When Jordan Nathan launched his DTC nontoxic cookware company, Caraway, in 2019, he knew he was not the only founder trying to sell a new brand of pots and pans to millennials scrolling through Instagram.
When Caraway launched, it joined companies like Our Place, Great Jones and Made In Cookware in an increasingly crowded category of online cookware startups.
Caraway’s competitors also helped Caraway decide to start talking to retailers early in the process.
You can now find Caraway sets at Target and Costco, among others.
While being a later entrant helped Caraway in many ways, it did hurt them in one area, Nathan said.
Earlier this year, Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor launched a new company, Sierra with the goal of building these flexible AI agents.
“We believe that somewhere between 70% and 90% of interactions are going to be through AI agents in the future.
And Ultimate has done a really nice job solving up to 80% of interactions via their AI agents,” Eggemeier told TechCrunch.
He says that while the plan is to incorporate Ultimate technology into the Zendesk platform, they will continue to offer stand-alone products to other companies.
Ultimate launched in 2017 and raised $27 million, per Crunchbase.
Smart fitness ring maker Oura announced a partnership with Amazon today to sell its products through the e-commerce site.
The Heritage ring starts from $299 and the Horizon ring starts from $399.
The most distinctive difference between the two is that Heritage rings have a flat top and Horizon rings don’t have that.
Since Oura launched the Oura Ring 3, India-based startup Ultrahuman released two rings including Ultrahuman Air last year.
Last year, Oura launched the Circles feature to encourage users to share their stats with friends and family.
It’s no surprise that after ten years, Parachute, the home lifestyle brand, stands as the dust settles from the direct-to-consumer boom.
Founded by Ariel Kaye in 2012, Parachute has developed a loyal customer base because of its high-quality bedding, towels, and robes.
Naturally, TechCrunch wanted to see what it has been like managing the DTC boom these past few years and brought Kaye onto our podcast Found to chat about it.
“From the moment we launched, we just kept hearing, ‘I’ve been waiting for a brand like this,” she told us.
She learned to manage logistics, hire a team, and find a network of other entrepreneurs who could support her during the highs and lows of — wait for it — being a solo founder.
But a new venture capital firm, funded by some heavyweight legacy construction companies, is out to change that.
Zacua Ventures has launched its inaugural $56 million fund targeting early-stage construction technology startups, backed by 19 of the construction sector’s biggest corporations.
Vivin Hegde, Mauricio Tessi Weiss and Juan Nieto started San Francisco-based Zacua in 2022.
Hegde was previously with construction tool maker Hilti Corp, while Tessi Weiss and Nieto were at Cemex Ventures.
Since the launch of its fund, Zacua Ventures has invested in over a dozen startups across the construction technology ecosystem.
And tech companies in the West have rallied around the sector, increasingly working with Ukrainian tech firms on a range of initiatives.
This week Google launched its second ‘Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund’ with a budget of $10M to support Ukrainian startups during 2024 and 2025.
Selected Ukrainian startups will receive up to $200,000 in equity-free funding, as well as Google mentorship, product support, and $300,000 in Google Cloud credits.
Meanwhile, Estonian accelerator Startup Wise Guys launched Growth Ukraine, a programme for startups in Ukraine.
And the EU-funded project ‘Seeds of Bravery’ programme has five programmes to support Ukrainian tech startups with grants ranging from €10,000 to €50,000.
Solana Mobile still has a long way to go until it hits breakeven Solana Labs co-founder teases possibility of third mobile deviceLast month, Solana Mobile’s flagship web3 smartphone, the Saga, sold out.
Last week the Solana Labs’ subsidiary launched its second phone and got over 40,000 preorders in less than a week.
“After Saga sold out, it felt like there’s an opportunity and the timing in the market was right,” Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, said on TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast.
“The timing [for the new phone] worked out right around that moment.”And if the second device is a success, there will be a third phone launched later on, Yakovenko hinted.
“I think crypto was going through a hard bear market, and the Solana ecosystem was feeling the worst of it,” Yakovenko said.
Solana Mobile still has a long way to go until it hits breakeven Solana Labs co-founder teases possibility of third mobile deviceLast month, Solana Mobile’s flagship web3 smartphone, the Saga, sold out.
Last week the Solana Labs’ subsidiary launched its second phone and got over 40,000 preorders in less than a week.
“After Saga sold out, it felt like there’s an opportunity and the timing in the market was right,” Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, said on TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast.
“The timing [for the new phone] worked out right around that moment.”And if the second device is a success, there will be a third phone launched later on, Yakovenko hinted.
“I think crypto was going through a hard bear market, and the Solana ecosystem was feeling the worst of it,” Yakovenko said.
ByteDance is shutting down its music streaming service Resso in India at the end of this month as the company shifts its focus to expand TikTok Music globally.
The streaming service is still active for those who have the app, but it’s not possible to purchase a new subscription.
The company confirmed the development and said that it doesn’t plan to launch TikTok Music in India.
However, ByteDance launched TikTok Music in both those markets last July.
In May 2023, ByteDance made Resso a subscription-only service to offer “a better user experience for music fans, while increasing opportunities for rightsholders and artists.”Until now, ByteDance has launched TikTok Music in Australia, Singapore, and Mexico apart from Indonesia and Brazil.
The Falcon Heavy lifted off on the clandestine mission at 8:07 PM Eastern from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
The U.S. Space Force’s X-37B space plane, a reusable vehicle that acts as a classified testbed for experiments in space, was the sole payload on the massive rocket.
Even the windows of the small space plane are blacked out.
One of the big mysteries of this particular mission is the Space Force’s choice to book a triple-boosted Falcon Heavy.
This is the fifth time SpaceX has launched a Falcon Heavy rocket this year, and the ninth overall since 2018.
