Bitkraft Ventures — a games investor based out of Denver, Colorado, but with European founders — has raised its third fund, coming in at $275 million. The fund will make seed and Series A investments in gaming studios, and platforms to support game production. The moves comes at a time when games investments have actually … Read more
X is warning users they may see a reduction in their follower counts as the company attempts to clear the network of some spammers and bots in a large sweep. Via an announcement published by X’s Safety account, the company on Thursday will begin a “significant, proactive initiative” to eliminate accounts that violate X’s rules … Read more
As U.S. lawmakers weigh a possible TikTok ban, the ByteDance-owned short-form video app released an economic impact report on Thursday. In it, the company touts the platform generated $14.7 billion for small- to mid-size businesses (SMBs) last year, and a further $24.2 billion in total economic activity, supported through small business’s use of TikTok. In … Read more
Bay Area/Colombia-based delivery robotics firm Kiwibot this week announced that it has acquired Auto Mobility Solutions. The Taipei firm produces chips specifically for the world of robotics and autonomous driving. Details of the transaction have not been disclosed. Kiwi founder and CEO Felipe Chávez Cortés does, however, tell TechCrunch that rising tensions between the U.S. … Read more
OpenAI is expanding a program, Custom Model, to help enterprise customers develop tailored generative AI models using its technology for specific use cases, domains and applications. Custom Model launched last year at OpenAI’s inaugural developer conference, DevDay, offering companies an opportunity to work with a group of dedicated OpenAI researchers to train and optimize models … Read more
DataStax made a name for itself by commercializing the open source Apache Cassandra NoSQL database, but these days, the company’s focus is squarely on using its database chops to build a “one-stop GenAI stack.” One of the first building blocks for this was to bring vector search capabilities to its hosted Astra DB service last … Read more
Data transformation and optimization — tasks that many, if not most, large enterprises deal with — aren’t easy. But thanks to the enormous growth of AI and cloud technologies, the challenges appears to be increasing. In a recent Gartner poll, fewer than half (44%) of data and analytics leaders said that their teams are effective … Read more
Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal is in talks to raise capital for his new startup, Indian fintech Navi. Bansal is talking to investors to raise at a valuation of around $2 billion, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. One source said he is looking to raise between $200 million and $400 million. The Bengaluru-headquartered … Read more
X is giving free blue checks to users who have more than 2500 “verified” followers (or, people that subscribe to X Premium). So, basically this means that if you are a popular poster, you will get a blue check. This also means that these lucky people are frantically posting to make it clear that they … Read more
The European Union and the U.S. expect to announce a cooperation on AI at a meeting of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council (TTC) on Friday, according to a senior commission official who was briefing journalists on background ahead of the confab. The mood music points to growing cooperation between lawmakers on both sides of … Read more
