iCloud News: Big tech loves small AI startups

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Good morning, and welcome back to TechCrunch AM! If you were thinking that fintech’s a dead story, we have evidence today that the category is alive and actually wants to go for a walk.

We also have news about how several new AI tools are going to make things interesting for a lot of people, layoffs sadly being a reality still, and why burger-flipping tech may just take the most boring job out there away from us. It's a packed issue, so let's go!

– Alex

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Bilt Rewards builds itself a $200M reward: In the form of a venture investment led by General Catalyst, of course. Bilt offers consumers rewards points for paying their rent, both inside a network of properties and outside. The company claims that user spend is "nearing $20 billion" and Mary Ann reports that the company was EBITDA profitable last year. That last bit explains how the startup doubled its valuation to $3.1 billion in this round.
Send AI wants to help companies better use data from docs: Flush with €2.2 million in new capital, raised in part from Google's Gradient Ventures, Send AI aims to use custom language models to help companies pull, sort and export data from documents. Sure, there are a lot of players in that space already, but have you seen how many docs there are in the world?
Still more layoffs: The media world is going through its yearly shedding of the last of its staff, but did you expect massively profitable tech companies to fire this many people to start the year as well? eBay just announced plans to let go of 1,000 employees, or just under 10% of its total staffing. The company generated net income of $1.3 billion in Q3 2023, for reference.

Image Credits: Svetlana Lukienko / Shutterstock

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BeReal wants you to get real with celebs: If you are a fan of BeReal and also love to follow popular people, good news! Celebs and brands are coming to the app! Call it a reverse Threads — when Meta launched its Twitter competitor, it did so with brands and celebs ready to go. BeReal is running the opposite playbook. The service has 23 million DAUs, up from 20 million last August.

Kittl is proof of the design market's size: Kittl competes with Canva, and despite the latter being somewhat of an icon of the startup world, it appears that Berlin-based Kittl has found a sweet spot in the design market. Evidence of that fact is its recent $36 million Series B, raised just a year after it locked in its Series A. That's quick.

OpenDialog wants to bring chat bots to regulated biz: Companies have long employed AI tools to talk to customers with varying amounts of success, but that kind of unreliability is a big red flag for companies in highly regulated industries. What if the AI says something that's not ideal? Enter OpenDialog: this UK-based startup has raised $8 million to bring conversational AI to healthcare and insurance companies.

Les petites fusées sont une grosse affaire: French startup Latitude just raised $30 million to send small rockets to space, and is prepping the first flight of its Zephyr rocket in 2025. This fundraise adds it to the list of cool companies to keep tabs on as the space industry matures and increases its launch frequency.

Forta Health is tackling autism care: This is an interesting news item: Forta just raised $55 million for its healthtech service, some of which is focused on autism treatment. But as Haje Jan Kamps writes, its chosen approach to help care for autistic patients could prove to be controversial.

Etsy is using AI to help you buy more stuff: AI is going to wheedle its way into every product where a company thinks it can drive up key metrics, and in the case of Etsy, that's GMV. That explains its new service 'Gift Mode,' an AI-powered online quiz that asks about who you're shopping for, the occasion, and the recipient's interests. Basically: If you are low on ideas, Etsy wants to help (you buy stuff).

Some timely analysis from TechCrunch+: AI margins are once again driving startup chatter. It's not the first time we've had this debate, but it is all the more pertinent today in light of the scale of AI-related startup activity. And if you are an edtech operator or founder, this investor survey is a must-read.

To close out, Mike Butcher argues that "an increasing consumer appetite for sustainable packaging is powering a new wave of startups," which is likely to be a great thing for Mama Earth and the Planeteers who care for the environment!

Image Credits: NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty Images

Before you go

Flipping burgers is often viewed as an easy job — indeed, it's a stand-in phrase for poorly-paid grunt work. Well, the robots are coming for burger flippers around the world. Honestly, that's fine by me — turning meat is hardly the peak of human capability, though Aniai hopes that it is a lucrative opportunity for its restaurant tech.