When accelerator dreams become company nightmares

Plus: Illinois gives Rivian incentives and AI is not SaaS

View this email online in your browser By Christine Hall Thursday, May 2, 2024 Hello, and welcome back to TechCrunch PM. We have a great lineup of stories for you today, including what happens when founders became embroiled in an accelerator's bankruptcy, Spotify putting lyrics behind the paywall, and Hyundai shelling out some big bucks for self-driving. Also, Illinois bets on Rivian's next-generation vehicle and Microsoft decides not to let police use its generative AI. Dive in! TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch How Newchip's bankruptcy threatened the cap tables of thousands of startups: Mary Ann Azevedo and I worked to bring you the latest in the Newchip accelerator saga. We spoke with a number of founders, investors and others to find out how the organization's bankruptcy was affecting them. Some of the founders — even those who were happily going through the program — were stunned to learn their company warrants were part of the bankruptcy and could be auctioned off. Read More Microsoft says no to the police: The enterprise tech giant changed its policy to ban U.S. police departments from using generative AI through the Azure OpenAI Service, the company's fully managed, enterprise-focused wrapper around OpenAI technologies. Read More Hyundai gets e-Motional when it comes to self-driving: Hyundai agreed to spend nearly $1 billion on Motional. The investment will give the automaker a majority stake while providing the self-driving startup with the necessary capital to keep operating. Read More Afternoon must-reads Image Credits: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto / Getty Images Spotify hits play on a new revenue stream: By paywalling lyrics, Spotify may be forcing many free subscribers into a paid plan. Spotify is rather mum about what's happening, so maybe it's just a test. Read More Illinois bets on Rivian: The state is supporting the electric vehicle maker with $827 million in incentives so that Rivian can expand its factory in Normal, Illinois, to build the R2. Read More AI is not SaaS: Ron Miller wants us to know this right upfront. This is the message passed on by Rudina Seseri, founder and managing partner at Glasswing Ventures, speaking last week at the TechCrunch Early Stage event in Boston. What Seseri had to say might surprise some companies that are developing an AI startup. Read More Apple tweaks some fees: Apple is still working on how it applies new fees that can affect iOS developers in the European Union. Developers of free apps will be able to avoid the fee entirely, while other developers earning under a certain revenue threshold will get more time before they have to pay Apple the fee. Read More Speaking of the EU: Lawmakers there are pushing to legally require messaging platforms to scan citizens' private communications for child sexual abuse material, which could lead to millions of false positives per day, hundreds of security and privacy experts warned in an open letter. Critics argue the proposal asks the technologically impossible — and won't protect children from abuse. Read More Check out Acura's new all-electric SUV: It's sleek, it has pockets, you can twirl in it. Just kidding. Emme Hall goes through the nuts and bolts of this new vehicle. And not everything is a win. Read More Meet Lamini: The Palo Alto-based startup is building a platform to help enterprises deploy generative AI tech. Its sales pitch was so enticing that investors gave the company $25 million. Read More Google expands its passkey support: Google is bringing passkey support to its Advanced Protection Program, which is used by people who are at high risk of targeted attacks, such as campaign workers, candidates, journalists, human rights workers, and more. It used to be that the APP required hardware security keys, but that will soon change to a choice of passkeys only or alongside a password or hardware security key. Read More S2G Ventures gets room to run: Walmart heir Lukas Walton's Builders Vision was S2G's sole limited partner. Now the organization is bringing others on board. Read More Around the web Image Credits: Getty Images/Patra Kongsirimongkolchai / EyeEm Paramount's suitors: Sony Pictures and Apollo are making a joint bid to buy Paramount, offering $26 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports. This is the second time Apollo has attempted to buy the entertainment giant. This time around, and perhaps it'll be the good luck charm, Sony will be the majority stakeholder. Read More Moderna beats estimates: The COVID pandemic continues to help Moderna, which posted a narrower loss for the first quarter, CNBC reports. Read More Google and its passkeys: You read above what we had to say about the whole passkeys thing as it relates to Google. Now read Engadget's take. A MESSAGE FROM INCOGNI Stop Robocalls, Spam Emails, Stalkers, Frauds, and More Every day, data brokers profit from your sensitive info—phone number, DOB, SSN—selling it to the highest bidder. And who's buying it? Best case: companies target you with ads. Worst case: scammers and identity thieves. Try Incogni—not only does it delete your personal data from the web, but it also removes your info from sites used for stalking. Sign Up Now TechCrunch Minute Where CZ's sentencing leaves the state of crypto: Four months behind bars and a massive fine, that's what CZ is getting from the government for his crypto exchange's misdeeds. Regardless of how you view the verdict — too much, too little, just right — his sentencing is a big deal for web3. Hit play and let's chat! Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com Question about our events? events@techcrunch.com Want to advertise on TechCrunch.com? advertise@techcrunch.com Interested in sponsoring live events? sponsors@techcrunch.com Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy

Venture capitalists love musical chairs

A number of investors have been swapping gigs and bouncing from prior employers to build new investing groups.

