Gilroy, former Coatue fintech head, and angel investor Rajaram launch VC firm
Michael Gilroy, a former head of fintech investments at Coatue, and Gokul Rajaram, a longtime tech executive and prolific angel investor, are forming a yet-to-be-named venture firm and plan to begin fundraising toward a $400 million to $500 million debut fund early next year, Bloomberg reported.
The firm will invest in US-based early-stage fintech and software startups.
While at Coatue, Gilroy invested in fintech companies, including Arta Finance, Melio Solution, Pinwheel and Mercury. Prior to joining the hedge fund in 2019, he spent over five years as a partner at Canaan. According to PitchBook data, Rajaram has backed over 285 startups, including companies where he serves as a board member: Coinbase, Pinterest and Trade Desk.
Gilroy is not the only former Coatue investor planning to launch his own firm.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Kris Fredrickson, an investor with Coatue’s growth team, aims to raise about $150 million for the debut fund of his new firm, Verified Capital.
Fredrickson left Coatue in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. At Coatue, he was the lead partner in investments in Chainlysis, Instacart, and Root Insurance, according to PitchBook data.
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ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies.
That growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming one of the most-hyped companies in recent memory. And its latest partnership with Apple for its upcoming generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, has given the company another significant bump in the AI race.
2024 also saw the release of GPT-4o, OpenAI’s new flagship omni model for ChatGPT. GPT-4o is now the default free model, complete with voice capabilities. But after demoing GPT-4o, OpenAI paused one of its voices, Sky, after allegations that it was mimicking Scarlett Johansson’s voice in “Her.”
OpenAI is facing internal drama, including the sizable exit of co-founder and longtime chief scientist Ilya Sutskever as the company dissolved its Superalignment team. OpenAI is also facing a lawsuit from Alden Global Capital-owned newspapers, including the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, for alleged copyright infringement, following a similar suit filed by The New York Times last year.
Here’s a timeline of ChatGPT product updates and releases, starting with the latest, which we’ve been updating throughout the year. And if you have any other questions, check out our ChatGPT FAQ here.
Timeline of the most recent ChatGPT updates
November 2024
GPT-4o gets an upgrade
OpenAI announced that its GPT-4o model has been updated to feature more “natural” and “engaging” creative writing abilities as well as more thorough responses and insights when accessing files uploaded by users.
OpenAI brings ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode to the web
ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode feature is expanding to the web, allowing users to talk to the chatbot through their browser. The conversational feature is rolling out to ChatGPT’s paying Plus, Enterprise, Teams, or Edu subscribers.
ChatGPT can now read some of your Mac’s desktop apps
OpenAI announced the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS can now read code in a handful of developer-focused coding apps, such as VS Code, Xcode, TextEdit, Terminal, and iTerm2 — meaning that developers will no longer have to copy and paste their code into ChatGPT. When the feature is enabled, OpenAI will automatically send the section of code you’re working on through its chatbot as context, alongside your prompt.
OpenAI loses another lead safety researcher
Lilian Weng announced on X that she is departing OpenAI. Weng served as VP of research and safety since August, and before that was the head of OpenAI’s safety systems team. It’s the latest in a long string of AI safety researchers,policy researchers, and other executives who have exited the company in the last year.
ChatGPT told 2M people to get their election news elsewhere
OpenAI stated that it told around 2 million users of ChatGPT to go elsewhere for information about the 2024 U.S. election, and instead recommended trusted news sources like Reuters and the Associated Press.
In a blog post, OpenAI said that ChatGPT sent roughly a million people to CanIVote.org when they asked questions specific to voting in the lead-up to the election and rejected around 250,000 requests to generate images of the candidates over the same period.
OpenAI acquires Chat.com
Adding to its collection of high-profile domain names, Chat.com now redirects to ChatGPT. Last year, it was reported that HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah acquired Chat.com for $15.5 million, making it one of the top two all-time publicly reported domain sales — though OpenAI declined to state how much it paid for it.
Meta’s former hardware lead for Orion is joining OpenAI
The former head of Meta’s augmented reality glasses efforts is joining OpenAI to lead robotics and consumer hardware. Kalinowski is a hardware executive who began leading Meta’s AR glasses team in March 2022. She oversaw the creation of Orion, the impressive augmented reality prototype that Meta recently showed off at its annual Connect conference.
Apple users will soon be able to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus in the Settings app
Apple is including an option to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus inside its Settings app, according to an update to the iOS 18.2 beta spotted by 9to5Mac. This will give Apple users a direct route to sign up for OpenAI’s premium subscription plan, which costs $20 a month.
October 2024
Sam Altman says a lack of compute capacity is delaying product releases
In a Reddit AMA, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that a lack of compute capacity is one major factor preventing the company from shipping products as often as it’d like, including the vision capabilities for Advanced Voice Mode first teased in May. Altman also indicated that the next major release of DALL-E, OpenAI’s image generator, has no launch timeline, and that Sora, OpenAI’s video-generating tool, has also been held back.
Altman also admitted to using ChatGPT “sometimes” to answer questions throughout the AMA.
OpenAI launches its Google search challenger
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Search, an evolution of the SearchGPT prototype it unveiled this summer. Powered by a fine-tuned version of OpenAI’s GPT-4o model, ChatGPT Search serves up information and photos from the web along with links to relevant sources, at which point you can ask follow-up questions to refine an ongoing search.
Advanced Voice Mode comes to Mac and PC
OpenAI has rolled out Advanced Voice Mode to ChatGPT’s desktop apps for macOS and Windows. For Mac users, that means that both ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode can coexist with Siri on the same device, leading the way for ChatGPT’s Apple Intelligence integration.
OpenAI is reportedly planning to build its first AI chip
Reuters reports that OpenAI is working with TSMC and Broadcom to build an in-house AI chip, which could arrive as soon as 2026. It appears, at least for now, the company has abandoned plans to establish a network of factories for chip manufacturing and is instead focusing on in-house chip design.
You can now search through your ChatGPT history
OpenAI announced it’s rolling out a feature that allows users to search through their ChatGPT chat histories on the web. The new feature will let users bring up an old chat to remember something or pick back up a chat right where it was left off.
ChatGPT rolls out with Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1 update
With the release of iOS 18.1, Apple Intelligence features powered by ChatGPT are now available to users. The ChatGPT features include integrated writing tools, image cleanup, article summaries, and a typing input for the redesigned Siri experience.
OpenAI says it won’t release a model called Orion this year
OpenAI denied reports that it is intending to release an AI model, code-named Orion, by December of this year. An OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch that they “don’t have plans to release a model code-named Orion this year,” but that leaves OpenAI substantial wiggle room.
ChatGPT comes to Windows
OpenAI has begun previewing a dedicated Windows app for ChatGPT. The company says the app is an early version and is currently only available to ChatGPT Plus, Team, Enterprise, and Edu users with a “full experience” set to come later this year.
OpenAI inks new content deal with Hearst
OpenAI struck a content deal with Hearst, the newspaper and magazine publisher known for the San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, and others. The partnership will allow OpenAI to surface stories from Hearst publications with citations and direct links.
ChatGPT has a new ‘Canvas’ interface for writing and coding projects
OpenAI introduced a new way to interact with ChatGPT called “Canvas.” The canvas workspace allows for users to generate writing or code, then highlight sections of the work to have the model edit. Canvas is rolling out in beta to ChatGPT Plus and Teams, with a rollout to come to Enterprise and Edu tier users next week.
OpenAI raises $6.6B and is now valued at $157B
OpenAI has closed the largest VC round of all time. The startup announced it raised $6.6 billion in a funding round that values OpenAI at $157 billion post-money. Led by previous investor Thrive Capital, the new cash brings OpenAI’s total raised to $17.9 billion, per Crunchbase.
Dev Day brings Realtime API to AI app developers
At the first of its 2024 Dev Day events, OpenAI announced a new API tool that will let developers build nearly real-time, speech-to-speech experiences in their apps, with the choice of using six voices provided by OpenAI. These voices are distinct from those offered for ChatGPT, and developers can’t use third party voices, in order to prevent copyright issues.
September 2024
OpenAI might raise the price of ChatGPT to $44 by 2029
OpenAI is planning to raise the price of individual ChatGPT subscriptions from $20 per month to $22 per month by the end of the year, according to a report from The New York Times. The report notes that a steeper increase could come over the next five years; by 2029, OpenAI expects it’ll charge $44 per month for ChatGPT Plus.
Mira Murati exists OpenAI
OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announced that she is leaving the company after more than six years. Hours after the announcement, OpenAI’s chief research officer, Bob McGrew, and a research VP, Barret Zoph, also left the company. CEO Sam Altman revealed the two latest resignations in a post on X, along with leadership transition plans.
OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look
After a delay, OpenAI is finally rolling out Advanced Voice Mode to an expanded set of ChatGPT’s paying customers. AVM is also getting a revamped design — the feature is now represented by a blue animated sphere instead of the animated black dots that were presented back in May. OpenAI is highlighting improvements in conversational speed, accents in foreign languages, and five new voices as part of the rollout.
YouTuber finds a way to run ChatGPT on a graphing calculator
A video from YouTube creator ChromaLock showcased how to modify a TI-84 graphing calculator so that it can connect to the internet and access ChatGPT, touting it as the “ultimate cheating device.” As demonstrated in the video, it’s a pretty complicated process for the average high school student to follow — but it might stoke more concerns from teachers about the ongoing concerns about ChatGPT and cheating in schools.
OpenAI announces OpenAI o1, a new model that can fact-check itself
OpenAI unveiled a preview of OpenAI o1, also known as “Strawberry.” The collection of models are available in ChatGPT and via OpenAI’s API: o1-preview and o1 mini. The company claims that o1 can more effectively reason through math and science and fact-check itself by spending more time considering all parts of a command or question.
Unlike ChatGPT, o1 can’t browse the web or analyze files yet, is rate-limited and expensive compared to other models. OpenAI says it plans to bring o1-mini access to all free users of ChatGPT, but hasn’t set a release date.
A hacker was able to trick ChatGPT into giving instructions on how to make bombs
An artist and hacker found a way to jailbreak ChatGPT to produce instructions for making powerful explosives, a request that the chatbot normally refuses. An explosives expert who reviewed the chatbot’s output told TechCrunch that the instructions could be used to make a detonatable product and was too sensitive to be released.
OpenAI reaches 1 million paid users of its corporate offerings
OpenAI announced it has surpassed 1 million paid users for its versions of ChatGPT intended for businesses, including ChatGPT Team, ChatGPT Enterprise and its educational offering, ChatGPT Edu. The company said that nearly half of OpenAI’s corporate users are based in the US.
Volkswagen rolls out its ChatGPT assistant to the US
Volkswagen is taking its ChatGPT voice assistant experiment to vehicles in the United States. Its ChatGPT-integrated Plus Speech voice assistant is an AI chatbot based on Cerence’s Chat Pro product and a LLM from OpenAI and will begin rolling out on September 6 with the 2025 Jetta and Jetta GLI models.
