Startups

Daily Crunch: Generative AI search engine startup You.com adds multimodal chat

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UKRAINE - 2021/11/10: In this photo illustration, a You.com logo of a startup is seen on a smartphone screen with its website in the background. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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Hello, and welcome to Hump Day! We’ve got a ton of amazing stories for you. Some are even about You.

Have you always wanted to be more conscious about where you shop but struggle to figure out how? The Fifteen Percent Pledge is a racial equity and economic justice nonprofit organization working toward a more equitable economic future. In recognition that Black people in the U.S. make up nearly 15% of the population, the Pledge is calling on major retailers and corporations to commit a minimum of 15% of their annual purchasing power to Black-owned businesses — you can find the brands here.

Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Is there room for another search engine?: You.com seems to think so. Ron writes that the company has its sights set on giving Google and Microsoft a run for its money with its multimodal chat search that goes beyond text to answer a question more precisely. For example, if you’re asking about a stock price, it will actually show you a stock chart rather than just a text-based answer.
  • A Tesla in every driveway: The Biden administration has another ally in helping build electric vehicle chargers all over the United States: Kirsten reports that Tesla has agreed to double its supercharger network and have it be open to all EVs. Yes, we’ve heard this before, but hopefully now we’ll see it.
  • Anything to move the needle: Kyle writes it might seem odd for a developer-focused company to get a lot of initial capital in this economy; however, one company’s challenging environment is another company’s windfall. Passwordless authentication startup Descope secured $53 million in a seed round amid what company co-founder and CEO Slavik Markovich said were companies shifting their software development strategies to free up their development teams for other opportunities.

Startups and VC

According to former employees of human resources startup Free Agency, CEO Sherveen Mashayekhi’s leadership style is holding the startup back as he seems to care more about demanding loyalty and controlling his employees than building a company, Becca reports. The New York–based startup launched in 2019 with the novel idea of bringing the talent agency model that is popular in Hollywood and sports to other professions.

Although there are numerous dating apps on the market, there aren’t many apps that aim to keep the spark alive after you enter a relationship. Aisha writes about Flamme, which wants to change that as it rebrands (from Sparks) and adds a new AI tool.

And we have five more for you:

On the journey to Series B, strategy is more important than metrics

A chess figure casts the shadow of a different figure on an image midway through the photo and the illustration.
Image Credits: miguelangelortega (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

If all goes well, the funds raised in a Series A will last long enough to generate steady revenue. But all is not going well.

SaaS founders are under pressure to maintain growth and reach profitability while preserving runway, but these goals aren’t diametrically opposed, according to Ophelia Brown and Imran Ghory at Blossom Capital.

“Forget about planning your business based on the metrics of the past decade,” they write. “We live in a new world order.” In this article, they take on three questions facing every software startup:

  • How aggressively should we grow this year?
  • How should we plan our spending?
  • How should we think about runway and capital preservation?

On the journey to Series B, strategy is more important than metrics

Three more from the TC+ team:

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Sprinklr, a customer experience firm, cuts more of its global workforce — this time 4% — with a company spokesperson confirming that it was a “strategic business decision” affecting employees across certain targeted regions, segments and support functions, Jagmeet writes.

Meanwhile, Adobe’s proposed $20 billion Figma acquisition continues to attract fans. The European Commission is going to look at the deal, of which Paul more appropriately uses the term “assess” to make sure it isn’t taking away competition in any of its markets.

And we have five more for you:

  • There’s nothing but bread crumbs in here: Aria looked at Intuitive Machines’ post-SPAC filing and reports that the lunar technology completed the merger with less cash than it initially thought thanks to shareholders.
  • Mikey likes it: Roblox stock pops 25% after reporting strong fourth-quarter earnings, proving that kids like the metaverse, just not “that” metaverse, Sarah writes.
  • Don’t make me leave the app: Google has some new features to make in-app browsing better on Android, including auto-saving passwords and other details without leaving the app, Ivan reports.
  • Shop till you drop: Instacart has new features for its shoppers, including more ways to earn and have a more flexible schedule, Aisha writes.
  • Getting out the buzz saw: In an effort to cut costs while also managing activist pressures, Salesforce unveils some harsh new policies for engineers and salespeople. Ron has more.

More TechCrunch

Cargo ships docking at a commercial port incur costs called “disbursements” and “port call expenses.” This might be port dues, towage, and pilotage fees. It’s a complex patchwork and all…

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AWS has confirmed its European “sovereign cloud” will go live by the end of 2025, enabling greater data residency for the region.

