Generative AI search engine NeevaAI rolls out subscription service to more countries

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps Monday, February 13, 2023

Helloooooo, Crunchers! It's Monday, and it's time for premature lovers to celebrate Valentine's Day (it's tomorrow, you eager lovebirds). Lots of fun things are coming down the pike here at TC Towers: TechCrunch Disrupt is back in September, so now's the time to grab the super-early-bird tickets at a ludicrous discount. In connection with last year's Disrupt, we created a podcast documentary called Inside Battlefield, where we follow some of the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield hopefuls as they pitch their way through to the finals. You may even hear a familiar voice or two in there: Haje shared a bunch of his pitch expertise for the podcast! For our Black History Month entry today, we recommend The Antiracist Deck, a deck of 100 cards with discussion prompts and things to think about, presenting ways for everyone to fight back against racism in small and big ways in all aspects of life — at work, among friends, and out in the world. Okay, that was a lot for our usually pretty brief intro, but what can we say, there's a lot of things happening in the world of TechCrunch! Much love from your friendly hosts, Christine and Haje Image Credits: noipornpan / Getty Images

The TechCrunch Top 3 Who asked for more ChatGPT?: Neeva is getting its generative AI search engine out to a wider audience, Paul writes. Unlike some of the other versions of ChatGPT we are seeing that have some factual and some not-so-factual responses, Paul notes that "the onus is very much on NeevaAI to ensure that it understands the question, and gives an appropriate response. Or no response at all, which is what it will do with questions where it's not confident of the answer." “Premature electrification”: Come on, you know you chuckled when you heard that phrase during last night's Dodge Ram commercial. Matt reports that the electric Ram 1500 REV is packed with screens and, surprisingly, buttons and knobs, but sadly won't be available until 2024. Another round of cuts: Five months after laying off 11% of its workforce, Twilio made an announcement today that it will let go of another 17% of its employees as it seeks to spend less, Romain writes. The strategic move comes as the company forms two business units in an effort to do just that.

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Startups and VC Highbeam, a startup that provides banking features, credit and cash flow insights to e-commerce customers, today announced that it raised $10 million in debt from TriplePoint as it looks to expand the reach of its digital product portfolio, Kyle reports. Tesla got itself some high-profile criticism as safety advocacy group The Dawn Project took its campaign to ban Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) system to the Super Bowl, Rebecca reports. The 30-second ad, which was broadcast to millions of football fans, outlined several alleged critical safety defects of Tesla’s FSD, the automaker's advanced driver assistance system. Here's another handful: A future as bright as the sun: Clean tech Qotto embarks on a growth plan backed by $8 million in funding, Annie reports. Oh great, more energy spritzes: Christine reports how this startup pledges to “deliver a cup of coffee's worth of energy in just three sprays.” Deeper dating: Lauren reports that matchmaking service Tawkify picks up “anti-superficial” dating app S'More in mobile expansion. Whoa, that's a hell of a valuation curve: Rita tells the story of how Zeekr — the two-year-old luxury electric vehicle brand of Geely, China's largest private carmaker — raises $750 million at $13 billion valuation. Unsolicited dock pics: Dockhunt is a new way to discover Mac apps by looking at other people's docks, Ivan explores.

A Black YC alum explains how he raised $107M Black entrepreneurs face a unique set of challenges, but Captain founder Demetrius Gray raised $107 million after his Y Combinator experience. “People see the headline, '$107 million raised.' What they don't really understand is that it was a progressive process of building relationships over time that made that possible," says Gray. In an interview for TC+, he broke down his fundraising strategy and shared several tactics for connecting with investors. “You gotta get social; you gotta get out in front of people and start building relationships.” Three more from the TC+ team: The hype machine screeches to a halt: Grant Easterbrook breaks down a decade of fintech failures, exploring four innovations that didn't live up to the hype. SF is spooling back up: Cities, cycles and San Francisco's “return,” writes Natasha M. Diversity on the upswing: Dominic-Madori asks, “Who's afraid of diversity quotas?” TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Read More Image Credits: Andrew T. White / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. Aisha reported today that more job cuts are on the way for Meta. She notes these new possible layoffs follow Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's earnings call with analysts earlier this month where the company said it plans to continue to contain costs, promising a "year of efficiency." Zuckerberg noted that Meta would be flattening its organization structure and "removing some layers in middle management to make decisions faster." Whether you are a Kansas City Chiefs fan (yay!) or a Philadelphia Eagles fan (sorry), there was a whole crop of new commercials from last night's Super Bowl to talk about. Lauren has your look at all of the cool movie trailers (Spoiler: Michael Keaton returns as Batman), while Amanda takes us through the tech industry commercials, where fewer crypto commercials were noticeable. Oh, and if you didn't catch the Super Bowl Rakuten commercial with Alicia Silverstone reprising her role from "Clueless," here it is. It's Monday, so here's five more for you: Picture this: For a while there, everyone was dolling up their photos AI style, but Sarah writes that new data shows the AI photo app trend has already fizzled. Teeny, tiny headset: Brian shows us how small Bigscreen's new VR headset is. Rollin' with the homies: Zoox autonomous robotaxis are now out on California public roads, Kirsten reports. Greenlight: Four of the European Union's biggest adtech companies were told their joint venture didn't violate antitrust, but they'll have to see if it passes the data protection gauntlet, Natasha L reports. Temperature check: If you're tracking your fertility, Samsung has an app for that. Its Galaxy Watch5 now has temperature-based period tracking, Sarah writes.

