The Latest

Need a break from layoffs? Snag a 50% discount on an Expo+ admission!

Layoffs Header
Layoffs are tough. The silver lining is that with an Expo+ pass, you can engage with a vibrant tech startup community at TC Disrupt, boasting over 10,000 participants, for the entire three days. Here’s the deal: If you’ve been through a layoff, in any industry, and from any country within one year of October 2024, you qualify for a discounted Expo+ pass. At Disrupt, you’ll find a wealth of opportunities to explore, with access to startup founders, CEOs, service providers, and partner companies. *Networking activations access is limited for Expo+ Passes and doesn’t include access to roundtables, small-group sessions, braindates or select receptions.
Read MoreNeed a break from layoffs? Snag a 50% discount on an Expo+ admission!

Waymo Announces Second Recall Following Robotaxi Collision With Telephone Pole

Gettyimages 2155631838
Waymo has voluntarily issued a software recall to all 672 of its Jaguar I-Pace robotaxis after one of them collided with a telephone pole. This is Waymo’s second recall. NHTSA confirmed to TechCrunch that it has received Waymo’s recall documents and is processing them for publication on its website. The accident that prompted Waymo’s second recall happened on May 21 when a Waymo vehicle in Phoenix, driving without a human safety operator, collided with a telephone pole in an alley during a low speed pullover maneuver. The Waymo vehicle slowed down to pull over and struck a pole at a speed of 8 miles per hour.
Read MoreWaymo Announces Second Recall Following Robotaxi Collision With Telephone Pole

Insight Partners supports Canary Technologies in its goal to enhance hotel guest satisfaction.

Canary Founders Harmansj
“The predominant traveler today was born in an age where they are very comfortable with technology,” Harman Singh Narula, Canary Technologies co-founder and CEO, said. Narula started Canary Technologies with longtime friend SJ Sawhney to provide that technology so hotels can offer better guest experiences, augmented by technology. Today, the hotel guest management technology company’s platform digitizes the hotel guest journey from post-booking through checkout with tools that manage mobile check-in/checkout, registrations, upsells, guest messaging and digital tipping. Canary now works with over 20,000 hoteliers globally at brands like Marriott International, Four Seasons, Choice Hotels, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Rosewood and Intercontinental Hotel Group. Though he didn’t give a specific valuation, Narula did say the valuation has now more than doubled since the company’s $30 million Series B round in 2022.
Read MoreInsight Partners supports Canary Technologies in its goal to enhance hotel guest satisfaction.

BONUS Opportunity: Extended Application Deadline for Startup Battlefield 200!

Sub200 General Article Image Header 1920x1080 V1 1 1
A big shoutout to the early-stage founders who missed the application window for the Startup Battlefield 200 (SB 200) at TechCrunch Disrupt. Extended Startup Battlefield 200 deadlineIt’s time to stop kicking this task-can down the road. You have one extra week to apply to Startup Battlefield 200. A shot at $100,000: TechCrunch editors will select 20 startups from the SB 200 to be Startup Battlefield finalists. Apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 by June 17 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.
Read MoreBONUS Opportunity: Extended Application Deadline for Startup Battlefield 200!

“Databricks Introduces LakeFlow: Empowering Clients to Develop Seamless Data Pipelines”

Gettyimages 1312405670
With LakeFlow, Databricks users will soon be able to build their data pipelines and ingest data from databases like MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server and Oracle, as well as enterprise applications like Salesforce, Dynamics, Sharepoint, Workday, NetSuite and Google Analytics. In a way, getting data into a data warehouse or data lake should indeed be table stakes because the real value creation happens down the line. The first is LakeFlow Connect, which provides the connectors between the different data sources and the Databricks service. It’s fully integrated with Databricks’ Unity Data Catalog data governance solution and relies in part of technology from Arcion. Databricks is rolling out the LakeFlow service in phases.
Read More“Databricks Introduces LakeFlow: Empowering Clients to Develop Seamless Data Pipelines”

RetailReady, a Y Combinator alumnus, secures $3.3 million in funding for its innovative AI-based warehouse application, revolutionizing the potential of reducing costs for businesses.

