Cruise cuts 900 jobs as revamp gets underway

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Thursday, December 14, 2023

In today's top story, Kirsten learned exclusively that General Motors' self-driving car division Cruise was slashing 24% of its workforce. Most of the cuts are being made in non-engineering positions. Get more of the scoop. This follows Kirsten's coverage yesterday of a number of Cruise managers and executives leaving after an initial safety probe involving a pedestrian that was struck and dragged by one of the company's robotaxis. Meanwhile, Ivan writes about a new Instagram feature that enables generative AI–powered editing of photo backgrounds. See it in action. And Lorenzo has a look at a supply chain attack that targeted Ledger, a company that makes hardware and software for crypto wallets. Learn how it started. Image Credits: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

More top reads Mega deal: India's Udaan, a business-to-business e-commerce startup, scores $340 million in new funding. Read about one of India's largest funding deals this year. Not just human, but superhuman: OpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming and, of course, wants to build tools to control it. Here is the company's plan. A dose of their own medicine: Microsoft disrupts a cybercrime operation by selling fraudulent accounts to a notorious hacking gang. Take that! Mission accomplished: Amazon's Project Kuiper confirms its super-fast satellite communication tech works in space. Learn more. Connected home: Google Nest Renew and OhmConnect merge into "Renew Home" with a $100 million boost from Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners. Here's how it will work. No strings attached: Meta's Threads is finally available to users in the European Union. Welcome! At it again: Apple again targets iMessage-on-Android app Beeper, but the company isn't taking it lying down. There's a fix. A good sign: Paris-based venture capital firm Singular raises $435 million for its second fund. Learn more. You've got email . . . and a calendar: Encrypted email service Proton Mail finally gets its own desktop app. See what you get. Pivot: Jumia, a Pan-African e-commerce company, discontinues its food delivery across seven markets, instead shifting focus to expanding its physical goods business. Here's why. The elephant in the social media room: Mastodon founder touts Threads' federation, saying it makes his X rival "a far more attractive option." Get the scoop. Shop till you drop: Social commerce platform Maka raises $2.65 million to simplify buying fashion and beauty products in Africa. Read more. Pay for play: Andreessen Horowitz says it will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech. Call it optimism. Even more for your Thursday: Spotify confirms test of prompt-based AI playlists feature Temu's latest lawsuit against Shein is wild (TC+) Boston Dynamics joins forces with firm behind 'Avatar,' 'Jurassic Park' animatronics Linktree acquires link-in-bio platform Koji in its second investment of the year BoxGroup closes on $425M for two funds to back early-stage startups Image Credits: Dhiraj Singh / Bloomberg / Getty Images

On the pods For this week's episode of Chain Reaction, Jacquelyn interviewed Johann Kerbrat, the general manager of crypto at Robinhood. Johann is leading the application’s effort to expand its crypto exchange business and make digital assets more accessible to retail investors. We discussed Robinhood's expansion outside the U.S., how the platform restricted holding and trading of certain crypto assets in June, and where it stands today. We also talked about: Appealing to mainstream audiences. Growing crypto on its platform. Regulatory concerns. Robinhood's 2024 objectives. Chain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action. Read More Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

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Another spend management startup grabs funding

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Wednesday, December 13, 2023

In today's top story, Romain writes about French startup Pivot, which provides spend management software. The company is only a few months into operations and has already raised $21.6 million. Learn what the buzz is about. Meanwhile, Google pushed some news today, the most read of which was by Frederic who reports that with AI Studio, Google launches an easy-to-use tool for developing apps and chatbots based on its Gemini model. Read more. But wait, there's more: Duet AI for Developers, Google's GitHub Copilot competitor, is now generally available and will soon use the Gemini model. Google unveils MedLM, a family of healthcare-focused generative AI models. Google debuts Imagen 2 with text and logo generation. Google brings Gemini Pro to Vertex AI. And please give it up for our new reporter, Sean O'Kane, who joins the transportation desk. Sean just started and already has a top story and a radio appearance under his belt, thanks to news that Tesla is going to start restricting Autopilot's best feature following a recall. Get the scoop. Image Credits: Pivot