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Sources say Times Internet plans to sell Indian streaming platform MX Player to Amazon

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps Friday, February 10, 2023

It's Friday, and we're slumping back in our office chairs with a hot cup of coffee after a week that's been as slow as mid-winter molasses. For Black History Month, we are in awe of the story of Sojourner Truth, who was an American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Born into slavery, she escaped with her infant daughter and became the first Black woman to successfully sue for a family member's freedom in 1828. To learn more about her, this Ted-Ed mini documentary is a great place to start, and if you want to go deeper, don't miss the stirring biography by Patricia and Frederick McKissack. — Christine and Haje Image Credits: Oleksiy Mark / Shutterstock

The TechCrunch Top 3 Game on: Amazon is in talks to acquire Indian video streaming giant MX Player from Times Internet, Manish reports. He writes that the video app is "popular for supporting a wide range of video formats and reliability on low-cost Android smartphones, has expanded to original content in recent years and has amassed more than 300 million users globally." Gone phishing: Reddit confirmed that hackers accessed its internal data in what it is calling "a sophisticated phishing attack" that targeted its employees, Carly writes. The company said the attack gave hackers access to documents and source code. And, just as quickly as it came, it left: Five days ago, India banned over 90 apps, some associated with China, related to lending. Today, Manish writes that this ban on apps, like PayU's LazyPay, Kissht, KreditBee and Indiabulls' Home Loans, was lifted.

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Startups and VC It's been a pretty slow day on the news front today — I think everyone has a case of the Fridays today. Here's a few of the stories worth taking a closer look at, though: Ka-ching: Catherine reports that Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia backs cross-border payments startup Tazapay. Oh, you fancy: Jendaya raises funding to scale its Africa-focused luxury e-commerce platform, Tage reports. Table stakes: Low-code database APITable is another Airtable challenger, reports Rita. Spend the money, get the customers: If you're a startup, “we haven't spent a penny on marketing” (TC+) isn't the flex you think it is, Haje explains. Get customers, make money from customers: Also on TC+, Haje explains how to think about your business model as part of your pitch to investors.

How to manage third-party cybersecurity risks that are too costly to ignore Every early-stage startup relies on third-party vendors to handle some aspect of their operations: No one wants to build a shopping cart, credit card processing or ID verification app from scratch. But now that third-party data breaches are a regular occurrence, teams need to make managing that risk a part of their day-to-day operations, writes Jon Siegler, co-founder and chief product officer of LogicGate. "No matter how well you clean things up, the reputational hit to your organization will continue to cost you in lost business down the road," he writes. Three more from the TC+ team: Batten the hatches: Can your startup survive the economic downturn? Becca and Ron wonder. Actual Intelligence: Women-founded AI startups see a boost in VC funding, Dominic-Madori reports. We're just getting started: Tage dives into the African startup ecosystem and talks to eight investors, who argue it's “still just Day 1” for African startups. TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Read More Image Credits: Aleksandr Zubkov / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. Connected automotive company Otonomo is being acquired by Urgently in a reverse merger, Ingrid reports. Otonomo went public in a 2021 SPAC, at the time valued at $1.4 billion, but that has since dipped to $70 million. Ingrid writes, "It's been a bumpy road for smart mobility technology — with macroeconomic pressures, the slower development and rollouts of next-generation technology like autonomous systems and the cooling tech investing market all making it harder for younger businesses to sustain and grow their businesses. Otonomo is perhaps the latest casualty in that pile-up, but it may not be the last." If you're into classic games, one of our popular stories from late yesterday was Sarah's about a remastered, free-to-try version of Myst arriving on iOS. And we have five more for you: On the hunt: Digital rights defenders infiltrate alleged mercenary hacking group, Lorenzo writes. Shut up and drive: Tim Stevens gives an inside look at the electric 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQE. Pay attention: Is Google losing control? Devin thinks so, writing, "Google rushing its shot and tripping up so visibly speaks to a lack of readiness even at a limited, experimental level — let alone a global rollout like the one Microsoft has already begun." Like a waterfall, only with information: Taiwan fined iRent, a car renting giant in the country, for customer data and identity documents being spilled onto the open web for months, Zack reports. Where you headed?: Uber is integrating Apple CarPlay with its own driver app, Rebecca writes.

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