Author: TechBrunch

AI-powered search engine Perplexity has reportedly completed a $500 million funding round, valuing the startup at $9 billion. The round was led by Institutional Venture Partners and closed in early December, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. In an email to TechCrunch, a Perplexity spokesperson declined to comment. As competition in AI-powered search intensifies, huge tranches emerge. OpenAI recently launched ChatGPT Search, its answer to Perplexity. And Google is developing features that rival some of the features Perplexity offers, such as AI-generated summaries and answers on search results pages. This week, The Information reported that Google is planning…

Logistics are the name of the game during the holiday season. During this period, companies that can close contracts and get people and goods where they need to go on time will make money. But behind that demand lies massive inefficiency and fragmentation. Are logistics companies ready to leverage AI to help improve their services? A startup called Boon believes the answer is yes. The company has now raised $20.5 million to prove it by providing a platform that can better leverage data from disparate applications to improve operations, planning, and overall efficiency. “Think of Boon as your second employee…

Accounting firms are struggling to implement high-tech solutions. This is according to a survey conducted by Rightsworks earlier this year, which found that while 88% of businesses believe technology is having a positive impact on their efficiency, 60% believe that systems are disconnected, inconsistent, etc. Processes were found to suffer from a lack of standardized workflows. Startups like Aiwyn are trying to meet the demand. Founded in 2020 and based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Aiwyn sells software designed to address the revenue cycle aspects of CPA businesses. Aiwyn's platform automates and reconciles payments and invoices for both CPAs and their…

TuSimple completes its transformation from self-driving trucking to AI animation and gaming with a rebrand. The company will now be known as CreateAI. The rebranding comes as TuSimple is embroiled in controversy over the company's plans to move its remaining U.S. assets to China to finance new business ventures, which it first announced in August. TuSimple closed its U.S. self-driving truck business and was delisted from the stock market in January 2024, three years after raising $1.35 billion in an IPO. The company initially planned to restart operations in China, but parted ways with most of its self-driving staff earlier…

Former Twitch CEO Emmett Shea is launching a new AI startup, TechCrunch has learned. The startup, called Stem AI, is currently in stealth mode. However, public documents show that the company was founded in June 2023 and filed for a trademark in August 2023. Mr. Shear is listed as CEO in the company's incorporation documents filed with the California Secretary of State earlier this year. According to the trademark filing, Stem AI is developing software to create AI that “understands, collaborates with, and harmonizes with human behavior, human preferences, human biology, human morals, and human ethics.” The startup welcomed Andreessen…

Real estate venture Fifth Wall is raising a new $500 million fund called Fifth Wall React, according to a regulatory filing. The eight-year-old company, led by co-founder and CEO Brendan Wallace (pictured), has raised an $866 million fund, making it the largest venture fund focused on real estate technology. It already has $3.2 billion in capital under management, including raising at the end of 2022. Startup. Fifth Wall also closed a $500 million fund in early 2022 to invest in real estate climate technologies aimed at decarbonizing the real estate industry. The new fund is important because proptech has been…

Anysphere, the company behind the AI-powered coding assistant Cursor, has raised $100 million in Series B, giving it a post-money valuation of $2.6 billion, according to sources familiar with the deal. The round was led by returning investor Thrive Capital, the person said. This new funding comes just four months after Anysphere raised a $60 million Series A from Thrive and Andreessen Horrowitz at a valuation of $400 million. A16Z also participated in the latest round, but this time it was not a co-lead. Thrive declined to comment, and the company and a16z did not respond to requests for comment.…

What if you could generate a usable 3D design as easily as prompting ChatGPT? That's the mission of Backflip, a startup founded by 3D printing veterans. Backflip just secured $30 million from Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates, and many other big names in the tech world. Designing physical objects often requires hours or days of specialized work using computer-aided design software. Backflip CEO Greg Mark and CTO David Benhaim, both founders of 3D printing company Markforged, want to cut that down to minutes thanks to Backflip's new foundational model. “AI language models capture how we think, vision models capture how…

A new app called Tapestry that promises to unify social media, news, and RSS in one place is nearing completion. Designed by Iconfactory, the same team that created Twitterific, a third-party Twitter client at the time, Tapestry was introduced this year as a tool to better organize today's fragmented online media and allow users to keep track of their favorite blogs. It was announced first. News sites and social networks all in one app. The company released an update on Tapestry's progress this week, saying it plans to officially launch the app to the public in “early 2025.” “Obviously the…

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has teased an upcoming generative AI feature for the social app that will allow creators to “change almost every aspect” of their videos using text prompts. In a video shared on Thursday, Mosseri said the editing tool leverages Meta's Movie Generation AI model and is expected to be rolled out on social networks sometime next year. “We're working on some really exciting AI tools for video creators,” Mosseri said. “So many of you are creating the great content that makes Instagram what it is, and we want to give you even more tools to bring your…