Author: TechBrunch
Regulatory compliance is becoming a costly challenge for financial institutions: A recent survey found that 76% of financial services companies are increasing their compliance spending from 2022 to 2023, mostly due to new legislation. With compliance costs averaging roughly $10,000 per employee these days, many companies are looking for ways to cut spending without running afoul of regulators. Entrepreneurs Nir Laznik and Eyal Peleg say they've followed the trend and developed a solution that leverages generative AI. Lasnick and Peleg co-founded Sedric, an AI-powered platform designed to help financial institutions enforce compliance rules and flag potential issues. Prior to founding…
More than a year ago, Eben Pingree, a former Session M executive, received news that his mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Two days later, his father-in-law received the same diagnosis. To help her three young children build lasting bonds with their grandparents and create lasting memories, Pingree, along with co-founders Mike Gerbush, Ashley Hawking, and Brianne Baker, developed Kinsome, a communications platform designed to help kids and grandparents share daily updates and preserve cherished memories. The app has been in beta since last year and was officially released to the public on Thursday, just before Grandparents' Day. In…
European regulators are pushing hard for the adoption of greener energy, with the REPowerEU plan to add 10 million heat pumps by 2027, and solar panels are also on the rise. However, most installations are carried out by small and medium-sized businesses, where improving work processes could increase productivity. That's where German startup Reonic comes in. “We provide renewable energy installers with the tools to work extremely efficiently. We do this primarily by providing planning and workflow software,” says co-founder Tristan Menzinger (seated on the right in the photo above). Menzinger, Lars-Manuel Schneider (sitting center in the photo above), and…
As someone who often speaks to many people outside my time zone, I often spend at least a few minutes on a video call explaining my location, the time, and the weather. Communicating that information has just become easier thanks to a Mac app called Boom, now available as a freemium product. Boom is a bootstrap company founded by ex-Shopify employees Robleh Jama and Krishna Satya. The app works with all major video conferencing apps, including Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc. Once installed, you can add customized themes to your video call display, including your name, title, location, time,…
If you spend any time on sarcastic meme-heavy platforms like X or Threads, you've probably seen the following posts in the past few days referencing “founder mode”: https://www.threads.net/@carnage4life/post/C_eaQAxyIcV Or it might look like this: You may have seen this parody on “Goblin Mode.” The chat ties in with a recent blog post by Y Combinator founder and startup wisdom imparter Paul Graham, who writes that founders like Airbnb's Brian Chesky often ignore the conventional wisdom about running a large company — that is, hire smart people and let them do their thing — which, Graham says, often translates into “hire…
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is closing its Miami Beach satellite office just two years after signing a five-year lease for the 8,300-square-foot space due to lack of use, Bloomberg reports. Once a crypto hotspot and area of interest for a16z, Miami has struggled to retain venture capital and entrepreneurial talent in recent years, Bloomberg noted, with venture investment falling to $400 million in the second quarter of 2024 from $5.5 billion for all of 2022, according to Pitchbook. For a16z, the closures deal a blow to its plans to set up “global hubs” in cities like New York and Santa Monica…
Cowboy, a Brussels-based company that designs and sells electric bikes found in major European cities, has closed a small strategic funding round of €5 million (about $5.5 million at current exchange rates), which includes a €1 million debt facility. While the amount is not as impressive as Cowboy's previous funding, the company was looking for investors outside of the traditional European venture capital firms already invested in the startup, investors that could open new doors. As a result, the round was led by Cypress Capital. The Hong Kong-based investment firm has strong ties to Taiwan, a key hub for the…
HR and payroll software company Paylocity has agreed to acquire corporate spending startup Airbase for $325 million, the companies announced Wednesday. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the first or second fiscal quarter of Paylocity's fiscal year, which would be within the next 30 to 60 days. The transaction will be funded with borrowings under Paylocity's revolving credit facility. It's a reasonable exit for Airbase, which was founded seven years ago by Tejo Koté in 2017 to provide software to mid-sized businesses looking to better manage their expenses. Its platform included bill payments,…
Ryan Breslow's return as CEO of fintech company Bolt and plans to close a $450 million funding deal valuing the company at a staggering $14 billion appear to have stalled. According to Forbes, Breslow sent an email to shareholders thanking them for approving the deal. The problem is, many investors, including Montauk Ventures and Ash Pornoli, claim they didn't approve anything. Montauk founder Philip Krim told Forbes he didn't support the fundraise, and Breslow didn't have permission to be on the list of investors who approved the deal. Meanwhile, BlackRock, along with Hedosophia and Untitled Ventures, have reportedly filed for…
Quibi may have failed because it didn't have enough AI characters. At least, that's what one startup thinks. My Drama is a new short-series app with over 30 shows, most of which follow a soap opera format to draw viewers in. The app is now introducing AI-powered chatbots that give viewers a deeper insight into the characters, increasing competition from companies like Character.AI, an a16z-backed chatbot startup. The short story app was developed by Holywater, a Ukraine-based media technology startup founded by Bogdan Nesvit (CEO) and Anatoly Kasyanov (CTO), whose parent company also operates a reading app called My Passion,…