On Friday, the startup announced via a blog post it had made the decision to “wind down operations” of the app launched over a year ago, saying that the market opportunity wasn’t big enough to warrant continued investment.
It also employed several AI tools to summarize news, rewrite clickbait headlines, and surface the best content.
Existing posts will remain visible for the time being, and Artifact will continue to operate its “core news capability” through the end of February.
In part, the way users are finding news and information is changing with the arrival of AI.
The co-founder had spoken about AI’s role at Artifact at this past fall’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.
This week’s Pitch Deck Teardown comes to you from the PCB-laden confines of CES in Las Vegas.
Today, we’re looking at the slide deck that video analytics firm Qortex used to raise a $10 million seed round.
To be honest, I’m a little surprised the company managed to raise money at all with this pitch deck, but the fact that it did manage to raise $10 million is a good reminder that the deck is only a part of the puzzle.
In the rest of this teardown, we’ll take a look at three things Qortex could have improved or done differently, along with its full pitch deck!
Three things that could be improvedAbove, I noted the glaring absence of several key slides that investors usually like to see in a pitch deck.
The MMGuardian Phone is a smartphone produced in collaboration with Samsung that’s tapping into the power of AI to make phone use safer for kids and teenagers.
The MMGuardian Phone is a smartphone designed from the ground up to provide safety and control for concerned parents.
The result is a device that not only offers advanced monitoring and control features but also incorporates anti-tamper technology to prevent workarounds.
This feature provides an additional layer of protection against issues like sexting, sextortion, and cyberbullying, making the MMGuardian Phone unique in the market.
The MMGuardian Phone will be available in three models, starting at $119, with the MMGuardian Service priced at an additional $120 per year.
Interoperability could also be imposed on designated tech giants, the CMA suggested, as well as mandates that they trade on fairer terms.
Algorithmic transparency could be another demand made of them by the new digital markets regulator.
As a consequence the UK has slipped behind peers like the European Union — which adopted its own flagship digital competition reform last year.
The deadline for in-scope tech giants’ compliance with that regime is looming in early March.
A German ex ante digital competition reform has also been operating since early 2021.
The humble computer mouse hasn’t seen a huge amount of innovation since it was invented – and let’s be honest, it isn’t a particularly ergonomically friendly piece of kit.
“It all started with a friend of mine who’s creative director whose hand became injured from repetitive motion on a mouse.
Moustrap is expected to hit the market in about three months – but don’t expect it to be cheap.
Despite the high-end price tag, Federici has chosen to bootstrap the project himself, with no immediate plans for seeking investors.
With a manufacturing partner lined up in China, Moustrap is well on its way to finding its way to users.
USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files confidentially for an IPO Here we go againCircle Internet Financial (Circle) has confidentially filed for a proposed IPO, the company said on Thursday.
Circle is the issuer of the stablecoin USDC, which has the second-largest market capitalization on the market, worth about $25.25 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
The largest stablecoin, Tether, had a market cap of $94.65 billion, at the time of publication.
The number of shares and price range for the proposed IPO is yet to be determined, the company said.
Circle did not immediately respond to queries on how this IPO will be different from its previous SPAC efforts.
That emphasis on sustainability is translating into a goal at Finn to have 80% of its car inventory electric by 2028, from 40% today.
Previous backers such as HV Capital, Korelya Capital, UVC Partners, White Star Capital and Picus Capital are also participating.
It’s been a very bumpy road for the car subscription market over the years.
The idea of car subscriptions is neat, but the execution is not.
And it’s brokered deals in advance with car retailers to buy up the vehicles when subscriptions are finished.
Female-founded companies in the U.S. raised $44.4 billion out of the $170.59 billion in venture capital allocated last year.
Such teams raised 26.1% of all venture capital allocated this year, a sizable jump from the 18.2% they picked up last year.
This follows the pattern that women founders still fare better with a male co-founder in the mix.
Kyle Stanford, lead VC analyst at PitchBook, told TechCrunch+ that it’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason why funding to women founders has dipped a bit, but he added that the decline in deal counts for women founders follows the trends of the broader market.
“That is not meant to make activity in female-founded companies look better, but the context of market difficulties is important.”Overall, less than 25% of all deals went to female-founded companies in 2023.
EV sales remained strong in Q4.
They could have been stronger All automakers, including Tesla, are at a crossroadsIf you’ve only been reading headlines these past few months, you’d think demand for electric vehicles has fallen off a cliff.
In some countries, like Norway, where 82% of new vehicles are electric, it has already landed.
That jibes with other forecasts that predict EVs will make up around 25% of the market in 2026.
The demand will be there, but to make the most of it, automakers have some work to do.
Bitcoin ETFs, Carta’s latest mess, and let’s go to the MoonListen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tech stocks aren’t moving too much this morning as the market digests the Boeing mess.
Bitcoin ETFs: And this is why.
A rush of new filings this morning showed that bitcoin spot ETFs are targeting a very low-fee structure as they compete for investor dollars.
A rush of new filings this morning showed that bitcoin spot ETFs are targeting a very low-fee structure as they compete for investor dollars.
