Author: TechBrunch
Robinhood's new credit card was announced Tuesday, and while it's only available to Robinhood Gold members, the Gold card has a feature that's making headlines. It is a feature that allows you to invest your cashback bonus into investments. The announcement comes eight months after it acquired startup X1 for $95 million, and coincidentally one of X1's biggest features was the ability to invest in cashback rewards. Coincidence? Obviously not! Robinhood says this bonus, plus a number of other perks, including the ability to add family members as cardholders, even if they're young and don't have a Social Security number,…
Troy Sheets started making music at the age of 15 in his home studio using a keyboard synthesizer, drum machine, and 4-track cassette recorder. He’s a great setup for a high school sophomore. But young up-and-coming musicians rarely have access to advanced equipment (other than free apps on their phones). And most young people can't afford it. Additionally, synthesizers can be difficult to use for beginners. That's why Sheets decided to create the $199 Blipbox, an affordable children's synthesizer designed for ages 3 and up. “We saw an opportunity to create a simplified toy-like device that would allow more people…
The summer after his freshman year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an engineering school in Worcester, Massachusetts, Cyvl.ai co-founder and CEO Daniel Pelaez needed a job. He returned home and worked for the local public works department, where he discovered there was little software for tracking road repairs. He was told to go out and drive the car, find the problem and solve it. “I was filling holes, fixing signs, cutting down trees. And while I was there, I quickly saw that they didn't have any data.” Pelaez told TechCrunch. He saw an opportunity to become Cyvl.ai, a company that helps…
Agricultural robots are not a new phenomenon. We have seen systems for harvesting apples and berries, killing weeds, planting trees, transporting produce, and more. However, while these capabilities are understood to be the core capabilities of automation systems, the same is true here for technology in general. So it's all about data. A big part of the value of these products is the amount of actionable information their onboard sensors collect. In a sense, Orchard Robotics' system eliminates the middleman. That's not to say there isn't still a lot of potential value in automating these tasks amid labor shortages, but…
Artificial intelligence can find hidden signals in data across healthcare, and companies like Nvidia are paying attention to what this means. For example, last week the company announced 20 new AI-powered tools for fields such as biotech and drug discovery. Nvidia isn't alone. Century Health is another startup getting in on the action. Applying AI to clinical data to discover new uses for medicines. The company will initially work with pharmaceutical companies and researchers at Yale University and the University of California, San Diego to identify and commercialize the next breakthrough treatments for diseases that affect tens of millions of…
March 29th is the last day to get early bird discounts for TechCrunch Early Stage 2024. He has only three days to secure his ticket. Don't miss this opportunity and join us for an innovative event dedicated to startup success. TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 will be held in Boston and will provide valuable resources and insights at every stage of a founder's journey. On April 25, immerse yourself in a dynamic environment filled with roundtable sessions, expert-led discussions, one-on-one meetings, side events, and more. Here's what awaits you in the early stages of TechCrunch Roundtable Sessions: Collaborate and interact with…
New Summit Investments is raising a new $100 million impact fund, according to documents filed with the SEC. The large amount of new funding will allow it to continue investing in managers who support start-ups and other companies focused on environmental and social issues. This is the firm's fifth fund and is a significant increase from the $40 million in the previous fund, which closed in 2022. New Summit invests in a variety of other funds, including venture capital, real estate investors, and infrastructure investors. The company currently manages $115 million in assets, according to PitchBook. Shinsummit declined to comment…
If you wanted to raise the profile of a major technology company and you had $10 million to spend, what would you do with it? In a Super Bowl ad? F1 sponsor? You can also spend it training generative AI models. Although not marketing in the traditional sense, generative models are attention-grabbing and increasingly focused on a vendor's fundamental products and services. Check out Databricks' DBRX, a new generative AI model similar to OpenAI's GPT series and Google's Gemini, announced today. Available for research and commercial use on GitHub and the AI development platform Hugging Face, DBRX Base and fine-tuned…
The tech-wide reckoning that began in 2022 and ran throughout into 2023 has continued into this year. And while 2024’s losses are not at that scale, they’re still significant, driven by big names like Pixar, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and TikTok. It remains to be seen if this year’s layoff trends follow last year’s, in which layoffs slowed down in the summer, before cuts began ramping up yet again toward the winter. Momentum for a tech sector rebound remains slow to build, outside of bright spots within artificial intelligence and adjacent companies, resulting in tech companies continuing to cut back on their…
A new study focusing on the founders of so-called “unicorns” (companies valued at $1 billion or more) finds that most company founders are “underdogs” and are often chosen from top 10 universities. We found that the composition of female founders is increasing, but there is no clear monopoly at the seed stage of VC funding. Defiance Capital's study of 845 unicorn companies and 2,018 unicorn founders (the Unicorn Founder DNA Report) covers the US and UK (excluding EU/Europe) from 2013 to 2023. The purpose is to focus on investigating the “DNA” of unicorn founders. Define the characteristics common to these…