Author: TechBrunch

Hummingbirds is a woman-founded startup that connects hyperlocal content creators with homegrown brands like coffee shops and grocery store chains to share and market their products to small, engaged communities through social media. Reward those who help. The company announced a $5.4 million seed round on Wednesday, bringing its total funding to $10 million. The new capital will support the platform's expansion to 20 additional cities by 2025, including Atlanta, Georgia. Charlotte, North Carolina. and Denver, Colorado. Launched last year, the platform is betting on localized word-of-mouth marketing for brands to build trust with local customers. Small business owners often…

Welcome to the third and final day of TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 at Moscone West in San Francisco! The excitement here is still at its peak and shows no signs of slowing down. If you thought it was too late to join, think again. There's still time to register and get involved. Today we bring you some of our most anticipated stage sessions, with insights from trailblazers like Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and founder and CEO of Automattic. Colin Kaepernick, former NFL quarterback and Lumi CEO. Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, and others. Plus, we'll soon find out…

People are generally skeptical of customer service chatbots, and many openly despise them. In a recent Gartner survey, 64% of consumers said they prefer companies not to use any type of AI, including chatbots, in customer service. 53% even said that if a company were to consider replacing human agents with AI, they would consider switching to a rival. Alex Levin, a former product manager at Thomson Reuters and former senior vice president of growth at Handy, believes most people dislike chatbots because they've had bad experiences with them in the past. “Contact center teams are often given only cost-cutting…

Archon Biosciences, a biotech startup that uses AI to design new biomolecules, just emerged from stealth with an impressive $20 million in seed funding. The company aims to enhance antibody treatments using specially designed protein “cages” that double their effectiveness and open new opportunities for drug development. It is the first company to be formed independently of the Baker Institute, a research institute at the University of Washington directed by pioneering computational biologist and recent Nobel Prize winner David Baker. His team's research into generative protein design using AI and other means is fundamental to a rapidly evolving industry, and…

Swiggy, one of India's largest food delivery and quick commerce startups, is seeking a valuation of up to $11.3 billion in its initial public offering, which would represent a 57% discount to Zomato's market capitalization. The loss-making Bengaluru-based company has set an IPO price band of 371 to 390 rupees ($4.41 to $4.64) per share for next month's IPO. At the high end, this valuation represents only a small premium to the company's private market value of $10.7 billion in early 2022, and falls short of recent valuations by mutual fund investors Invesco and Baron. Swiggy aims to raise $1.34…

Meesho became India's first horizontal e-commerce company to generate positive cash flow, disrupting a market that had long remained unprofitable despite the emergence of new competitive threats. The SoftBank and Prosus-backed startup serves customers in India's smaller cities and towns and has a positive revenue of 232 million rupees ($27.6 million) in the fiscal year ending March 2024. Reported operating cash flow, operating revenue increased by 33% to 761.5 billion rupees ($905.6 million). Adjusted losses fell by 97% from Rs 1,569 billion to just Rs 53 billion. Meesho's growth still outpaces the surge in e-commerce in India. Analysts at Bank…

African venture capital firm Django Capital has closed its second fund with €73 million ($78 million), 20% more than its initial target of €60 million ($63 million). The firm has secured limited partners including the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), and achieved the fund's first close in 2022 at €26 million. Both anchor investors also participated in the fund's second closing, Janngo Capital founder Fatoumata Bâ told TechCrunch. Other institutional investors are also participating, including three with African mandates: the Mastercard Foundation African Growth Fund, Tunisia's Fund of Funds ANAVA, and Ghana-based university Assisi…

It's finally time to announce the five finalists of Startup Battlefield. It all started earlier this year, when the TechCrunch editorial team selected 200 companies from thousands of companies that applied. From there, the team selected 20 finalists who took to the stage this week at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in front of a jury of investors and a packed audience. This year's finalists will follow in the footsteps of Startup Battlefield legends like Dropbox, Discord, Cloudflare, Mint, and more on the Disrupt Stage. With more than 1,500 alumni participating in the program, Startup Battlefield Alumni has collectively raised more than…

iPod developer Nest Labs founder and investor Tony Fadell attacked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday during a lively interview at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco. Commenting on the long history of AI development prior to the LLM epidemic and understanding the serious issues surrounding LLM hallucinations, he said: Not Sam Altman, okay? ” The comment drew surprised “oohs” from the shocked crowd, amid a handful of applause. Mr. Fadel was on a roll throughout the interview, touching on topics ranging from what kind of “holes” can create great products to what's wrong with LLMs today. While he acknowledged…

Tony Fadell, the father of the iPod and founder of Nest, took to the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 on Tuesday to talk about how mission-driven a**holes are needed to build the next generation of deep tech startups. The entrepreneur and investor didn't hold back on stage to shout out Silicon Valley's rights and mock LLMs for being “know-it-alls,” sparking waves of laughter and applause throughout the packed venue. . Fadel explained why he believes “mission-driven a**holes are a good thing and, in fact, necessary to create and ship world-class technology products.” “People work with very difficult people, and they…