Author: TechBrunch

Less than two months after Fluid Truck's board of directors ousted the brother co-founders from executive positions, the company has laid off 30% of its workforce and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. and found a potential buyer to take over the business while the court case is pending. It has been approved, according to the bankruptcy filing and information from former employees. As of today, Fluid has also been approved for a $7 million loan on an interim basis to continue operations through the end of the year and to finance the restructuring and sale process. The bankruptcy filing…

Acrew Capital raises $700 million in new funding. The San Francisco-based venture capital firm announced in a blog post Thursday that it has raised $700 million in investments in companies building data and security, healthcare, or fintech. With this latest funding, the company has $1.7 billion in assets under management. How much of the $700 million will go toward the company's early-stage strategy, which invests $1 million to $15 million in seed and Series A companies, and its discovery strategy, which cuts checks from $10 million to $20. It is unclear how much will be used. $1 million for Series…

Welcome to Startups Weekly — a weekly roundup of must-sees from the world of startups. Want it delivered to your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week brought us some exciting funding news from around the world, and even some exits. But if you're looking for a tech IPO, you need to look to India. Meanwhile, in the U.S., startups could help reduce the environmental impact of data centers. This week's most interesting startup stories Image credit: Tablespace Although we were once again reminded that not all startups succeed, even with YC backing, as mentioned above, there are a…

How much of a stake in OpenAI would Microsoft get if it became a commercial company? That's the multibillion-dollar question that both countries are racing to answer before a two-year deadline. This is a problem. The Wall Street Journal reports that both Microsoft and OpenAI have hired investment banks to negotiate Microsoft's stake, which could be worth a significant amount. The tech giant is said to have poured nearly $14 billion into OpenAI. As of October, OpenAI was the second most valuable startup in the US after SpaceX. Among other issues, Microsoft and OpenAI will need to resolve how much…

Social networking startup Bluesky, which reported an increase of 500,000 users in the past day, jumped to the top five apps in the US App Store, moving up from No. 1 in the social networking category. It became the second most popular app. A week ago, the number was 181, according to data from app intelligence company Appfigures. We understand this growth is completely organic, as Appfigures confirmed that the company does not run any App Store search ads. Moreover, growth is not limited to the US market. Compared to last Wednesday, downloads have increased by four digits in many…

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Devin Coldewey, Margaux MacColl, and Anthony Ha round up this week's startup and venture news, highlighting the $400 million Lightmatter raised and the importance of high-speed networking in fast-growing data centers. It starts with sex. Changes in the industry today, as well as in the coming years, will make this impressive round a little more understandable. This week's sale continues with Paladin's Drone Play for first responders and law enforcement, and Abel, which aims to reduce the substantial backlog of paperwork that police officers encounter in their daily duties. Margaux said Abel founder Daniel Francis…

More than two years after Nebius, formerly known as Yandex and now focused on cloud infrastructure for the use of AI (also known as “AI computing”), was suspended from trading by the Nasdaq due to economic sanctions, The company plans to start trading on the open market again. In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Netherlands-based company is in a somewhat unique position as it races to become one of Europe's major players in the fast-growing “GPU as a Service” space. Although it's a new business, being a publicly traded company means anyone can invest in it…

Byju Raveendran, founder of embattled edtech group Byju's, said on Thursday afternoon that he had made mistakes, mistimed the market, overestimated growth potential, and once said 220 He admitted that the value of his startup, which was valued at $1 billion, is now effectively “zero.” Raveendran told reporters that the company's aggressive acquisition of more than 20 startups to expand into new markets proved fatal when funding dried up in 2022. Bijouzu plans to go public in early 2022, and said multiple investment bankers have given the company a solid valuation. TechCrunch previously reported that the amount could reach $50…

The New York Times reported Thursday on OpenAI's “fraying” relationship with its investor, partner, and increasingly rival Microsoft, and their five-year romance has been linked to limited computing reported that the ability of OpenAI to cool down due to economic pressure. Microsoft offers OpenAI, but there are disagreements between the two regarding the basic principles. Perhaps most attractively, OpenAI's deal with Microsoft provides that if OpenAI develops so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI), an AI system with capabilities comparable to human thinking, it will be granted access to Microsoft's technology. This is probably a clause reported in OpenAI's contract with Microsoft…

Despite Saudi Arabia's record of human rights abuses, some investors have become more willing to invest in the country's startups. General Catalyst plans to invest in Saudi Arabia-based fintech startup Lean Technology, marking its first investment in a Middle Eastern country, the Information reported. Other Saudi startups recently backed by US-based investors include lending platform Tamara, which received capital from Kochu Management last year. Although not a direct investment, Flow, a co-living startup founded by Adam Newman and backed by a16z, has opened an apartment complex in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Sanabil Investments, the venture arm of Saudi…