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!
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 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.
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.
Fisker’s finances are back in the news after the company warned back in February that it didn’t have enough cash to make it through its next year.
The company said this week that it intends to halt production for six weeks to get its business back in order.
Softening demand growth for EVs is making the normal challenges of scaling a company all the harder for Fisker and its peers.
Not that we’re all doom and gloom here at TechCrunch — we’re actually rather bullish on the prospect for EVs in the near and far future.
Let’s take a look at what’s going on under the hood here:
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I was finally able to catch up on this February 2024 space stock review from Case Taylor, an investor at Thomas Tull’s U.S.
He provides a lot of sharp commentary on the public space companies, and as someone without a finance background, I feel like I learn a lot.
This week in space historyOn March 21, 2007, a small but mighty company called SpaceX launched its Falcon 1 rocket for the second time.
Chip giant Nvidia is hosting a massive AI conference as part of its GTC event this week, which kicks off Monday.
With a keynote planned from Jensen Huang, CEO and co-founder, of the company best known in year’s past for its gaming hardware and today for its massive market share in the burgeoning AI hardware market, expect Nvidia to make some news.
Given how many AI startups and giants alike use Nvidia gear, TechCrunch is expecting quite a lot to shake loose over the next few days.
To presage the confab, and detail just why we’re paying such close attention to a single company’s industry event, hit play below.
Stick close to TechCrunch for coverage throughout the week.
Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.
This is our Monday show, in which we take a look back at the weekend and what’s ahead in the week.
We’re coming to the end of earnings season, which means that there are just a few weeks left in the first quarter.
With spring in the air, here’s what we got into this morning:
Elon Musk’s xAI has open-sourced the base code of Grok AI model, but without any training code.
In a blog post, xAI said that the model wasn’t tuned for any particular application such as using it for conversations.
Last week, Musk noted on X that xAI intended to open-source the Grok model this week.
Some AI-powered tool makers are already talking about using Grok in their solutions.
Yep, thanks to @elonmusk and xAI team for open-sourcing the base model for Grok.
Hey, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter recapping noteworthy happenings in tech over the past few days.
This week, TechCrunch viewed leaked documents out of SpaceX showing some questionable practices related to employee stock options.
X CEO Elon Musk announced that he would open source Grok, X’s AI-powered chatbot meant to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Grok — developed by Musk’s AI startup, xAI — was released last year, armed with features such as access to “real-time” information on X and views undeterred by “politically correct” norms.
On Found, Becca and Dom spoke with Rebecca Hu, the CEO and co-founder of Glacier, an AI robotics company that’s building robots to accurately sort recycling.
