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Author: TechBrunch
Validating consumer demand is a critical step for any startup, and TechCrunch Early Stage provides a great opportunity to learn how to do it right. Peter Gladstone, senior startup advisor at the Harvard Innovation Lab, will lead an engaging roundtable entitled “Examining Consumer Demand: How to Make the Most of Your Expertise.” With decades of experience as an entrepreneur, marketer and investor, Gladstone brings a wealth of knowledge. He has previously served as head of innovation at the Boston Beer Company and Gillette, and is well versed in navigating the complexities of bringing a product to market. In this workshop,…
Welcome to Startups Weekly — a weekly roundup of must-sees from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday. After years of rapid growth, the AI industry is now seeing a significant slowdown in investment, as detailed in a recent report from Stanford University's Human Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute (HAI). The report highlights a significant decline in private and corporate investment in AI for the second year in a row, with overall investment expected to decline by 20% year-on-year in 2023. He reports. Despite this overall downturn, certain segments, such as generative…
Midas, a fintech startup that allows people in Turkey to invest in US and Turkish stocks, announced it has raised $45 million in a funding round led by Canada's Portage. The startup targets the retail investor market in Turkey and claims to have over 2 million users. Its pitch is to offer significantly lower trading fees and commissions to Turkish clients who want to invest in U.S. and Turkish stocks. We also provide financial content, real-time stock market data and news, and company profiles to help you understand what many consider to be emerging markets. “If you came to Turkey…
Ukraine-based startup Geodesic.Life is challenging traditional notions of housing by introducing affordable and eco-friendly prefabricated dome homes. This concept addresses two pressing global concerns: the need for accessible housing and the urgency of environmental conservation. By normalizing sustainable living habits, Geodesic aims to have a positive impact on both individuals and the planet. The company just completed his small $500,000 round of funding from friends and family to make that vision a reality. The startup's dome homes have several advantages. They are significantly more affordable than traditional housing options, making them an attractive option for individuals, families, and communities with…
Meta's new AI model is making waves in the tech world. The two new models, part of Facebook's parent company's Llama series of artificial intelligence tools, are both open source, helping differentiate them from competing products from OpenAI and other big-name companies. Meta's new Llama models have underlying datasets of different sizes, with the Llama 3 8B model featuring 8 billion parameters and the Llama 3 70B model having around 70 billion parameters. The more parameters, the more powerful the model, but not all AI tasks require the largest possible dataset. The company's new model, trained on a 24,000 GPU…
It's been more than a minute since Tesla went public, but we couldn't avoid talking about the EV company on TechCrunch this week. It's been a Tesla-filled week, from layoffs to price changes and more, so we needed to discuss the latest updates. But that's just one element of what we covered in Equity this week. We also dug into Mary Ann's report on Ramp's latest round and its valuation hike. This fits right in with Ripling's own impending fundraising. If you're dealing with money, it's a good time to become a startup. The team also delved into the consumer…
Webflow, a web design and hosting platform that raised over $330 million at a $4 billion valuation, is expanding into new areas of marketing optimization. Today, Webflow announced that it has acquired Intellimize, a startup that leverages AI to personalize websites for unique visitors. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the acquisition price was in the “eight digits” range. The majority of the Intellimize team (approximately 50 people) will be joining Webflow. However, some employees received reemployment benefits or were fired and given severance pay. Webflow did not disclose…
Leading venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has promoted Jennifer Lee to general partner after six years with the firm. She has been appointed to help invest in her new $1.25 billion infrastructure fund, which will be managed by Martin Casado, a16z's long-time general partner. The infrastructure fund is part of $7.2 billion in new funding from the Silicon Valley VC giant. Lee has been an investment partner on the infrastructure team for some time, meaning he has already been writing checks and taking a seat on the board. However, her promotion exposes her to a disturbing atmosphere. She becomes the…
Many large companies want to join the AI revolution, but many feel it is too early to be tied to one basic model. This means there is a market for layers between enterprises and large-scale language models (LLMs). Companies can use this to easily choose an LLM without having to always commit to one platform. This is the market Langdock is targeting with a chat interface that sits between LLMs and businesses. The Germany-based startup recently raised $3 million in a seed round led by General Catalyst and European seed stage partner La Famiglia. “Companies don't want to be vendor…
Last week, Meta started testing an AI chatbot across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger in India. But with India's general elections starting today, the company has already blocked certain queries on its chatbot. Meta acknowledged that it was restricting certain election-related keywords in the AI during the testing phase. He said he is also working on improving AI-enabled systems. “This is a new technology and will not always give you the intended response. This is true of all generative AI systems. Since its launch, we have continually released updates and improvements to our model. “We continue to work on making our…