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Musk's 10-month-old baby xAI is closing in on a whopping $6 billion funding round. Social Network X (formerly known as Twitter, also part of Elon's technology family) is already a shareholder. The deal was originally scheduled to raise just $3 billion, but then everyone wanted in and the price soared. Investors include Musk's close friends Sequoia Capital, Future Ventures, and other friends who may join the AI party. But what's really frustrating to me is probably how smug Musk is about all of this. It's okay, I'm just bitter that my startup never raised his $6 million. Don't worry about amounts above three digits.
Sure, we may be on the eve of being kicked out of the U.S. completely (though, I hasten to add, the previous administration tried that, too, and TikTok is still here and doing well), but TikTok can be despicable in many ways. . Word on the street (or should I say the web?) is that TikTok is playing a little hide-and-seek with his Apple partner. In exchange for giving Apple his 30% cut of in-app purchases, he appears to be trying to direct users to buy digital coins directly from his website. But, well…that's a secret! This feature is obviously only visible to certain users (high spenders). Will Apple do them a favor like Fortnite? only time will tell.
Your founding team sucks: In a brutally honest chat with me at TechCrunch Early Stage, former Monzo Bank founder and current Y Combinator partner Tom Blomfield talks about venture capitalist decision-making. spilled. Investors are looking for unicorns that deliver 1,000x returns, he says, and anything less is a big failure. They're not just judging your business model or product. No, they are looking at you to see if you have what it takes to grow your cash like a rabbit.
This week's most interesting startup stories
Hello? Is it an iPhone? Why is it so quiet today? Image credit: Vectorian / Getty Images
Ah, I.M., you sneaky dog! The Berlin-based photo-sharing app formerly known as InstaChallenger, which nearly folded last year, has found a new way to exploit its users: training future AI overlords. Yes, they are selling your snaps to train machine learning models. The user was kindly given his 30 days to either pack up his digital photo album and scrum it, or make peace with it forever (and give up the photo). But do you want to opt out? It's not as easy as swiping left on Tinder. You will have to manually delete the photos. But wait…the real worst thing that can happen is that if you get furious and decide to delete your account permanently, you'll lose your payment. Woof, woof, sad trombone.
It's like Game of Thrones, but in a technological world. Welcome to the latest season of Techstars. His CEO, Maëlle Gavet, is fighting on all fronts in the kingdom. She faces bank failure, suspension of her international accelerator program, and dodgy posts on LinkedIn. That's just the beginning. Considering the conundrum of Swedish labor law creates more drama than an episode of The Real Housefounders. As if that wasn't enough, she also launched a company-wide revolt against her governance, cost-cutting measures that led to a toxic work culture, and hiring people with as much startup experience as my pet goldfish. are also being dealt with. (It disappeared in 2007. Rest in peace, Nemo.) Stay tuned for this gripping tale of power struggles, corporate drama, questionable finances and strategy. We can't guarantee that we'll see dragons or White Walkers, but we're sure there will be plenty of fire-breathing scenes. And an icy glare!
some fun exits
Mark Cuban wrote a check to Truffle Shuffle. No one will comment on whether it was a good exit for the company. Image credit: Christopher Willard / ABC via Getty Images
Cybersecurity company Rubrik decided to take a leisurely stroll down Wall Street this week, and BAM! its stock price rose 16% when it went public. The initial price was $32 per share (slightly above the target range), but it settled at a more affordable $37 per share by the close of trading. Well, that's one way to make an entrance! This small event boosted their valuation from $3.5 billion in 2019 to a dizzying $6.6 billion today. Not bad for a company that isn't even profitable yet. The secret sauce? Subscription revenue — increased from 73% to 91% in just one year. But who needs profitability when it's sticky? This may look like the start of a parade of IPO parties with Reddit and Ibotta leading the way, but potential rate cuts will soon bring the party to a halt. may be ruined. No doubt Greylock is laughing maniacally all the way to the bank.
ButcherBox, a meat-obsessed startup that has amassed a whopping $600 million in revenue on its own, has just taken a stab at “Shark Tank's” beloved Truffle Shuffle. The acquisition is less about cannibalizing the competition and more about helping Butcher Box customers stop grilling their steaks. Truffle Shuffle was created by founders Jason McKinney and Tyler Vohs, who acquired $20,000 worth of truffles due to COVID-19 with dear friends, but no restaurants to sell them. It was born out of sheer despair when I realized this.
This week's most interesting fundraisers
RevenueCat founders Miguel Carranza (left) and Jacob Eiting (right). Image credit: RevenueCat
Come on, kitten, kitten. RevenueCat, the fairy godmother of app subscriptions, has landed a whopping $12 million in funding to expand her magical kingdom into her web. It purrs. It supports 30,000 apps and processes over $2 billion in annual subscriptions. No way. It's like a flip phone, but more homely. Step up now, everyone! Backflip won him $15 million to help real estate investors flip homes. Because why sweat it out with old-fashioned manual labor when you can just throw some cash and solve the problem and watch the value of your property? I certainly think AI needs a little more funding. The OpenAI Startup Fund is back in action and he has quietly raised $15 million from his two investors who clearly enjoy anonymity (ugh). Ian Hathaway, the fund's manager and sole partner, was named on the document for Why Share the Fun. Remember last year when it was revealed that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had all the say and raised some eyebrows? They said it was “temporary.” But it caused some drama!
Other must-see TechCrunch articles…
This week is bad news for medical privacy. UnitedHealthcare's CEO said that “probably a third” of Americans were affected by the recent hack, and that Kaiser also exposed large amounts of customer data. Hey, thanks, clowns.
anyway. Here are some other interesting stories. perhaps. Or at least interesting. Or maybe you just got a lot of traffic this week. No one knows what my selection criteria was, but please read the story.
Indeed, the clouds are raining. Google Cloud is rolling in the dough. The business unit beat Wall Street expectations with a whopping 28% increase, thanks to insatiable demand for AI tools supported by cloud infrastructure. It's all “go go to”…no, it's not!: Welcome to another episode of “Autopilot Antics” featuring Tesla and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)! After a thrilling investigation into hundreds of crashes that treated drivers like expert drivers rather than assistive systems, NHTSA closed cases with 13 tragic and deadly developments. I'm just inflating this part of the newsletter. In other words, iPadding. Just when you thought Apple had had its fill of glorious product announcements, it was secretly planning another event. Rumor has it that a new iPad Pro and Air, as well as an updated Apple Pencil and keyboard case combination will be released. I also go to the site and report together with the hardware team. Please look forward to. The soup is terrible and the portions are small (ahem): Meta's new AI chatbot, Llama 3, is revealed to the world. It's like a guest at a party repeating his random web search results without anything particularly great about them. But hey, it's free! I wish I had this when I was studying English. Google is proving once again that it's not just about stalking your ex or settling trivia disputes at the bar. They're testing a new feature called “Speaking Practice” that uses AI to help users chatter in English. No, that doesn't include talking about the weather or asking where the library is.
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