Author: TechBrunch

The funding landscape is changing rapidly, and in 2025 the old rules will no longer apply. Startups that survive flat, down, or extended rounds need to be more strategic than ever in securing their next round of funding. Traditional metrics like $100 million in IPO proceeds and $1 million Series A ARR are becoming obsolete. TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 explores the evolving dynamics that founders must understand to succeed in today's challenging capital markets. The Builders stage features a panel of respected experts who have lived through these changes and risen to the top. Nikhil Basu Trivedi, Co-Founder and General Partner…

Although the technology of 3D printing objects using metal is well established, it tends to be too complex, expensive, or imprecise to be adapted to traditional methods at scale. Freeform, which has raised $14 million from Nvidia and Boeing, aims to change that by building a game-changing new metal additive manufacturing process. And yes, there is also an AI perspective. Co-founders Eric Palitsch (CEO) and TJ Ronacher (President) both worked at SpaceX, where they served as lead architect and lead analyst for the Merlin engine and other programs, respectively. While there, they realized the potential of 3D printing parts using…

Following a series of controversies stemming from technical issues and licensing changes, AI startup Stability AI has announced its latest family of image generation models. The company claims that the new Stable Diffusion 3.5 series is more customizable, versatile, and offers improved performance than Stability's previous generation technology. There are three models in total. Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large: The most powerful model with 8 billion parameters that can generate images at up to 1 megapixel resolution. (Parameters roughly correspond to the model's problem-solving skills, and models with more parameters generally perform better than models with fewer parameters.) Stable Diffusion 3.5…

The clock is ticking! 6 days left until TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! Join 10,000 industry leaders from around the world at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 28th to 30th for groundbreaking discussions with top industry experts, elite networking, and an exciting show of the latest innovations. Witness cases and more. Time is running out! These remaining six days are your chance to save up to $400 on tickets. Once Moscone West opens, prices will jump to regular prices. This is also the last day to get Expo+ and Plus-1 passes at 50% off the price of a single pass.…

Interface.ai, a customer automation platform for banks and other financial institutions, today announced it has closed a $30 million funding round led by Avatar Venture Partners. $20 million of this round was in equity, with the remaining $10 million in the form of debt. This is Interface's first external capital. The startup was completely bootstrapped. “Interface is trusted by over 100 financial institutions across North America and processes millions of interactions every day,” CEO and co-founder Srinivas Njay told TechCrunch. “We generate tens of millions of dollars in recurring revenue annually.” Njay said the inspiration for Interface came from his…

Spotify is rolling out a feature that lets users design and customize cover art for their own playlists, the company announced Tuesday. Users can already upload custom images for their playlists, but this new feature will allow them to design their own cover art within the app. The feature is rolling out in 65 markets as a beta version of the Spotify mobile app on iOS and Android. Available to both free and premium users. To access this feature, select one of the playlists for which you want to create custom art. Next, tap the three-dot menu on the playlist…

Marc Andreessen, general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, spoke about AI at the Ray Summit conference earlier this month. CFO.com has selected the best quotes so you don't have to watch the entire interview. “All these companies are probably racing to the bottom,” Andreessen said when talking about large-scale language model (LLM) development. While this may be stating the obvious, many aspiring entrepreneurs and veteran investors take notice of Andreessen's story. As a reminder, his company is also an investor in OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. The VC participated in a $300 million round that valued OpenAI at…

James Malley, co-founder and CEO of Paccurate, likes to joke that once you step into the world of supply chain technology, you can't leave the category. Ten years ago, Marie and Patrick Powers were working together as consultants when they started getting asked the same questions over and over again. Customers wanted help reducing empty space in their shipping boxes to avoid newly introduced fees from shippers like FedEx and UPS. Unable to find any good software to solve their problem, Murray and Powers began considering solving the problem themselves. “We were interested in the butterfly effect in this problem…

Bose gave up on Sleepbuds after two generations. It was a sad, premature end to a promising product. This headphone maker came closer to creating truly great sleep headphones than anyone else. But ultimately, the company no longer seemed interested in pursuing that product, which was a major setback for the category as a whole. However, the two generations of Sleepbuds we got weren't without their drawbacks. At the top of the list were cases of companies convinced that they know what consumers want better than the consumers themselves. The Buds' inability to stream Bluetooth audio is something Bose could…

WhatsApp on Tuesday announced a new feature that will allow users to save their contacts within the app. This means that even if you lose your phone or link a new device to your primary number, you'll still see all your contacts stored in WhatsApp's cloud storage. Until now, WhatsApp relied on your phone's contacts book to sync your contacts. If a new person messages you on the app and you want to save their details, that information will be saved locally on your device. This new feature is coming soon and will allow you to save your contacts on…