Author: TechBrunch
Back in 2016, Hammad Syed and former WhatsApp engineer Mahmoud Felfel thought it would be a good idea to build a Chrome extension with text-to-speech functionality for Medium articles. This extension allows you to read Medium stories aloud and was featured on Product Hunt. A year later, it spawned an entire business. “We saw a huge opportunity in helping individuals and organizations create realistic audio content for their applications,” Syed told TechCrunch. “We can now deploy human-quality voice experiences faster than ever before without having to build our own models.” Syed and Felfel's company, PlayAI (formerly PlayHT), bills itself as…
Entrepreneur Marc Lore has already sold both companies for a combined billion dollars. He now plans to take food delivery and takeout business Wonder public within the next few years at an ambitious valuation of $40 billion. We recently spoke with Lore in person in New York about Wonder and its ultimate goal of making meal planning easier, but we also touched on Lore's business philosophy. Below is some of what he had to say about the latter, lightly edited for length and clarity. The lore of so-called founder mode is that founders and CEOs proactively collaborate with their direct…
Looking ahead to 2024, Mike Packer, a partner at fintech-focused QED Investors, predicted that funding for fintech startups in Latin America will bottom out by the end of the year. Although the momentum was not straight to the top right, Packer's prediction may have been correct. With one month left in this year, the amount of venture capital invested in fintech companies based in Latin America has already surpassed that of 2023. According to PitchBook data, $2.6 billion has been invested in 174 deals so far in 2024. This compares to $1.5 billion invested in 241 deals in 2023. Although…
VC Jenny Fielding, co-founder of Everywhere Ventures and former Techstars managing director, was basically trolling X when she posted”Do you guys have strong opinions about pre-seed founders having EAs to help them schedule? Just checking.” Fielding told TechCrunch that she knew the post was “a little mean,” but it generated a lot of buzz. Some have suggested that early-stage founders could simply use an AI executive assistant. Others were upset that venture capitalists implied that they shouldn't hire people to back their companies, even in their early stages. However, Fielding pointed out that founders still harbor misconceptions from the 2020-2021…
There is immense power in being in control of your own data. As ownership and governance of apps and online services becomes more consolidated, it makes sense that you will want to consider your options for where your personal data and records of your daily activities are stored. Fortunately, not all services out there seek to monetize personal data, and many are just as good (and often better) than their commercial or ad-supported rivals. (I can't say it's better.) Take a moment and think about what you want to leave behind. Is it a large technology company storing your data?…
On October 21st, a new ticker was made available to Nasdaq traders. NBIS is part of Nebius, a startup in the AI cloud infrastructure space. The path to IPO for most startups has been devoid of much of the usual fanfare, so it's no wonder casual observers wonder where this company came from. There was no roadshow either. The horn doesn't sound either. There will be no confetti ceremony. Nothing is voyeuristic. That's because Nebius is an unusual company. Although we are a publicly traded company, we are a startup in almost every sense of the word. Nebius has actually…
You can make it look like you're on a Zoom call in the office, even when you're sipping margaritas in a faraway hammock. The proposition, courtesy of a months-old startup called Pickle, is simple. Simply submit a 5-minute training video of yourself to create an avatar and have it ready within 24 hours. Want to call a colleague from your car? No problem. Tired of getting out of bed? no problem. At a beach club? You're probably pushing it, but judging by the demo video, it's also ideal if no one on the call is paying “you” their undivided attention.…
Tesla and Rivian may have settled a lawsuit in which Tesla accused Rivian of poaching employees and stealing trade secrets. Tesla told a California judge that the two companies have reached a “conditional” settlement and plans to seek dismissal of the lawsuit by Dec. 24, Bloomberg reported. Tesla filed the lawsuit in 2020, and the trial was scheduled to begin in March. The EV maker claimed it had discovered an “alarming pattern” of Rivian recruiting Tesla employees and encouraging them to carry sensitive information while on the job. left. In response, Rivian filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, calling…
After more than two years of evading arrest following a hack that targeted some of the world's largest technology companies, U.S. authorities have finally announced that they have arrested at least some of the responsible hackers. In August 2022, security researchers issued a warning that a group of hackers targeted more than 130 organizations and stole the credentials of approximately 10,000 employees as part of a sophisticated phishing campaign. The hackers specifically targeted businesses using Okta, a single sign-on provider used by thousands of businesses around the world to allow employees to log in from home. Due to its focus…
The European Union looks to have clinched political agreement on the team of 26 commissioners who will be implementing President Ursula von der Leyen’s policy plan for the next five years. A final vote is still pending next week, but on Thursday, Politico’s Brussels Playbook newsletter reported a deal in the European Parliament on the appointments, suggesting it’s “now all but guaranteed” that the next European Commission will kick off on December 1. We’ve picked out three commissioner-designates to watch for tech policy moves as the next Commission takes up its five-year mandate, which runs into 2029, with responsibilities across…