Welcome, folks, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the week in tech that was.
In this edition of WiR, we spotlight Brian’s CES 2024 preview, 23andMe blaming victims for its data breach, GitHub making Copilot Chat generally available and Frontdesk laying off its entire staff.
But first, a reminder to sign up here to receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you haven’t already done so.
Most readCES 2024: Brian has a thorough roundup of what to expect at CES 2024, including — but not limited to — generative AI, robotics, TVs, cars, smartphones, and health tech.
Frontdesk CEO Jesse DePinto said that Frontdesk would be filing for a state receivership, an alternative to bankruptcy, according to TechCrunch’s sources.
Gbike acquired a local micromobility platform called ZET from Hyundai Motor for an undisclosed amount last year to bolster its technological synergies.
Gbike posted an EBITDA of $40 million and revenue of $13.7 million in 2022, Yoon said.
“Based on this fully integrated capability, we set out our vision to innovate the micromobility ecosystem through battery-[swapping] infrastructure.
One of the things that set Gbike apart from its competitors is its capability to build its own vehicles — e-scooters, e-bikes and batteries, Yoon mentioned.
Gbike launched its own-developed e-bikes in May last year and now operates a fleet of 35,000 e-bikes.
Happy New Year, and welcome to the 78th installment of Pitch Deck Teardown!
This week, we are taking a closer look at Pepper Bio‘s seed pitch deck that landed the company $6.5 million.
Unlike CancerVax (which I ripped apart in a previous teardown for being completely unbelievable), Pepper Bio has a strong team and a lot of promise.
In a world that’s often laden with deeply technical language, Pepper Bio sets itself apart for a moment.
In the rest of this teardown, we’ll look at three things Pepper Bio could have improved or done differently, along with its full pitch deck!
Fisker remains far from meeting CEO and founder Henrik Fisker’s publicly stated goal of delivering 300 electric SUVs per day globally, according to internal documents viewed by TechCrunch.
The EV startup spent much of December aiming to meet an internal sales goal of between 100 and 200 vehicles a day in North America, where the bulk of its inventory and sales efforts are.
Fisker is delivering its SUVs in a number of European countries, and contract manufacturer Magna Steyr builds them in Austria.
Henrik Fisker told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that the lack of a physical footprint has harmed sales here.
The slow pace of deliveries has widened the gulf between the amount of Fisker Ocean SUVs being produced by Magna and the number sold.
Autonomous delivery startup Nuro has struck a deal with safety-focused software company Foretellix to help with virtual testing of its automated driving system, in a bid to cut R&D costs while still pushing the technology forward.
The partnership, which the companies are set to announce later Thursday, comes in the wake of a tumultuous stretch for Nuro.
Many companies developing automated vehicles have their own simulation software; Foretellix specializes in generating millions of scenarios to test autonomous software, lowering the burden on the in-house teams.
Foretellix’s software is able to “automatically analyze” driving logs from Nuro test vehicles and re-run those drives in simulation many times over.
This allows Nuro’s automated system to encounter many different versions of a drive without the hardship – and most importantly, time – required to run all those variations in the real world.
Called Articul8 AI (an awkward abbreviation of “Articulate AI”), the new entity builds off a proof-of-concept from an Intel collaboration with Boston Consulting Group (BSG) early last May.
Reuters reports that Intel, using its hardware and a combination of open source and internally-sourced software, created a gen AI system that can read text and images — running inside BCG’s datacenters to address BSG’s security requirements.
“Articul8’s gen AI software product was built from the ground up to address the needs of enterprises and is optimized for speed of deployment, scalability, security and sustainability — including costs,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch via email.
“The Articul8 platform delivers AI capabilities that keep customer data, training and inference within the enterprise security perimeter.
“Intel and Articul8 will remain strategically aligned and Intel plans to leverage Articul8’s enterprise gen AI software for internal use cases as well as offer it to end customers as part of a joint go-to-market partnership,” the spokesperson said.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint alleging that SpaceX illegally fired eight employees who wrote and distributed an open letter with workplace concerns.
Circulated in June 2022, the open letter called out how SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk’s public behavior was harming the company’s reputation.
At the time, Business Insider alleged that SpaceX paid a $250,000 settlement to a flight attendant that Elon Musk sexually harassed.
As a result of its complaint, the NLRB regional director in Los Angeles will seek to arrive at a settlement with SpaceX.
If SpaceX doesn’t settle, the company will face a hearing before an administrative law judge in March.
A year after announcing its own lineup of Roku-branded TVs, the hardware company revealed today a new range of high-end televisions.
Roku also introduced Roku Smart Picture, an AI-powered feature that automatically adjusts picture and audio quality.
The Roku Pro Series TVs feature a thinner design than its Roku Select and Plus Series TVs, with a mount to rest flat against the wall.
Also arriving in the spring of 2024, Roku Smart Picture is a new feature coming to the Roku TV program that is designed to optimize the viewing experience.
The feature will roll out to all Roku TV models.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that businesses of all sizes and across all sectors can benefit from generative AI.
McKinsey estimates generative AI will add $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually across numerous industries.
That’s just one reason why over 80% of enterprises will be working with generative AI models, APIs, or applications by 2026.
However, simply adopting generative AI doesn’t guarantee success.
However, only 17% of businesses are addressing generative AI risks, which leaves them vulnerable.
The cybersecurity sector was once largely untouched by the vast headcount reductions taking place across the wider industry, but 2023 shows no sector is immune.
But it’s clear that cybersecurity firms are no longer exempt from layoffs, despite a strong workforce and an ever-increasing number of cyberattacks and breaches.
According to data from layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi, more than 110 cybersecurity companies have made cuts since the beginning of 2023.
The layoffs came almost exactly a year after Malwarebytes eliminated 14% of its global workforce.
While many cybersecurity firms blamed economic headwinds for reductions in headcount, Malwarebytes CEO Marcin Kleczynski told TechCrunch that the layoffs were an exercise in rationalizing expenditures.