More top reads Coin flip: Worldcoin has a lot going on. Most importantly, adding integrations with Minecraft, Reddit, Telegram, Shopify and Mercado Libre. Read more. Take a bite: Apple will no longer give police users' push notification data without a warrant. At the same time, Apple introduces protection to prevent thieves from getting your passwords. And Apple adds iPhone 15 and additional M2 Macs to its Self Service Repair program. Out of stealth, into the AI: Hyperplane is a new startup that wants to bring AI to banks. Here's how. A good read: Amazon launches its own book discovery service, "Your Books," in an effort to compete with Goodreads. It's a real page-turner. The exports have it: South African e-commerce startup TUNL gets some early funding to accelerate growth of its exports platform. Read more. Almost broken: For a minute there, it looked like outgoing X links were broken. Everything seems to be okay now. If you want to know what else is going on at X, head over to TechCrunch+ where Alex writes that what X needs now is for Snap to post a solid Q4. Here's why. Cape time: Zuper closes on $32 million in Series B funding to continue developing its field service management platform for small business and enterprise customers. Read more. Mass market appeal: Copia Global, a Kenyan e-commerce startup, gets $20 million in new funding and a new board member as it pushes toward profitability. Learn more. This one brings me back: Like Kyle, I too remember the good old days of Circuit City. The electronics retailer is making a comeback, of sorts, and hopes to raise $25 million. Get the scoop. More Meta: Get ready Threads lovers, Meta plans to bring its fact-checking program to Threads next year. Meanwhile, Meta started testing Threads integration with ActivityPub. So life like: Verve Motion raises $20 million to grow its exosuit business. You get to be your own RoboCop. Give new meaning to the friendly skies: Metafuels lands $8 million bet on greener skies ahead. Read more. Even more for your Wednesday: Orkes forks Conductor as Netflix abandons the open source project. Xbox Cloud Gaming now available on Meta Quest 2, 3 and Pro. Epic Games won its antitrust battle with Google. But what comes next? OpenAI inks deal with Axel Springer on licensing news for model training. Here's where founders screw up their pitch decks most often. (TC+) Image Credits: Worldcoin

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On the pods This week, Equity brought Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic and co-founder of WordPress, onto the show, along with Kishan Bagaria, the founder of Texts.com.  Automattic bought all-in-one messaging app Texts.com for $50 million back in October, and today, we’re digging into the transaction and what it means, and also the state of the written word online. Listen here. Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

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This venture firm is backing out of India

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Tuesday, December 12, 2023

In today's top story, Manish exclusively learned that Omidyar Network, an impact venture firm backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, decided to pull out of the India market. The details are still fuzzy, but from what is known, expect to see some Omidyar alums reunite and start their own fund. Read more. Next, WeRide is eager to get its autonomous vehicles in use outside of China. Rita writes that the company is testing its buses in Singapore. Get on board. Meanwhile, Mike reports on Spore.Bio, a company leveraging generative AI in a spectral device to detect bad microbes in food factories in real time. Take a bite. And for those of you headed to Las Vegas for CES 2024, the TechCrunch team wants to meet your startup. Image Credits: Getty Images

More top reads Lego + Fortnite: Who would have thought Fortnite's crowd would embrace Legos? Clearly Epic. Lego Fortnite's debut builds momentum with 2.4 million people playing at once. Read more. Speaking of Epic, the games maker wins its antitrust fight against Google. Such an original name: Adobe launches Spectrum 2, a new design system for all of its apps. Here's what's new. You've got to BeReal: BeReal wants to be your social media app for everything, so it's starting to look more like them. See the new features. Treat yo'self: Temu was the most-downloaded free iPhone app in the U.S. in 2023. Here's why. AI in everyday life: Durable cements $14 million to build AI-powered tools for small businesses in service industries. Read more. I've got the power: Here are three renewable energy breakthroughs that earned Fourth Power its $19 million Series A. Go inside. (TC+) Put a pin in it: Want to save that important message, image, location, etc.? WhatsApp now has a feature for that. Learn how it works. An AI bear hug: For developers embracing artificial intelligence, Laredo wants to use generative AI to automate developers' work. Read more. Curtain call: E3 has entertained its last electronic expo. Get the scoop. That + will get you perks: It pays to pay for services. Snapchat+ subscribers can now create and send AI-generated images. Read more. And get ready for Snapchat's end-of-year "Recap" to roll out beginning December 13. Even more for your Tuesday: Ukraine's largest mobile operator Kyivstar downed by 'powerful' cyberattack Microsoft's climate fund backs sustainable jet fuel company Dimensional Energy Bitcoin ATM company Coin Cloud got hacked. Even its new owners don't know how Deadmau5-founded startup Korus taps into AI for music creation Gig marketplace Jitjatjo raises $30M to grow into new markets Image Credits: Epic Games

On the pods This week’s episode of Found centers on James Wagoner, the co-founder and CEO of Joule Case, a startup that is creating a cleaner alternative to diesel generators. Wagoner talked about his journey to launching the company after the first company he, and his co-founder, started didn’t survive the 2008 financial crisis. He also talked about: Why they chose to raise money through equity crowdfunding and how that’s worked out for them. What it has been like building in this new environment for clean tech. How he and his co-founder have successfully worked together since meeting their freshman year of college. Listen here. Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Read More Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

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