Monday, November 18, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we're watching Bluesky's evolution in real time, and taking notes on a startup fighting disinformation with AI. We also have stories on Europe's best bet for commercial space travel, a founder hopeful about the return of consumer tech, Netflix's live streaming issues, Roblox's child-friendly updates, and more. — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Factiverse

1. Fighting AI with AI: Disinformation has been a problem for years, and generative AI is only going to make it worse. Factiverse, a Norwegian startup that had one of the best pitches at this year's Battlefield 200, is offering businesses an AI model that is purportedly trained to "intuitively think like someone who has a lot of experience researching information." Read More

2. Were you on Bluesky before it was cool? Bluesky has been getting all the hype lately as millions defect from X. The influx has, however, given rise to a familiar culture clash, wherein old-timers are unhappy with how the platform is changing as waves of newbies show up. But Bluesky has a plan for that. Read More

3. Europe wants to privatize space travel, too: And its best bet at doing that so far is The Exploration Company, which operates out of Germany, France, and Italy. It just closed a $160 million Series B round to develop Europe's first reusable space capsule. Read More

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⛹️ Is consumer tech bouncing back? Brynn Putnam, founder of smart fitness company Mirror, certainly thinks so. She and investor Ben Lerer sat down with TC's Connie Loizos at StrictlyVC last week to talk about lessons learned from Mirror and how Putnam is taking those to her new stealth startup. Read More

📺 #NetflixCrash: Netflix is still stumbling with live programming, as we saw from the much-hyped Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight that should have been a night of nostalgic badassery. Instead, the experience was more like the MacBook's spinning wheel of doom. Read More

🚸 Stranger danger: Roblox has implemented a change to protect kids under the age of 13 that, honestly, should have been a feature from the start. Now, kids cannot directly message other users either inside or outside of a game without parental consent. Read More

🏭 AI efficiency agents: Startups are raising cash off the hype of AI agents, which are trying to be a step up from chatbots. And Juna.ai is one of the latest. The startup's mission is to use agents to help factories be more energy efficient, and it just raised a $7.5 million seed round. Read More

🤑 A/B test your investors: Charles Hudson, managing partner of Precursor Ventures, has a tip for founders: Test your investors with a small issue to see how they react to problems. If they blow up over something small, you'll seek out their help less often. Read More

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Around the web

🫣 Trump's FCC pick: Trump has chosen Brendan Carr to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, reports The New York Times. Carr is a Republican who wants to go after Big Tech and punish TV networks for political bias. Analysts say Carr could expand the agency's mandate and use it as a political weapon for the right. Read More

📉 Low ROIs: AI investments are booming, but VCs will have to wait a while before they see their share of the returns. In 2023, VC firms returned $26 billion worth of shares to their investors, the lowest amount since 2011, reports the Wall Street Journal. Read More

🏘️ Can real estate be disrupted? The real estate industry is riddled with problems that make it ripe for disruption. And yet, funding to real-estate startups in the U.S. is arguably at its lowest point in years, per Crunchbase News. Startups in the mortgage space have seen the largest share of pullbacks. Read More

Before you go

Image Credits: ppengcreative / Getty Images

📹 Ethics FTW: The risks of AI generated video are so obvious, it's almost laughable that startups haven't even attempted to build models that might mitigate those risks. Naeem Talukdar, founder of Moonvalley, believes that trust – not necessarily a model's capabilities – will set some genAI video ventures apart. Read More