Cruise and Waymo see a surge in robotaxi app downloads
Consumer interest in Cruise and Waymo’s competing robotaxi services surged following a vote last week by the California Public Utilities Commission that allowed the two companies to expand and charge for their driverless car operations in San Francisco. Estimates from app intelligence provider data.ai showed 15,400 downloads of the Waymo One
Read moreBitcoin spot ETFs heat up, SBF’s bail revoked and web3 gaming adoption grows in Asia
Welcome back to Chain Reaction. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important crypto stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe here. The digital asset space is still trucking along, while there were some big headlines, the week was arguably a little less
Read moreMoemate’s AI avatar analyzes your whole screen, with spotty but intriguing results
As evidenced by the slow death of Cortana, it’s clear that the AI assistants of yesteryear aren’t meeting expectations. And so they’re being remade. Amazon is building a new large language model akin to OpenAI’s GPT-4 to power its Alexa voice assistant. Meanwhile, Google is reportedly planning to “supercharge” Google
Read more6 fintech investors sound off on AI, down rounds and what’s ahead
At the height of the funding boom in 2021, no single sector enjoyed as much VC money as fintech startups did. But in 2023, it appears that fintech companies have to work harder to get funding. Global funding in the space hit a six-year low in the second quarter, according
Read moreBack to school: Our favorite student apps
Summer is coming to an end, which means students will (hopefully) be in air-conditioned classrooms and away from this unrelenting heat wave. It also means that they’re probably on the hunt for mobile apps that can help prepare them for the long school year. From math problem solvers and note-taking
Read moreFord aims to secure battery material supply with new Canada facility
Ford is partnering with South Korean battery manufacturers SK On and EcoPro BM to build a cathode manufacturing facility in Quebec, Canada. The CAD $1.2 billion (USD $890 million) joint investment will provide battery materials to supply future Ford electric vehicles. The onshoring of battery factories in the U.S. has
Read more4 steps founders can take today to improve team recognition tomorrow
Conrad Egusa Contributor Conrad Egusa is the CEO of Publicize. More posts by this contributor Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem Fraser Gillies Contributor Fraser Gillies is a principal at Publicize, a PR firm for growth-stage startups and technology firms.
Read moreA bitcoin spot ETF could open the floodgates for wider crypto demand
Years after it got initial approval, Jacobi Asset Management’s bitcoin spot exchange traded fund (ETF) went live this week, making it the product the first of its kind in Europe. This is only the latest sign that Europe is making steady progress towards integrating crypto assets inside traditional financial instruments.
Read moreProjectDiscovery raises $25M to launch a cloud version of its threat-scanning platform
ProjectDiscovery, a platform that detects new, exploitable vulnerabilities in codebases, today announced that it raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by CRV with participation from Point72, SignalFire, Rain Capital, Mango Capital, Accel and Lightspeed. ProjectDiscovery began as a collaboration between four security engineers — Rishiraj Sharma,
Read moreAmplitude’s CEO feels his company would be “in a world of hurt” if it hadn’t gone public in 2021
The CEO of Amplitude is glad that his company went public in 2021, despite a sharp contraction in the value of tech shares since its IPO. In a wide-ranging conversation on TechCrunch’s Equity Podcast, Spenser Skates, who also co-founded Amplitude, told me that going public was the “totally correct” move
Read more