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11x.ai, a startup that develops AI-powered sales development bots, has secured roughly $50 million in Series B funding, TechCrunch has learned. The new round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at around $350 million, multiple sources told TechCrunch. The recent deal follows the company’s $24 million Series A, which was led by Benchmark […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

VC Neil Mehta, the Greenoaks Capital co-founder tied to a growing number of building purchases across several blocks of San Francisco’s once-glittering Fillmore Street, defended himself on Monday via an op-ed in The San Francisco Standard, saying the moves are solely about revitalizing a “city that has given me more than I could ever give […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Snapchat is quietly rolling out a new “Footsteps” feature to all iOS users this week, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Monday. The new feature, which was previously only available to Snapchat+ subscribers, uses Snap Map to let you see how much of the world you’ve explored and track where you’ve traveled to. The first […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Raspberry Pi, the company that sells tiny, cheap, single-board computers, is releasing an add-on that is going to open up several use cases — and yes, because it’s 2024, there’s an AI angle. Called the Raspberry Pi AI Camera, this image sensor comes with on-board AI processing and is going to cost $70. In more technical […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Elon Musk’s X is now valued at less than a quarter of its $44 billion purchase price, according to a new estimate from investor Fidelity.  The asset manager, which helped Musk acquire the social network formerly known as Twitter, has further reduced the value of its holding in X to a total markdown of 78.7% […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom considered 38 AI-related bills, including the highly contentious SB 1047, which the state’s legislature sent to his desk for final approval. He vetoed SB 1047 on Sunday, marking the end of the road for California’s controversial AI bill that tried to prevent AI disasters, but signed more than a […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed SB 1047, a high-profile bill that would have regulated the development of AI. The bill was authored by State Senator Scott Wiener and would have made companies that develop AI models liable for implementing safety protocols to prevent “critical harms.” The rules would only have applied to models that […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Businesses need stability to thrive. Unfortunately for anyone in Sudan, stability has been hard to come by for the past year and a half as the country quakes amidst a raging civil war. More than 20,000 people have been killed, and about 7.7 million people have been displaced just within the country; millions have had […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

X (formerly Twitter) could soon resume service in Brazil — if it’s willing to pay an additional fine. Reuters and other publications have reported on an order from the country’s Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes stating that the Elon Musk-owned social network could “immediately return to its activities in national territory” if it pays […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon Prime Video could be getting into the live news business, if only for one night. Variety reports that the company is in talks with longtime NBC and MSNBC news anchor Brian Williams to host a live Election Night special, competing with more traditional TV news broadcasts to offer non-partisan coverage of the U.S. presidential […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao was released from U.S. custody on Friday after serving out his four-month sentence in a low-security correctional facility. CZ’s sentence was the product of a federal investigation that found Binance had failed to stop widespread criminal activity on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. CZ pleaded guilty to the DOJ’s charges, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

EV startup Canoo has been hit with two new lawsuits from suppliers linked to the drivetrains that power its electric vehicles, just weeks after the company kicked off a major reorganization that included the departure of its chief technology officer. Canoo has also parted ways with senior director of advanced vehicle engineering Christoph Kuttner, who […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Three Iranian hackers working for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted the Trump campaign in an attempted hack-and-leak operation, according to the Department of Justice. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As OpenAI boasts about its o1 model’s increased thoughtfulness, small, self-funded startup Nomi AI is building the same kind of technology. Unlike the broad generalist ChatGPT, which slows down to think through anything from math problems or historical research, Nomi niches down on a specific use case: AI companions. Now, Nomi’s already-sophisticated chatbots take additional […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The company recently closed a $130 million round, according to an SEC filing, bringing the total to $327 million. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The decision comes just a few weeks before OpenAI's Dev Day, its annual developer conference. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The strategy is to create consumer agents, but then use those to inform how they train agents in the enterprise. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Europe’s attempt at building a battery manufacturing powerhouse announced that it had halted work on a factory expansion and laid off about 20% of its employees. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