August 2024
OpenAI inks content deal with Condé Nast
As part of the new deal, OpenAI will surface stories from Condé Nast properties like The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Bon Appétit and Wired in ChatGPT and SearchGPT. Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch implied that the “multi-year” deal will involve payment from OpenAI in some form and a Condé Nast spokesperson told TechCrunch that OpenAI will have permission to train on Condé Nast content.
Our first impressions of ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode
TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff has been playing around with OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode, in what he describes as “the most convincing taste I’ve had of an AI-powered future yet.” Compared to Siri or Alexa, Advanced Voice Mode stands out with faster response times, unique answers and the ability to answer complex questions. But the feature falls short as an effective replacement for virtual assistants.
OpenAI shuts down election influence operation that used ChatGPT
OpenAI has banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts linked to an Iranian influence operation that was generating content about the U.S. presidential election. OpenAI identified five website fronts presenting as both progressive and conservative news outlets that used ChatGPT to draft several long-form articles, though it doesn’t seem that it reached much of an audience.
OpenAI finds that GPT-4o does some weird stuff sometimes
OpenAI has found that GPT-4o, which powers the recently launched alpha of Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT, can behave in strange ways. In a new “red teaming” report, OpenAI reveals some of GPT-4o’s weirder quirks, like mimicking the voice of the person speaking to it or randomly shouting in the middle of a conversation.
ChatGPT’s mobile app reports its biggest month yet
After a big jump following the release of OpenAI’s new GPT-4o “omni” model, the mobile version of ChatGPT has now seen its biggest month of revenue yet. The app pulled in $28 million in net revenue from the App Store and Google Play in July, according to data provided by app intelligence firm Appfigures.
OpenAI could potentially catch students who cheat with ChatGPT
OpenAI has built a watermarking tool that could potentially catch students who cheat by using ChatGPT — but The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is debating whether to actually release it. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is researching tools that can detect writing from ChatGPT, but said it’s taking a “deliberate approach” to releasing it.
July 2024
ChatGPT’s advanced Voice Mode starts rolling out to some users
OpenAI is giving users their first access to GPT-4o’s updated realistic audio responses. The alpha version is now available to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users, and the company says the feature will gradually roll out to all Plus users in the fall of 2024. The release follows controversy surrounding the voice’s similarity to Scarlett Johansson, leading OpenAI to delay its release.
OpenAI announces new search prototype, SearchGPT
OpenAI is testing SearchGPT, a new AI search experience to compete with Google. SearchGPT aims to elevate search queries with “timely answers” from across the internet, as well as the ability to ask follow-up questions. The temporary prototype is currently only available to a small group of users and its publisher partners, like The Atlantic, for testing and feedback.
OpenAI could lose $5 billion this year, report claims
A new report from The Information, based on undisclosed financial information, claims OpenAI could lose up to $5 billion due to how costly the business is to operate. The report also says the company could spend as much as $7 billion in 2024 to train and operate ChatGPT.
OpenAI unveils GPT-4o mini
OpenAI released its latest small AI model, GPT-4o mini. The company says GPT-4o mini, which is cheaper and faster than OpenAI’s current AI models, outperforms industry leading small AI models on reasoning tasks involving text and vision. GPT-4o mini will replace GPT-3.5 Turbo as the smallest model OpenAI offers.
OpenAI partners with Los Alamos National Laboratory for bioscience research
OpenAI announced a partnership with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to study how AI can be employed by scientists in order to advance research in healthcare and bioscience. This follows other health-related research collaborations at OpenAI, including Moderna and Color Health.
June 2024
OpenAI makes CriticGPT to find mistakes in GPT-4
OpenAI announced it has trained a model off of GPT-4, dubbed CriticGPT, which aims to find errors in ChatGPT’s code output so they can make improvements and better help so-called human “AI trainers” rate the quality and accuracy of ChatGPT responses.
OpenAI inks content deal with TIME
OpenAI and TIME announced a multi-year strategic partnership that brings the magazine’s content, both modern and archival, to ChatGPT. As part of the deal, TIME will also gain access to OpenAI’s technology in order to develop new audience-based products.
OpenAI delays ChatGPT’s new Voice Mode
OpenAI planned to start rolling out its advanced Voice Mode feature to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users in late June, but it says lingering issues forced it to postpone the launch to July. OpenAI says Advanced Voice Mode might not launch for all ChatGPT Plus customers until the fall, depending on whether it meets certain internal safety and reliability checks.
ChatGPT releases app for Mac
ChatGPT for macOS is now available for all users. With the app, users can quickly call up ChatGPT by using the keyboard combination of Option + Space. The app allows users to upload files and other photos, as well as speak to ChatGPT from their desktop and search through their past conversations.
Apple brings ChatGPT to its apps, including Siri
Apple announced at WWDC 2024 that it is bringing ChatGPT to Siri and other first-party apps and capabilities across its operating systems. The ChatGPT integrations, powered by GPT-4o, will arrive on iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia later this year, and will be free without the need to create a ChatGPT or OpenAI account. Features exclusive to paying ChatGPT users will also be available through Apple devices.
House Oversight subcommittee invites Scarlett Johansson to testify about ‘Sky’ controversy
Scarlett Johansson has been invited to testify about the controversy surrounding OpenAI’s Sky voice at a hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation. In a letter, Rep. Nancy Mace said Johansson’s testimony could “provide a platform” for concerns around deepfakes.
ChatGPT experiences two outages in a single day
ChatGPT was down twice in one day: one multi-hour outage in the early hours of the morning Tuesday and another outage later in the day that is still ongoing. Anthropic’s Claude and Perplexity also experienced some issues.
May 2024
The Atlantic and Vox Media ink content deals with OpenAI
The Atlantic and Vox Media have announced licensing and product partnerships with OpenAI. Both agreements allow OpenAI to use the publishers’ current content to generate responses in ChatGPT, which will feature citations to relevant articles. Vox Media says it will use OpenAI’s technology to build “audience-facing and internal applications,” while The Atlantic will build a new experimental product called Atlantic Labs.
OpenAI signs 100K PwC workers to ChatGPT’s enterprise tier
OpenAI announced a new deal with management consulting giant PwC. The company will become OpenAI’s biggest customer to date, covering 100,000 users, and will become OpenAI’s first partner for selling its enterprise offerings to other businesses.
OpenAI says it is training its GPT-4 successor
OpenAI announced in a blog post that it has recently begun training its next flagship model to succeed GPT-4. The news came in an announcement of its new safety and security committee, which is responsible for informing safety and security decisions across OpenAI’s products.
Former OpenAI director claims the board found out about ChatGPT on Twitter
On the The TED AI Show podcast, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner revealed that the board did not know about ChatGPT until its launch in November 2022. Toner also said that Sam Altman gave the board inaccurate information about the safety processes the company had in place and that he didn’t disclose his involvement in the OpenAI Startup Fund.
ChatGPT’s mobile app revenue saw biggest spike yet following GPT-4o launch
The launch of GPT-4o has driven the company’s biggest-ever spike in revenue on mobile, despite the model being freely available on the web. Mobile users are being pushed to upgrade to its $19.99 monthly subscription, ChatGPT Plus, if they want to experiment with OpenAI’s most recent launch.
OpenAI to remove ChatGPT’s Scarlett Johansson-like voice
After demoing its new GPT-4o model last week, OpenAI announced it is pausing one of its voices, Sky, after users found that it sounded similar to Scarlett Johansson in “Her.”
OpenAI explained in a blog post that Sky’s voice is “not an imitation” of the actress and that AI voices should not intentionally mimic the voice of a celebrity. The blog post went on to explain how the company chose its voices: Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper and Sky.
ChatGPT lets you add files from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive
OpenAI announced new updates for easier data analysis within ChatGPT. Users can now upload files directly from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, interact with tables and charts, and export customized charts for presentations. The company says these improvements will be added to GPT-4o in the coming weeks.
OpenAI inks deal to train AI on Reddit data
OpenAI announced a partnership with Reddit that will give the company access to “real-time, structured and unique content” from the social network. Content from Reddit will be incorporated into ChatGPT, and the companies will work together to bring new AI-powered features to Reddit users and moderators.
OpenAI debuts GPT-4o “omni” model now powering ChatGPT
OpenAI’s spring update event saw the reveal of its new omni model, GPT-4o, which has a black hole-like interface, as well as voice and vision capabilities that feel eerily like something out of “Her.” GPT-4o is set to roll out “iteratively” across its developer and consumer-facing products over the next few weeks.
OpenAI to build a tool that lets content creators opt out of AI training
The company announced it’s building a tool, Media Manager, that will allow creators to better control how their content is being used to train generative AI models — and give them an option to opt out. The goal is to have the new tool in place and ready to use by 2025.
OpenAI explores allowing AI porn
In a new peek behind the curtain of its AI’s secret instructions, OpenAI also released a new NSFW policy. Though it’s intended to start a conversation about how it might allow explicit images and text in its AI products, it raises questions about whether OpenAI — or any generative AI vendor — can be trusted to handle sensitive content ethically.
OpenAI and Stack Overflow announce partnership
In a new partnership, OpenAI will get access to developer platform Stack Overflow’s API and will get feedback from developers to improve the performance of their AI models. In return, OpenAI will include attributions to Stack Overflow in ChatGPT. However, the deal was not favorable to some Stack Overflow users — leading to some sabotaging their answer in protest.
April 2024
U.S. newspapers file copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft
Alden Global Capital-owned newspapers, including the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Denver Post, are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges that the companies stole millions of copyrighted articles “without permission and without payment” to bolster ChatGPT and Copilot.
OpenAI inks content licensing deal with Financial Times
OpenAI has partnered with another news publisher in Europe, London’s Financial Times, that the company will be paying for content access. “Through the partnership, ChatGPT users will be able to see select attributed summaries, quotes and rich links to FT journalism in response to relevant queries,” the FT wrote in a press release.
OpenAI opens Tokyo hub, adds GPT-4 model optimized for Japanese
OpenAI is opening a new office in Tokyo and has plans for a GPT-4 model optimized specifically for the Japanese language. The move underscores how OpenAI will likely need to localize its technology to different languages as it expands.
Sam Altman pitches ChatGPT Enterprise to Fortune 500 companies
According to Reuters, OpenAI’s Sam Altman hosted hundreds of executives from Fortune 500 companies across several cities in April, pitching versions of its AI services intended for corporate use.
OpenAI releases “more direct, less verbose” version of GPT-4 Turbo
Premium ChatGPT users — customers paying for ChatGPT Plus, Team or Enterprise — can now use an updated and enhanced version of GPT-4 Turbo. The new model brings with it improvements in writing, math, logical reasoning and coding, OpenAI claims, as well as a more up-to-date knowledge base.
