When Asheem Chandna drove up to Rubrik’s office in Palo Alto on a Friday night in early 2015, he was looking forward to learning what the young company that had yet to build its product would show him. The Greylock partner wasn’t disappointed. The company’s CEO, Bipul Sinha, drew Rubrik’s plan to revamp the data…
EyeEm, the Berlin-based photo-sharing community that exited last year to Spanish company Freepik, after going bankrupt, is now licensing its users’ photos to train AI models. Earlier this month, the company informed users via email that it was adding a new clause to its Terms & Conditions that would grant it the rights to upload…
Google is testing a new “Speaking practice” feature in Search that helps users improve their conversational English skills. The company told TechCrunch that the feature is available to English learners in Argentina, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Venezuela who have joined Search Labs, its program for users to experiment with early-stage Google Search experiences. The…
Global Founders Capital, the Berlin-based early stage VC firm with close ties to the German startup factory Rocket Internet, is going to become the venture arm of Rocket Internet. The VC previously raised two $1 billion funds and, just a few years ago, its name appeared in dozens of deals per year. But then, things…
Goldman Sachs said in a report late Thursday that Indian food delivery giant Zomato’s quick commerce arm Blinkit is now more valuable than its core food delivery business, as per the bank’s sum-of-the-parts analysis. The investment bank estimates Blinkit’s implied value at 119 Indian rupees per share ($1.43) or about $13 billion, while Zomato’s food…
As part of its Q1 2024 earning release, Snap revealed that total watch time on its TikTok competitor, Spotlight, increased more than 125% year-over-year. Snapchat launched the TikTok-like feed in late 2020 as a way to compete with the rising popularity of TikTok. The company is touting the success of its short-from video feed a…
RevenueCat, a top subscription management platform for apps that monetize via in-app purchases, is now flush with new capital as it expands to the web. The company has closed on a $12 million Series C led by Adjacent, following the launch of a new product, RevenueCat Billing, that allows web app developers to integrate subscription…
TikTok suspended a gamification feature in the European Union following an intervention by the bloc. With attention on TikTok’s growing pile of US legal woes, the announcement went mostly unnoticed when it occurred late local time Wednesday. TikTok’s move came just two days after the EU opened an investigation into a so-called “task and reward”…
Advances in generative AI have taken the tech world by storm. Biotech investors are making a big bet that similar computational methods could revolutionize drug discovery. On Tuesday, ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs, an affiliate of Foresite Capital, announced that they incubated Xaira Therapeutics and funded the AI biotech with $1 billion. Other investors…
IBM wisely gravitated away from trying to be a pure cloud infrastructure vendor years ago, recognizing that it could never compete with the big three: Amazon, Microsoft and Google. It has since moved onto helping IT departments manage complex hybrid environments, using its financial clout to acquire a portfolio of high-profile companies. It began with…
