Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Drizly loses its buzz as Uber winds it down

TechCrunch Newsletter
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By Christine Hall

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Welcome to the very first issue of TechCrunch PM! By now you should have enjoyed the TechCrunch AM version with your coffee and donut. If you haven't yet heard about the great things happening with the TechCrunch newsletters in 2024, here's more from TechCrunch editor in chief Connie Loizos.

Let's dig in!

Christine

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Image Credits: Getty Images

TechCrunch PM Top 3

Uber is shuttering Drizly: After acquiring Drizly three years ago, Uber is closing the alcohol delivery service in March. During this entire time, Drizly remained an independent company. Uber was supposed to integrate Drizly into UberEats, and now we know why that didn't come to fruition.

Supreme Court says, “No thanks”: In a surprise move, the Supreme Court decided not to hear the antitrust case between Apple and Fortnite maker Epic Games that related to Apple's App Store. This is a surprise because a jury had already ruled in Epic's favor in a similar suit involving Google. The original ruling still stands, but app makers can steer their customers to the web from links inside their apps.

Beeper users say Apple is not playing nice: Just when we thought the Apple-versus-Beeper beef was over, there is a new development. The iMessage-on-Android Beeper Mini was removed from the Play Store last week, and now Apple customers using Beeper's apps report that they've been banned from using iMessage on their Macs.

TechCrunch PM Top 3 image

Image Credits: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty Images

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Biting more into the Apple: The Apple Vision Pro headset is still set for sale on February 2. It will include features such as 150 3D movies, immersive films and series, a Travel Mode feature, streaming services like Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video and more. In particular, Travel Mode makes it so you can use the headset on an airplane. If you're nice, your seatmate might share with you. Meanwhile, over on TechCrunch+, some things are going to have to change for Apple to stay on its long-term growth trajectory.

Pinecone goes serverless: Pinecone launches Pinecone Serverless, a new and significantly enhanced serverless architecture to power its service. Enhancements are in the way of cost reduction, says the company. That's because Pinecone Serverless now separates reads, writes and storage, which means it can handle a massive amount of data.

OpenAI wants you: That's right, you could be one of the lucky ones that OpenAI turns to for ideas on how to ensure its future AI models "align to the values of humanity." First, the AI startup is forming a Collective Alignment team made up of researchers and engineers that will create a system to collect and analyze all of the ideas.

Another VC source: Thomvest Ventures has a fresh fund of $250 million in capital commitments that it intends to deploy into the areas of financial and real estate technology, cybersecurity, cloud and AI/data infrastructure. The venture capital firm, under the helm of Peter Thomson, has already invested in companies such as Cohere, Kabbage and LendingClub, so it knows what it's looking for. That could be your startup.

Ivanti is hacked: Cybersecurity company Volexity said that China state-backed hackers infiltrated Ivanti's widely used corporate VPN appliance. And now they have begun mass-exploiting two critical zero-day vulnerabilities. Over 1,700 of the appliances are said to have been hit, affecting its customers in the aerospace, banking, defense, government and telecommunications industries.

Snyk acquires Helios: Snyk, a developer-focused security company, has acquired Helios, a Tel Aviv–based startup that helps developers troubleshoot and understand their microservices in production. This is Snyk's second acquisition in this sector after acquiring Enso Security back in June 2023. It also shows that smaller startups have made inroads in solving certain security pain points being felt by enterprises.

More top reads image

Image Credits: Apple

On the pods

Grab your spoon and a carton of milk because this week on Found we're talking to Magic Spoon co-founder and CEO Gabi Lewis.

Magic Spoon creates cereal flavors that play on our nostalgia for Froot Loops and Cocoa Puffs with a grown-up high-protein twist. Dominic-Madori and Becca talk with Gabi about how he and his co-founder prioritized product-market fit and found investors who didn't think cereal was dead.

They also talked about:

  • What Gabi learned from his previous startup Exo, which made cricket-protein bars and how he's changing his leadership style at Magic Spoon.
  • The transition from being a solely DTC brand to in-store retailer and how he's learned to manage buyer relationships and store-to-store drama.
  • How meticulously they develop new cereals and how they've incorporated customer feedback.