ChatGPT no longer requires an account — but there’s a catch
You can now use ChatGPT without signing up for an account, but it won’t be quite the same experience. You won’t be able to save or share chats, use custom instructions, or other features associated with a persistent account. This version of ChatGPT will have “slightly more restrictive content policies,” according to OpenAI. When TechCrunch asked for more details, however, the response was unclear:
“The signed out experience will benefit from the existing safety mitigations that are already built into the model, such as refusing to generate harmful content. In addition to these existing mitigations, we are also implementing additional safeguards specifically designed to address other forms of content that may be inappropriate for a signed out experience,” a spokesperson said.
March 2024
OpenAI’s chatbot store is filling up with spam
TechCrunch found that the OpenAI’s GPT Store is flooded with bizarre, potentially copyright-infringing GPTs. A cursory search pulls up GPTs that claim to generate art in the style of Disney and Marvel properties, but serve as little more than funnels to third-party paid services and advertise themselves as being able to bypass AI content detection tools.
The New York Times responds to OpenAI’s claims that it “hacked” ChatGPT for its copyright lawsuit
In a court filing opposing OpenAI’s motion to dismiss The New York Times’ lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, the newspaper asserted that “OpenAI’s attention-grabbing claim that The Times ‘hacked’ its products is as irrelevant as it is false.” The New York Times also claimed that some users of ChatGPT used the tool to bypass its paywalls.
OpenAI VP doesn’t say whether artists should be paid for training data
At a SXSW 2024 panel, Peter Deng, OpenAI’s VP of consumer product dodged a question on whether artists whose work was used to train generative AI models should be compensated. While OpenAI lets artists “opt out” of and remove their work from the datasets that the company uses to train its image-generating models, some artists have described the tool as onerous.
A new report estimates that ChatGPT uses more than half a million kilowatt-hours of electricity per day
ChatGPT’s environmental impact appears to be massive. According to a report from The New Yorker, ChatGPT uses an estimated 17,000 times the amount of electricity than the average U.S. household to respond to roughly 200 million requests each day.
ChatGPT can now read its answers aloud
OpenAI released a new Read Aloud feature for the web version of ChatGPT as well as the iOS and Android apps. The feature allows ChatGPT to read its responses to queries in one of five voice options and can speak 37 languages, according to the company. Read aloud is available on both GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 models.
ChatGPT can now read responses to you.
On iOS or Android, tap and hold the message and then tap “Read Aloud”. We’ve also started rolling on web – click the “Read Aloud” button below the message. pic.twitter.com/KevIkgAFbG
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) March 4, 2024
February 2024
OpenAI partners with Dublin City Council to use GPT-4 for tourism
As part of a new partnership with OpenAI, the Dublin City Council will use GPT-4 to craft personalized itineraries for travelers, including recommendations of unique and cultural destinations, in an effort to support tourism across Europe.
A law firm used ChatGPT to justify a six-figure bill for legal services
New York-based law firm Cuddy Law was criticized by a judge for using ChatGPT to calculate their hourly billing rate. The firm submitted a $113,500 bill to the court, which was then halved by District Judge Paul Engelmayer, who called the figure “well above” reasonable demands.
ChatGPT experienced a bizarre bug for several hours
ChatGPT users found that ChatGPT was giving nonsensical answers for several hours, prompting OpenAI to investigate the issue. Incidents varied from repetitive phrases to confusing and incorrect answers to queries. The issue was resolved by OpenAI the following morning.
Match Group announced deal with OpenAI with a press release co-written by ChatGPT
The dating app giant home to Tinder, Match and OkCupid announced an enterprise agreement with OpenAI in an enthusiastic press release written with the help of ChatGPT. The AI tech will be used to help employees with work-related tasks and come as part of Match’s $20 million-plus bet on AI in 2024.
ChatGPT will now remember — and forget — things you tell it to
As part of a test, OpenAI began rolling out new “memory” controls for a small portion of ChatGPT free and paid users, with a broader rollout to follow. The controls let you tell ChatGPT explicitly to remember something, see what it remembers or turn off its memory altogether. Note that deleting a chat from chat history won’t erase ChatGPT’s or a custom GPT’s memories — you must delete the memory itself.
We’re testing ChatGPT’s ability to remember things you discuss to make future chats more helpful.
This feature is being rolled out to a small portion of Free and Plus users, and it’s easy to turn on or off. https://t.co/1Tv355oa7V pic.twitter.com/BsFinBSTbs
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 13, 2024
OpenAI begins rolling out “Temporary Chat” feature
Initially limited to a small subset of free and subscription users, Temporary Chat lets you have a dialogue with a blank slate. With Temporary Chat, ChatGPT won’t be aware of previous conversations or access memories but will follow custom instructions if they’re enabled.
But, OpenAI says it may keep a copy of Temporary Chat conversations for up to 30 days for “safety reasons.”
Use temporary chat for conversations in which you don’t want to use memory or appear in history. pic.twitter.com/H1U82zoXyC
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 13, 2024
January 2024
ChatGPT users can now invoke GPTs directly in chats
Paid users of ChatGPT can now bring GPTs into a conversation by typing “@” and selecting a GPT from the list. The chosen GPT will have an understanding of the full conversation, and different GPTs can be “tagged in” for different use cases and needs.
You can now bring GPTs into any conversation in ChatGPT – simply type @ and select the GPT.
This allows you to add relevant GPTs with the full context of the conversation. pic.twitter.com/Pjn5uIy9NF
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 30, 2024
ChatGPT is reportedly leaking usernames and passwords from users’ private conversations
Screenshots provided to Ars Technica found that ChatGPT is potentially leaking unpublished research papers, login credentials and private information from its users. An OpenAI representative told Ars Technica that the company was investigating the report.
ChatGPT is violating Europe’s privacy laws, Italian DPA tells OpenAI
OpenAI has been told it’s suspected of violating European Union privacy, following a multi-month investigation of ChatGPT by Italy’s data protection authority. Details of the draft findings haven’t been disclosed, but in a response, OpenAI said: “We want our AI to learn about the world, not about private individuals.”
OpenAI partners with Common Sense Media to collaborate on AI guidelines
In an effort to win the trust of parents and policymakers, OpenAI announced it’s partnering with Common Sense Media to collaborate on AI guidelines and education materials for parents, educators and young adults. The organization works to identify and minimize tech harms to young people and previously flagged ChatGPT as lacking in transparency and privacy.
OpenAI responds to Congressional Black Caucus about lack of diversity on its board
After a letter from the Congressional Black Caucus questioned the lack of diversity in OpenAI’s board, the company responded. The response, signed by CEO Sam Altman and Chairman of the Board Bret Taylor, said building a complete and diverse board was one of the company’s top priorities and that it was working with an executive search firm to assist it in finding talent.
OpenAI drops prices and fixes ‘lazy’ GPT-4 that refused to work
In a blog post, OpenAI announced price drops for GPT-3.5’s API, with input prices dropping to 50% and output by 25%, to $0.0005 per thousand tokens in, and $0.0015 per thousand tokens out. GPT-4 Turbo also got a new preview model for API use, which includes an interesting fix that aims to reduce “laziness” that users have experienced.
Expanding the platform for @OpenAIDevs: new generation of embedding models, updated GPT-4 Turbo, and lower pricing on GPT-3.5 Turbo. https://t.co/7wzCLwB1ax
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 25, 2024
OpenAI bans developer of a bot impersonating a presidential candidate
OpenAI has suspended AI startup Delphi, which developed a bot impersonating Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) to help bolster his presidential campaign. The ban comes just weeks after OpenAI published a plan to combat election misinformation, which listed “chatbots impersonating candidates” as against its policy.
OpenAI announces partnership with Arizona State University
Beginning in February, Arizona State University will have full access to ChatGPT’s Enterprise tier, which the university plans to use to build a personalized AI tutor, develop AI avatars, bolster their prompt engineering course and more. It marks OpenAI’s first partnership with a higher education institution.
Winner of a literary prize reveals around 5% her novel was written by ChatGPT
After receiving the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for her novel The Tokyo Tower of Sympathy, author Rie Kudan admitted that around 5% of the book quoted ChatGPT-generated sentences “verbatim.” Interestingly enough, the novel revolves around a futuristic world with a pervasive presence of AI.
Sam Altman teases video capabilities for ChatGPT and the release of GPT-5
In a conversation with Bill Gates on the Unconfuse Me podcast, Sam Altman confirmed an upcoming release of GPT-5 that will be “fully multimodal with speech, image, code, and video support.” Altman said users can expect to see GPT-5 drop sometime in 2024.
OpenAI announces team to build ‘crowdsourced’ governance ideas into its models
OpenAI is forming a Collective Alignment team of researchers and engineers to create a system for collecting and “encoding” public input on its models’ behaviors into OpenAI products and services. This comes as a part of OpenAI’s public program to award grants to fund experiments in setting up a “democratic process” for determining the rules AI systems follow.
OpenAI unveils plan to combat election misinformation
In a blog post, OpenAI announced users will not be allowed to build applications for political campaigning and lobbying until the company works out how effective their tools are for “personalized persuasion.”
Users will also be banned from creating chatbots that impersonate candidates or government institutions, and from using OpenAI tools to misrepresent the voting process or otherwise discourage voting.
The company is also testing out a tool that detects DALL-E generated images and will incorporate access to real-time news, with attribution, in ChatGPT.
Snapshot of how we’re preparing for 2024’s worldwide elections:
• Working to prevent abuse, including misleading deepfakes
• Providing transparency on AI-generated content
• Improving access to authoritative voting informationhttps://t.co/qsysYy5l0L— OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 15, 2024
OpenAI changes policy to allow military applications
In an unannounced update to its usage policy, OpenAI removed language previously prohibiting the use of its products for the purposes of “military and warfare.” In an additional statement, OpenAI confirmed that the language was changed in order to accommodate military customers and projects that do not violate their ban on efforts to use their tools to “harm people, develop weapons, for communications surveillance, or to injure others or destroy property.”
ChatGPT subscription aimed at small teams debuts
Aptly called ChatGPT Team, the new plan provides a dedicated workspace for teams of up to 149 people using ChatGPT as well as admin tools for team management. In addition to gaining access to GPT-4, GPT-4 with Vision and DALL-E3, ChatGPT Team lets teams build and share GPTs for their business needs.
OpenAI’s GPT store officially launches
After some back and forth over the last few months, OpenAI’s GPT Store is finally here. The feature lives in a new tab in the ChatGPT web client, and includes a range of GPTs developed both by OpenAI’s partners and the wider dev community.
To access the GPT Store, users must be subscribed to one of OpenAI’s premium ChatGPT plans — ChatGPT Plus, ChatGPT Enterprise or the newly launched ChatGPT Team.
the GPT store is live!https://t.co/AKg1mjlvo2
fun speculation last night about which GPTs will be doing the best by the end of today.
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 10, 2024
Developing AI models would be “impossible” without copyrighted materials, OpenAI claims
Following a proposed ban on using news publications and books to train AI chatbots in the U.K., OpenAI submitted a plea to the House of Lords communications and digital committee. OpenAI argued that it would be “impossible” to train AI models without using copyrighted materials, and that they believe copyright law “does not forbid training.”
OpenAI claims The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit is without merit
OpenAI published a public response to The New York Times’s lawsuit against them and Microsoft for allegedly violating copyright law, claiming that the case is without merit.
In the response, OpenAI reiterates its view that training AI models using publicly available data from the web is fair use. It also makes the case that regurgitation is less likely to occur with training data from a single source and places the onus on users to “act responsibly.”
We build AI to empower people, including journalists.
Our position on the @nytimes lawsuit:
• Training is fair use, but we provide an opt-out
• “Regurgitation” is a rare bug we’re driving to zero
• The New York Times is not telling the full storyhttps://t.co/S6fSaDsfKb— OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 8, 2024
OpenAI’s app store for GPTs planned to launch next week
After being delayed in December, OpenAI plans to launch its GPT Store sometime in the coming week, according to an email viewed by TechCrunch. OpenAI says developers building GPTs will have to review the company’s updated usage policies and GPT brand guidelines to ensure their GPTs are compliant before they’re eligible for listing in the GPT Store. OpenAI’s update notably didn’t include any information on the expected monetization opportunities for developers listing their apps on the storefront.
GPT Store launching next week – OpenAI pic.twitter.com/I6mkZKtgZG
— Manish Singh (@refsrc) January 4, 2024
OpenAI moves to shrink regulatory risk in EU around data privacy
In an email, OpenAI detailed an incoming update to its terms, including changing the OpenAI entity providing services to EEA and Swiss residents to OpenAI Ireland Limited. The move appears to be intended to shrink its regulatory risk in the European Union, where the company has been under scrutiny over ChatGPT’s impact on people’s privacy.
FAQs:
What is ChatGPT? How does it work?
ChatGPT is a general-purpose chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to generate text after a user enters a prompt, developed by tech startup OpenAI. The chatbot uses GPT-4, a large language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text.
When did ChatGPT get released?
November 30, 2022 is when ChatGPT was released for public use.
What is the latest version of ChatGPT?
Both the free version of ChatGPT and the paid ChatGPT Plus are regularly updated with new GPT models. The most recent model is GPT-4o.
Can I use ChatGPT for free?
There is a free version of ChatGPT that only requires a sign-in in addition to the paid version, ChatGPT Plus.
Who uses ChatGPT?
Anyone can use ChatGPT! More and more tech companies and search engines are utilizing the chatbot to automate text or quickly answer user questions/concerns.
What companies use ChatGPT?
Multiple enterprises utilize ChatGPT, although others may limit the use of the AI-powered tool.
Most recently, Microsoft announced at its 2023 Build conference that it is integrating it ChatGPT-based Bing experience into Windows 11. A Brooklyn-based 3D display startup Looking Glass utilizes ChatGPT to produce holograms you can communicate with by using ChatGPT. And nonprofit organization Solana officially integrated the chatbot into its network with a ChatGPT plug-in geared toward end users to help onboard into the web3 space.
What does GPT mean in ChatGPT?
GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer.
What is the difference between ChatGPT and a chatbot?
A chatbot can be any software/system that holds dialogue with you/a person but doesn’t necessarily have to be AI-powered. For example, there are chatbots that are rules-based in the sense that they’ll give canned responses to questions.
ChatGPT is AI-powered and utilizes LLM technology to generate text after a prompt.
Can ChatGPT write essays?
Yes.
Can ChatGPT commit libel?
Due to the nature of how these models work, they don’t know or care whether something is true, only that it looks true. That’s a problem when you’re using it to do your homework, sure, but when it accuses you of a crime you didn’t commit, that may well at this point be libel.
We will see how handling troubling statements produced by ChatGPT will play out over the next few months as tech and legal experts attempt to tackle the fastest moving target in the industry.
Does ChatGPT have an app?
Yes, there is a free ChatGPT mobile app for iOS and Android users.
What is the ChatGPT character limit?
It’s not documented anywhere that ChatGPT has a character limit. However, users have noted that there are some character limitations after around 500 words.
Does ChatGPT have an API?
Yes, it was released March 1, 2023.
What are some sample everyday uses for ChatGPT?
Everyday examples include programming, scripts, email replies, listicles, blog ideas, summarization, etc.
What are some advanced uses for ChatGPT?
Advanced use examples include debugging code, programming languages, scientific concepts, complex problem solving, etc.
How good is ChatGPT at writing code?
It depends on the nature of the program. While ChatGPT can write workable Python code, it can’t necessarily program an entire app’s worth of code. That’s because ChatGPT lacks context awareness — in other words, the generated code isn’t always appropriate for the specific context in which it’s being used.
Can you save a ChatGPT chat?
Yes. OpenAI allows users to save chats in the ChatGPT interface, stored in the sidebar of the screen. There are no built-in sharing features yet.
Are there alternatives to ChatGPT?
Yes. There are multiple AI-powered chatbot competitors such as Together, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, and developers are creating open source alternatives.
How does ChatGPT handle data privacy?
OpenAI has said that individuals in “certain jurisdictions” (such as the EU) can object to the processing of their personal information by its AI models by filling out this form. This includes the ability to make requests for deletion of AI-generated references about you. Although OpenAI notes it may not grant every request since it must balance privacy requests against freedom of expression “in accordance with applicable laws”.
The web form for making a deletion of data about you request is entitled “OpenAI Personal Data Removal Request”.
In its privacy policy, the ChatGPT maker makes a passing acknowledgement of the objection requirements attached to relying on “legitimate interest” (LI), pointing users towards more information about requesting an opt out — when it writes: “See here for instructions on how you can opt out of our use of your information to train our models.”
What controversies have surrounded ChatGPT?
Recently, Discord announced that it had integrated OpenAI’s technology into its bot named Clyde where two users tricked Clyde into providing them with instructions for making the illegal drug methamphetamine (meth) and the incendiary mixture napalm.
An Australian mayor has publicly announced he may sue OpenAI for defamation due to ChatGPT’s false claims that he had served time in prison for bribery. This would be the first defamation lawsuit against the text-generating service.
CNET found itself in the midst of controversy after Futurism reported the publication was publishing articles under a mysterious byline completely generated by AI. The private equity company that owns CNET, Red Ventures, was accused of using ChatGPT for SEO farming, even if the information was incorrect.
Several major school systems and colleges, including New York City Public Schools, have banned ChatGPT from their networks and devices. They claim that the AI impedes the learning process by promoting plagiarism and misinformation, a claim that not every educator agrees with.
There have also been cases of ChatGPT accusing individuals of false crimes.
Where can I find examples of ChatGPT prompts?
Several marketplaces host and provide ChatGPT prompts, either for free or for a nominal fee. One is PromptBase. Another is ChatX. More launch every day.
Can ChatGPT be detected?
Poorly. Several tools claim to detect ChatGPT-generated text, but in our tests, they’re inconsistent at best.
Are ChatGPT chats public?
No. But OpenAI recently disclosed a bug, since fixed, that exposed the titles of some users’ conversations to other people on the service.
What lawsuits are there surrounding ChatGPT?
None specifically targeting ChatGPT. But OpenAI is involved in at least one lawsuit that has implications for AI systems trained on publicly available data, which would touch on ChatGPT.
Are there issues regarding plagiarism with ChatGPT?
Yes. Text-generating AI models like ChatGPT have a tendency to regurgitate content from their training data.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
OpenAI is funding research into ‘AI morality’
OpenAI is funding academic research into algorithms that can predict humans’ moral judgements.
In a filing with the IRS, OpenAI Inc., OpenAI’s nonprofit org, disclosed that it awarded a grant to Duke University researchers for a project titled “Research AI Morality.” Contacted for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson pointed to a press release indicating the award is part of a larger, three-year, $1 million grant to Duke professors studying “making moral AI.”
Little is public about this “morality” research OpenAI is funding, other than the fact that the grant ends in 2025. The study’s principal investigator, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, a practical ethics professor at Duke, told TechCrunch via email that he “will not be able to talk” about the work.
Sinnott-Armstrong and the project’s co-investigator, Jana Borg, have produced several studies — and a book — about AI’s potential to serve as a “moral GPS” to help humans make better judgements. As part of larger teams, they’ve created a “morally-aligned” algorithm to help decide who receives kidney donations, and studied in which scenarios people would prefer that AI make moral decisions.
According to the press release, the goal of the OpenAI-funded work is to train algorithms to “predict human moral judgements” in scenarios involving conflicts “among morally relevant features in medicine, law, and business.”
But it’s far from clear that a concept as nuanced as morality is within reach of today’s tech.
In 2021, the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI built a tool called Ask Delphi that was meant to give ethically sound recommendations. It judged basic moral dilemmas well enough — the bot “knew” that cheating on an exam was wrong, for example. But slightly rephrasing and rewording questions was enough to get Delphi to approve of pretty much anything, including smothering infants.
The reason has to do with how modern AI systems work.
Machine learning models are statistical machines. Trained on a lot of examples from all over the web, they learn the patterns in those examples to make predictions, like that the phrase “to whom” often precedes “it may concern.”
AI doesn’t have an appreciation for ethical concepts, nor a grasp on the reasoning and emotion that play into moral decision-making. That’s why AI tends to parrot the values of Western, educated, and industrialized nations — the web, and thus AI’s training data, is dominated by articles endorsing those viewpoints.
Unsurprisingly, many people’s values aren’t expressed in the answers AI gives, particularly if those people aren’t contributing to the AI’s training sets by posting online. And AI internalizes a range of biases beyond a Western bent. Delphi said that being straight is more “morally acceptable” than being gay.
The challenge before OpenAI — and the researchers it’s backing — is made all the more intractable by the inherent subjectivity of morality. Philosophers have been debating the merits of various ethical theories for thousands of years, and there’s no universally applicable framework in sight.
Claude favors Kantianism (i.e. focusing on absolute moral rules), while ChatGPT leans every-so-slightly utilitarian (prioritizing the greatest good for the greatest number of people). Is one superior to the other? It depends on who you ask.
An algorithm to predict humans’ moral judgements will have to take all this into account. That’s a very high bar to clear — assuming such an algorithm is possible in the first place.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows — it’s not just AI code editors
The Silicon Valley dream is to build a tech startup that is such a unique idea it alters the commercial universe and turns its founders into billionaires. Participating in the Valley’s most famed startup factory, Y Combinator, is often part of that dream. Airbnb, Coinbase, and Stripe all got started there.
Yet, a deep dive into the data from all of the nearly 5,000 companies YC has backed to date reveals a surprising truth: YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it.
YC commonly accepts startups that are building similar or nearly identical products to previous YC grads. Some of them are direct competitors; others differ slightly by targeting a new geography (Asia or Latin America), or are a subset of a larger market (point-of-sale software for bars versus coffee shops).
Data analysis startup Deckmatch conducted the research, inspired to look at competing YC products after a controversy over a YC-backed startup called PearAI. Critics said that PearAI’s code editor product wasn’t much more than a cloned version of another YC product, called Continue — and PearAI’s founder essentially admitted it. There were more reasons that Pear found itself in hot water (including the bravado of its founders and how it handled the open source licensing). But the uproar concluded with Pear’s founders vowing to start over from scratch.
