When Alex Katz founded Two Chairs in 2017, he firmly believed that in-person therapy is the most effective for behavioral health.
On Tuesday, the company announced a $72 million Series C equity and debt financing led by Amplo and Fifth Down Capital, bringing Two Chairs total funding to $103 million.
Amplo also led the company’s $22.5 million Series B in August 2019.
Two Chairs is one of the latest therapy startups to raise substantial funding rounds.
Last week, Grow Therapy, a three-sided mental health platform for therapists, payers and patients, raised an $88 million Series C round led by Sequoia.
Read More“Two Chairs secures $72 million in Series C funding to expand its therapist network through equity and debt capital”
That’s a different strategy from just about every other market, where Google has been merging Wallet and Pay experiences together under a single Wallet app.
We’re continuing to invest in the Google Pay app to give people easy, secure access to digital payments,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch.
Then, it tried to replace the Wallet and its Android Pay app with Google Pay.
In 2022, Google relaunched the Wallet app as its digital wallet platform for Android, Wear OS and Fitbit OS.
However, in February this year, the search giant announced it would replace Google Pay with the Wallet app in the U.S.
Read MoreLocalized Integrations Launches for Google Wallet in India, Pay to Remain Unaffected
Heat pumps are having a bit of a moment.
Consumer hesitancy has been on the top of Paul Lambert’s mind as he navigates bringing Quilt’s new heat pump to market.
Heat pumps are just different enough from existing heating and air conditioning setups to give many consumers pause.
Design isn’t the only challenge facing traditional heat pumps.
Quilt’s heat pumps will roll out in a few regions initially before expanding further.
Read MoreHeat Wave Hefty: Quilt’s Series A Secures $33M for Heat Pump Rides
The Oversight Board, Meta’s semi-independent policy council, it turning its attention to how the company’s social platforms are handling explicit, AI-generated images.
Tuesday, it announced investigations into two separate cases over how Instagram in India and Facebook in the U.S. handled AI-generated images of public figures after Meta’s systems fell short on detecting and responding to the explicit content.
In other words, after two reports, the explicit AI-generated image remained on Instagram.
The second case relates to Facebook, where a user posted an explicit, AI-generated image that resembled a U.S. public figure in a Group focusing on AI creations.
Meta’s response and the next stepsIn response to the Oversight Board’s cases, Meta said it took down both pieces of content.
Read MoreExploring Offending Generated Images on Instagram and Facebook: An Inquiry by Meta’s Oversight Committee
As the Gulf region gains growing strategic importance for the tech war between the U.S. and China, Microsoft makes a big move into one of its richest oil countries.
The minority stake will give Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, a seat on G42’s board of directors.
The funding comes amid U.S. politicians’ escalating concerns over G42’s ties with China.
Given the two countries’ increasing economic ties, it’s no surprise that G42, the AI poster child of the UAE, has also forged ties with Chinese firms.
Under the agreement, the Emirati company’s data platform and other key technology infrastructure will migrate to Microsoft Azure, which will power G42’s AI product development.
Read MoreThe Escalating Tension Between the US and China: Microsoft’s $1.5B Payment to G42
The round values the company at €100 million ($107 million), post money.
But finmid believes it has the potential to lock in more business specifically in its home region.
Unlike a bank, Wolt has access to the restaurants’ sales history, and finmid helps it leverage that data to decide who will see a pre-approved financing offer.
The working capital doesn’t come from Wolt, but from finmid’s financing partners.
For a platform like Wolt, embedding finmid is a way to make life easier for restaurants while generating additional revenue without much additional effort.
Read More$24.7M Raised by Finmid to Facilitate Loan Access for SMBs via Platforms like Wolt
Meta-owned social network Threads is finally testing a “Recent” filter to sort search results by the latest.
“We’re starting to test this with a small number of people, so it’s easier to find relevant search results in real-time,” he said in a reply to a user.
A user part of the test posted that they could see “Top” and “Recent” filters on the search results screen.
They noted that the “Recent” filter isn’t strictly chronological, but it shows the latest posts better than the “Top” filter.
Earlier this year, the company accidentally rolled out the option to sort search results by the latest.
Read MoreThreads evaluates newly implemented search filters
Efforts by tech giants to be more transparent about the ads they run are — at very best — still a work in progress, according to a report looking at ads transparency tools.
The report’s top-line conclusion is that platforms’ ad oversight tools are falling short of delivering the intended transparency and democratic accountability in a critical year for elections globally.
Judging by the report findings, something similar may be playing out in platforms’ early responses to DSA demands for ads transparency.
“Major gaps”They do note there has been some developments since they carried out their transparency tools tests.
But, as the report suggests, it’s all too easy for platforms to inject intentional friction into transparency tools, whether by restrictive design or sloppy implementation or both.
Read MoreMozilla’s study reveals continuing inadequacies in Big Tech’s advertising disclosure measures
Tesla layoffs hit high performers, some departments slashed, sources say 'I lost 20% of my team, some really good players too'Tesla management told employees Monday that the recent layoffs — which gutted some departments by 20% and even hit high performers — were largely due to poor financial performance, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
Its margins, however, took a hit after Tesla repeatedly slashed prices in a bid to drum up sales and undercut the competition.
High performers also cutMany of the laid-off employees were high performers, according to two sources who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity.
In 2022, he told employees that he wanted a “clean robotaxi” with no steering wheel or pedals.
Patel told TechCrunch he decided Sunday evening to leave Tesla because of “[b]ig overall changes” at the company.
Read More“Sources Report Widespread Job Cuts and Department Reductions for Top Talent at Tesla”
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The Space Force has contracted out its next “responsive space” mission, and this one is a doozy.
The two awardees, Rocket Lab and startup True Anomaly, will each build and launch spacecraft that will conduct rendezvous and proximity operations on orbit.
Read More“Orbit Domination: TechCrunch Space Teams Up with True Anomaly and Rocket Lab for Revolutionary Advances”
