Raising a Series A round in today’s competitive market can be a daunting task. To equip seed-stage founders with the insights and strategies needed for success, TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 will host a crucial session on the Builders Stage titled “What You Need to Raise a Series A Today.” This session will bring together some of … Read more
In the age of generative AI, when chatbots can provide detailed answers to questions based on content pulled from the internet, the line between fair use and plagiarism, and between routine web scraping and unethical summarization, is a thin one. Perplexity AI is a startup that combines a search engine with a large language model … Read more
Sophisticated spacecraft often run on shockingly outdated computing systems: consider that the Perseverance rover runs on a PowerPC 750, the processor famous for running on iMacs in the late 1990s. San Francisco-based Aethero is aiming to bring more powerful computing systems to orbit, and their first payload launches this month on SpaceX’s Transporter-11 rideshare mission. … Read more
The venture fundraising trend in 2024 is fairly clear by now: Large, established VC firms are continuing to attract capital from limited partners, while smaller, newer funds are finding it more difficult to raise. But Industry Ventures’ latest fundraise should offer a dash of good news for emerging managers. On Tuesday, the 24-year-old firm announced … Read more
Indian edtech giant Unacademy is laying off about 250 employees, the latest in a series of layoffs since the reopening of schools across the country after the pandemic. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, valued at $3.4 billion in its last funding in 2021, is cutting 100 jobs in core roles (marketing, business and product) and 150 in … Read more
Apple unveiled iOS 18 last month at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). Since then, the company has released two developer betas in the last few weeks with extended support for multiple new languages across the lock screen, Siri, keyboard, and search on iOS 18. With the new update, you can now customize the lock screen … Read more
Anthropic is launching a program to fund the development of new types of benchmarks capable of evaluating the performance and impact of AI models, including generative models like its own Claude. Unveiled on Monday, Anthropic’s program will dole out grants to third-party organizations that can, as the company puts it in a blog post, “effectively … Read more
A group of senators has banded together to urge Synapse’s owners and bank and fintech partners to “immediately restore customers’ access to their money.” As part of their demands, the senators implicated both the partners and investors of the company as being responsible for missing customer funds. In a letter shared publicly on Monday, U.S. … Read more
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. I hope everyone has a fantastic July 4 this week. Go eat a hot dog. Read my story from last week on the causes of Starliner’s additional delay and what it might mean for Boeing’s Starliner program. Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at aria.techcrunch@gmail.com … Read more
Meta is not the only company grappling with the rise in AI-generated content and how it affects its platform. YouTube also quietly rolled out a policy change in June that will allow people to request the takedown of AI-generated or other synthetic content that simulates their face or voice. The change allows people to request … Read more