Author: TechBrunch
CRV, a more than 50-year-old venture firm, will return $275 million to investors from a $500 million select fund that supports late-stage rounds of existing portfolio companies, The New York Times reported. The company was one of the first Silicon Valley companies to return committed capital to investors. (We reported yesterday that Peak XV, India's largest venture investor, is cutting the size of a small number of its funds.) CRV Partners said they recognized that the company's investments in subsequent rounds of many companies would reduce overall returns. The company raised Select Fund along with a $1 billion fund for…
The proliferation of robots like Boston Dynamics' Spot has demonstrated the versatility of quadrupeds. These systems are useful for climbing stairs, crossing small obstacles, and navigating uneven terrain. But ladders still have big problems. Especially considering that ladders are always present in factories and other industrial environments where the system is installed. ETH Zurich, which has led some of the most exciting quadruped robot research in recent years, has set out its future direction. As the school points out, past attempts to tackle ladders have primarily used bipedal humanoid robots and specialized ladders, but ultimately proved too slow and ineffective.…
We recently asked Meta if it trains its AI on the photos and videos users take with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Initially, the company did not have much to say. Since then, Meta has added a little more color to TechCrunch. This means that any images you share with Meta AI can be used to train that AI. “[I]”Where Multimodal AI is available (currently in the United States and Canada), images and videos shared with Meta AI may be used to make improvements in accordance with our Privacy Policy,” said Emil, Meta Policy Communications Manager. Vazquez said in an email…
A group of leading healthcare organizations specializing in cancer treatment has entered into a partnership to better leverage the potential of AI to advance the field. With $40 million in cash and resources from leading technology backers, the Cancer AI Alliance (CAIA) could be a major step forward in precision medicine. Members of the alliance include Fred Hutchinson, Johns Hopkins University, Dana-Farber, and Sloan Kettering, specifically the cancer research arms of these organizations, who are coordinating the new effort. Tom Lynch, president and president of Fred Hutch, made the remarks on stage at the Intelligent Applications Summit in Seattle, where…
Ali Rowghani, a former Y Combinator managing director and former Twitter executive, is launching a venture company called Maxq. Maxq is targeting $250 million for its debut fund, Maxq Fund I, according to SEC filings. The company will focus on seed-stage investments, Axios reported on Wednesday. According to Axios, Loughani's former YC colleagues Mia Mabanta, Simon Lu and JJ Fliegelman are all expected to participate. Mr. Rowghani previously headed YC's Continuity Fund. The fund was a vehicle to realize YC's pro rata rights and invest in select late-stage rounds of YC companies. The fund was established in 2015, but YC…
Hello everyone, welcome to TechCrunch's regular AI newsletter. If you'd like to have this sent to your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. After a short hiatus, we're back with some show notes for OpenAI's DevDay. The keynote address, delivered yesterday morning in San Francisco, was notable for its subdued tone, in contrast to CEO Sam Altman's raucous, hypebeast-like speech last year. This DevDay, Altman wasn't on stage to pitch his shiny new project. He didn't even show up. Moderated by Olivier Godement, Head of Platform Products. Improving quality of life was on the agenda for this OpenAI DevDays, the…
ChatGPT maker OpenAI has closed its largest VC round in history. The startup announced today that it has raised $6.6 billion in a funding round that values OpenAI at $157 billion pre-money. The new cash, led by previous investor Thrive Capital, brings OpenAI's total funding to approximately $17.8 billion, according to Crunchbase. “The new funding will allow us to double down on our leadership in frontier AI research, increase our computing power, and continue to build tools that help people solve tough problems,” the company said in a blog post. said. “We are grateful to our investors for placing their…
JB Hunt, a transportation and freight network giant, is looking for software and digital products that will help it accelerate its business, adapt to the modern world, and even dominate its industry. And it's using startup incubator UP.Labs to help build it. On Wednesday, at the UP.Summit event in Bentonville, Arkansas, the companies announced a logistics and freight venture lab that will launch up to six startups over the next three years. The first of these startups will be launched in 2025 and will focus on some of the biggest problems in logistics and freight. UP.Labs is not structured like…
Poolside, an AI-powered software development platform, has raised $500 million in new funding. The cash came in the form of a Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from big tech players like eBay (via eBay Ventures) and Nvidia. This brings Poolside's total funding to $626 million. Bloomberg reported that the startup is currently valued at $3 billion. TechCrunch revealed this summer that Poolside is in the midst of raising a significant amount of funding. Poolside, which has offices in the US and Europe, was founded last year by CEOs Jason Warner and Eiso Kant, both software engineers.…
Competition in the email market is fierce. After Apple's iOS 18 introduced a number of Gmail-like features to Apple's Mail app, including categorizing transactions, updates, and promotions and adding smart replies (in the upcoming iOS 18.1 update), Google on Wednesday announced a series of announced the functionality of Also includes enhancements to Gmail. Google's popular email service now lets users better organize and take actions like tracking packages, checking in for flights, setting reminders, and marking bills as paid right in their inbox. , a revamped “Summary Card” is added. The company says summary cards visually organize information from all…