Author: TechBrunch
Slag is the molten effluent produced when producing steel in traditional blast furnaces. The material has been touted as a greener alternative to cement for making concrete, the most abundant man-made material on Earth. But as the steel industry turns to greener production methods, the effluent is facing supply chain problems. As steelmakers in the U.S. and Europe turn increasingly to electric arc furnaces (EAFs) that are smaller, more energy-efficient and run on electricity rather than coal, Cocoon is a new startup founded on the belief that producing greener steel or generating concrete slag doesn't have to be an either/or…
SoundHound, an AI company that develops voice interface technology used by automakers, restaurants, tech companies and others, is focusing on enterprise services by acting as an integrator in a crowded market. The company said Thursday it is acquiring Amelia AI, which develops AI agents that companies can customize for their own companies or customers. SoundHound will pay Amelia $80 million in cash and stock. It's unclear what Amelia's valuation was before the acquisition, but according to PitchBook, Amelia has raised at least $189 million in funding, including a $175 million investment from Build Group in March 2023. (PitchBook cites multiple…
Seeking mental health support is a complicated process, but some founders believe that formalizing techniques such as CBT (Congestive Behavioral Therapy) with AI can help people who don't have access to specialists. Dr. David Burns, who has more than 40 years of experience in the field of psychiatry, developed an app called Feeling Great based on his own techniques. Burns teamed up with Jeremy Karmel, who previously led growth teams at DoorDash and Reddit, to develop “Feeling Great,” which is also the title of Burns' best-selling book on mental health. Founded in 2022, the company today announced it has raised…
The UK antitrust regulator has confirmed that it is conducting a formal antitrust investigation into Amazon's relationship with Anthropic, following the company's recent completion of a $4 billion investment in the AI startup. The news comes a week after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) revealed it would open a call for comments on Google's relationship with Anthropic, following the internet company's initial investment of $300 million last year and then a further $2 billion since. Founded in 2021, San Francisco-based Anthropic has established itself as a public benefit corporation (PBC) to differentiate itself from competitors and is developing large-scale…
Every day, employees around the world spend countless hours performing tedious, repetitive tasks, such as converting documents to PDFs, uploading them to Drive, and then importing them into a database and emailing them to their team. UiPath was a pioneer in this kind of “robotic” process, but has pivoted to an AI-driven mode of operation, even as a number of startups (Signavio, Servicetrace, etc.) are catching up. Now, after closing a new round of funding, startup Bardeen is launching a service to automate these tasks for businesses. Bardeen's platform uses a natural language interface to automate repetitive knowledge tasks. The…
Natural language AI assistants tend to be fluent in English and can speak other languages reasonably well, which can be confusing for millions of people who switch seamlessly between the two languages instantly. But a new AI helper called Silvia has no trouble understanding a mix of Spanish and English, and more language combinations to come. The app isn't some kind of funded startup; it was created last month by Mansidak Singh, who is a founding product engineer at re:collect AI by day. “I met an Argentinian girl at a bar last month, and she told me that her iPhone…
Defense technology startup Anduril has completed what is likely one of the largest funding rounds this year, a $1.5 billion deal that values the company at $14 billion. Anduril has ambitions of becoming the next great American defense contractor, joining a group of companies that has shrunk to just five big names: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics. These companies make billions of dollars in revenue from business with the Pentagon, giving them near-total control over defense production. But the defense startup founded by Palmer Luckey is poised to become a formidable rival to those longtime leaders,…
A British space startup has revealed plans to launch its first satellite as part of SpaceX's ride-along program, which the company claims will usher in a “new era of space research” in which astronomy data will be collected, packaged and sold “as a service.” Like previous missions, SpaceX's Transporter 15 program next year will use a Falcon 9 rocket to ferry third-party payloads into space, including one from London-based Blue Skies Space, which has revealed it will carry its first Moab satellites on an October 2025 launch. The satellite is designed to complement data provided by existing astronomy efforts such…
YouTube is testing an integration with Google Gemini to help creators brainstorm video ideas, titles and thumbnails. The Google-owned company announced the launch of the new Gemini brainstorming feature in a video posted to its Creator Insider channel. A YouTube spokesperson told TechCrunch that the feature is being offered to select creators as part of a small, limited experiment, and that YouTube will consider creator feedback before deciding whether to roll it out more broadly. The new tool could give YouTube an edge over other social media video platforms that creators frequent because it offers features not available on competing…
Investor dreams last year of a robust 2024 IPO pipeline are fading, if not disappearing entirely, as we move into the second half of the year. This year, four venture-backed tech IPOs in March and April — Reddit, Astera Labs, Ibotta and Rubrik — looked like they might finally generate the momentum investors were hoping for in 2023. But secondary investors and IPO lawyers recently told TechCrunch that despite the success of these four deals, the IPO market won't fully reopen until 2025 or later, given macro conditions such as the looming presidential election and rising interest rates. This year…