YC CEO Garry Tan defended the company, and the fact that YC accepted this behavior, by posting on X, “More choice is good, people building is good, if you don’t like it don’t use it.”
This is clearly more than lip service for Tan, who has himself, for instance, championed two police bodycam startups a few years apart: Flock Safety (Summer 2017 cohort) and Abel Police (Summer 2024). Along the same lines, more than a dozen startups building AI code editors went through the YC program between 2022 and 2024 — some in the same batch with the same YC partner.
When asked about its propensity to back competitors, a YC spokesperson said that the organization is more interested in the founders’ backgrounds than their business ideas. “YC invests in founders over ideas, focusing on individuals with the potential to build transformative companies — no matter the space they operate in. Our investment strategy focuses on backing the most promising founders with vision, resilience, and ability to execute, which is clear in our RFS process,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Some founders love YC’s approach
One of YC’s big benefits is its cozy network, where startups often seek customers, partners, and the like. Consequently, some alums dislike competition if they feel another’s product mimics theirs, rather than differentiates. Around the time of the PearAI controversy, YC alum Bryan Onel, founder of security startup Oneleet, posted on X about his experience with this. A few others chimed in to commiserate. (Onel did not respond to our requests for comment.)
Then again, other YC alums think this kind of direct competition is good, especially when the same YC partner advises them. Restaurant PoS systems is one area that has been popular in YC, and YC alum Nick Evans, co-founder CEO of restaurant PoS Avocado, is fine with competitors.
He should know. Evans famously founded a device-tracking startup called Tile, which went crazy with crowdfunding, raised money from traditional VCs, took on Apple’s AirTags, then sold to Life360 in 2021 for $205 million.
“I think it’s stupid that most investors don’t invest in competing companies,” Evans told TechCrunch about YC competition. “I want investors that deeply understand my business and industry. How the hell would they know anything useful if they aren’t working with similar companies? Startups don’t die by murder; they die by suicide. You are not fighting against other startups. You are fighting against people not giving a s— about your product.”
Deep dive inspired by PearAI controversy
Before diving into the specifics of the categories YC has particularly favored, it’s worth noting that Deckmatch is not a YC company and has never applied to be one, CEO Leo Gasteen tells TechCrunch.
Deckmatch was inspired to analyze YC products by the PearAI situation as a demo test for its new product AlphaLens. Deckmatch sells product analysis data on about 8 million startups to private market participants like investors, and corporate innovation and M&A teams.
It wants to do for product data what PitchBook did for company-level data, Gasteen says. Earlier this month, Deckmatch raised a $3.1 million seed round co-led by Alliance VC and Luminar Ventures, with participation from its pre-seed investors First Degree Capital and Skyfall Ventures. It’s raised $4.2 million to date, it says.
AlphaLens lets Deckmatch customers comb through its database to find unique and similar products, build scatter charts, cluster maps, and the like. But the results of the YC analysis, shared exclusively with TechCrunch, should be fascinating to any founder wondering what kinds of startups YC tends to accept.
Types of products YC loves, according to the data
According to this data, the current popular product categories, each with at least a dozen startups, include:
AI code editors: Beyond Continue and PearAI, another example is Void (another open source alternative to Cursor, the popular Andreessen Horowitz/OpenAI-backed startup). Then there’s EasyCode, Ellipsis, Cosine, Greptile, and more, each applying AI to various coding tasks.
Food/beverage/restaurant point of sale systems: Most of the PoS startups were accepted into the program between 2020 and 2023, including Avocado, Dripos, or Latin American startup Polo.
Business finance/payroll: With the success of YC alums Gusto and Rippling came many competitors, some aimed at different international markets. Examples include Warp and Zeal.
AI sales and customer relationship management. This is a very hot area of development for the big players (Salesforce, Microsoft) and startups. YC alums include Apten, Persana AI, and Topo.
AI meeting assistants: Circleback, Onward, Sonnet, and Spinach AI are but a few examples.
AI legal assistants: Dioptra, Leya, and Tower are some examples.
Then again, several areas were popular but have been recently less so. These include:
Crypto trading platforms: Given the success of YC grad Coinbase, YC was gung ho on this for a while, with about a dozen grads, largely from 2014 to 2022.
E-commerce store platforms: In the wake of Shopify (not a YC alum) YC accepted about a dozen such companies since 2018, with the majority in the 2018 to 2022 time frame.
Corporate expense cards: After YC alum Brex came many others, mostly from 2018 to 2022.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Hyundai and Kia recall 208,000 EVs
Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis are recalling about 208,000 EVs in the United States due to an issue that could cause the vehicles to suddenly lose power, according to several filings with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The recall was first reported by Reuters.
The problem originates with the integrated charging control unit (ICCU), which may become damaged and stop charging the 12-volt battery and can result in a loss of drive power, according to the filing.
Hyundai Motor is recalling about 145,235 of its EVs, which includes some Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 vehicles. The recall also covers three electrified variants from its luxury brand Genesis, including the Genesis GV60, Genesis GV70, and Genesis G80 from model years 2022-2025. About 62,872 Kia EV6 vehicles have also been recalled. Dealers will fix the issue for free, according to the filings.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Money for tech that matters
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. If you’d like to receive this newsletter in your inbox every Friday, sign up here!
The week before Thanksgiving is typically busy with announcements of all sorts, but this week has been particularly interesting. Money was flowing to big problems, like defense, cybersecurity, and health.
Most interesting startup stories from the week
Let’s start with the bad news and (temporarily?) dash hopes. But there’s good news too.
Low battery: Struggling Swedish unicorn Northvolt filed for bankruptcy in the U.S., delivering a setback to Europe’s hopes of staking a claim in the battery-manufacturing space.
Above the line: German fintech unicorn N26 had its first profitable quarter, with a net operating income of €2.8 million ($2.9 million) during the third quarter of 2024.
Wiz buys Dazz: Cybersecurity heavyweight Wiz acquired Dazz, a specialist in security remediation and risk management. According to sources, the cash-and-share deal is valued at $450 million, slightly more than Dazz’s recent $400 million post-money valuation.
Data pipelines: Alongside its Q3 earnings, cloud company Snowflake announced it agreed to acquire data pipeline management company Datavolo for an undisclosed sum.
Most interesting fundraises this week
Some mega-rounds were announced this week, and smaller but still hefty amounts also went to startups tackling big problems.
Quick commerce, quick funding: Indian quick-commerce startup Zepto raised $350 million in new funding, its third round of financing in only six months ahead of a planned IPO next year.
Gold rings: Finnish smart ring maker Oura raised a $75 million investment from glucose device maker Dexcom in a Series D round of funding that brought its valuation to more than $5 billion.
New unicorn: Lighthouse, a data analytics platform for the hospitality industry, raised a Series C round of $370 million led by KKR at a $1 billion valuation.
Egg-like fusion: U.K.-based nuclear startup Tokamak Energy raised $125 million to continue development of its egg-like reactor design. The U.K. Atomic Energy Authority spinout has been working on fusion since 2009.
Crossing the Atlantic: Portuguese dual-use drone startup Tekever raised €70 million ($74 million) in a Series B round led by Scottish investment company Baillie Gifford & Co. and the NATO Innovation Fund. The funding will help it expand into new markets, specifically the U.S.
Lightening up: Lightning AI, a startup that adapts PyTorch Lightning to enterprise needs and supports their AI plans, recently secured $50 million from Cisco Investments, J.P. Morgan, Nvidia, and K5 Global to expand the Lightning platform to new markets and grow its customer base.
Good cause: OneCell Diagnostics, a startup that works on limiting cancer recurrence with AI, raised $16 million in an oversubscribed Series A round that will help it expand into the U.S. and scale its business in India.
Most interesting VC and fund news this week
Bullish on Blue Bear: Blue Bear closed a $160 million third fund to back AI founders in climate, energy, and industry as part of its software-centric thesis.
Bling, bling: Bling Capital, the seed VC firm founded by former Khosla Ventures general partner Ben Ling, secured $270 million for its fourth fund, half of which is earmarked for follow-on investments.
Last but not least
Defense tech startups raised almost $3 billion so far in 2024, according to Crunchbase. That’s already more than 2022’s previous $2.6 billion record and over only 85 deals compared to 113 that year.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Fondo wants to mitigate the US’ accountant shortage with its AI bookkeeping service
Despite all the talk of doom and gloom about the economy, entrepreneurship is actually on the rise in the U.S.: In 2024, an average of 430,000 new business applications were submitted every month, marking a 50% rise from 2019.
But the number of accountants these new businesses will need to maintain their books, file taxes and do related accounting work is dipping. Nearly 75% of CPAs are expected to retire in a decade, and fewer graduates are choosing accounting because it simply doesn’t pay as much as fields like technology and finance.
Serial entrepreneur David Phillips sees an opportunity to fill this growing gap with his latest venture Fondo, which uses software, AI, and accounting experts to offer a bookkeeping platform aimed at startups and small- and medium-sized businesses.
Phillips founded Fondo in 2020 after selling his coding school startup, Hackbright, to Capella University in 2016. He’s also an angel investor, having invested in over 85 startups, including Rippling, Flexport and Liquid Death.
The four-year-old startup, which operates on a subscription-based model, has already secured approximately 1,200 customers, reached annual recurring revenue of $6 million, and is profitable, Phillips said. Its customers include Eleven Labs, Karat, PostHog, Campus and Limitless AI.
“To date, we have saved our customers over $75 million in Delaware Franchise Tax and helped them receive over $16 million back from the IRS in tax credits,” Phillips said.
To double down on its traction, the company recently raised an oversubscribed $7 million seed round led by Money Forward, a Tokyo-based fintech company, with participation from Y Combinator, Motley Fool Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, a16z Scout Fund, Index Ventures Scout Fund, and Twenty Two Ventures. The round values the company at $66 million.
Fondo is definitely not alone in identifying the opportunity here. A host of companies including Pilot, Digits, Finally and Bench provide accounting services to small and medium-sized businesses.
But Phillips feels Fondo differentiates itself by offering an “all-in-one solution” aimed at high-growth startups. “Traditionally, founders use separate services for each function, resulting in inefficiencies and a higher risk of errors,” he said. “Fondo combines these in one platform to simplify financial and tax operations for startups.”
The outfit will use the proceeds to invest in products and automation. It is also building an AI agent for its internal team and customers, who can use it to extract insights and analysis about their financial statements, accounts, cash flow and more, Phillips said.
Fondo currently has about 70 employees, and is hiring across product, engineering, accounting and other roles.
“We’re focused on building a robust product that evolves with the needs of startups. This includes expanding our analytics and reporting capabilities, adding integrations with other tools that founders use, and enhancing our tax-saving options. We’re also looking at ways to support startups as they scale internationally, navigating the complexities of global compliance,” Phillips said.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman warns against Elon Musk’s ‘conflict of interest’ in setting AI policies
Reid Hoffman, co-founder at LinkedIn and Inflection AI, shared his expectations for the incoming Trump administration in an opinion piece for the Financial Times. And while he appears hopeful that President-Elect Donald Trump could clear the way for more competition and faster innovation in the technology industry, Hoffman also expressed concerns around Trump providing certain individuals and companies with favored status in a way that could harm American innovation.
