Author: TechBrunch

TikTok announced Monday that it is rolling out its redesigned “subscriptions” monetization service to eligible creators in certain regions, including Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, the UK, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. The company said it plans to expand the feature to more markets in the coming weeks. The official release comes after TikTok announced in March that it was renaming its LIVE subscription monetization tool to “Subscriptions” and would soon expand it to non-LIVE creators. TikTok's subscription service is TikTok's answer to Patreon, a creator platform that allows creators to share exclusive content with paying subscribers. TikTok's…

As autonomous electric aviation startup Pyka works hard to expand its lineup of crop dusters and cargo planes, it's also garnering interest from a new and attractive target: the Department of Defense. The promise of climate-friendly, dual-use autonomous aircraft has also enticed investors, leading to a new $40 million B round of funding. Pyka was founded in 2019 to specialize in crop dusting, a vital yet very old-fashioned business that you may not personally see very often. The company's lightweight, compact, electric Pelican aircraft are designed to autonomously spray pesticides over large areas, relieving human pilots and remote-controlled operators of…

Spain and Portugal are vibrant European tech ecosystems, with many new startups and funding rounds announced in both countries. Barcelona-based Plus Partners was recently launched with the aim of closing a fund of $30-50 million; Yellow is a new venture capital firm launched with a €30 million fund; and Spanish venture capital firm Kfund has raised $75 million. Today, another Spanish firm, All Iron Ventures, is rebranding. It will now be known as Acurio Ventures, and is closing its third fund of $166 million (€150 million), which will only make “follow-on” investments and will not lead deals. The company, previously…

Cloudflare on Monday announced plans to launch a marketplace sometime next year where website owners can sell access to AI model providers to scrape their site's content. The marketplace is the latest step in Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince's larger plan to give publishers more control over when and how their AI bots scrape their websites. “If you don't compensate creators in some way, they're going to stop creating, and that's what needs to be solved,” Prince said in an interview with TechCrunch. As a means to get there, Cloudflare on Monday launched a free observability tool for customers called AI…

For a long time, RSS readers have followed an “Inbox Zero” design philosophy that shows you the unread count for each source. If you have more than a dozen feeds connected to your RSS reader, it can be hard to get to zero. Silvio Rizzi, the creator of the popular RSS app Reeder, wants to meet the needs of users who want to escape the pressure of unread counts by redesigning the app. Reeder's new avatar focuses on compatibility with more sources, such as YouTube channels, Mastodon and Bluesky feeds, Reddit channels, podcasts, comics, and more. Rizzi has no plans…

James McGinnis has been obsessed with decarbonization and the energy grid since he was in high school over a decade ago. Now his startup, David Energy, has the ambitious goal of running the energy grid entirely on clean energy within the next decade. Brooklyn-based David Energy is a software-enabled retail energy provider. The company sells electricity to small businesses and residential customers in select states, including New Jersey and Massachusetts, similar to Southern Company and Pacific Gas & Electric. But unlike those incumbents, the company is entirely focused on clean energy and helping customers optimize their energy usage and reap…

Jump, a French startup that offers a modern take on the umbrella company concept, has raised €11 million (about $12 million at current exchange rates) in a Series A funding round. Jump offers full-time contracts to freelancers looking for the stability and benefits that come with full-time work. The company acts only as a managing partner, while workers remain independent. They can work with multiple clients and negotiate contracts directly. Today's funding round was led by Breega, with participation from Index Ventures and Raise Ventures. The startup raised €4 million (about $4.5 million) in 2021. After signing up, freelancers can…

A new Financial Times profile of Masayoshi Son begins with the SoftBank CEO appearing to have hit rock bottom, staring at his “ugly” face on Zoom and telling himself he's “done nothing to be proud of.” The scene is being portrayed as a harbinger of an expected comeback for Son, who has largely disappeared from the public eye since SoftBank's Vision Fund suffered huge losses on investments including WeWork. Lionel Barber, author of a new Son biography, “Gambling Man,” says Son appeared to be “engaging in asceticism” but was actually “plotting a comeback.” Now SoftBank is betting big on AI,…

Legendary designer Jonathan Ive, who left his full-time role at Apple five years ago, is working on a new startup with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. The collaboration was first reported last year, and Ive confirmed it in a New York Times profile about his post-Apple activities. If the startup has a name, Ive hasn't revealed it, but it was apparently hatched during a dinner with Altman last year, where the two discussed the possibilities of generative AI. Ive's company, LoveFrom, is leading the design, and its profile states its goal is to create “products that use AI to…

The IPO market is not rebounding sharply in 2024 as many investors had hoped — at least not yet. Rising interest rates (despite a 50 basis point cut this week) and uncertainty related to the U.S. election are causing many companies to remain private, waiting for market conditions to improve. However, several companies did go public this spring, including Ibotta, a business rewards platform that builds back-end rewards program infrastructure for corporate clients such as Walmart and Exxon. It listed on the New York Stock Exchange on April 18. The company priced its IPO at $117 per share, above its…