Uzum, an e-commerce startup offering online shopping, fintech and food deliveries to millions of customers in Uzbekistan, has raised $114 million in funding, becoming the country’s first unicorn with a valuation of $1.16 billion. Uzbekistan is fertile ground for startups, given the fact that people...
Here’s the harsh truth behind personal care products: you’re mostly buying water and plastics. The main ingredient in a bottle of shampoo or shower gel is water, and by far. It is mixed with a bunch of active ingredients. And because it’s a “pre-mixed” product,...
Last year, Salesforce, the company best known for its cloud sales support software (and Slack), spearheaded a project called ProGen to design proteins using generative AI. A research moonshot, ProGen could — if brought to market — help uncover medical treatments more cost effectively than...
Maju Kuruvilla is no longer CEO of one-click checkout company Bolt. He is replaced by Justin Grooms, Bolt’s global head of sales, who is now interim CEO, according to Grooms’ LinkedIn profile. Kuruvilla didn’t have much to say about the change but did confirm it...
There are countless reasons why home robots have found little success post-Roomba. Pricing, practicality, form factor and mapping have all contributed to failure after failure. Even when some or all of those are addressed, there remains the question of what happens when a system makes...
New US emissions rules mean more plug-in hybrid cars are on the way. The electric vehicle tech is clean—but has a catch....
CrowdTangle helps researchers track disinformation, but Meta will close it down before the US election. The tool's cofounder, Brandon Silverman, says it's time to force companies to share data....
Global Screening Services (GSS), a London-based regulatory compliance platform that helps financial institutions meet their global sanctions obligations, has raised $47 million in a round of funding. The raise comes amid a spike in economic sanctions, with the U.S. issuing trade restrictions and asset blocking...
Noisy recordings of interviews and speeches are the bane of audio engineers’ existence. But one German startup hopes to fix that with a unique technical approach that uses generative AI to enhance the clarity of voices in video. Today, AI-coustics emerged from stealth with a €1.9...
Get ready to amplify your Early Stage 2024 experience with the electrifying lineup of Side Events taking Boston by storm during the week of April 22–28. As the countdown to TechCrunch Early Stage begins, we’re thrilled to share our Side Events lineup to foster meaningful...
The Reddit and Astera Labs IPOs last week ate up a lot of media oxygen. And with good reason, the two tech IPOs priced well and traded with even more gusto. After a long dearth for technology offerings, seeing two large, multi-billion dollar offerings in...
Today on Equity, Alex talks stocks around the world, crypto prices, and the weekend's biggest news: The the exit of Stability AI's CEO, the EU's Digital Markets Act, Spotify's edtech push, why Liquid Death is crushing it, and more. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For...
The probes are the first to take place under Europe’s landmark Digital Markets Act—and add to Apple's mounting antitrust woes....
Startup visionaries, time is of the essence! There are only 5 days left to take advantage of the early-bird savings for TechCrunch Early Stage 2024. Don’t let this opportunity slip through your fingers — secure your ticket now and save big before it’s too late!...
WIRED reporting uncovered a site that “nudifies” photos for a fee—and posts a feed appearing to show user uploads. They included photos of young girls and images seemingly taken of strangers....
In a market that no longer favors growth at all costs, GoStudent's €3 billion valuation and global expansion may belong to the past. However, the Austrian tutoring platform reshaped quickly. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only....
The question is whether Nvidia can sustain that growth to become a long-term revenue powerhouse like AWS has become for Amazon. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only....
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! This week, we’re looking at some hot fintech startups in Africa, how Mint’s closure has been Copilot’s gain and why VCs have doubled down on a particular expense management startup. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and...
A new study suggests that sudden jumps in LLMs’ abilities are neither surprising nor unpredictable, but are actually the consequence of how we measure ability in AI....
The US government's antitrust suit argues that Apple's sticky ecosystem keeps hold of customers by penalizing those who leave....
Mallard Bay is building a marketplace and a vertical SaaS platform for guided fishing and hunting industries. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only....
Some of the new venture-backed beverage startups are hoping to upend the industry by creating new drink categories. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only....
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...
Stability AI founder and chief executive Emad Mostaque has stepped down from the top role and the unicorn startup‘s board, the buzzy firm said Friday night, making it the second hot AI startup to go through major changes this week. Stability AI, which has been...
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Helloooo, startup nerds! I spent much of this week in San Jose hanging out in the...
In an era where data is king and its volume and complexity are exploding, Protecto aims to eliminate the long-standing dilemma businesses face between leveraging AI’s power while ensuring data privacy. As the adoption of generative AI tools like ChatGPT skyrockets, wayward data becomes easier...
You’ve gone home with a Tinder date, and things are escalating. You don’t really know or trust this guy, and you don’t want to contract an STI, so… what now? A company called Calmara wants you to snap a photo of the guy’s penis, then...
Hello, and welcome to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Friday episode, in which we dig through the most critical stories from the week and chat through new and emerging themes....
On Monday, the Biden administration announced that six new countries had joined an international coalition to fight the proliferation of commercial spyware, sold by companies such as NSO Group or Intellexa. Now, some investors have announced that they too are committed to fighting spyware. But...
The most surprising thing about Kate Middleton’s Photoshop debacle is that anyone would consider a photo as proof of life....