the market, such as Humane's Ai Pin and Rabbit's r1, have failed to live up to expectations. Even OpenAI, a leader in the field, released its ultra-realistic AI assistant later than expected and only today to a small “alpha group” of users, making it difficult to evaluate the product's capabilities.
But there's one AI buddy that seems to hit the mark, at least from a user design perspective: Heeyo and its chatbot and learning platform for kids. Rebecca Bellan covered Heeyo's launch exclusively for TechCrunch.
That's not all we talked about on TechCrunch's Equity podcast today.
On the flip side of AI are deepfakes and hallucinations. The team touched on this topic, noting that Meta's AI assistant hallucinated when it said there was no assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. Rebecca asked Devin Caldway if he thinks AI companies should be more careful to prevent users from asking questions about sensitive topics until they can resolve the hallucinations, and whether they think users should be prevented from making deepfakes about certain high-profile figures, especially in an election year. His answer? Yes, but it might not be as easy as it seems.
Kirsten Kolosec led a discussion on FranChease, a Chicago-based startup that allows people to invest in franchise businesses with as little as $500, with the goal of providing passive income and portfolio diversification. Apparently, a lot of Gen Z and millennials are investing in franchises through the platform, which just raised $4.2 million in a seed round led by Chicago Ventures with participation from The Pitch Fund and Littlquidity Ventures. When Kirsten asked Rebecca if she would invest in a franchise as a millennial, her answer might surprise you:
Kirsten and Rebecca also spoke about London-based Kennet, a 25-year-old growth equity investor that has just raised $287 million for its largest fund to date. Kennet is a growth fund. Kennet's approach is interesting in that it focuses on founder-owned, bootstrapped B2B SaaS companies, which makes it potentially more capital efficient.
Finally, the team discussed VC trends. Specifically, Alex Cook, a former partner at Tiger Global who oversaw the firm's largest fintech investments and India deals, has left the firm after nearly seven years. Cook is the latest VC to leave the firm before a fund has closed and a return is expected. Something must be going on.
This episode was a lot of fun, so be sure to give it a listen!
Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo and posted every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and allcasts.
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