Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the Evolve Bank hack, three notable acquisitions, Plaid’s enterprise customer growth and more. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big story On June 26, Evolve Bank & … Read more
Meta plans to bring more generative AI tech into games, specifically VR, AR and mixed reality games, as the company looks to reinvigorate its flagging metaverse strategy. According to a job listing, Meta is seeking to research and prototype “new consumer experiences” with new types of gameplay driven by generative AI, like games that “change … Read more
Have you ever wanted a personalized makeup dispenser? Well, Boldhue‘s co-founder and CTO Karin Layton has built just that: A device that aims to be the “Keurig for makeup.” Boldhue’s device essentially scans your face and dispenses a customized foundation formula that matches your skin tone. The beauty tech startup on Tuesday said it had … Read more
Electricity demand is booming on account of AI. In a May 2024 report, Goldman Sachs predicted that data centers will use 8% of the U.S.’s total power supply by 2030, up from 3% in 2022, as cloud service providers expand to meet the demand for AI infrastructure. Assuming the current trend holds, U.S. utilities will need to … Read more
Investment app Robinhood is adding more AI features for investors with its acquisition of AI-powered research platform Pluto Capital, Inc., announced on Monday. The company says that Pluto will allow Robinhood to add tools for quicker identification of trends and investment opportunities, help guide users with their investment strategies, and offer real-time portfolio optimization. Pluto … Read more
We’re over halfway through 2024, and already this year we have seen some of the biggest, most damaging data breaches in recent history. And just when you think that some of these hacks can’t get any worse, they do. From huge stores of customers’ personal information getting scraped, stolen and posted online, to reams of … Read more
There’s something of a trend around legacy software firms and their soaring valuations: Companies founded in dinosaur times are on a tear, evidenced this week with SAP‘s shares topping $200 for the first time. Founded in 1972, SAP’s valuation currently sits at an all-time high of $234 billion. The Germany-based enterprise software provider was valued … Read more
To give AI-focused women academics and others their well-deserved — and overdue — time in the spotlight, TechCrunch is launching a series of interviews focusing on remarkable women who’ve contributed to the AI revolution. Sarah Bitamazire is the chief policy officer at the boutique advisory firm Lumiera, where she also helps write the newsletter Lumiera … Read more
As Plaid has expanded its fintech services, so, too, has it grown its customer base. Plaid got its start as a company that connects consumer bank accounts to financial applications but has since been gradually expanding its offerings to also include lending, identity verification, credit reporting, anti-fraud and payments. The 11-year-old company was almost acquired … Read more
When Rodney Brooks talks about robotics and artificial intelligence, you should listen. Currently the Panasonic Professor of Robotics Emeritus at MIT, he also co-founded three key companies, including Rethink Robotics, iRobot and his current endeavor, Robust.ai. Brooks also ran the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) for a decade starting in 1997. In … Read more