View this email online in your browser By Alex Wilhelm Thursday, May 2, 2024 Good morning, and welcome to TechCrunch AM! Today, we're talking about how big AI companies want even bigger customers, and why venture capitalists love to trade jobs. We also have several stories about the rebounding web3 market, notes on a tasty nine-figure acquisition, why Peloton's laying off 400 people, and more. To work! — Alex TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch 1. Anthropic targets the enterprise: Foundation model company Anthropic is in a hurry. This week it announced a new enterprise-focused plan for multi-seat deals, joining OpenAI in building AI for larger corporate customers. Anthropic also has an iPhone app out now. The race to own the future of AI continues! Read More 2. Venture capitalists and their affinity for musical chairs: The reset in venture capital investment to historically normal levels is a big deal for founders. It also appears to be a big deal for VCs themselves, as an abnormal number of investors have been swapping gigs and bouncing from prior employers to build new investing groups. TechCrunch's Rebecca Szkutak has all the moves for you in one tidy post. Read More 3. Haun Ventures picks up its checkwriting pace: Crypto is having a far better year than it did in 2023, with token prices doing well, bitcoin ETFs making it into the market, and the Binance mess somewhat in the rearview mirror. The warming climate for web3 work is helping some VCs accelerate their own pace of investment — good news for founders in the market who want to build with blockchains. Read More A MESSAGE FROM INCOGNI Stop Robocalls, Spam Emails, Stalkers, Frauds, and More Every day, data brokers profit from your sensitive info—phone number, DOB, SSN—selling it to the highest bidder. And who's buying it? Best case: companies target you with ads. Worst case: scammers and identity thieves. Try Incogni—not only does it delete your personal data from the web, but it also removes your info from sites used for stalking. Sign Up Now Morning Must Reads Image Credits: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto / Getty Images  TikTok makes nice with UMG: We need a new rule: If companies are happy to reveal numbers when publicly fighting with one another, they must share the terms when they eventually kiss and make up. Otherwise, we'll be feeling stuck as we are today, watching TikTok and UMG happily buddying up once again without telling anyone the terms of their agreement. Show us where the money is going! Read More Freshworks drops $230M to pick up Device42: Freshworks has dropped nearly a quarter billion dollars to buy Device42, an IT-focused company that has raised a total of nearly $40 million, per Crunchbase data. The pairing makes sense for Freshworks, because it has an IT-focused product line, which means that this deal is additive. Read More Butcher Box snaps up Truffle Shuffle: More startups should have fun names like these. Meat delivery company Butcher Box has purchased Truffle Shuffle, a service that started life as a truffle purveyor, but pivoted into a cooking-at-home service during the pandemic. Read More Private equity is interested in cybersecurity: Tel Aviv-based BioCatch is now worth $1.3 billion after private equity firm Permira snapped up more shares from existing investors and became a majority investor. Recall that last week we saw Thoma Bravo buy Darktrace for $5 billion. Given the sheer number of cyber breaches that TechCrunch reports, I get the opportunity in the market for such companies. Read More Renda raises $1.9M to power African logistics: The business of moving goods around is no small enterprise, especially in e-commerce, where delivery times are competitive and incumbents are often wealthy. But in Africa, Renda reckons that an asset-light, end-to-end fulfillment solution is going to help it win. The startup intends to use its new capital to expand in its current markets of Nigeria and Kenya. Read More Change Healthcare hack may impact one-third of Americans: During a Congressional hearing, the CEO of UnitedHealth, admitted that the recent breach of its subsidiary, Change Healthcare, impacted "maybe a third [of Americans] or somewhere of that level." That's a lot of people; like nine-figures. If every person that got impacted by this hack were a dollar, and one startup raised that much, we'd be shouting about it at the top of this newsletter. Read More Free-market the way to Mars: NASA wants private companies to help it get to Mars. We first learned that when the agency scrapped its Mars rock return mission and turned to external parties. Now, NASA is awarding a dozen research tasks to private companies as a prelude to commercial support for future missions to the Red Planet. Read More Around the Web Twenty. Billion. Dollars. That's how much Google paid Apple back in 2022 to be the default search engine on Safari, Bloomberg reports. The information came from court documents filed in an antitrust case against Google. Read More Drone startups take flight: In Ukraine, for obvious reasons. WIRED has an interesting look at the upstart industry in the besieged nation, which is fighting for its life against Russia. Read More Bored Ape (Discount) Yacht Club: Want a fancy NFT? Well, you can get a Bored Ape on the cheap these days, CNBC reports. However, despite the massive decline in the value of the such image collections, the NFT market itself is showing some signs of life. Read More Before You Go Image Credits: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg / Getty Images Peloton sheds staff to keep pedaling: As part of cost-cutting measures, Peloton is letting go of 400 employees. It's CEO is also stepping down. The company's comedown from its highs during the pandemic has been a turbulent one: Once worth more than $200, Peloton's shares are trading at $3.22 today. Still, investors were sending its shares higher in premarket trading this morning, no doubt happy with the cost cuts. Read More Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com Question about our events? events@techcrunch.com Want to advertise on TechCrunch.com? advertise@techcrunch.com Interested in sponsoring live events? sponsors@techcrunch.com Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy