Author: TechBrunch
Estonia-based startup Modash has raised $12 million in a Series A led by henQ, a Dutch VC firm that prides itself on “funding the weird.” And the strange thing about Modash, according to CEO Avery Schrader, is that its team has “very strong opinions in areas that no one really trusts anymore.” The problem area is influencer marketing. Like competitors CreatorIQ and Upfluence, Modash helps brands like Farfetch discover talent who can promote their message. But rather than focusing on content creators with large followings, Modash collects open data to track the long tail of 250 million creators listed by…
Matt Mullenweg is the co-founder of WordPress, the ubiquitous open source platform that powers much of the web. He is also the CEO of Automattic, which was valued at $7.5 billion in its latest funding round. Mullenweg joins us to discuss his founder's journey and what's next for WordPress and the web. Subscribe for more on YouTube: https://tcrn.ch/youtube Follow TechCrunch on Instagram: http://tcrn.ch/instagramTikTok: https://tcrn.ch/tiktokX: tcrn.ch/xThread: https://tcrn.ch/threadsFacebook: https://tcrn.ch/facebookBluesky: https://tcrn.ch/blueskyMastodon: https://tcrn.ch/mstdnRead more: https://techcrunch.com/ Source link
The AI industry is increasingly supporting “open” AI models, or models released under permissive licenses that can be reused for a variety of applications. Open models, as opposed to gated models behind paid services, are disrupting the AI status quo. Disrupt 2024 featured Ali Farhadi, CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Irene Solaiman, Head of Global Policy at Hugface, and Shane Witnov, Director of AI Policy Meta. We talked about specific methods, how to do it, and what might happen in the future. Subscribe for more on YouTube: https://tcrn.ch/youtube Follow TechCrunch on Instagram: http://tcrn.ch/instagramTikTok: https://tcrn.ch/tiktokX: tcrn.ch/xThread: https://tcrn.ch/threadsFacebook: https://tcrn.ch/facebookBluesky:…
Hello everyone, welcome to TechCrunch's regular AI newsletter. If you'd like to have this sent to your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. This week, the TechCrunch staff (including you) will be attending TC's annual Disrupt conference in San Francisco. We have speakers from the AI industry, academia, and policy, so instead of the usual editorials, we thought we'd preview some of the great content. My colleague Devin Coldewey will be interviewing Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas on stage. This AI-powered search engine is thriving, recently reaching 100 million queries per week. But it is also being sued by News Corp's…
GenAI has significantly increased the speed of change. Companies around the world, whether startups or global corporations, are struggling with the question of how to move faster and take advantage of the incredible opportunities this technology offers. In this discussion, we will discuss how Thomson Reuters transformed from a content company to an agile, engineering-focused technology company that now releases more than 85% of product updates weekly rather than quarterly. We outline how we were able to launch seven new generative AI products. Releases in the past year. This session will discuss both the successes and failures learned from Thomson…
The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have shut down operations altogether. By tracking these layoffs, we’re able to understand the impact on innovation across companies large and small. We’re also able to see the potential impact of businesses…
Equity staff is live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! Hosts Kirsten Kolosek, Devin Caldeway, and Margaux McCall take over the Builders Stage to share conference highlights, startup deals, and great reads. The second day of Disrupt has started, with no shortage of venture news. Listen to the full episode to hear: Equity will be bringing you a special interview episode on Friday, so stay tuned! Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo and posted every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all casts. You can also follow stocks × and threads (@EquityPod). For full episode…
As generative AI tools become more widely available and cheaper or even free to use, a variety of actors, including state actors, are using them to create deepfakes and spread disinformation online. is being exploited by In this session of Disrupt 2024, CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed, Brandie Nonnecke, director of the CITRIS Policy Lab at CITRIS UC, and Pamela San Martin, co-chair of the Oversight Committee, will discuss the types of deepfakes currently circulating on the web. , hear about some possible ways to counter that threat. Subscribe for more on YouTube: https://tcrn.ch/youtube Follow TechCrunch on Instagram: http://tcrn.ch/instagramTikTok: https://tcrn.ch/tiktokX: tcrn.ch/xThread:…
The old idea that you need $100 million worth of final revenue to go public or $1 million worth of annual recurring revenue to raise a Series A is effectively sitting on President Lincoln's head. It's about as old as it gets. In today's market, what a startup needs to get a raise depends on its sector, the founder's profile, and of course the momentum. So what does it take to raise that Series A? In this session at Disrupt 2024, Nikhil Basu Trivedi, co-founder and general partner of Footwork, Dayna Grayson, co-founder and general partner of Construct Capital, Bessemer…
In its latest camp, VC and accelerator Betaworks focused on startups building native applications enabled by AI. The program was first announced in May. Explaining this focus, managing partner John Borthwick said at the time that while things like AI chatbots and writing assistants exist, “we are still not living in the future we imagine. “No,” he wrote. In other words, despite advances in AI technology, Borthwick said: “When end users like us are faced with a task or project, we believe we can do it faster, better, and smarter by leveraging the power of off-the-shelf tools: AI.” There is…