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SBF Convicted, Worldcoin Faces Yet Another Ban, and Web3 Pre-Seed Funding Sees a Revival

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SBF sentenced, Worldcoin hit with another ban order and big web3 pre-seed rounds are backWelcome to TechCrunch Crypto, formerly known as Chain Reaction. This week in web3Crunching numbersThis week the crypto market prices were a bit more chipper, with the top cryptocurrencies being green on the week. The second-largest crypto, ether, increased 2.6% on the week to $3,550, according to CoinMarketCap data. Zero-knowledge proofs are a cryptographic action used to prove something about a piece of data, without revealing the origin data itself. Scott and I discuss Space and Time’s origin story, how data warehouses work in Web 2.0 versus web3 and the importance of data transparency.

: “UK Stuns New York with Lavish Event to Attract American Venture Capitalists – TechCrunch Recap”

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The UK threw a splashy event in New York this week to woo more American VCs Welcome to the new UK: the Unicorn KingdomA 3-D hologram, dubbed the Ever-Changing Statue, will be on display at the Rise by Barclays workspace in New York until April 4. Dealroom data shows that UK startups raised $31 billion in venture capital in 2022 and $41 billion in 2021. It’s also still more than the $18 billion the UK raised in 2019 and the $12 billion raised in 2018. Between 2009 and 2019, only 38 UK Black founders raised venture capital funding—that number now stands at 80, according to an updated report by Extend Ventures. “The UK tech ecosystem has made significant strides, but work remains to reach the scale and influence of Silicon Valley,” Taylor told TechCrunch.

“Elon Musk Announces: AI Chatbot Grok Will be Available for All Premium Subscribers on X Starting This Week”

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Following Elon Musk’s xAI’s move to open source its Grok large language model earlier in March, the X owner on Tuesday said that the company formerly known as Twitter will soon offer the Grok chatbot to more paying subscribers. In a post on X, Musk announced Grok will become available to Premium subscribers this week, not just those on the higher-end tier, Premium+, as before. Previously, Grok was only available to Premium+ subscribers, at $16 per month or a hefty $168 per year. Most notably, Grok has the ability to access real-time X data — something rivals can’t offer. Of course, the value of that data under Musk’s reign may be diminishing if X is losing users.

Exploring the IPO Trend: How Trump’s Truth Social Became Part of the Movement

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The Reddit and Astera Labs IPOs last week ate up a lot of media oxygen. And with good reason, the two tech IPOs priced well and traded with even more gusto. After a long dearth for technology offerings, seeing two large, multi-billion dollar offerings in the same week was part of a much-needed win for private-market tech companies, and sigh of relief for the same. But there was another offering last week that has a tech-angle to it: Trump Media and Technology Group, which is the company behind Truth Social. More from TechCrunch here, but the gist is that after much back-and-forth, it merged with its chosen SPAC and started to trade.

“Rescue Funds Endangered as Fisker Misses Out on Promising Nissan Deal”

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The negotiations between Fisker and a large automaker — reported to be Nissan — over a potential investment and collaboration have been terminated, a development that puts a separate near-term rescue funding effort in danger. Fisker revealed in a Monday morning regulatory filing that the automaker terminated the negotiations on March 22. Fisker said in the filing that it will ask the unnamed investor to waive the closing condition. In February, Fisker laid of 15% of its staff (around 200 people) and last week reported having just $121 million in the bank. Fisker had held talks with other automakers, including Mazda, but only Nissan recently remained at the table.

Unsexy Industries Can Also Attract Investors

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Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! TC reporter Tage Kene-Okafor reported on how Uber led a $100 million investment into African mobility fintech Moove as the startup’s valuation hit $750 million. He also wrote about how Zone raised $8.5 million to scale its decentralized payment infrastructure. Dollars and centsNon-sexy industries can appeal to investors too. The YC-backed startup raised $4.1 million last year with the goal of serving high-earning millennials and Gen Zers.

“Breaking Records: Discover the $700M SAFE, the Resurgence of IPOs, and Crossing Boundaries with a Cutting-Edge Venture Fund”

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A $700M SAFE, IPOs are back, and how one venture fund is transcending bordersHello, and welcome to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Friday episode, in which we dig through the most critical stories from the week and chat through new and emerging themes. This week we had Mary Ann, Becca, and Alex aboard. Becca of course is one of the two hosts of TechCrunch’s Found podcast, which talks to founders about how they built what they did, and how they did it! Today on Equity, however, here’s what we got into:We are back Monday with more!

“Unstoppable Momentum: Solana’s Memecoin Craze, Backpack’s Beta Triumph, and Starbucks’ NFT Program Shutdown”

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Welcome to TechCrunch Crypto, formerly known as Chain Reaction. Hello and welcome back to the TechCrunch Crypto newsletter. This week in web3Crunching numbersThis week the crypto market prices were lower, but still relatively strong compared to previous months. Bitcoin was down 6.5% on the week at $67,300 and 32% higher on the month, at the time of publication. This kickstarted her career in web3, data and AI solutions.

Microsoft’s Impressive AI Expansion: Inflection AI Co-founders Join the Team

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Microsoft’s latest gambit to snag much of the human talent from Inflection AI is causing waves this week. The subtext is clear enough: Microsoft doesn’t want to run into regulatory oversight in the form of anti-trust action. Regardless of your perspective on such deal-killing, Microsoft seems to have found a way around the matter in this case. Elsewhere in Microsoft land there’s talk of a new GPT model from OpenAI, and even some new Surface and Windows news that has an AI lilt. Wherever you look, there’s Microsoft and AI, cutting up the rug.

“Candela’s Ferries Experience Electrifying Growth with $25M Injection of Funds”

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Electric boat maker Candela is approaching cruising speed with $25 million in new funding and the first commercial deployment of its new P-12 ferry, in New Zealand. The P-12, a ferry design that can handle up to 30 passengers, made its debut late last year. Like any other industry, you have to know when to buy and when to build, and big boating companies are happy to buy — or invest. Candela’s boats use hydrofoils with electric engines mounted on the bottom to effectively fly above the surface of the water once they get past a certain speed, vastly reducing energy consumption — historically and understandably a sticking point for electric boating. Theh $25 million round was led, as mentioned, by Beneteau, with participation from EQT Ventures, Ocean Zero LLC, and Kan DelaAB.