Elle Sarah
Co-founders Elle Smyth and Sarah Hamer came up with the idea while working together at supply chain unicorn startup, Stord. “We met each other and bonded over our love for the supply chain industry,” Smyth told TechCrunch. Warehouse workers have to reference “phone book-sized” manuals of how to ship items to retailers, like Target and Walmart. If shipping/warehouse workers don’t pack these items correctly, retailers will charge the brands fees, known as a chargeback. RetailReady replaces those manuals with a digital version that gives workers a directed workflow on how to pack an order correctly.
Read MoreRetailReady, a Y Combinator alumnus, secures $3.3 million in funding for its innovative AI-based warehouse application, revolutionizing the potential of reducing costs for businesses.

Enhancing Enterprise Creation with LLMs: Databricks Unleashes Mosaic AI Expansion

Gettyimages 2157160096
Now rebranded as Mosaic AI, the platform has become integral to Databricks’ AI solutions. Today, at the company’s Data + AI Summit, it is launching a number of new features for the service. Databricks is launching five new Mosaic AI tools at its conference: Mosaic AI Agent Framework, Mosaic AI Agent Evaluation, Mosaic AI Tools Catalog, Mosaic AI Model Training, and Mosaic AI Gateway. And we’ve also found in our internal AI applications, like the assistant applications for our platform, that this is the way to build them,” he said. But when you really pushed people, they were using Open AI.
Read MoreEnhancing Enterprise Creation with LLMs: Databricks Unleashes Mosaic AI Expansion

Foresite Capital Secures $900 Million in Sixth Fund for Healthcare and Life Sciences Investing

Jimtananbaumhorizontal
Despite having 47 IPOs, 28 M&As and 58 FDA-approved drugs under its belt, the 13-year-old multi-stage healthcare and life sciences firm took two years to raise its sixth fund. On Wednesday, Foresite announced that it closed its sixth fund with $900 million. Last summer, Foresite co-led a $115 million Series F into CG Oncology, a drug discovery company that had a successful IPO listing in January. Foresite intends to back about 20 companies from its sixth fund, writing checks from a couple of million up to $75 million. “Over a decade ago, we named the firm Foresite because we thought we had an idea of where healthcare was headed,” Tananbaum said.
Read MoreForesite Capital Secures $900 Million in Sixth Fund for Healthcare and Life Sciences Investing

“Automated Financial Reporting Fintech InScope Secures $4.3M Seed Round Led by VC Sheel Mohnot”

Kelsey Gootnick And Mary Antony Cowan 7105
The financial reporting and auditing process is not often on the list of sexy topics that technology startups want to go after. After years of performing reporting and auditing work for companies like Miro, Autodesk, Dropbox, Flexport and Yelp, Mary Antony and Kelsey Gootnick decided reporting and auditing needed some technology love, too. So they started San Francisco-based InScope in 2023, leveraging machine learning and large language models to provide financial reporting and auditing processes for mid-market and enterprises. We make it possible for our customers to have effortless, but accurate and reliable financial statements every time.”InScope’s financial report drafting tool. So much so that they could be customers, Gootnick said.
Read More“Automated Financial Reporting Fintech InScope Secures $4.3M Seed Round Led by VC Sheel Mohnot”

“State Your Success: Restate Secures $7M in Funding for Revolutionary Workflows-As-Code Solution”

Founders
The promise of Restate is that it is so fast and lightweight that it will allow developers to use it where traditional workflow systems would’ve been too slow and resource-intensive. The open-source platform Temporal, for example, offers a somewhat similar feature set, though the Restate team would likely argue that its system is faster and more lightweight. Virtually every modern application today consists of chains of workflows that are handled by a distributed set of services that have to reliably talk to each other. He believes this will make the service usable in situations where you’d not classically use a workflow engine — think e-commerce shopping carts, for example. “[Restate] does the classical workflows code things, just on an extremely lightweight foundation — and it goes a little further than just standard workflow use cases.
Read More“State Your Success: Restate Secures $7M in Funding for Revolutionary Workflows-As-Code Solution”