One individual with his hands in several technological pies that Hoffman says could gain from Trump’s ascendance is Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, and owner of The Boring Company, Neuralink, and X. Musk, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, will also head up a planned advisory commission called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Hoffman called Musk’s ownership in xAI in particular “a serious conflict of interest.”
“Using his position to favor xAI in any way, such as awarding it government contracts, encouraging federal agencies to unfairly target AI companies, or imposing new regulations that limit exports will come at the expense of U.S. technological, economic and cultural security, and competitiveness,” Hoffman wrote.
Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink are all also in highly regulated sectors, the agencies governing which could experience layoffs or other influence from Musk in his role at DOGE.
Hoffman, who backed VP Kamala Harris’s nomination and has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s presidency, also highlighted the potential benefits and drawbacks to Trump’s support of crypto. He said that “ending arbitrary enforcement policies against the cryptocurrency industry” as seen under the Biden administration could create a “more stable environment for blockchain innovation.” But he questioned whether Trump will “use his new embrace of crypto, and his regulatory authority over it, as a way to privilege a few favored coins?”
Trump has his own crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, with a native token that launched in October, and is reportedly working on a new stablecoin that can serve as a stand-in for the U.S. dollar. There have also been reports this week that Trump Media, the president-elect’s social media company, is in advanced talks to acquire cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt.
Hoffman’s concerns that Trump might play favorites are not unfounded. As he noted in his piece, in Trump’s first term, the president-elect “targeted a number of iconic U.S. companies for personal and political reasons, creating constant chaos and uncertainty.”
For example, Trump frequently criticized Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos, accusing the company of unfairly benefitting from USPS rates, which led to policies scrutinizing Amazon’s deals. Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, now appears to be amenable to Trump, and has defended his decision to withhold the newspaper’s endorsement of Harris.
Musk also has a reputation for publicly challenging and criticizing competitors and people he disagrees with. The path to his acquisition of Twitter, now X, was littered with public critiques of the platform’s leadership and business model.
Hoffman — who helped fund E. Jean Caroll’s rape case against Trump, criticized him as a “convicted felon and pathological liar,” and has expressed fears that the president-elect would retaliate against him and others in business — ended on an upbeat note despite his skepticism.
“I very much hope that Trump succeeds wildly in enabling US entrepreneurship and innovation, increasing wages for workers and creating a country where every American is free to pursue their ambitions with dignity, purpose and a sense of belonging,” Hoffman wrote. “That’s why I will continue to do everything I can to build the next generation of companies that bring life-changing opportunities for individuals and society.”
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How to turn a Bluesky Starter Pack into a List
A new tool for the rapidly growing X competitor Bluesky helps you quickly create new feeds that you can pin to the app’s home page to follow your various interests. If you’re daunted by the prospect of having to rebuild your Twitter/X lists on Bluesky’s app, you can use the Pack2List web app to take advantage of the curation work other Bluesky users have already done to create your own customized lists.
While Bluesky and its third-party developer community today offer a variety of tools for building feeds, lists, and even Starter Packs of people you think are worth a follow, Pack2List is specifically designed to turn any person’s recommended set of users from their Starter Pack into a Bluesky List in just a few steps.
Starter Packs vs Lists
But first, let’s back up a bit to learn about these two types of lists.
The difference between a Starter Pack and a Bluesky List is that the former is meant to be used as a quick way to follow a group of users en masse. The idea is any user on Bluesky can create a Starter Pack of people they think others should follow, which they can then share with others on their feed or elsewhere on the web. These Starter Packs can also be found in a tab on users’ Bluesky profiles.
Starter Packs have served as a clever way for Bluesky to grow its community and its network of connections, which can be hard to do for brand-new social networks — at least ones that don’t rely on importing your entire address book. Unlike Meta’s X competitor, Instagram Threads, Bluesky didn’t have the advantage of building out its social graph on the back of an app that already had some 2 billion-plus monthly users, as Instagram does. Instead, Starter Packs let Bluesky’s own user base curate its network into distinct, thematic groups that make it easier for people to go from an empty timeline to one filled with posts they find interesting.
For instance, there are Starter Packs focused on politics, journalists, developers, technologists, academia, sports, AI, health, and various other fan groups, geographies, and communities. A third-party site, Bluesky Directory, keeps track of the growing number of Starter Packs available across the network. (Here’s one for TechCrunch, for example!)
With a click of a button on a Starter Pack, you can follow everyone on this type of curated list, or you can optionally pick and choose from its set of recommendations to follow specific individuals.
Meanwhile, a Bluesky List is a curated group of Bluesky accounts that you put together for your own purposes.
Maybe it’s a list of people you want to keep track of or maybe it’s even a list of those you want to block. (For left-leaning Bluesky users hoping to avoid turning Bluesky into another angry Twitter, a block list of MAGA folks has become a popular addition, based on how many people have been resharing this list with others across the social network.)
But perhaps you want to pin a Bluesky List of your favorite scientists, journalists, AI researchers, authors, or other high-profile figures to your home page (or mobile home screen) for easy access. Maybe you want to build a list of your close friends, work colleagues, or other people who mainly post about a certain topic or participate in some type of community.
Unlike Starter Packs, which are meant to drive follows, you don’t necessarily have to follow everyone on the lists you make. Similar to X’s Lists, you can simply create a list and click on it to see its users’ posts in their own timeline, without having their posts clutter up your main Bluesky feed.
Turn a Starter Pack into a List
While both types of lists are useful, Bluesky is missing a key feature that would let you take someone’s shared Starter Pack and — instead of following its users — turn that Pack into a List that’s always accessible from your Bluesky account in a dedicated spot.
That’s where the Pack2List web app comes in. The tool is available on GitHub and on this basic PHP website, alongside other tools that let you merge lists, convert lists, and more.
To use the service, you’ll enter your Bluesky credentials, including your username and an app password. (You generate an app password from Bluesky’s security settings. This security feature prevents you from having to share your main Bluesky password with a third-party app.)
You then simply paste in the URL to the Starter Pack you want to turn into a list and select whether it’s a list you want to follow (“Content”) or one you want to use to block people (“Moderation.”)
Click the “Submit” button and the Starter Pack is immediately added as a List on your Bluesky account.
You can also optionally add the URL of one of your other lists that already exists on your account if you’d prefer to merge the Starter Pack into that list, instead.
Of course, you don’t have to use tools like this to have a good Bluesky experience.
A nice thing about Bluesky’s app is that you don’t have to be technically inclined to create an account, follow others, and engage with posts on your timeline. It looks and feels much like old Twitter, the app now called X under Elon Musk. But if you do want to explore Bluesky’s more advanced features, it’s helpful to know that there’s already a wide developer community out there building tools, services, and apps that help you do more with Bluesky if you choose.
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AI chip startup MatX, founded by Google alums, raises Series A at $300M+ valuation, sources say
MatX, a startup designing chips that support large language models, has raised a Series A of approximately $80 million, three sources say, less than a year after raising its $25 million seed round.
Spark Capital led the investment, valuing the company at a pre-money valuation in the mid-$200 million range and a post-money valuation of the low $300 million range, a person who reviewed the deal told TechCrunch.
MatX was co-founded two years ago by Mike Gunter, who previously worked at Google on the design of Tensor Process Units (TPUs), the tech giant’s AI chips, and Reiner Pope, who also came from Google’s TPU team, where he wrote AI software.
Gunter and Pope hope to help ease the shortage of chips designed to handle AI workloads. They say the sweet spot for their chips are AI workloads of “at least” 7 billion, and “ideally” 20 billion or more activated parameters. And they boast that their chips deliver high performance at more affordable prices, according to MatX’s website. The startup says its chips are particularly good at scaling to large clusters because of MatX’s advanced interconnect, aka the communication pathways that AI chips use to transfer information.
The pair told Bloomberg that the company’s goal is to make its processors ten times better at training LLMs and delivering results than NVIDIA’s GPUs. The Information reported last month that MatX was looking to raise between $75 million and $100 million for the round.
The startup’s seed round was announced last December led by high-profile AI angel investors Nat Friedman, former CEO of GitHub; and Daniel Gross, who previously ran search and AI at Apple after Apple bought his startup, Cue, in 2013. Friedman and Gross frequently angel invest together. Now, Gross has cofounded a new AI company, Safe Superintelligence, with former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sustkever.
Companies designing chips have seen an increased interest from investors amid the AI boom and stratospheric demand for NVIDIA’s processors. Groq, a chip startup that was founded by a former TPU engineer Jonathan Ross, saw its valuation nearly triple to $2.8 billion in August up from its previous valuation of $1 billion set in April.
MatX and Spark didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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Revolut to launch mortgages, smart ATMs and business credit products
Revolut, the London-based fintech unicorn, shared a few items on the company’s 2025 roadmap at a corporate event in London on Friday. One of its main focuses for next year will be the introduction of an AI-enabled assistant to help its 50 million customers navigate the financial app, manage their money, and customize the software.
Given that artificial intelligence is on everyone’s mind, the move isn’t surprising. But the AI assistant could definitely help differentiate Revolut from traditional banking services which are slower to adopt new technologies.
When Revolut launched its app nearly 10 years ago, many people discovered the concept of debit cards with real-time payment notifications. Users could also freeze the card from the app.
Many banks now let you control your card from your phone. But they are unlikely to offer AI features that are actually helpful yet.
In addition to the AI assistant, Revolut said they will roll out branded ATMs. These will dispense cash (of course), but also cards — a move that could foster new signups.
In the future, Revolut said it plans to add facial recognition features to its ATMs, which could help you authenticate without the usual card and PIN code protocol. It will be interesting to see how it implements the tech in a way that stays on the right side of European Union data protection rules which require explicit consent for use of biometrics for ID.
Revolut ATMs will start appearing in Spain in early 2025, per the company.
Revolut has had a banking license in Europe for a while, meaning that it can offer credit products to its retail customers. In some countries, it already offers credit cards and personal loans.
Now the company plans to expand to mortgages — one of the most popular credit products in Europe — with a focus on speed. If it’s a simple application, customers should expect instant approval in principle and a final offer in one business day. However mortgages are rarely straightforward, so it’s also going to be interesting to see whether Revolut is overpromising here.
Mortgages sounds like it will be a slow rollout. Revolut said it is starting in Lithuania, with Ireland and France slated to follow suit. Though all these launches are planned for 2025.
Finally, Revolut is going to ramp up its business offering in Europe with its first credit products and savings accounts. On the payment front, it will let business customers offer ‘buy now, pay later’ payment options.
For restaurants and stores specifically, Revolut will introduce Revolut Kiosks with biometric payments.
If all these features sound overwhelming it’s because Revolut has consistently fired on all cylinders on the product dev front, rapidly introducing new features. And 2025 looks no different.