X will soon change the functionality behind its block button so that if you block an account, they will still be able to see your public posts, according to changes to X’s website spotted by independent app researcher, Nima Owji. Elon Musk confirmed these changes on Monday, noting that blocked accounts will still not be […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

After U.S. ban, Kaspersky's American customers were automatically migrated to UltraAV antivirus, in some cases without the customers' knowledge. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

James McGinniss has been obsessed with decarbonization and the energy grid since he was a high schooler over a decade ago. Now, his startup David Energy has a lofty goal: getting the energy grid to run entirely on clean energy in the next 10 years. Brooklyn-based David Energy is a software-enabled retail energy provider. It […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Jump offers full-time contracts to freelancers looking for some stability and the benefits involved with a full-time job. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A new Financial Times profile of Mayayoshi Son opens with SoftBank CEO seeming to hit bottom, staring at his “ugly” face on Zoom and telling himself, “I have done nothing I can be proud of.” The scene is presented as the prelude to a hoped-for a comeback, with Son largely disappearing from the public eye […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg unleashed a scathing attack on a rival firm this week, calling WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress.” Mullenweg criticized the company — which has been commercializing the open source WordPress project since 2010 — for profiteering without giving much back, while also disabling key features that make WordPress […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

This glossary includes some of the most common terms and expressions we use in our articles, and explanations of how — and why — we use them. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The fair source concept is designed to help companies align themselves with the "open" software development sphere, without encroaching into existing licensing landscapes. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Speaking Saturday at the UN Summit of the Future, Google CEO Sundar Pichai described AI as “the most transformative technology yet” and announced a new fund for AI education and training around the world. Pichai pointed to four broad opportunities he sees for AI and sustainable development, according to a transcript of his prepared remarks […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

It seems that Elon Musk-owned social network X (formerly Twitter) is backing down from a confrontation with Brazil’s Supreme Court. The New York Times reported on a new court filing in which the company’s lawyers said X had complied with the court’s orders — blocking designated accounts, paying fines, and naming a new formal representative […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Apple published step-by-step instructions for swapping out the new handset’s battery. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The iPhone 16 officially goes on sale Friday. But for its earliest adopters, it arrives with a fundamental compromise baked into the deal. Put simply, this is not the iPhone 16 that they were promised. Tim Cook said it would be the “first iPhone built for Apple Intelligence.” But that “for” is key: The handsets […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

On Monday, Apple released its latest computer operating system update called macOS 15, or Sequoia. And, somehow, the software update has broken the functionality of several security tools made by CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Microsoft, and others, according to posts on social media, as well as messages posted in a Mac-focused Slack channel.  At this point, it’s […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A House committee overwhelmingly voted to approve a bill that would require new cars to be built with AM radio at no additional cost to the owner. The AM for Every Vehicle Act will now head to the House floor for final approval. If successful, it’ll go to the president’s desk to be signed into […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

iOS 18 offers the most control over the look and feel of your iPhone's user interface than any other version of Apple's mobile operating system to date. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

At Tuesday’s annual Snap Partner Summit, the Snapchat maker unveiled new tools for creators designed to bring its app more in line with its competitors, like TikTok and Instagram. The company also said it will make it easier for creators to connect with brands for sponsored deals and partnerships.  Catching up to rivals, creators on […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As EV startup Fisker prepares to enter the fourth month of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, existing owners have received some bad news: they will have to pay labor costs to resolve two of the five outstanding recalls on their Ocean SUVs. Fisker broke the bad news Sunday night in an FAQ posted to its […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Gogoro, the Taiwanese electric scooter manufacturer and battery-swapping giant, said its CEO and chairman Horace Luke has stepped down amid subsidy fraud allegations, according to a regulatory filing. Gogoro allegedly used Chinese parts for e-scooters to reduce manufacturing costs, despite reporting that it used locally made parts to qualify for government subsidies. In a filing, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

