Category: Enterprise
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LineLeap lets users pay to skip the line at bars
No one likes standing in line. I was reminded of just how awful the experience can be last Saturday, while being herded like cattle through a two-hour queue for a nightclub in unseasonably cold weather. I’d not soon repeat the experience. Fortunately, there’s a startup for that. LineLeap, backed by Y Combinator, lets people pay…
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Amazon starts testing ads in its Rufus chatbot
Rufus, Amazon’s recently launched, shopping-focused chatbot, is getting ads soon. That’s according to a changelog published by Amazon this week (first spotted by AdWeek), which states that sponsored ads could soon start appearing in placements for Rufus users in the U.S. Ads will be shown based on Amazon search and conversational context, Amazon says, and…
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Adam Neumann’s crypto comeback company is reportedly refunding investors
In a development that will surprise few, former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann’s climate/crypto/carbon-credit startup Flowcarbon appears to be in the process of curling up to die, Forbes reported today. Buyers of the outfit’s “Goddess Nature Token,” pitched as the first step in putting carbon credits on the blockchain, have reportedly been contacted about receiving refunds…
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InMobi secures $100 million for AI acquisitions ahead of IPO
Adtech startup InMobi has raised $100 million in debt financing as the profitable Indian firm looks to “significantly deepen” its artificial intelligence initiatives and fund potential AI acquisitions ahead of a planned IPO next year. Mars Growth Capital, a joint venture between MUFG and Liquidity Group, has financed the funding, InMobi said Wednesday. The investment…
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Paymob, started by three college friends, lands another $22 million and is profitable in Egypt
Paymob has evolved into an omnichannel gateway offering over 50 methods for offline and online payments to more than 350,000+ merchants. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Not many ecosystems outside of Silicon Valley can boast successful tech startups launched by founders while still in school or shortly after dropping…
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Chrome wants to make sure your tabs and groups are accessible across devices
Google Chrome is trying to make its browser more sticky by ensuring that you have access to your tab groups and recently opened tabs across all your devices. The company is adding tab groups to iOS devices. In the Chrome app, you can long-press on a tab from the tab switcher view to create a…
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Mistral releases Pixtral 12B, its first multimodal model
French AI startup Mistral has released its first model that can process images as well as text. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. French AI startup Mistral has released its first model that can process images as well as text. Called Pixtral 12B, the 12-billion-parameter model is roughly 24GB in…
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Atomico backs Tem to help businesses buy renewable energy directly from sources
Tem wants to do for utilities what neobanks have done for the financial sector: disrupt an industry using tech, streamline it, and cut out the middlemen. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. A U.K. startup wants to do for utilities what neobanks have been doing for the financial sector for…
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Nuro pivots to license self-driving tech to carmakers, mobility companies
After multiple rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023, Nuro is pivoting its business strategy to focus more on the startup’s core autonomous driving technology instead of owning and operating a fleet of low-speed, on-road delivery bots. The company said on Wednesday it would start licensing its autonomous vehicle technology to automakers and mobility providers,…
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Connectly, now backed by Alibaba, taps AI to personalize text messages to customers
Stefanos Loukakos, formerly a director at Meta’s business-focused Messenger division and, briefly, the tech giant’s blockchain org, noticed several years ago that online retailers were struggling to connect with potential shoppers. The problem, in his opinion, was that their marketing campaigns weren’t tailored enough. Merchants were sending generic social media, text, and email blasts that failed to…