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Italian food delivery app Foodinho eats another privacy fine
Not for the first time, food delivery firm Foodinho has been spanked by Italy’s privacy watchdog. Per Reuters, the Glovo-owned on-demand delivery app has been fined €5 million ($5.20 million) after it was found to have unlawfully processed the data of more than 35,000 riders registered on the platform.
Issues identified included riders’ geolocation data being transferred to third parties without their knowledge, including — up to August 2023 — when they were not working. The watchdog has ordered changes related to the app’s messaging to riders and GPS feature, so the tracking can be turned off when riders are not on the job.
Foodinho has also been banned from using riders’ biometric data, such as facial recognition, for identity verification.
Back in 2021, when Foodinho had around 19,000 registered riders, Italy’s watchdog fined it around $3 million over a laundry list of data protection and algorithmic management issues. So the app hasn’t proved to be ‘once bitten, twice shy’ on privacy compliance.
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EU closes antitrust probe into Apple’s e-book and audiobook rules after complaint withdrawn
The European Commission (EC) has quietly closed a longstanding antitrust investigation into Apple over rules it enforces against third-party e-book and audiobook app developers.
The EC opened the probe back in 2020 after receiving complaints over how Apple forced competing e-book and audiobook app developers to use Apple’s own in-app payment system, while also preventing them from informing customers of alternative ways to pay — a practice known as anti-steering. The EC opened a parallel investigation into similar practices vis à vis music-streaming apps, a move prompted by complaints made by Spotify.
For the music-streaming part, Apple was hit by a $2 billion fine in March. However, the undisclosed complainant in the e-book / audiobook aspect of the investigation has since withdrawn their complaint, leading the Commission to close the probe with no further action.
“The closure of an investigation is not a finding that the conduct in question complies with EU competition rules,” the announcement clarified.
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Tesla Superchargers: GM, Ford, Rivian, and other EV brands with access
In May 2023, Ford triggered a transformation when the U.S. automaker locked in a deal to give owners of its EVs access to the Tesla Supercharger network.
In a stunning shift, automaker after automaker — from GM and Hyundai to Rivian and Mercedes — followed suit. By the end of 2023, nearly every major automaker had agreed to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) and promised EV owners that adapters would soon be on their way.
Most non-Tesla customers are still waiting. However, recent announcements from automakers may provide an electric lining of optimism.
TechCrunch is tracking which brands have access to the Tesla Supercharging Network and will be updating this list.
The shift to the Tesla EV charging standard
In November 2022, Tesla shared its EV charging connector design in an effort to encourage network operators and automakers to adopt the technology and help make it the new standard in North America. At the time, every other automaker was using the Combined Charging Standard (CCS) in North America.
Mass adoption seemed unlikely at the time even though Tesla’s charging network was considered far superior thanks to its robust and user-friendly design and the ease of paying for the EV juice.
Six months later, Ford became the first to announce it would work with Tesla in a deal that would give its customers access to more than 12,000 Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada. But it wasn’t just about giving Ford EV owners access to a special adapter. Ford also committed to integrating its future EVs with NACS ports instead of CCS.
Rivian, GM, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, Hyundai, Kia, Lucid, and Stellantis followed.
Tesla charging FAQs
In the U.S. today, there are 36,499 NACS ports available publicly (although some of those might be from other EV charging companies that have adapted Tesla’s standard), compared to around 16,925 CCS ports. That’s despite federal dollars that have gone explicitly to the buildout of CCS chargers.
For EV owners stuck with a CCS port, they’ll have to hold out for manufacturer-approved adapters. While there are some third-party adapters that claim to be compliant with certain safety and performance standards, like Lectron’s Vortex Plug for $199, Tesla’s website says such adapters are prohibited.
A GM spokesperson told TechCrunch its adapters have been specifically designed to protect GM EV batteries while charging and that its vehicle warranty doesn’t cover damage to vehicle parts resulting from the use of non-GM approved adapters.
In late August, Tesla posted on X that it had ramped up production of adapters. That statement, combined with GM’s announcement, could mean that even more non-Tesla EVs will be pulling up to Supercharger stations soon. They’ll all have to download the Tesla app so they can pay for charging.
Tesla supercharging access checklist
Ford
Certain Ford customers officially gained access to Tesla Superchargers in February, but ongoing supply constraints have delayed the delivery of free fast-charging adapters for most customers (although Ford says the delays have affected “some” customers).
Current owners of the Mustang Mach-E and Ford F-150 Lightning who have yet to order their adapter can do so through their Ford Pass app. The deadline to apply for a free adapter is September 30.
General Motors
As of September 2024, GM has finally updated the software on its Chevy, Cadillac, and GMC EVs so customers can use Tesla’s Superchargers. If they want access soon, they need to purchase a “GM approved” adapter through their app for $225.
GM wouldn’t say how long shipping would take. A GM spokesperson said the company already has an inventory of the adapters and that it’s worked with multiple suppliers to manufacture the approved NACS DC fast-charging adapters.
From 2025 onward, GM’s EVs will be built with the NACS charge port.
Hyundai Motor Group
The South Korean automaker has made several moves to give EV owners access to NACS chargers in the coming year.
Kia announced in September its plans to give EV owners access to NACS chargers starting January 15, 2025. They used the announcement as something of a promotion, offering customers who buy a new 2024 EV6 or 2024 or 2025 EV9 SUV from September 4, 2024 a free adapter mailed to them in early 2025, if there’s enough supply. Existing Kia EV6, EV9, and Niro EV customers who took delivery before September 4 will have to buy an adapter from a dealer “at a later date.”
But for those who don’t want to bother with an adapter, Kia shared some news at the LA Auto Show in November. Both the 2025 EV6 and 2026 EV9 GT will be manufactured with a NACS plug. The EV6 is expected to go on sale in the first half of 2025, and the EV9 GT in the latter half of next year.
The 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 9 and the 2026 Genesis Electrified GV70 were also both presented with NACS plugs at the LA Auto Show and promise drivers access to Tesla’s Supercharging network.
Nissan
Beginning in late 2024, Nissan plans to give Ariya drivers access to Tesla’s network through a NACS adapter. The automaker also said that in 2025, it will start offering EVs for the U.S. and Canadian markets with a NACS port.
Rivian
EV startup Rivian officially got access to 15,000 Superchargers across North America on March 18, 2024. At the time, Rivian promised to begin sending adapters to customers starting in April. A Rivian spokesperson told TechCrunch the automaker began delivery this spring and continues to ship adapters as quickly as it receives them.
As of September 2024, Rivian said that customers who order a new vehicle will have an adapter shipped to them automatically when they take delivery. Customers will receive the adapter within seven to 10 business days. The EV-maker also promised that those who already own a Rivian and are still awaiting an adapter will receive one at no cost by the end of January 2025.
Volvo (and Polestar)
The two Swedish car brands owned by China’s Geely began offering their EV customers access to Tesla’s Supercharger network at the end of October.
Volvo said it will include a free NACS adapter for any customer who buys a 2025 EX90, EX40, or EC40. Existing Volvo EV owners will have to shell out $230 for an adapter, which they can buy from a dealership or service center.
Polestar is also selling the adapter through its service centers. Both brands gave a mid-November date when they’ll start shipping adapters. Volvo and Polestar are also updating their Android-powered infotainment software so drivers can search for Tesla Superchargers in the vehicle’s navigation.
TechCrunch will update the list as automakers gain official access.
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Plex redesigns its app to look more like a streaming service
Streaming service and media software maker Plex on Friday introduced a redesign of its software that puts more emphasis on discovery, easily accessing your watchlist, and other personalization features — including those for home media enthusiasts who still use the app to organize their media libraries.
Over the years, the company has tried to balance its history as a software maker focused on home media organization with its future as a streaming service, where it generates revenue through ad-supported content. Following its $40 million fundraise at the beginning of 2024, the company said it would be nearing profitability around year-end or early 2025. Given that goal, Plex’s redesign needs to be successful.
That’s also why the company is taking careful steps with regard to its changes, which Plex says have been two years in the making.
Initially offered as a preview on mobile devices, Plex’s new interface includes redesigned navigation that makes it easier to explore the different parts of Plex’s service. Instead of hamburger menus (the three-line menus that hide navigation), Plex’s update offers a return to tabbed navigation with buttons at the bottom of the screen, which tends to work better on mobile.
Here, users can move between their media library, Live TV channels (ad-supported streams), On Demand streams, and more. There are also buttons for a Discovery section and a personalized home page that will point you to content you may want to continue watching.
People who continue to use Plex to manage their home libraries will appreciate that they’ll have a dedicated button that centralizes access to this feature. They’ll also be able to favorite libraries to customize the experience to their needs.
Your Plex Watchlist, where you track the shows and movies you want to see, has been given a more prominent spot in the top navigation for faster access, as Plex says more people have begun to use this feature over time.
Other changes in the new release include a reorganization of those areas where you access your personal details like your profile, watch history, friends, and streaming services, which are now all available in one place.
The updated app has expanded its use of visual imagery, too. Plex says this will be particularly noticeable in the movie and show detail pages, plus cast and crew profiles, and users’ own Plex profile pages. Title artwork for movies and shows has also been added, in response to user feedback.
Plex notes the redesign isn’t all surface level — it’s rewritten its apps under the hood and streamlined its codebase as a part of this process. Now that the codebase is unified, the team will be able to release new features across all supported platforms quickly, speeding up the development cycle.
However, the redesign is first rolling out to mobile devices in an “early-access preview” because Plex wants to test the experience with users and get their feedback before expanding it across all devices. A few features, including playlists and cast support, are also still in the works but will be added during the preview period. Support for TV platforms will soon follow, the company says.
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Battery unicorn Northvolt files for bankruptcy, co-founder and CEO resigns
Beleaguered Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt announced on Thursday that it was filing for bankruptcy in the U.S., striking a blow to Europe’s ambitions for homegrown lithium-ion batteries.
The company reportedly chose Chapter 11 in an effort to right its finances. In the wake of the filing, co-founder and CEO Peter Carlsson resigned, though he’ll remain on as an advisor and a member of the board.
“Today marks a significant new phase for Northvolt as well as for me personally,” Carlsson said in a statement. “The Chapter 11 filing allows a period during which the company can be reorganized, ramp up operations while honoring customer and supplier commitments, and ultimately position itself for the long-term. That makes it a good time for me to hand over to the next generation of leaders.”
Northvolt, which had soared for years on the back of strong fundraising and a string of announcements about new facilities, has stumbled of late. It laid off 1,600 employees, about 20% of its workforce, in September, and unloaded assets in November from its ill-fated purchase of Bay Area battery startup Cuberg.
The company has raised $14.26 billion, according to PitchBook, including a $1.2 billion round in 2023 to expand operations in North America. But that wasn’t enough to keep the cash-starved operation going. The company reportedly was burning through $100 million per month. When BMW pulled out of a $2 billion contract in June after Northvolt failed to deliver on time, bankruptcy became almost inevitable.