AWS today announced that it is transitioning OpenSearch, its open source fork of the popular Elasticsearch search and analytics engine, to the Linux Foundation with the launch of the very aptly named OpenSearch Foundation. AWS first launched the OpenSearch project in 2021, after Elastic changed its license for its Elasticsearch and Kibana projects to its […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Insight Partners is reportedly on the cusp of on more than $10 billion in capital commitments for its 13th fund, per the FT.  The FT report notes that two of Insight’s portfolio companies were acquired in the last week. One of these, the threat intelligence company Recorded Future, which sold to Mastercard for $2.65 billion, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A decade after the wildly popular game Flappy Bird disappeared, an organization calling itself The Flappy Bird Foundation announced plans to “re-hatch the official Flappy Bird® game.” But this morning, the game’s creator Dong Nguyen posted a characteristically terse comment stating that he has nothing to do with the revival, and that he “did not […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Netflix has never quite cracked the talk show formula, but maybe it can borrow an existing hit from YouTube. According to Bloomberg, the streamer is in talks with BuzzFeed to create live episodes of the popular YouTube talk show “Hot Ones.” Netflix and BuzzFeed did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. The show […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Lawyers representing Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX CEO and co-founder who was convicted of fraud and money laundering late last year, are seeking a new trial. Following crypto exchange FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried was found guilty on all seven counts, then sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture. He has […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Bolt says it has settled its long-standing lawsuit with its investor Activant Capital. One-click payments startup Bolt is settling the suit by buying out the investor’s stake “after which Activant will no longer hold any interest in Bolt,” the company said in a statement. Activant’s suit accused founder and then CEO Ryan Breslow of adding […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

TuSimple, once a buzzy startup considered a leader in self-driving trucks, is trying to move its assets to China to fund a new AI-generated animation and video game business. The pivot has not only puzzled and enraged several shareholders, but also threatens to pull the company back into a legal morass mere weeks after reaching […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Online sports apparel retailer Fanatics has agreed to settle and drop a lawsuit that it filed against troubled one-click payments provider Bolt in March, according to court documents obtained by TechCrunch.  The settlement occurred as Bolt was in the thick of a new gambit to raise a large round of financing, including a “cramdown” threat […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A complete list of all the known layoffs in tech, from Big Tech to startups, broken down by month throughout 2024. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI is reportedly in talks with investors to raise $6.5 billion in new funding, valuing the startup at $150 billion, according to Bloomberg and the Financial Times. That’s significantly higher than OpenAI’s previously reported valuation from earlier this year, $86 billion, and far higher than any other AI startup today. The funding round will reportedly […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Along with biological organisms, the robots were inspired kirigami, a variation of origami wherein objects are cut in addition to folded. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

One would have expected that "Apple's first phone made from the ground up for Apple Intelligence" would justify being so. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The 16 Pro starts at $999, while the Pro Max runs $1,119 and up. Preorder opens Friday. The handsets start shipping on September 20. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Atomico has historically leaned toward earlier funding rounds while dipping into later stages where it made sense; now it's setting itself up to focus just as much on the later stages of a startup's journey. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

When Apple unveiled its AI plans at WWDC in June, analysts suggested the feature could put the iPhone 16 on track for another “supercycle.” Like the addition of 5G before it, industry watchers believed that Apple Intelligence’s arrival might convince holdouts to bite the bullet and upgrade their device. We’ll have a much better picture […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Elon Musk has denied a report that one of his companies, Tesla, has discussed sharing revenue with another of his companies, xAI, so that it can use the startup’s AI models. The Wall Street Journal wrote yesterday that under a proposed agreement described to investors, Tesla would use xAI models in its driver-assistance software (known […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Along with the ability to automatically adjust to the surface they’re traversing, the legs move faster and jump higher than their more standardized electric counterparts. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Bluesky keeps growing: The company announced that as of Friday morning, it had added 3 million new users, bringing its total user count to more than 9 million. In other words, the social platform’s user base has grown by around 50 percent in the week or so since a Brazilian court banned X (formerly Twitter). […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Warp is under the spotlight following controversial posts from an account tied to the company. On Thursday, an account posting under the name Vittorio wrote on X, “i like White people more, they do more, they are better for the roles i need to climb the kardashev scale i’ll let blacks run and play basketball.” […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Apple is likely to unveil its iPhone 16 series of phones and maybe even some Apple Watches at its Glowtime event on September 9. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Mangomint seeks to make it easier for spa and salon owners to run their businesses. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The honors program is one of the first in the U.S. that allows incoming freshmen to apply for the program as part of their initial admission application. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Drip Capital has raised $113 million in a combination of $23 million in equity and $90 million in debt to provide credit to more small businesses in India and the U.S. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Maybe a lack of AI characters is what Quibi got wrong. At least, that’s what one startup appears to believe.  My Drama is a new short series app with more than 30 shows, with a majority of them following a soap opera format in order to hook viewers. The app is now launching an AI-powered […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The hiring effort comes after X, formerly known as Twitter, laid off 80% of its trust and safety staff since Musk's takeover. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Snap is testing a “simplified version of Snapchat,” CEO Evan Spiegel wrote in a letter to employees published on Snap’s website Tuesday. The CEO says the simplified version aims to improve the platform’s accessibility and usability. For those that remember Snapchat’s 2018 redesign, this news may do little to stoke confidence. Spiegel attempted to rally […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a report about increasing fraud at Bitcoin ATMs. These ATMs allow people to turn their cash into crypto, but they’ve become a tool for scammers to perpetrate fraud. Since 2020, the FTC says, fraud at Bitcoin ATMs has ballooned nearly tenfold, and just in the first half of 2024, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Volkswagen is taking its ChatGPT voice assistant experiment on the road. Or more, specifically to vehicles it sells in the United States.  The German automaker announced in January at CES 2024 plans to add an AI-powered chatbot into all Volkswagen models equipped with its IDA voice assistant. But the U.S. was excluded in that initial […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Hospitals around the world regularly face bed shortages — an issue that can get exacerbated to breaking point when a health scare or other large-scale disaster occurs. A startup called Doccla is bringing technology to bear address the issue: it’s building “virtual bed” tech to help doctors remotely manage patients who have either been discharged […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

India's fabless semiconductor startup BigEndian has raised $3 million in a seed round led by Vertex Ventures SEA and India. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

SparkLabs — an early-stage venture capital firm that has made a name for itself for backing OpenAI as well as a host of other AI startups such as Vectara, Allganize, Kneron, Anthropic, xAI, Glade (YC S23) and Lucidya AI — is gearing up to double down more startups in the space. The VC firm announced […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

If you have never considered a search engine beyond Google, you might be surprised to see what else is out there. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Customers of WazirX, the Indian cryptocurrency exchange that suffered a $234 million hack in July, are unlikely to recover their funds in full through the ongoing restructuring process, a company legal adviser said on Monday. George Gwee, a director at restructuring firm Kroll working with WazirX, said that at least 43% of the money any […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Validus, a Singapore-based digital lending platform for small and medium businesses, has secured $50 million in debt financing from HSBC under the ASEAN Growth Fund strategy. Validus will use the proceeds to support the financial inclusion of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia, addressing the challenges they face in accessing financial resources. With […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Mac mini will be the next Apple device to say goodbye to USB-A, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Apple customers have probably gotten used to seeing the familiar, rectangular USB-A ports replaced with their thinner USB-C siblings. And while USB-C has its advantages, the transition can sometimes leave users confused and scrambling for adapters. […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Home robots’ unfulfilled potential is neither because of lack of demand on the part of consumers nor lack of effort from manufacturers. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As we continue to monitor the growth of Africa's tech ecosystem, it’s essential to highlight and analyze the biggest disclosed acquisitions. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.