Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups.
Most interesting startup stories this weekCES 2024 was like a futuristic carnival for transportation geeks, flaunting an array of electric everything — from cars and bikes to scooters and aircraft.
Of course, AI was everywhere, and Cody wrote a round-up detailing how AI tech showed up in the good, the bad, and the weird.
Most interesting fundraises this weekIn the wake of a challenging 2023 and a significant downturn in public offerings, tech startups and high-growth companies are once again turning their sights toward initial public offerings (IPOs).
This trend is also visible in the field of artificial intelligence startups, which continue to attract attention in venture capital circles.
The iPhone 15 and its many iterations comprised more than half of Apple’s Q4 smartphone shipments of nearly 2.8 million units in India, Canalys said in its quarterly report.
Apple started selling the iPhone 15 series in India in the first batch of its availability in September.
Nonetheless, Apple is becoming a familiar brand in the Indian smartphone market and is rapidly growing its local presence.
However, the country saw a minimal 2% yearly drop, with 148.6 million smartphone units shipped in 2023.
“Canalys expects the Indian smartphone market to grow by mid-single digits in 2024, driven by affordable 5G and the pandemic period replacement cycle.
The rabbit r1 will use Perplexity AI’s tech to answer your queriesOne of the standout gadgets of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the rabbit r1, will use Perplexity AI’s tech to answer user queries, both companies said in an announcement.
Perplexity noted that the first 100,000 r1 buyers will get one year of Perplexity Pro for free.
We're thrilled to announce our partnership with Rabbit: Together, we are introducing real-time, precise answers to Rabbit R1, seamlessly powered by our cutting-edge PPLX online LLM API, free from any knowledge cutoff.
The 5th batch of 10,000 rabbit r1 devices has sold out.
Pre-orders for the 6th batch, totaling 50,000, are available now at https://t.co/R3sOtVWoJ5 Expected delivery date for the 6th batch is June – July 2024.
Bitcoin spot ETF volume rose, Coinbase went to court, Solana Mobile announces new device and Google cuts crypto apps in IndiaWelcome to TechCrunch Crypto, formerly known as 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.
Prior to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of the spot bitcoin ETFs, some experts told me they expected trading volumes to hit $10 billion in a year, not a week.
Monica has spent the last 10 years at Ripple, working her way up from the director of communications to now, president.
What else we’re writingWant to branch out from the world of web3?
Consumer tech is bound for a comeback among unicorns, but maybe not just yetTen years after Cowboy Ventures’ founder Aileen Lee gave unicorns their nickname, she and her team are back with fresh analysis on private companies worth more than $1 billion.
As the number of unicorns boomed from 39 to more than 532, Cowboy found that their very nature also changed.
“The pendulum swung hard to enterprise, with 78% of unicorns today focused on B2B, the inverse of 2013,” Lee and her team member Allegra Simon wrote.
But spending more than a decade in tech teaches you something: to be ready for the pendulum to swing back.
Hence Cowboy’s prediction that “given the hard shift to enterprise,” we can “hope and expect more exciting consumer unicorns will be born in coming years.”
Solana Mobile is swinging for the stars after it announced a second, cheaper web3 phone phone dubbed “ Chapter 2 ” earlier this week.
Demand for the Chapter 2 is apparently so high, Solana Mobile hit its 7-day sales goal within the first 24 hours, Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana and president of Solana Labs, exclusively told TechCrunch.
In the first 24 hours after the phone was announced, Solana Mobile saw over 25,000 preorders, and by the 30-hour mark, it had 30,000 preorders, Gokal said.
“For developers, Solana Mobile is creating a massive opportunity for crypto app teams looking to incentivize their users,” Gokal said.
“Giving back to the community has a snowball effect: As more developers start releasing crypto-incentivized apps to Solana Mobile users, we’ll see even greater adoption,” Gokal said.
The upgrade, dubbed Reencle Gravity, is due out by around September of this year.
If the upcoming composter works as advertised, it’ll help households reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from food waste, while generating nutrient-rich fertilizer for gardens.
However, the Gravity composter may also digest a good chunk of your income, thanks to its expected $649 price tag.
Still, many of these tools demand outdoor space, time and some elbow grease in order to turn food waste into fertilizer.
Reencle also says the Gravity composter can handle up to 3.3 pounds of food waste per day, or 50% more than the Prime model.
Apple’s response to being required to allow developers to lever payment options apart from its in-house system is drawing a bevy of negative commentary from tech folks.
And with good reason: Apple is offering little and demanding much, ensuring that it can continue to demand a massive cut of developer revenue.
The reduction in demands constitutes a full 3% reduction from its existing 30% fee charged to payments that occur inside of its App Store system.
Simply put, Apple is trying to offer developers what it has to, but with enough costs attached to make it economically unpalatable.
Eric Seufert of Heracles Capital, described Apple’s posture as “heads I win, tails you lose,” which feels pretty accurate.
Apple confirmed today that iOS 17.3 will be released to the public next week, giving iPhone users new features like Stolen Device Protection and collaborative Apple Music playlists.
There will also be a new Unity Bloom wallpaper for the iPhone and iPad, available next week when iOS 17.3 comes out.
Additionally, there will be a security delay if you change sensitive settings, including creating a new Apple ID password, turning off Find My and updating select Apple ID security settings like removing a trusted device or phone number.
Apple previously noted in its iOS 17 features list that it was delayed to 2024, and later on, it reportedly appeared in the iOS 17.3 beta.
Spotify, one of Apple Music’s largest competitors, launched a real-time collaborative playlist feature, “Jam,” in September.
Funding to Black founders was down in 2023 for the third year in a rowBlack founders in the U.S. raised 0.48% of all venture dollars allocated last year.
The past two years saw Black founders raising at least 1%.
Last year, though, suspicions were confirmed as the market cooling really did appear to have an extreme impact on the Black community.
In Q1’23 and Q2’23, Black founders raised 0.74%.
There’s been a consistent yearly decline in funding since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, which saw a record-breaking amount of capital flow to Black founders as the tech industry promised to better support them.
