Truth Social, the social media platform owned by Donald Trump’s media company, has announced plans to launch a live TV streaming platform.
The streaming service will launch in three phases.
The company first plans to introduce Truth Social’s CDN (content delivery network) for streaming to the Truth Social app for Android, iOS and the web.
Next, Truth Social plans to release over-the-top (“OTT”) streaming apps for phones, tablets and other devices.
Truth Social went public last month after shareholders approved a merger of TMTG and Digital World Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
Tesla’s layoffs and executive departures took a bite out its share price this week.
The well-known electric vehicle company shed around 10% of its staff, impacting an estimated 14,000 staff or more.
It missed delivery estimates for the first quarter, has reportedly reduced hours for the production-line of its Cybertruck, and is seeing rivals in China stack market share with low-priced EVs.
Tesla, in other words, helped foster the global electric vehicle market, but is losing some of its primacy in that same market.
In human terms, for every dollar of car that Tesla sells, it generates far more company worth than its rivals.
Investors and founders can meet their match with Cherub, the ‘Raya of angel investing’Jaclyn Johnson and Angeline Vuong were on a hike deliberating how hard it can be for people to get started in angel investing when they realized they had stumbled upon a startup idea.
Today they are the co-founders of Cherub, a marketplace that pairs angel investors with entrepreneurs.
Johnson likens Los Angeles-based Cherub to Raya, an online membership-based community for dating, in that it matches founders and angel investors based on their preferences.
Of those deals, 40% were new angel investors, meaning they were accredited investors that had never written checks before.
Angel investor Allen Orr told TechCrunch that he had used other platforms such as AngelList in the past.
Substack is adding new capabilities to its Twitter-like Notes feature that bring it more in-line with the social network now known as X.
The company announced on Tuesday that users can now post videos directly to Notes in the Substack app and on the web.
Notes let users share posts, quotes, comments, images, links and ideas in a Tweet-like format, The short-form content is displayed in a dedicated Twitter-like feed.
Starting today, users can post videos directly to Notes by recording a video or selecting one from their phone’s camera roll or their desktop.
In its blog post, Substack explains that Notes is especially valuable for users who don’t have large pre-existing audiences.
Now that humanoids are all the rage in the robotics industry, Boston Dynamics on Tuesday officially retired theirs.
Boston Dynamics has been focused on commercializing technologies for a number of years now.
Boston Dynamics was, of course, well ahead of the current humanoid robotics curve.
Another wrinkle in today’s news is that, as of February, Boston Dynamics was still showcasing Atlas’ capabilities.
Meantime, in lieu of a gold watch, Boston Dynamics is offering up a video featuring some of Atlas’ greatest hits and most spectacular falls.
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.
High performers also cutMany of the laid-off employees were high performers, according to two sources who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity.
Some departments saw layoffs beyond the 10% outlined in the companywide email, according to sources.
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.
Design firm Zypsy will do $100,000 worth of work for 1% equity for early-stage startupsZypsy, a design firm with a track record of helping early-stage startups, has launched a new and somewhat unique venture investment program.
Instead startups will pay by issuing Zypsy 1% equity of their companies via a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity).
Zypsy has already added five startups to the first cohort of the design capital program (alphabetical order):Pilot projects with over 25 startups for three yearsThe six-year-old design company has worked with more than 25 startups.
“They are ‘cash-based clients, not an ‘equity-based portfolios’ like five companies we mentioned in the first design capital program,” he said.
In 2023, Zypsy raised $3 million to establish Design Capital.
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.
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.
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.
