Author: TechBrunch

These days, it's hard to go an hour without reading an article about generative AI. Though the phenomenon sometimes referred to as the “steam engine” of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is still in its early stages, there's no doubt that “GenAI” is poised to transform nearly every industry, including finance, healthcare, and law. While the cool user-facing applications may get the most attention, the companies driving this revolution are currently benefiting the most: Just this month, chipmaker Nvidia briefly became the world's most valuable company, a $3.3 trillion behemoth essentially driven by demand for AI computing power. But in addition…

The European Union has announced the winners of its Large-Scale AI Grand Challenge, which was launched earlier this year with the aim of accelerating the pace of homegrown innovation from large-scale AI model makers. The four startups will share a €1 million prize, and, perhaps more importantly, they will also receive 8 million GPU hours to train their models on several of the European Union's high-performance computing (HPC) supercomputers over the next 12 months. As the European Commission states in its PR, this is expected to reduce model training times “from years to weeks.” The four winning startups, in alphabetical…

Last week, the US government announced an unprecedented ban on the sale in the US of any software made by Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky. Just days after the ban was announced, some U.S. companies that are official Kaspersky resellers, or managed service provider (MSP) partners, say they are confused, angry and anxious about how the ban affects them. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security called the ban “the first of its kind” and said it was taking the action because the antivirus and security software maker's headquarters are in Russia and pose unacceptable cybersecurity and privacy risks to…

The hackers claim to be selling a large database linked to an Indian government portal for blue-collar workers migrating from India. The eMigrate portal, launched by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, helps Indian workers migrate legally abroad. The portal also provides migration permit tracking and insurance services to migrant workers. According to a cybercrime forum listing seen by TechCrunch, the anonymous hackers released some of the data, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, mailing addresses and passport details of individuals who had allegedly registered with the portal. TechCrunch has confirmed that some of the data exposed…

Formation Bio, a startup backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and focused on applying AI to drug discovery, has raised more than $250 million to support its ambitious product roadmap. Formation today announced it has raised $372 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from pharmaceutical companies Sanofi, Sequoia, Thrive, Emerson Collective, Lachy Groom, SV Angel Growth and FPV Ventures. The new funding brings Formation's total funding to $528 million, which the company says it will use primarily for partnership efforts and research and development. Formation declined to disclose the new valuation, but a…

Hyperplane, a San Francisco-based data intelligence startup building an infrastructure model for banks, announced on Wednesday that it has been acquired by Brazil's Nubank, just seven months after announcing a $6 million seed round of funding. Hyperplane was founded in 2022 by Daniel Silva, Felipe Lamunier, Rohan Ramanath, and Felipe Meneses. When the company emerged from stealth last year, Ramanath explained that its primary focus was building a personalization layer for banks around the world. “Hyperplane's goal is, if banks around the world have a ton of first-party data, what does it take to build a data intelligence layer so…

The arrival of Napster in the late 1990s made it easy for people to obtain music files without compensating content owners. The iPod and iTunes Music Store changed that by allowing artists and publishers to earn money by reusing content in the digital environment. Now, there are companies that scrape content without permission to train large language models. Dappier, an early-stage startup that wants to ensure publishers are compensated when their content is used, today announced a $2 million seed round of funding and the launch of a marketplace where publishers can set a price for using their content in…

Since its launch in 2017, Retool has made a name for itself as one of the best low-code tools for building browser-based internal line-of-business applications. The well-funded startup's services are currently used by thousands of companies, including Amazon, OpenAI, Pinterest, Plaid, Snowflake, Taco Bell, and Volvo. Now, the company is broadening its focus from internal apps to external apps as well. Dubbed “Retool for External Apps,” the new service is now generally available and aims to empower any business to quickly and efficiently build secure, high-performing apps for a much wider audience than ever before. Retool CEO and co-founder David…

Rainforest, a startup that builds payment processing into other software platforms, has raised $20 million in Series A funding, less than a year after announcing the closing of its seed funding round. While successive rounds of funding were more common in 2021, they are less common in this new environment. Rainforest's traction likely helped it attract new investor Matrix Partners, as well as returning investors including Accel, Infinity Ventures, BoxGroup, The Fintech Fund, Tech Square Ventures and Ardent Venture Partners. In total, the company has raised $31.75 million. Rainforest says it has seen a 17-fold increase in payment volume in…

Samsara Eco produces and sells fossil-free polymer resins that can be integrated into supply chains, potentially replacing plastic packaging and textiles with more sustainable alternatives. The Australian startup took a major step forward on Wednesday, securing an additional $65 million (A$100 million) in all-equity funding. The round was co-led by Temasek and Mainsequence, an Australian deep tech investment fund. The investment also included new and existing backers including DCVC, Hitachi Ventures, Lululemon, Titanium Ventures and Wollemi Capital, bringing the total amount Samsara has raised since its founding in 2020 to $73 million (A$164 million). Samsara CEO and founder Paul Riley…