Author: TechBrunch

Hey startup visionaries, time is of the essence. There are only 5 days left to take advantage of the early bird offer for TechCrunch Early Stage 2024. Don't miss this opportunity. Secure your tickets now and save big before it's too late. Discount ends Friday, March 29th at 11:59pm PT. Get a glimpse of what's in store for TechCrunch in its early stages “Choosing the Right Accelerator or Incubator” with Emily Knight, President of Engine Accelerator: Learn how incubators and accelerators provide critical support structures for early-stage startups. Discover customized programs designed to support founders transitioning from academia and national…

Vienna is rich in museums, public transport, springs, and public housing, but one of its crown jewels is the tutoring platform GoStudent. Its services are currently used by more than 11 million families, many of whom live outside of GoStudent's home country. Eight-year-old GoStudent is one of the few Austrian startups to make a name for itself on the international tech scene, along with Bitpanda and Runtastic, which was acquired by Adidas. But its €3 billion valuation and global expansion may be a thing of the past, at least for now, as it has had to adapt rapidly to a…

Nvidia and Amazon Web Services, Amazon's highly profitable cloud division, have something surprising in common. First of all, their core business was born out of a happy accident. In the case of AWS, we realized that we could sell internal services (storage, compute, memory) that we created for our company. For Nvidia, the fact is that GPUs created for gaming purposes are also suitable for handling AI workloads. That ultimately led to explosive revenue growth in recent quarters. Nvidia's revenue is growing in triple digits, from $7.1 billion in the first quarter of 2024 to $22.1 billion in the fourth…

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! This week, we look at how the closure of Africa's hottest fintech startup, Mint, benefited Copilot, and why venture capital is doubling down on one particular expense management startup. Get TechCrunch's roundup of the biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Sunday at 7:30 a.m. PT. Subscribe here. big story Although venture funding in Africa (like the rest of the world) has been declining in recent years, last week was a good week for the region's fintech ecosystem. TC reporter Tage Kene-Okafor explains how Uber led a $100 million…

Americans spent more than $144.8 billion on fishing and hunting in 2022 alone, according to a study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Guided hunting and fishing tours are an important part of the industry, but remain largely offline. Reservations are made by phone and payment is made by check or cash. Mallard Bay is trying to change that. The Houston-based startup is a marketplace where hunting and fishing consumers can discover and book guided tours online, much like booking a hotel. Mallard Bay is also a vertical SaaS platform for clothing stores themselves to bring their back-office online…

On March 11, a carbonated startup announced it had raised $67 million at a $1.4 billion valuation and reported 2023 sales of $263 million. Did you think this startup was canned water company Liquid Death? Liquid Death has now raised more than $267 million in venture funding, despite being in a category that many investors aren't interested in. The beverage industry is capital-intensive, making it a tough industry for VCs. You need a knack for choosing companies that sell well in retail stores and other direct-to-consumer channels. You can attract repeat customers instead of one-time customers. Michael Jones, managing director…

Every week seems to bring with it a new AI model, and the technology has unfortunately outpaced anyone’s ability to evaluate it comprehensively. Here’s why it’s pretty much impossible to review something like ChatGPT or Gemini, why it’s important to try anyway, and our (constantly evolving) approach to doing so. The tl;dr: These systems are too general and are updated too frequently for evaluation frameworks to stay relevant, and synthetic benchmarks provide only an abstract view of certain well-defined capabilities. Companies like Google and OpenAI are counting on this because it means consumers have no source of truth other than…

Stability AI founder and CEO Emad Mostaq has stepped down from his top role and the unicorn startup's board of directors, the high-profile company announced Friday night, the second major shake-up this week. It has become a popular AI startup. Stability AI, which is backed by investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners and Coatue Management, does not have an immediate permanent replacement for the CEO role, but has appointed COO Shan Shan Wong and CTO Christian Laforte as interim co-founders. He was appointed CEO, the magazine said. Blog post. Stability AI said Mostak is leaving to pursue decentralized AI. In a…

With the Vision Pro finally available, many consumers are interested in Apple's AR/VR headset and the apps that come with it. Some are from familiar companies like Disney+, Max, TikTok, Zoom, and Reddit, but there are also many independent developers who have launched apps optimized for visionOS. From spatial puzzle games to apps that let you view your interior design projects in 3D, here are some VisionOS apps from small developers that you can try out once your headset arrives. We will add more to this list as they are released. game soul spire Image credit: Soul Assembly Soul Spire…

With the Vision Pro finally available, many consumers are interested in Apple's AR/VR headset and the apps that come with it. Some are from familiar companies like Disney+, Max, TikTok, Zoom, and Reddit, but there are also many independent developers who have launched apps optimized for visionOS. From spatial puzzle games to apps that let you view your interior design projects in 3D, here are some VisionOS apps from small developers that you can try out once your headset arrives. We will add more to this list as they are released. game soul spire Image credit: Soul Assembly Soul Spire…