Author: TechBrunch

Climate change technology startups raised $8.1 billion in the first quarter, a near-record amount and the fact that 2023 is so close suggests it may just be a sign of a prolonged recession. Suggests. The numbers, included in a new PitchBook report, show that climate technology is not succumbing to the same slowdown that is dragging other venture communities. According to the report, the number of transactions decreased slightly from the previous quarter, but the value increased by nearly 400%. A closer look at the $8.1 billion raised in the first quarter shows that investors are focused on materials such…

Allozyme's ingenious method of rapidly testing millions of bio-based chemical reactions has proven not only to be a useful service, but also the basis of a unique and valuable data set. Where there are datasets, there is AI, and where there is AI, there are investors. The company just raised $15 million in Series A to grow the business from a helpful service to a world-class resource. We first covered this biotech startup in 2021, when the company was taking its first steps. “At the time, we were less than five people and our first lab was 1,000 square feet,”…

Thanks to AI, last year's downturn is forgotten. Those who were worried about a temporary slowdown in cloud infrastructure growth in 2023 can finally rest easy. Cloud came back with a bang this quarter. According to Synergy Research, the overall market increased by $13.5 billion to $76 billion, an increase of 21% from the first quarter of 2024. That's healthy growth no matter how you look at it. If you're wondering what's driving growth, you'd probably guess it has something to do with generative AI and the large amounts of data needed to build the underlying models. Whether it's Microsoft's…

The ransomware attack that hit US health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group and its tech subsidiary Change Healthcare is a data privacy nightmare for millions of US patients and CEO Andrew Mr Whitty admitted this week that up to a third of the country could be affected. But it also comes as a wake-up call to countries around the world, including the UK, where UnitedHealth is doing business with its recent acquisition of a company that manages data belonging to millions of NHS patients. should also work. UnitedHealth is nationally known as one of the largest health care companies in the…

When you're an early-stage startup, you're looking for customers. The metric that investors look at is how fast revenue is growing between the seed and A rounds, so it's essential to start generating revenue as soon as possible. If you're not making a lot of money, you'll probably have a hard time raising your next round of funding. Alex Kayyal, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, speaking at his TechCrunch Early Stage in Boston last week, said finding the right early partners is key. One problem that sometimes comes up for early-stage companies is a single large customer. Although this company…

Y Combinator is famous in Silicon Valley for many reasons, but there's one service that's secretly one of its most powerful. It's an online founder matching tool. “I think this is the most valuable digital product YC has built (i.e. more valuable than Bookface, etc.). It’s amazing how many founders I’ve met on the YC co-founder matching platform That’s all.” Tweeted Seed Investor Nikhil Basu Trivedi. (Bookface refers to YC's famous online collection of his how-to advice on startups for program participants.) Recent Y Combinator graduate Hona is one example, but its founder's “meet-cute” story is a little more exciting…

The slump in venture capital funding seen around the world since the bursting of the bubble in 2021 is having a similar impact on startups, venture capital, accelerators, and more. One of his companies in the last category, Techstars, has been undergoing a review of its business for some time, resulting in some companies leaving its ranks. TechCrunch's deep dive into how it all happened is worth your time. So there was an author dominique madri davis Chat with her about her reporting at Equity. But that wasn't all. mary ann azevedo, Kirsten Kolosekand alex wilhelm There was a lot…

In a new filing, Google pushes back against a number of remedies proposed by Fortnite maker Epic Games after a court found that Google engaged in anti-competitive conduct on the Play Store. There is. Following the jury's verdict late last year, the two sides launched a lawsuit over how Google should change its behavior in light of the verdict. Meanwhile, Epic Games issued a lengthy list of demands. These included gaining access to his Play Store catalog of apps and game titles for six years, the ability to distribute your own app store for free on Google Play, and more.…

Microsoft has changed its policy to prohibit U.S. law enforcement from using generated AI for facial recognition through Azure OpenAI Service, the company's fully managed enterprise OpenAI technology wrapper. Language added Wednesday to the Azure OpenAI Service terms of service allows integration with Azure OpenAI Service for facial recognition “by or on behalf of” U.S. police departments, including integration with OpenAI's text and speech analysis models. It is prohibited to use it. Another new bullet point targets “any law enforcement agency worldwide” and uses mobile cameras, such as body cameras and dash cams, to “attempt to identify individuals in uncontrolled,…

Apple on Thursday reported that second-quarter iPhone sales fell 10% year over year, from $51.3 billion to $45.9 billion. Contributing to the economic slowdown was China's 8% decline in sales. Apple's slow adoption of AI compared to competitors like Google and Microsoft likely influenced consumers' decisions to hold off on purchasing new iPhones. Apple has promised some big announcements in this regard (likely at WWDC in June), but the iPhone 16 itself likely won't arrive until the fall. But despite the dismal hardware numbers, the company managed to beat Wall Street's expectations, buoyed by both rising services revenue and a…