Author: TechBrunch
Harvey, a startup building an AI-powered “co-pilot” for lawyers, has raised $100 million in a Series C round led by Google's corporate ventures arm GV. The round also included participation from leading angel and venture capital firms, including OpenAI, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil and SV Angel, bringing Harvey's total funding to $206 million and valuing the company at $1.5 billion. In a Tuesday post on Harvey's official blog, co-founders Winston Weinberg and Gabriel Pereira said most of the new funding will be used to grow Harvey's headcount and expand paid services to new geographies, as well as collect…
Digital banking startup Mercury has stopped providing services to customers in some countries, including Ukraine, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Mercury made headlines earlier this year when it came under federal scrutiny over its practice of allowing foreign companies to open accounts through one of its partners, Choice Bank. The FDIC was “concerned” that Choice “opened Mercury accounts in countries that posed legal risks,” the Information reported. The agency also reportedly accused Choice of opening thousands of accounts for overseas Mercury customers “using questionable methods to prove their U.S. domicile.” Mercury told TechCrunch in April that it was investing in…
Cyabra, a Tel Aviv-based startup that helps public and private organizations detect and counter misinformation campaigns by spotting fake accounts on social media, announced plans Tuesday to merge with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Trailblazer Merger Corporation I and list on the Nasdaq. Founded in 2018, Cyabra's investors include OurCrowd, which led the company's $5.6 million Series A, as well as Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Harpoon Ventures, Alabaster, Accomplice, Red Shepherd Ventures, Summus Z, TAU Ventures and Capital Y Management. The deal values Cyabra at $70 million, and the company expects the merger to close by the end of the…
The Federal Trade Commission announced on Tuesday that it is ordering eight companies that offer AI-powered “surveillance pricing” services to submit information about the potential impacts of these products on privacy, competition, and consumer protection. In its investigation, the FTC is seeking to dig deeper into how artificial intelligence and other technologies are being used to modify prices based on consumer behavior, location and other personal data — a tactic the FTC says allows companies to charge different customers different prices. The eight companies are Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture and McKinsey & Co. All of…
Meta's latest open-source AI model is its largest to date. Meta today announced the release of Llama 3.1 405B, a model with 405 billion parameters. Parameters roughly correspond to the model's problem-solving ability, and models with more parameters generally perform better than models with fewer parameters. With 405 billion parameters, Llama 3.1 405B is not the largest open source model in absolute terms, but it is the largest in recent years. Trained using 16,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, the model also benefits from new training and development techniques, and Meta claims it can compete with leading proprietary models such as OpenAI's…
Hustle culture is ingrained in Silicon Valley startups, but the constant pressure to strive can take a toll on founders' mental health. We're excited to welcome Andy Dunn, co-founder and former CEO of Bonobos, to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 for a roundtable discussion on how founders can navigate the expectations of the VC ecosystem without compromising their mental health. Dan is no stranger to the subject. He was diagnosed with bipolar type 1 disorder during college, but hid his diagnosis from the business world as he grew his DTC clothing brand, Bonobos. In 2019, Dan decided to go all public, giving…
Meta AI, Meta's AI-powered assistant that runs on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the web, can now converse in more languages and take stylish selfies. Also, starting today, Meta AI users can route questions to Meta's latest flagship AI model, Llama 3.1 405B, which the company says can handle more complex queries than previous models on which Meta AI is based. The question is whether these improvements are enough to improve the overall experience of Meta AI. Many reviewers, including TechCrunch's Devin Coldewey, found Meta AI very disappointing upon release. Early versions of Meta AI struggled with facts, figures, and web…
Let's start with the premise that many of us take notes while interacting with customers as part of our job. While taking notes, we may need to access a customer record in Salesforce or open a Jira ticket to involve IT in a customer issue, but this requires us to engage in tedious task switching by switching from the application we were working in to open another application to complete another job or access additional information. Noded AI, a new startup that wants to change that by making all your work tools automatically available from the place where you take…
Nathan Rosenberg, founder of agricultural automation platform FarmBlocks, said if there's one thing to know when selling technology to farmers, it's that you can't tell them what to do. “[Farmers] “The Silicon Valley tech industry is multigenerational,” Rosenberg told TechCrunch. “It's not a profession, it's a community, it's a way of life, and you have to respect that. You can't just be someone who works in Silicon Valley tech and tell them what to do.” Rosenberg said that's why his startup, FarmBlocks, is approaching agricultural tech a little differently than previous companies. The startup has developed a solar-powered, connected monitor…
Flashfood, an app that allows shoppers to buy food that is close to its expiration date at discounted prices, announced on Tuesday that independent grocers have been added to the app, making grocery purchases more affordable for more shoppers. It's a notable move for the company because small, independently owned grocers play a vital role in rural and urban communities where low-income families live. With food prices rising, not everyone can afford fresh produce, so FlashFood's expansion aims to help those customers save money. To date, the company says it has helped customers save about $280 million on their grocery…