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Go Digit, an Indian insurance startup, has raised $141 million from investors including Goldman Sachs, ADIA, and Morgan Stanley as part of its IPO.

Indian insurance startup Go Digit raises $141M from anchor investors ahead of IPO

Peakbridge intends to invest in between 16 and 20 companies, investing around $10 million in each company. It has made eight investments so far.

Food VC Peakbridge has new $187M fund to transform future of food, like lab-made cocoa

For over six decades, the nonprofit has been active in the financial services sector.

Accion’s new $152.5M fund will back financial institutions serving small businesses globally

Meta’s newest social network, Threads, is starting its own fact-checking program after piggybacking on Instagram and Facebook’s network for a few months.

Threads finally starts its own fact-checking program

Looking Glass makes trippy-looking mixed-reality screens that make things look 3D without the need of special glasses. Today, it launches a pair of new displays, including a 16-inch mode that…

Looking Glass launches new 3D displays

Replacing Sutskever is Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s director of research.

Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and longtime chief scientist, departs

Intuitive Machines made history when it became the first private company to land a spacecraft on the moon, so it makes sense to adapt that tech for Mars.

Intuitive Machines wants to help NASA return samples from Mars

As Google revamps itself for the AI era, offering AI overviews within its search results, the company is introducing a new way to filter for just text-based links. With the…

Google adds ‘Web’ search filter for showing old-school text links as AI rolls out

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket will take a crew to suborbital space for the first time in nearly two years later this month, the company announced on Tuesday.  The NS-25…

Blue Origin to resume crewed New Shepard launches on May 19

This will enable developers to use the on-device model to power their own AI features.

Google is building its Gemini Nano AI model into Chrome on the desktop

It ran 110 minutes, but Google managed to reference AI a whopping 121 times during Google I/O 2024 (by its own count). CEO Sundar Pichai referenced the figure to wrap…

Google mentioned ‘AI’ 120+ times during its I/O keynote

Firebase Genkit is an open source framework that enables developers to quickly build AI into new and existing applications.

Google launches Firebase Genkit, a new open source framework for building AI-powered apps

In the coming months, Google says it will open up the Gemini Nano model to more developers.

Patreon and Grammarly are already experimenting with Gemini Nano, says Google

As part of the update, Reddit also launched a dedicated AMA tab within the web post composer.

Reddit introduces new tools for ‘Ask Me Anything,’ its Q&A feature

Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

LearnLM is already powering features across Google products, including in YouTube, Google’s Gemini apps, Google Search and Google Classroom.

LearnLM is Google’s new family of AI models for education

The official launch comes almost a year after YouTube began experimenting with AI-generated quizzes on its mobile app. 

Google is bringing AI-generated quizzes to academic videos on YouTube

Around 550 employees across autonomous vehicle company Motional have been laid off, according to information taken from WARN notice filings and sources at the company.  Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported…

Motional cut about 550 employees, around 40%, in recent restructuring, sources say

The keynote kicks off at 10 a.m. PT on Tuesday and will offer glimpses into the latest versions of Android, Wear OS and Android TV.

Google I/O 2024: Watch all of the AI, Android reveals

Google Play has a new discovery feature for apps, new ways to acquire users, updates to Play Points, and other enhancements to developer-facing tools.

Google Play preps a new full-screen app discovery feature and adds more developer tools

Soon, Android users will be able to drag and drop AI-generated images directly into their Gmail, Google Messages and other apps.

Gemini on Android becomes more capable and works with Gmail, Messages, YouTube and more

Veo can capture different visual and cinematic styles, including shots of landscapes and timelapses, and make edits and adjustments to already-generated footage.

Google Veo, a serious swing at AI-generated video, debuts at Google I/O 2024

In addition to the body of the emails themselves, the feature will also be able to analyze attachments, like PDFs.

Gemini comes to Gmail to summarize, draft emails, and more

The summaries are created based on Gemini’s analysis of insights from Google Maps’ community of more than 300 million contributors.

Google is bringing Gemini capabilities to Google Maps Platform

Google says that over 100,000 developers already tried the service.

Project IDX, Google’s next-gen IDE, is now in open beta

The system effectively listens for “conversation patterns commonly associated with scams” in-real time. 

Google will use Gemini to detect scams during calls

The standard Gemma models were only available in 2 billion and 7 billion parameter versions, making this quite a step up.

Google announces Gemma 2, a 27B-parameter version of its open model, launching in June

This is a great example of a company using generative AI to open its software to more users.

Google TalkBack will use Gemini to describe images for blind people