An inside look at Techstars’ horrible year

TechCrunch spoke with over 30 people to find out just what happened at Techstars last year

View this email online in your browser By Alex Wilhelm Tuesday, April 30, 2024 Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning we have an investigative look at how Techstars has worked to revamp itself, notes on a couple cool startups tackling niche sectors, why everyone should sign up for 2FA, a new consumer-tech VC fund, and, yes, more startups from France. Let's dive in! — Alex TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch 1. Inside Techstars' annus horribilis: Techstars has worked hard lately to centralize its operations and shutter some programs in order to survive a venture market downturn — it's not been easy. Now, a TechCrunch investigation reveals how this well-known accelerator hit a rough patch of a year while working to set a new course for its future. Read More 2. Consumer tech is not dead yet: Intuition, a new venture firm out of Paris, has a new €15 million fund aimed at consumer tech, and we think it's a great idea. Sure, every other headline from the tech industry today seems to be about how AI can be used for businesses, but that makes now the perfect time for a counter-narrative bet, right? Read More 3. Europe has (even more) thoughts about Meta: What is it this time? Election-related matters! More specifically, the EU is worried that Meta may not be moderating political ads enough or properly under the rules of the Digital Markets Act. The bloc is taking a look. I've lost track of the number of legal contests between United States' based companies and the EU, but it's quite a lot. Read More A MESSAGE FROM INCOGNI Stop Robocalls, Spam Emails, Stalkers, Frauds, and More Every day, data brokers profit from your sensitive info—phone number, DOB, SSN—selling it to the highest bidder. And who's buying it? Best case: companies target you with ads. Worst case: scammers and identity thieves. Try Incogni—not only does it delete your personal data from the web, but it also removes your info from sites used for stalking. Sign Up Now Morning Must Reads Image Credits: Patrick Sison / AP Multi-factor authentication matters: The hackers behind the painful and expensive breach at Change Healthcare apparently used stolen credentials that were not protected by multi-factor authentication. The result of that oversight? Massive operational issues and huge costs to a massive company that handled nearly half of all U.S. citizens' data. We'll be talking about this one for some time. Read More Chowdeck's food-delivery business is booming: Nigerian startup Chowdeck, which recently raised a $2.5 million seed round, is trying to prove that food delivery is a massive growth opportunity in its home market. With GMV rising from ₦1 billion  ($830,000) in October 2023 to ₦2.4 billion ($2 million) this March, the startup is growing fast. Now the question will be how long it can keep that sort of growth going without burning too much cash. Read More Niche carbon counting: Tracking carbon usage is no small feat. That's why there's an industry of companies in the market today that help others with their carbon accounting. One startup, Carbonfact, is betting that by selecting and going deep on a single industry, it can do better than its rivals. The French startup recently raised $15 million to help the fashion industry become greener. Read More Going after leaked, deepfaked content: Ceartas has raised $4.5 million for its AI-infused tech service that scans "digital platforms to identify and eliminate unauthorized content, including deepfakes." The idea for the company came after one of its founders' personal video was posted to an adult website without his consent or knowledge. It's becoming easier by the day to deepfake images and videos, so Ceartas could have a lot of business on its hands. Read More The government is here to help: The U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology has spun up a generative AI division that will work on deepfake detection, and "encourage the development of software to spot the source of fake or misleading AI-generated information." We probably need this, but who expects the government to move as quickly as the technology in question? Read More New iPads: Apple may show off a new iPad Pro, iPad Air, Apple Pencil and a keyboard case in its May 7 event, so make sure you tune in to our coverage of all of the cool gadgets right here. Bookmark that link! Voters worry social media companies are too powerful: For politics, at least. Per a new survey, some "78% of American adults say social media companies have too much influence on politics." That's 6% more than the last election cycle, and includes the vast majority of both sides of the U.S. political divide. Read More Bumble shakes up app: Dating app Bumble wants to make it easier for women to reach out to potential matches. Given that the service is built around the idea of women making the first move, that direction makes sense. Bumble's stock has seen its value erode in the public markets since its IPO back in 2021. Read More neuroClues wants to use your eyes to diagnose your brain: French-Belgian medtech startup neuroClues is building eye-tracking tech that uses AI to watch how a patient's eyes move. The goal here is to diagnose neurodegenerative conditions. neuroClues is starting with a focus on Parkinson's. Read More Around the Web Fines for sharing mobile customers' location data: The Verge reports that the FCC has compiled around $200 million worth of fines for major telcos for "allegedly illegally sharing customers' location data without their consent." The U.S. could use stricter data privacy laws, yeah? Read More Empty buckets can leak lots: Software engineer Maciej Pocwierz has an illuminating post on how a private storage bucket that they set up on AWS wound up getting hit with a bunch of queries. The reason for the mishap is interesting, but the economics of the situation are downright fascinating. Worth reading! Read More Some media is insanely valuable: Rights to broadcast the NBA's events are worth billions every year. NBCUniversal may pay $2.5 billion per year to air a "package" of NBA games, the WSJ reports. That's a lot of cheddar, and it underscores just how valuable rights to air sports events are even in the Internet age. Read More Before You Go Image Credits: A2RL Who would win: Self-driving cars or F1 driver? I'm kidding. This flat out rules. There are many autonomous-driving race leagues out there, and Tim Stevens took a look at the recent Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League event for TechCrunch. Former F1 driver Daniil Kvyat easily beat the robot cars on the track, but I wonder if we're going to see more of this sort of thing? Read More Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com Question about our events? events@techcrunch.com Want to advertise on TechCrunch.com? advertise@techcrunch.com Interested in sponsoring live events? sponsors@techcrunch.com Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy

