Author: TechBrunch
Google I/O 2024 begins today with a keynote at 10 a.m. PT. As always, this presentation provides a glimpse into the latest versions of the company's software platforms, including Android, Wear OS, and Android TV. I have high hopes for AI as well. A lot, a lot. Gemini, originally known as Bard, will be taking center stage with CEO Sundar Pichai as it seeks to establish its dominance in a field marked by fierce competition from the likes of Microsoft and OpenAI. You can get a complete overview of what we expect here. A developer keynote will be held a…
Google I/O 2024 kicks off today at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, with one day left of developer season officially starting. The simple answer to the question of what to expect is AI. Google I/O? Similar to Google A/I. Almost every Google announcement in recent years has included an element of artificial intelligence/machine learning, but this time around, CEO Sundar Pichai will probably be sick of the topic by the time he leaves the stage. Things start today, May 14th at 10am Pacific Time. That's the big keynote, and that's what comes to mind when you think about the event.…
Harness Lab is not founder Jyoti Bansal's first startup. He sold AppDynamics to Cisco for $3.7 billion in 2017, the week it was scheduled to go public. In his latest venture, he raised $425 million, according to Crunchbase. On Tuesday, Harness announced $150 million in debt financing, essentially a line of credit that the company can draw on as needed. This could be the last private financial step toward an eventual IPO. It is worth noting that the company raised another $55 million debt financing round in 2022. Harness has built a fundamental toolset for software development teams, including CI/CD…
Glue AI Image credit: Glue If you use Slack for work, you may have noticed that the number of channels you're invited to is constantly increasing. He is one-quarter of the popular podcast “All In” and is a well-known serial entrepreneur whose past companies include Yammer, an employee chat startup that he sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion in 2012. David Sacks, a well-known serial entrepreneur, says he can solve this problem. To that end, he teamed up with Evan Owen, the former vice president of engineering at collaboration app Zinc, which his ServiceMax acquired in 2019. The two created…
Sona, a workforce management platform for frontline workers, has raised $27.5 million in a Series A round. More than two-thirds of the U.S. workforce reportedly works in front-line jobs in everything from customer service and health care to retail environments and hospitality. However, managing this large workforce and ensuring they perform their roles and provide services is resource-intensive. Sona has been committed to supporting this field since his founding three years ago. Sona co-founder Steffen Wulff Petersen told TechCrunch that “Sona is smartly deploying its front-line workforce, which is our customers' largest cost base.” “This not only optimizes your cost…
Blisce becomes the latest VC firm to launch a fund focused on climate change technology, with plans to raise up to €150 million (approximately $162 million). The company has hired investor Pierre-Edouard Bellion to lead the fund, and Too Good to Go co-founder Lucie Basch will support the fund as a venture partner. For those not familiar with Blisce, the Paris-based VC firm also has offices in New York and is best known as the investment vehicle of Alexandre Mars (pictured above). Mars is an entrepreneur turned philanthropist who founded several technology companies in the early 2000s and sold them…
Senegal-based B2B e-commerce startup Maad has secured $3.2 million in debt equity funding to strengthen growth in the West African country and explore new opportunities in the wider Francophone region. did. The seed round was led by Ventures Platform with participation from Seedstars International Ventures, Reflect Ventures, Oui Capital, Launch Africa, Voltron Capital, and Alumni Ventures. It received $900,000 in debt financing from France's DFI Proparco and local banks. Maad's end-to-end distribution platform enables informal retailers (mom-and-pop stores) to source fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) directly from partner suppliers, increasing inventory driven by multiple levels of sales. You can tackle the…
OpenAI Startup Fund, a venture fund that invests in early-stage AI companies and recently transferred legal control from Sam Altman to Ian Hathaway, has invested in an additional 500 companies, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It is said that they have completed raising $10,000. The new capital was raised from two investors and transferred to a special purpose vehicle (OpenAI Startup Fund SPV III, LP), a legal entity affiliated with OpenAI Startup Fund. This is the third time OpenAI Startup Fund has raised an SPV. The investment arm closed on its second SPV investment…
Early-stage rounds continue to dominate investments in Europe's startup market, and on Tuesday one of the region's biggest companies announced a new fund to strengthen that trend. Accel has raised $650 million to support startups from seed to Series A across the UK, continent and Israel. The fund is Axel's eighth of its kind since it first set down roots in London in 2000. Accel has invested in over 200 startups in the region to date, making it one of the most prolific VC firms in the market. One of the recurring laments in Europe is that even though the…
When Keith Rabois announced in January that he was leaving Founders Fund to return to Khosla Ventures, it shocked many in the venture capital ecosystem. It's not just because Rabois is a big name in the industry. This was surprising because unlike many other fields, venture capitalists traditionally don't move around much. This is especially true when you reach the partner or general partner level, as Lavoie did. The lifecycle of a VC fund is 10 years, and partners have good reason to stay that way. In some cases, they may be the “key people” for a company's fund. This…