It was while sourcing manufacturing equipment for Tesla factories that Will Drewery drew inspiration for Diagon, a startup that helps manufacturers procure equipment.
Companies in fields like automotive and aerospace can identify qualified suppliers from Diagon’s network of equipment suppliers, system integrators and service providers.
East Coast originsThe journey to Diagon for Drewery, who spent most of his career as an equipment buyer, started in Pittsburgh.
“This is why I felt the market needs a Diagon,” Drewery said.
“Now we are developing tools that help customers find suppliers better or help them interpret and summarize quotes better,” Drewery said.
Business banking startup Mercury, founded in 2020, is now launching a consumer banking product.
“We already have a few hundred thousand users of our business banking product, and a lot of people have expressed that they want a personal banking product,” he told TechCrunch in an interview.
The person also said the fintech partner banking market as a whole has been the target of more regulatory scrutiny.
Crossing overBut success in B2B banking doesn’t automatically queue up Mercury to handle consumer banking.
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We now know how much Tesla paid as it released its annual proxy statement on Wednesday morning, which includes a section on “related person transactions” the company has made.
Tesla has also paid X around $50,000 in 2023 and $30,000 through February 2024 for “commercial, consulting and support agreements.” Likewise, X paid Tesla $1 million in 2023 and around $20,000 through February 2024 for the same unspecified work.
Tesla paid Musk’s tunneling effort, The Boring Company, $200,000 in 2023 and $1 million through February 2024.
“The Committee and its counsel are aware of the media narrative regarding Musk, Tesla, and its Board,” the committee writes in the proxy.
“And the Committee’s work was conducted against a backdrop of unrelenting public interest in whether Tesla would reincorporate and in Musk’s compensation.
LinkedIn quietly started to post information describing its new Premium Company Page six days ago.
Pricing for premium company pages is not immediately disclosed, but it appears admins of pages that are eligible for it can see it.
The Premium Company Page subscription in some ways will look very familiar, in that it taps into well-known LinkedIn mechanics.
Testimonials, which LinkedIn has really promoted as a feature on profile pages for individuals, also get a push here: admins can display these prominently at the top of their premium pages.
Last but not least, with LinkedIn big on verification lately, and here too a Page can get a golden badge with a premium subscription.
Social media company Snap said Tuesday that it plans to add watermarks to AI-generated images on its platform.
Other tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta, and Google have also taken steps to label or identify images created with AI-powered tools.
Currently, Snap allows users to create or edit AI-generated images with Snap AI for paid users and a selfie-focused feature called Dreams.
The company also added context cards with AI-generated images from tools like Dream selfies to better inform the user.
In February, Snap partnered with HackerOne to stress its AI image-generation tools by adapting a bug bounty program.
In one of the latest developments, Danish company Flatpay, which builds payment solutions for small and medium physical merchants like shops, restaurants and salons, has raised €45 million ($47 million) led by Dawn Capital.
Founded in 2022, Flatpay currently has just 7,000 customers across its current footprint of Denmark, Finland and Germany.
Perhaps most interestingly, on the sales side, despite its focus on streamlined technology, Flatpay only sells via live sales visits.
No online sales (although there are specialists who will help arrange those in-person sales visits and handle support), no virtual visits, and no plans to introduce either.
And the only way they could understand the products really well was by the company paring down the products themselves.
Waymo, the self-driving company under Alphabet, began testing its robotaxis in Atlanta on Tuesday, adding another city to its ever-expanding testing and deployment domain.
Read about our cross-country training program:… pic.twitter.com/ORNxAbjJ3A — Waymo (@Waymo) April 16, 2024Like many other states, Georgia’s regulation of AVs is almost nonexistent, meaning Waymo can technically drop fully autonomous vehicles on the streets today without a safety driver, provided it meets the state’s minimal risk conditions.
Earlier this month, Waymo began mapping Washington, D.C., and in November 2023, the company began winter testing robotaxis in Buffalo.
In March, California regulators approved Waymo to grow its commercial robotaxi service across the San Francisco peninsula and on San Francisco freeways, which unlocks a route to San Francisco International Airport.
A Waymo robotaxi also hit and killed a dog in June 2023.
The lack of charging infrastructure is a major barrier to entry for those looking to convert gas-powered vehicles to electric.
Founded by Louis Tremblay, FLO is looking to build robust EV charging infrastructure that will create a reliable web for drivers to get to where they need to go.
Since then, however, the company has raised more than $334.4 million and become Canada’s largest EV charging provider.
“Hardware is important because it’s the infrastructure that lasts [and] software is to make a great experience,” said Tremblay.
It seeks to keep chargers up-to-date and has a suite of charging software that provides valuable data to — and about — drivers.
Former senior SpaceX executive Tom Ochinero is teaming up with SpaceX alum-turned-VC, Achal Upadhyaya, and one of Sequoia’s top finance leaders, Spencer Hemphill, on a new venture called Interlagos Capital, TechCrunch has learned.
There is little public information available about Interlagos, and the trio did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Ochinero, Upadhyaya and Hemphill are all listed on the documents.
Ochinero is just the latest SpaceX executive to move from the behemoth space company into venture investing.
Other notable investors in the SpaceX-to-VC pipeline include Founders Fund’s Scott Nolan, who was a very early SpaceX employee, and Alpine Space Ventures’ Bulent Alton.
One of Tesla’s delivery workers who was cut this week and spoke to TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity said their location was “short staffed” but still lost multiple employees.
The decision to end discounts across its lineup in the United States, including the Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model X is a bit of a whiplash moment for Tesla.
And in the first quarter of 2024, Tesla’s delivery numbers fell year-over-year.
It’s not clear how removing discounts on Tesla vehicles fits into the automaker’s new strategy to streamline sales and delivery.
But beyond the initial purchase, Tesla has almost always been making changes to its sales and delivery strategy.
