Author: TechCrunch News

Startups that were deemed worthy of a $1 billion valuation while still private were once so unusual, they seemed almost mythical — hence the “unicorn” moniker they were awarded. But when the COVID pandemic started waning, venture capitalists started letting out all their pent-up energy and capital and unicorns might as well have grown two…

OpenAI, the AI company behind the viral AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT, has acquired Global Illumination, a New York-based startup leveraging AI to build creative tools, infrastructure and digital experiences. It’s OpenAI’s first public acquisition in its roughly-seven-year-history. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. “We’re very excited for the impact they’ll have here at OpenAI,” OpenAI…

The relationship between American tech giants and the Chinese government has never been an easy one. We reported previously how Apple finds itself in a predicament as it strives to conquer the colossal smartphone market in China, the world’s largest. The tech giant has to balance appeasing both Beijing and Western politicians, which tend to…

David Limp is set to step down from his role as head of Amazon’s consumer devices division later this year. Amazon has confirmed the news with TechCrunch, following a Wall Street Journal report. Limp has been the company’s Senior Vice President of devices and services for more than 13 years. In the role he has…

Here’s a reminder for students or recent grads. You’re the startup world’s future generation, and we’re investing in you. How? By offering passes to TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 (September 19–21 in San Francisco) at a super-sweet discount. A student pass costs $195 compared to full general admission of $850. What are you waiting for? Buy your…

Welcome, friends, to TechCrunch’s Week in Review (WiR), the newsletter where we recap the week that was in tech. For those new to WiR, think of it as a digest of stories and pieces that topped the charts over the past five days or so. In this week’s edition of WiR, we cover researchers figuring…

Tax evasion, money laundering and other financial crimes are massive, costly issues. In 2021, the Internal Revenue Service estimated that the U.S. loses $1 trillion a year due to tax evasion alone. IVIX thinks AI can help with that. The Tel Aviv–based startup uses AI, machine learning and public databases of business activity to help…

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Fri-yay indeed. We sigh, as humans spool up to take a break, while the semi-sentient machines continue writing their poetry in their air-conditioned underground data-center homes. In my column this week, I spent a bit of time thinking about the…

We love mergers and acquisitions here at TechCrunch. We even kind of like reverse mergers. But this latest development in the robotics industry sure has us excited! Delivery robots maker Serve Robotics is going public via a reverse merger with a blank-check company, and it raised $30 million just before the deal. That could be…

The relationship between fintechs and incumbents has long been fraught with tension. But Marie-Elise Droga believes it doesn’t have to be this way. Droga joined payments giant Visa as SVP, head of global and NA fintech partnerships in December 2022 to lead the development, commercialization and implementation of all Visa products, new payment flow solutions…