Author: TechBrunch
Isabella Vincenza, one of CloudKitchens' early employees, never imagined she'd end up suing her former employer. Hired as a full-time sales rep in 2018, she became a fixture at CEO Travis Kalanick's President's Club dinners at his Bel Air home in 2020 and 2021. These dinners were invitation-only events exclusively for the top salespeople at CloudKitchens, a company that provides “ghost kitchens,” or delivery-only commercial kitchens. The get-together began with cocktails by the pool. Afterward, attendees mingled indoors and sat down to a chef-prepared dinner. Vincenza recalled that Kalanick greeted her with hugs and complimented her work. At times, he…
Moxie helps nurses open medi-spas by providing most of the tools they need to run their business, from invoicing software and marketing services to discount supplies. The startup raised a $10 million Series B led by existing investor Lachy Groom of Solo Venture Capital, with participation from SignalFire. The round comes just a year after the startup disclosed a $15.7 million Series A, which valued Moxie at nearly triple its previous valuation. “Our business has grown more than fourfold in the last year,” Moxie founder and CEO Dan Friedman said. “We didn't need the cash because we still had more…
There are only a few opportunities left to save up to $600 on individual tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. This limited-time offer ends on September 27th at 11:59PM PST, so this is your last chance to grab some great deals before the final countdown begins. Disrupt 2024 is the startup world's ultimate gathering: join 10,000 tech innovators, startup founders, and venture capital leaders at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 28-30. With 200+ sessions, 250+ expert talks, and endless networking opportunities, this event is the perfect destination for anyone serious about shaping the future of tech. Don't miss out:…
If your startup has even a passing connection to dealing with data pipelines, you're probably wondering how to take advantage of the current situation. Enterprises are looking for ways to get the most out of their data to power their generative AI products, and they need robust data services to do so. Founded in 2020, Airbyte started with a focus on building a low-code/no-code open-source data integration platform. Since then, Airbyte has raised $181.2 million in total, including a massive $150 million Series B round that came at a somewhat unconventional time in late 2021. Four years later, the company…
Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) has stepped out of the critic role and into the builder mindset. This week, he released a wallpaper app for iOS and Android called Panels. The app features a curated selection of high-quality digital wallpapers from artists, but of course, there's a catch: To get access to the high-resolution wallpapers without ads, users have to shell out about $50 a year, or $12 a month. With nearly 20 million subscribers on YouTube, Brownlee is a major influence in technology reviews. Brownlee is so influential that he has been accused of causing the collapse of high-profile…
AI is notoriously bad at lying, but Microsoft has announced that there's a way to fix that. Naturally, some will be skeptical, but there's reason to be skeptical. Microsoft today rolled out Correction, a service that automatically corrects AI-generated text that is factually incorrect. Correction first flags text that may be in error (for example, a summary of a company's quarterly earnings call that may be misquoted), and then compares that text against sources of truth (such as a transcript) to verify the facts. Correction, available as part of Microsoft's Azure AI Content Safety API, can be used with any…
Kian Katanforush had one of the best mentors in the AI world: renowned researcher Andrew Ng, who also served as Katanforush's advisor at Stanford University's graduate school. The two launched Stanford's deep learning program, and Ng is now chairman of Katanforush's startup, Workera. Ng was a key mentor in Katanforush's career, and now, as CEO of Workera, he's trying to figure out what makes a good mentor and automate it through his new AI agent, Sage. “I trust Andrew because I understand his background and his expertise, but how many people like Andrew are there in the world? There aren't…
TikTok has been building out its search products over the past few years to compete with Google, and now it's furthering its search ambitions by allowing advertisers to target its search results pages. On Tuesday, TikTok announced the launch of “TikTok Search Ad Campaigns,” a new keyword-based search solution that will allow brands to appear in search results. Ads already appear on TikTok's search result pages, but brands will now have full control over how their content appears on those pages. Given TikTok's influence on users' shopping behavior, it makes sense for the company to offer brands a way to…
Spotify first released its AI playlist tool to premium subscribers in the UK and Australia, before expanding its availability to the US, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. Currently in beta on Android and iOS devices, the feature allows users to create personalized playlists based on written prompts. For example, users can type in “A romantic playlist to listen to for date night at home” and receive a customized selection of songs to fit that mood. You can further refine your playlists by adding prompts, and Spotify also offers prompt suggestions. The company encourages you to combine genres, moods, artists, and…
Snap has entered into an expanded partnership with Google Cloud to power generative AI experiences within Snapchat's My AI chatbot, which will leverage the multimodal capabilities of Google's Gemini AI to understand different types of information, including text, voice, images and video. Gemini joins the Google Lens-like features Snapchat announced last week at the company's annual Snap Partner Summit. For example, users can ask Snap's My AI to translate a photo of a foreign road sign or ask a chatbot to choose the healthiest option on a menu. Snap first launched My AI in February 2023. At launch, the chatbot…