That’s according to Jonathan Sanders, CEO and co-founder of fledgling Danish startup Light, which exits stealth Wednesday with $13 million in a seed round of funding led by European VC giant Atomico.
The Copenhagen-based startup is reimagining general ledger software from the ground up, replete with AI to cleanse transactional data, while also enabling finance teams to ask plain-English questions and receive straightforward answers from their data.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is king, packing support for CRM (customer relationship management), HR (human resources), project management, and perhaps the most crucial component of all, the general ledger.
And it’s this element of the ERP that Light is focused on dragging into the modern digital era, where AI increasingly rules the roost.
“Our mission is to be the first automated ledger for global companies,” Sanders told TechCrunch.
French AI startup Mistral is introducing new AI model customization options, including paid plans, to let developers and enterprises fine-tune its generative models for particular use cases.
Mistral has released a software development kit (SDK), Mistral-Finetune, for fine-tuning its models on workstations, servers and small datacenter nodes.
For developers and companies that prefer a more managed solution, there’s Mistral’s newly launched fine-tuning services available through the company’s API.
Compatible with two of Mistral’s models for now, Mistral Small and the aforementioned Mistral 7B, Mistral says that the fine-tuning services will gain support for more of its models in the coming weeks.
Lastly, Mistral is debuting custom training services, currently only available to select customers, to fine-tune any Mistral model for an organization’s apps using their data.
Vana plans to let users rent out their Reddit data to train AI A startup, Vana, says it wants users to get paid for training dataIn the generative AI boom, data is the new oil.
“It does this by allowing users to aggregate their personal data in a non-custodial way … Vana allows users to own AI models and use their data across AI applications.”Here’s how Vana pitches its platform and API to developers:The Vana API connects a user’s cross-platform personal data … to allow you to personalize your application.
This month, Vana launched what it’s calling the Reddit Data DAO (Digital Autonomous Organization), a program that pools multiple users’ Reddit data (including their karma and post history) and lets them to decide together how that combined data is used.
We have crunched the numbers and r/datadao is now largest data DAO in history: Phase 1 welcomed 141,000 reddit users with 21,000 full data uploads.
“Reddit does not share non-public, personal data with commercial enterprises, and when Redditors request an export of their data from us, they receive non-public personal data back from us in accordance with applicable laws.
Spotify is working on mixing tools that would allow users to remix songs on the streaming service, according to screenshots captured by tech veteran and app researcher Chris Messina.
The screenshots indicate that the mixing tools would be available under a new “Music Pro” premium subscription tier.
While Spotify’s mixing tools can’t get rid of this issue altogether, they could help remedy it to a certain extent.
It’s not surprising that Spotify is developing mixing tools, especially as sped-up songs and mashups are having a moment thanks to TikTok.
According to TikTok’s 2023 year-end report, the most popular songs on the app were sped-up remixes of songs.
This week in AI, I’d like to turn the spotlight on labeling and annotation startups — startups like Scale AI, which is reportedly in talks to raise new funds at a $13 billion valuation.
Labeling and annotation platforms might not get the attention flashy new generative AI models like OpenAI’s Sora do.
Without them, modern AI models arguably wouldn’t exist.
Labels, or tags, help the models understand and interpret data during the training process.
Some of the tasks on Scale AI take labelers multiple eight-hour workdays — no breaks — and pay as little as $10.
Google will let you swipe right or swipe left on clothes to get better fashion recommendationsGoogle is rolling out a new update that makes it easier for users to find personalized shopping results, the company announced on Wednesday.
The new feature lets users rate different products in order to get style recommendations when shopping for apparel, shoes and accessories.
After you have rated a selection of products, Google will display personalized results for you to parse through.
Google will remember your preferences, so if you ever search for men’s polo shirts again, you will see style recommendations based on what you liked in the past.
The company says people shop on Google more than a billion times a day and see more than 45 billion products in their results.
Meta announced on Thursday that its beta experience of sharing Threads accounts to the fediverse is now open to users ages 18 and up with public profiles.
To opt into the fediverse beta experience on Threads, go to account settings and toggle on fediverse sharing.
This gives you the chance to connect with other people who may not be on Threads but use alternative social networking apps.
For instance, beta users on Threads can’t see people in the fediverse who replied or liked their posts.
Users also can’t share posts with polls.
NBCUniversal’s Peacock will let you watch four live streams at once for 2024 Paris OlympicsToday, during NBCUniversal’s annual technology conference, One24, the company revealed a slew of features coming to its streaming service Peacock ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics in July.
Since up to 40 Olympic events will be happening simultaneously, the unique offering helps viewers determine which four events are the most important.
Peacock’s multiview feature is not only available on the web, but also on smart TVs, streaming devices, and tablets.
The feature lets fans watch highlights of a game to quickly catch up without having to exit out of the main screen.
The company noted that multiview and Live Actions will extend to other live sporting events after the Olympics.
Instagram is working on a feature that would allow you to let others put a ‘Spin’ on your ReelInstagram is working on a “Spins” feature for Reels, its short-form video TikTok clone, the company confirmed to TechCrunch.
The feature, which was first spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, would allow other users to swap out the text or audio in your Reels.
The feature could be used as a way for users to start trends by creating templates that other people can then put their own creative spin on.
#Instagram keeps working on “Spins” for #Reels 👀 ℹ️ Allow people to swap out text or audio in your Reel.
If released, the new feature would give Reels users and viewers access to a functionality that isn’t available on TikTok.
Pixel phone updatesThe company is now allowing users to capture and upload 10-bit HDR videos on Instagram.
This feature is available to users on the Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, and Pixel Fold.
Later in the month, the company made the feature available to Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro users.
Google today said the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro users will be able to use this feature soon.
Pixel Watch updatesGoogle is rolling out two updates to the original Pixel Watch to help users train better, namely Pace training and Heart Zone training.