Read More

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Microsoft's AI march continues

TechCrunch Newsletter
TechCrunch AM logo

By Alex Wilhelm

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Welcome to the very first issue of TechCrunch AM, the best compilation of tech news from around the world that you'll read before brunch.

Our long-running Daily Crunch newsletter is being split into two starting today: one arriving in the morning (this one, written by yours truly), and one in the afternoon (TechCrunch PM), because we felt one newsletter was simply not enough to cover the breadth of startup, venture, and tech news out there. More here from TechCrunch Editor in Chief Connie Loizos on how our newsletters are changing in 2024!

And with that out of the way, let's get started!

Alex

Why the future of AI for business is now

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Our groundbreaking research delivers key insights on the present and future of AI for business. Learn why quality data can make all the difference in whether generative AI tools become risky and unsafe, or trustworthy and successful.

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TechCrunch Top 3

Goodnotes buys Dropthebit: London-based note-taking app Goodnotes has acquired South Korean startup Dropthebit, which runs Thaw, a meeting and video summary tool. Notably this is not the first time that Goodnotes has gotten busy with its checkbook. The startup, which offers users tools like "AI-powered handwriting recognition," also invested $1.9 million into South Korea-based digital stationery company WeBudding last year.

Bad news for startup valuations: A survey of more than three dozen investors predicts that startup valuations are not heading for a banner year in 2024. Instead, valuation trends will break down according to sector and stage, VCs predict. But new founders should take heart: Seed valuations are expected to be the most durable. The further along your startup is, the less sunny the forecast is for your next fundraise.

Microsoft launches Copilot Pro: You and I can now subscribe to Copilot Pro, which brings enterprise-like generative AI features (think Office) to the masses. It costs $20 per month, and comes with priority access to the newest GenAI models underpinning Copilot, including OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo. Why do we care? AI is going vertical thanks to startups, and horizontal thanks to big tech companies. No matter what bell you toll, AI is coming for your workday!

 

TechCrunch Top 3 image

Image Credits: Goodnotes

Don't miss these

Apple may catch a break: Apple may get a full reprieve from the sales bans surrounding its newest Apple Watches thanks to a plan to disable pulse oximetry features on the devices. We don't think users will particularly mind the loss too much, but you can never tell how much Reddit will complain. For Apple, we're guessing being able to sell the Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches is probably more important than that.

Spot Technologies raises $2M: El Salvador-based Spot has raised funding to build a software solution that turns security cameras into intelligent gadgets that can analyze consumer purchase and theft behaviors. Deep learning in security cameras? Welcome to the present, I suppose.

Kuda's secret 2023 raise: It appears Nigerian neobank Kuda quietly raised $20 million last year at a flat valuation to its last 2021 price tag ($500 million). TechCrunch snagged some fascinating performance data from the company as well, showing that pursuing fintech can still make for a growth story. It's also not a small achievement for a fintech company to defend a valuation from the crazy good times of 2021, we reckon.

For founders: If you are building a startup, we have lots for you this morning: How your customer acquisition costs can help determine whether you should launch a new product; the latest on climate tech incentives and capital flows; why micro funds are not doomed; and how to build a resilient SaaS company.

Closing out CES 2024: Another CES is behind us, so to send us off, here are TechCrunch's notes on age tech, and all the future of transport technology that stood out at the convention. Just don't look for anything sex-tech related — it makes CES blush.

You should definitely also read Mary Ann Azevdo's great interview with investor Jenny Fielding about startups' flight to quality. Also check out this Chain Reaction episode featuring Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale, about the bitcoin spot ETF news. And then there's FedEx's new e-commerce platform, which feels either very early, or very late.

Don't miss these image

Image Credits: Darrell Etherington/TechCrunch

Rabbits are all the rage

AI hardware startup Rabbit recently said it has sold out of its fourth run of 10,000 units of its new gadget, the R1. At $199 apiece, that's no small amount of revenue. Perhaps consumer AI hardware is going to be bigger than we thought?

Rabbits are all the rage image

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

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