TechCrunch Startup News

Savings and investing startup Acorns has acquired EarlyBird, an investment gifting platform for families, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, EarlyBird will shut down, and all customer accounts will officially close on June 23. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pronto, which provides cleaning, laundry and home services within 10 minutes, has raised $2M at a $12.5M valuation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI-powered notetaking app Granola is raising $43 million in funding at a $250 million valuation. It is also launching a team sharing feature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Enterprises want access to new software and AI tools but can’t risk sending their sensitive data out to a third-party software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers. Tensor9 looks to help software companies land more enterprise customers by helping them deploy their software directly into a customer’s tech stack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Popular legal AI tool Harvey will now be using leading foundation models from Anthropic and Google, moving beyond strictly using OpenAI’s, Harvey announced in a blog post on Tuesday. This is noteworthy because Harvey is one of the OpenAI Startup Fund’s most successful early-backed portfolio companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Realta hopes to build power plants cheaply enough to supply power as low as $40 per megawatt-hour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An analysis by Epoch AI, a nonprofit AI research institute, suggests the AI industry may not be able to eke massive performance gains out of reasoning AI models for much longer. As soon as within a year, progress from reasoning models could slow down, according to the report’s findings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AllTrails, the hiking and biking companion that was named 2023’s iPhone App of the Year, is launching a new premium membership called “Peak” that includes an upgraded feature set. This $80-per-year subscription will introduce AI tools to build custom routes, real-time trail condition forecasts, trail traffic heatmaps, and a feature that lets you identify trees Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...

VCs are known to move in herds, which is why Eric Slesinger stands out a bit. While most American investors chase AI startups or U.S.-based defense tech startups, the former CIA officer is hunting for defense tech deals in Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. authorities indicted three Russians and one Kazakhstan national for hacking and selling access to a botnet made of vulnerable internet-connected devices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It took seven years of hard work for Kareem Amin, co-founder and CEO of sales automation startup Clay, to see the company’s product finally take off in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social media startup Fizz is suing grocery delivery giant Instacart and party planning app Partiful for trademark infringement, the company announced on Thursday. Earlier this week, Instacart launched a new drinks and snack delivery app for parties called Fizz and announced that Partiful had integrated Fizz directly into its platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch...

Breathe has developed a suite of tools that it says helps automakers and others get the most out of their batteries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As “vibe coding” gains in popularity and tech companies push devs in their employ to embrace generative AI tools, a platform that scans for vulnerabilities in AI-generated code has raised a fresh round of funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Agree.com says its AI-powered e-signature platform is different from competitors because it includes invoicing and payment processing. That’s why the company might have a shot at tackling the industry goliath, Docusign.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Individuals may work closely with AI agents as they become increasingly prevalent in the workplace. According to a report by Boston Consulting Group, the market for AI agents is expected to grow at a 45% compound annual growth rate over the next five years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s an unspoken pressure nowadays to share all your special moments online, whether it be birthdays, graduations, or engagements.  However, not everyone has the skills to take high-quality pictures, and often, people find themselves too distracted to snap the perfect shot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While many tech companies are mandating that their employees return to their offices, and putting an emphasis on building in-person teams, they are also turning in droves to Latin America to find developer talent — especially for post-training AI models. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ara Partners recently raised an $800 million infrastructure fund focused on reducing carbon emissions in industrial sectors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tools for Humanity, the startup behind the World human verification project that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman co-founded, plans to unveil Wednesday a mobile device designed to help people determine the difference between a human and an AI agent. Also, the dating app Raw claims it uses end-to-end encryption, but spilled its users' dating preferences and granular location data to the open web. Learn more a...

Kintsugi, a Silicon Valley-based startup that helps companies offload and automate their sales tax compliance, has raised $18 million in new funding led by global indirect tax technology solution provider Vertex. The startup plans to enable more small and medium businesses to use its AI-enabled capabilities for tax calculations and filings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.co...

Tools for Humanity, the startup behind the World human verification project that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman co-founded, plans to unveil Wednesday a mobile device designed to help people determine the difference between a human and an AI agent. The company, which is debuting the device during its its “At Last” event in San Francisco. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Supio, a startup that uses AI to automate data collection and analysis for legal teams, has raised $60 million in a funding round led by Sapphire Ventures with participation from Mayfield and Thomson Reuters Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI cheating startup Cluely went viral last week with bold claims that its hidden in-browser window is “undetectable” and can be used to “cheat on everything” from job interviews to exams. But some startups are claiming they can catch Cluely’s users. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices