Author: TechBrunch

TechCrunch Early Stage 2024's startup pitch competition, “So You Think You Can Pitch,” will be judged by an esteemed panel of industry experts, so get ready for an explosive showdown. The startup finalists have already been announced and are now available to meet our expert judges. Leading the way is Edith Yeung, general partner at Race Capital, whose keen eye for promising startups has earned her a reputation as one of the most influential voices in venture capital. . With an impressive track record including investments in Solana, Lightning Network, and Placer.ai, Edith brings a wealth of experience and insight…

The European Union and the United States issued a joint statement on Friday confirming their desire to strengthen cooperation around artificial intelligence, including on AI safety and governance, and more broadly across many other technologies. He expressed his intention to cooperate. Issues such as developing standards for digital identity and putting pressure on platforms to protect human rights. As we reported on Wednesday, this is the outcome of the sixth (and likely final) meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC). The TTC has been holding meetings since 2021 to rebuild transatlantic relations, which were damaged by President Trump's…

Bitkraft Ventures — a Denver, Colorado-based gaming investor with European founders — has raised its third round of funding for $275 million. The fund will make seed and Series A investments in game studios and platforms to support game production. The move comes as gaming investment is actually down 72% year-over-year, according to a recent PitchBook report. Founded by gaming industry veteran Jens Hilgers, Bitcraft has more than 130 companies in its portfolio and more than $1 billion in assets under management. The VC is an investor in Frost Giant Studios, and Hilgers seemed particularly excited. “Frost Giant has set…

The second half of Y Combinator's Winter 2024 cohort was announced Thursday, once again bringing dozens of startups to the crowd in the venture capital community. As on Wednesday, many of the TechCrunch staff watched the entire series of presentations and selected a few to highlight. Enjoy your favorites from round two of the Y Combintor demo while you head out to grab a few pots of coffee. at work! TechCrunch Staff Favorites Atopile What it does: Allows electrical engineers to design circuit boards using code. Why it's popular: Much of the circuit board electrical engineering work is done through…

TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 is gearing up to showcase the next wave of innovation. Among the outstanding finalists in the highly anticipated 'So You Think You Can Pitch' category are his three groundbreaking startups looking to make their mark. These finalists represent a variety of sectors, from social media to civic technology to sustainable energy solutions, and beat out hundreds of startup applicants to this year's program. First up is Ti¢ker. It is a purpose-built social media platform that revolutionizes the way users participate in investment activities in real time. With an invite-only model, Ti¢ker provides a safe space to…

Company X is warning users that their follower count may decrease as they attempt to broadly remove some spammers and bots from their network. According to an announcement released by the X Safety Account, the company will begin the following actions on Thursday. “Meaningful and proactive initiatives” To remove accounts that violate X's rules regarding platform manipulation and spam. Today, we are launching a significant and proactive effort to remove accounts that violate our rules against platform manipulation and spam. While we aim to be accurate in the accounts we remove, we cast a wide net to ensure X is…

OpenStack allows businesses to manage their own private clouds, like AWS, on-premises. After 29 releases, it remains one of the world's most active open source projects, and this week the OpenInfra Foundation, which leads the project, announced the release of OpenStack version 29. The new release, dubbed “Caracal,” highlights new capabilities for hosting AI and high performance computing (HPC) workloads. The typical OpenStack user is a large enterprise. It could be a retailer like Walmart or a major telecommunications company like NTT. What almost every company has in common today is considering how to bring AI models into production while…

When it comes to funding, the fintech sector hasn't had a great start to the year. According to CB Insights' Q1 2024 Venture Landscape report, fintech funding fell 16% quarter-on-quarter over the three-month period. But even more troubling than the double-digit drop, the report says the $7.3 billion raised by fintech startups globally in the last three months was the lowest level for the sector since early 2017. It was true. Notably, CB Insights counted Flexport's $260 million convertible note as a fintech deal because the company “provides trade financing and cargo insurance.” Some might argue that Flexport is not…

Agility Robotics confirmed Thursday that it had laid off a “small number” of employees. The cash-rich, Oregon-based company says the job losses are part of a company-wide focus on commercialization efforts. “As part of Agility's continued efforts to build the company for success, we have decided to part ways with a small number of employees who were not central to core product development and commercialization,” the company said. said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “At the same time, we are focused on meeting the extraordinary demand for bipedal robots in all industrial applications. “It means adding new roles to…

As U.S. lawmakers consider the possibility of banning TikTok, the short-form video app owned by ByteDance released an economic impact report on Thursday. In it, the company touts that the platform generated $14.7 billion for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) last year, and that SMB usage of TikTok led to an additional $24.2 billion in total economic activity. Additionally, more than 7 million U.S. businesses rely on TikTok, with 224,000 jobs supported by small business activity on the platform in 2023. Of those, 98,000 jobs were supported directly within small businesses on TikTok. The most affected states include California, Texas,…