Category: Tech Crunch

Venture capitalists have always focused on investing in companies that leverage technology to either disrupt established industries or create entirely new business categories. But some VCs are starting to flip the script on their investing styles. Rather than funding startups, they are acquiring mature businesses — such as call centers, accounting firms, and other professional...

Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company Zoox has issued its second voluntary software recall in a month, following a collision between one of its robotaxis and an e-scooter rider in San Francisco on May 8. The latest incident involved an unoccupied Zoox vehicle operating at low speed, which the company says was struck by the e-scooter after...

The idea of becoming a real estate investor for as little as $5 may seem too good to be true. And for many users of Landa, a proptech company that promised just that — it has been. Landa emerged from stealth in August 2022, announcing a total of $33 million in funding and a pledge...

Mistral AI, the French company behind AI assistant Le Chat and several foundational models, is officially regarded as one of France’s most promising tech startups and is arguably the only European company that could compete with OpenAI. But compared to its $6 billion valuation, its global market share is still relatively low.  However, the recent...

After Klarna CEO, Zoom’s CEO opts to use AI avatar for initial comments during the earnings call

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes today’s AI models hallucinate, or make things up and present them as if they’re true, at a lower rate than humans do, he said during a press briefing at Anthropic’s first developer event, Code with Claude, in San Francisco on Thursday. Amodei said all this in the midst of a...

Hinge Health, a digital physical therapy company, closed its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday at $37.56, up about 17% over the $32 IPO price it set the previous day. That’s a good first-day result. But even with the pop, Hinge’s public valuation is significantly less than its last...

Hours after Sam Altman and Jony Ive announced on Wednesday that OpenAI was buying Ive’s company, io, in an all-stock transaction valued at $6.5 billion, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski posted a surprising message on X.  Siemiatkowski’s family investment office, Flat Capital, had bought shares in io six months earlier, he said. Since this is an...

Bluesky on Thursday quietly opened the doors to those who want to become verified on its social networking service. In a post published by the Bluesky Safety account, the company announced that “notable and authentic” accounts can now apply for verification through a new online form. Plus, organizations can request to become a Trusted Verifier...

Signal said today that it is updating its Windows app to prevent the system from capturing screenshots, thereby protecting the content that is on display. The company said that this new “screen security” setting is enabled by default on Windows 11. Signal said that this new feature is designed to protect users’ privacy from Microsoft’s...