This isn’t the first time a battery manufacturing startup hit a rough patch — A123 Systems’ failure over a decade ago stands out as a prominent example in the U.S. — and it likely won’t be the last. Making lithium-ion cells is fiendishly difficult, requiring deep knowledge of chemistry, production equipment, and quality improvement. Even leading companies suffer from costly problems, sometimes to the tune of $1 billion. Northvolt’s bankruptcy is probably more a sign of poor execution than softer-than-expected demand for EVs.
Is this the end for the Swedish company? Not necessarily. For one, Volkswagen owns part of the company, and it has placed a big bet on EVs, for which it’ll need millions of cells. Plus, Europe, like other advanced economies, has been rushing to stake a claim in the battery manufacturing space, and Northvolt seemed like its best chance to compete with Asian rivals. It may still be, perhaps with the help of one of those rivals through some kind of partnership, but first it has to get its house in order.
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Taking a cue from X, Threads tests AI-powered summaries of trending topics
As the Twitter-like social network Bluesky sees a significant surge in users this month, Meta’s own X competitor Threads has been rapidly building out its platform. On Friday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that Threads will start testing AI-powered summaries of what people are discussing on the platform in the app’s “Trending now” section in the U.S.
The new addition sounds similar to X’s Stories feature, which uses Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok to summarize trending topics in the social network’s Explore section.
Threads is also going to test an expanded set of trending topics, the company noted. Plus, users will now be able to search within a specific date range and search for posts from an individual account.
In a post on Threads, Mosseri said the new additions are “long-overdue improvements to Search and Trending Now on Threads.”
Meta has been moving quickly to update Threads at a time when many X users are moving to Bluesky, which has now surpassed 20 million users. The platform has seen an increase in users following the U.S. presidential election as X gained more of a right-wing approach, especially after Musk used the social network to campaign for President-elect Donald Trump.
After complaints from users regarding Threads’ algorithm, the platform is now embracing feedback, as it rolled out changes this week to surface more content from people you follow in the app’s algorithmic feed.
Earlier this week, the social network rolled out custom feeds to allow Threads users to curate feeds around specific topics or certain user profiles. The tool allows Threads to compete with Bluesky’s own features that let users build their own algorithms, feeds, and lists.
It’s worth noting that Threads’ user base is still much larger than Bluesky’s as it has more than 275 million monthly active users. However, data from market intelligence firm Simiarweb shows that Bluesky is catching up with Threads when it comes to daily active users. The firm believes that if the social network is able to keep up its current growth rate, it could eventually catch up with Threads.
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StoreCash’s new app lets you instantly earn cash back at stores
Daricus Releford always wanted to be a founder.
In high school, he ran a hot dog station and in college launched a chocolate-covered strawberry business, making millions in sales before moving to Silicon Valley to pursue his dreams in tech. Entrepreneurship simply runs in his family, he told TechCrunch. “My grandfather was one of the first Black hotel owners in the U.S., and my mom always started businesses. I think it’s just in my blood,” he continued.
It’s no wonder then, that no matter what tech job he took he always found himself going back to launching something new. In 2020, he founded StoreCash, a mobile payment solution that lets users pay for items and earn maximum cash-back rewards. He said he launched the company because he wanted to help people save more money.
Releford said StoreCash is different from its competitors because it transfers cash back to consumers immediately, in comparison to others which offer lower returns that also take longer to get to customers.
“Knowing about 56% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings, I wanted to help the average American build generational wealth,” he said. “Now, StoreCash users earn around $900 annually just by using the app.”
The app is quite simple: StoreCash integrates its API into fintech partners and alerts users when stores like H&M Gap or AMC Theatres offer cash back. When in person, customers scan a QR code generated by the app that applies the cashback savings to their purchase. Online, a consumer simply opens the StoreCash app and selects the store they want to shop at, manually typing in the serial number and barcode to complete the transaction.
Cashback is mainly earned through affiliate marketing, as seen with Rakuten (formerly known as Ebates), or credit and debit card rewards, which are known to have hidden fees.
The company has attracted some top investors and today announces the closing of a $3.7 million seed round led by BlackOps Ventures, with participation from returning investors MaC Venture Capital, 43North, and Alumni Ventures. The company has raised $6.4 million to date.
“The fintech space is ripe for a major player to take over with a solid personal finance tool for consumers,” Marlon Nichols, a co-founder of MaC Venture Capital, told TechCrunch. “Daricus and the team have big plans to add budgeting features to make a real impact in helping people better track and organize their finances.”
But fundraising was no simple feat for Releford. He used the word “unconscious bias,” when asked how he would describe his fundraising process. “The process was brutal, taking about a year filled with ‘no’s’ before things started to align.” He was introduced to Nichols through Ethan Austin, a director in the TechStars program in which Releford participated. He met James Norman from BlackOps after winning a pitch competition where Norman was a judge.
“Winning the 43North pitch competition was a turning point, bringing more pending investors on board.”
The fresh capital will go toward expanding product development and the team.
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Anthropic raises an additional $4B from Amazon, makes AWS its ‘primary’ training partner
Anthropic, OpenAI’s close rival, has raised an additional $4 billion from Amazon, and has agreed to make Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud computing division, the primary place it’ll train its flagship generative AI models.
Anthropic also says it’s working with Annapurna Labs, AWS’ chipmaking division, to develop future generations of Trainium accelerators, AWS’ custom-built chips for training AI models.
“Our engineers work closely with Annapurna’s chip design team to extract maximum computational efficiency from the hardware, which we plan to leverage to train our most advanced foundation models,” Anthropic wrote in a blog post. “Together with AWS, we’re laying the technological foundation — from silicon to software — that will power the next generation of AI research and development.”
The new cash infusion from Amazon brings the tech giant’s total investment in Anthropic to $8 billion, but maintains Amazon’s position as a minority investor, Anthropic says. To date, Anthropic has raised $13.7 billion in venture capital, according to Crunchbase.
The Information reported earlier this month that Amazon was in talks to invest multiple billions in Anthropic, its first financial pledge in the company since a $4 billion deal struck last year. The new investment is reportedly structured similar to the last one — but with a twist. Amazon insisted that Anthropic use Amazon-developed silicon hosted on AWS to train its AI.
Anthropic is said to prefer Nvidia chips. But the money may have been too good to pass up. Around the start of the year, Anthropic reportedly projected it would burn through over $2.7 billion in 2024 as it trained and scaled up its AI products. Anthropic has for several months been discussing new funding at a $40 billion valuation, per The Information, and no doubt the pressure was on to clinch something soon.
Anthropic notes that its work with AWS has expanded over the years. Through Amazon Bedrock, AWS’ platform for hosting and fine-tuning models, Anthropic’s Claude family of models are being used by “tens of thousands” of companies, Anthropic says.
Recently, Anthropic teamed up with AWS and Palantir to provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies access to Claude.
Beyond AWS, Amazon is said to be working with Anthropic to revamp the former’s consumer products. Reportedly, Amazon is set to replace the in-house models powering Alexa, its virtual assistant, with Anthropic’s after encountering technical challenges.
The collaboration — and investments — have attracted regulator scrutiny.
The FTC earlier this year sent a letter to Amazon, as well as Microsoft and Google, requiring the companies to explain the impacts their investments in startups such as Anthropic have on the competitive landscape of generative AI. Google has also invested in Anthropic, having poured $2 billion into the company late last October and taken a 10% stake, while Microsoft is a major OpenAI backer.
The U.K.’s competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, which has also opened several inquiries into big tech tie-ups with AI upstarts, recently okayed Alphabet’s partnership and investment Anthropic after giving Amazon’s investment last year the green light.
Anthropic continues to maintain pace with the other frontier AI labs, including OpenAI, releasing new capabilities like Computer Use, which lets its current best model perform tasks on a PC autonomously. But the company has faced its share of setbacks, as well. It unexpectedly hiked the price of one of its models recently. And it’s seen the timetable slip for the release of its next-generation, top-of-the-line Claude model, 3.5 Opus.
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Apple’s mobile browser policies and Google pact are ‘holding back innovation,’ UK regulator says
An inquiry group setup by the U.K.’s antitrust authority has provisionally found that Apple’s policies are “holding back innovation in the browsers we use to access the web on mobile phones.”
While the report focuses substantively on Apple, it also highlighted a revenue-sharing agreement with Google, noting that the duo “earn significant revenue” when Google Chrome is used on iOS, which reduces their “financial incentives to compete.”
The announcement comes in the same week as the Department of Justice (DoJ) in the U.S. said that Google should divest its Chrome browser, after a judge ruled in August that the internet giant was tantamount to an illegal monopoly on online search.
Today’s findings have been a long-time in the making. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a market study back in 2021, looking into Apple and Google’s dominance in mobile, including practices and policies around their respective app stores and browsers. The following year, the CMA confirmed it was launching a formal antitrust probe into this Android-iOS “mobile duopoly,” focused on browsers and cloud gaming, noting at the time that it had concerns that they could be restricting competition and harming consumers.
Today, the CMA said it wouldn’t be moving forward with the cloud gaming aspect of its probe, due to changes Apple has already made which “look to have positive implications for competition in this market,” the report noted.
However, many of the other complaints remain. The CMA said that Apple forces competing mobile browsers in the U.K. to use Apple’s browser engine, Webkit, which limits what these browsers are able to do and curbs their ability to differentiate. Moreover, browsers that do use WebKit haven’t been given the same level of access and functionality as Apple’s own Safari has, which “has a negative impact on competition and innovation.” This also includes limitations on how third-party apps can leverage so-called “in-app browsing,” meaning access to the open web from within native iOS apps.
“We have provisionally found that Apple’s restrictions limit the traffic available to challenger browsers in this type of browsing and also limit the extent to which apps can customise their users’ browsing experience, as companies with millions of users like Meta would like to do,” the report notes. “We have provisionally found that this limits competition and choice in terms of the options available to app developers to offer in-app browsing.”
An Apple spokesperson said that it disagrees with the findings, and any changes could ultimately “undermine user privacy and security.” The spokesperson said:
“Apple believes in thriving and dynamic markets where innovation can flourish. We face competition in every segment and jurisdiction where we operate, and our focus is always the trust of our users. We disagree with the findings in the report regarding Safari, WebKit, and in-app browsing on iOS. We are concerned that the interventions discussed in the report for future consideration under the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act would undermine user privacy and security and hinder our ability to make the kind of technology that sets Apple apart. We will continue to engage constructively with the CMA as their work on this matter progresses.”
This is a common refrain Apple has used in other similar complaints it has faced, including the expansive lawsuit launched by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in the U.S. earlier this year, which accused Apple of constructing its privacy and security practices to benefit the company financially.
A Google spokesperson said that “Android’s openness has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps,” adding that it will “continue to engage constructively with the CMA on these matters in the months ahead.”
The long and short of all this is that nothing will actually change for now. But the inquiry notes that the U.K.’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, rules that are set to come into force next year, should be used by CMA to address these practices.
For now, the CMA said that it’s inviting further comments on its provisional findings, and it expects to make a final decision by March, 2025.
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