Google and Fisker cut jobs

Plus, Getir exits most markets and real estate investors learn to Backflip

View this email online in your browser By Christine Hall Monday, April 29, 2024 Happy Monday, and welcome back to TechCrunch PM. Unfortunately, there are some big firms laying people off today. Meanwhile, GitHub is getting into AI-powered software engineering, Backflip is doing a backflip after raising new capital and Getir finds out how hard the instant delivery industry is. Let's go! TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: JHVEPhoto / Getty Images Google has some employees googling for new jobs: The tech giant confirmed it laid off staff across teams, including Flutter, Dart and Python, but was mum when it came to disclosing specific teams, roles or how many people were let go. The move comes as Google prepares for its annual I/O developer conference in May. Read More Fisker lays off staff … again: EV startup Fisker was true to its word. The company laid off more employees in an effort to "preserve cash." This comes one week after Fisker warned investors it would have to make cuts to stave off impending bankruptcy. Read More A developer's first step can be a doozy. GitHub is here to help: Meet Copilot Workspace, a developer environment of "Copilot-powered agents" that help developers brainstorm, plan, build, test and run code in natural language. Read More Afternoon must-reads Image Credits: Backflip Flipping houses: If you've ever wanted to flip a home, yet cringed at all the drama on HGTV, Backflip has something for you. The startup raised $15 million to help real estate investors source, track, comp and evaluate potential investments. Read More Getir gets out: The Turkish instant delivery company rose quickly and dropped quickly. The company made the decision to leave all of its markets except for Turkey. Ingrid writes that "the move puts a bitter end to the company's very aggressive expansion strategy that saw it raise billions of dollars to grow organically and also snap up a number of equally aggressive, yet struggling, competitors to position itself as the market leader." Read More Fortnite is coming to iPad: The European Union designating Apple's iPadOS as another digital "gatekeeper" under the Digital Markets Act means that Epic Games will now bring its popular battle royale game, Fortnite, to the iPad later this year. Read More Creators can pull at more Threads: Meta has a few tricks up its sleeve for the X rival in the way of a limited-time bonus program for creators. There are a few caveats, of course. Read More Ford's BlueCruise gets a probe: Federal safety regulators are investigating the use of the hands-free driver-assistance system after two recent crashes killed multiple people. Read More Lots of changes at Ola: Not only is the Indian ride-hailing company cutting 180 jobs, but it also let go of its chief executive officer Hemant Bakshi. Read More Twitter co-founder takes a walk on the wild fediverse: Biz Stone joined the board of directors of Mastodon's new U.S. nonprofit. Read More Around the web Image Credits: Getty Images/Patra Kongsirimongkolchai / EyeEm Elon Musk has to have his tweets approved: The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the X owner over needing Tesla's lawyer to approve any tweets that Musk makes about Tesla. Read More Bill Gates still pulling the strings at Microsoft: Yes, you read that right. Business Insider reports that even though the titan of tech was ousted from Microsoft in 2021, Gates never really left. Read More AI companies have lots of capital, but not much else: It's no secret that investors are pouring money into artificial intelligence startups. It is the future, after all. The Wall Street Journal looks at some of these companies that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, all without a product or revenue. Read More A MESSAGE FROM INCOGNI Stop Robocalls, Spam Emails, Stalkers, Frauds, and More Every day, data brokers profit from your sensitive info—phone number, DOB, SSN—selling it to the highest bidder. And who's buying it? Best case: companies target you with ads. Worst case: scammers and identity thieves. Try Incogni—not only does it delete your personal data from the web, but it also removes your info from sites used for stalking. Sign Up Now TechCrunch Minute Elon Musk's big plans for xAI include raising $6 billion: You might be asking yourself whether Elon Musk already has enough companies to deal with. However, can't stop, won't stop. In the xAI pitch, Musk's connection to these other companies could help Tesla achieve its dream of true self-driving cars and bring its humanoid Optimus robot into factories, explains Anthony Ha. Hit play and let's chat!  Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com Question about our events? events@techcrunch.com Want to advertise on TechCrunch.com? advertise@techcrunch.com Interested in sponsoring live events? sponsors@techcrunch.com Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy