Built with feedback from disabled communities, Apple unveils 'Assistive Access' iOS update

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Tuesday, May 16, 2023

To get a roundup of TechCrunch's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Today we bring you several new Apple features, a humanoid robot and a smart hummingbird feeder. Who says tech can't be fun? This is your Daily Crunch for Tuesday. — Christine In today's top story, TechCrunch spoke with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and venture capitalist Blake Byers about longevity startup NewLimit raising $40 million. Of course, talking about life also means talking about death, so get ready for some "inevitable jokes centered on billionaires trying to escape death by throwing money at it." Get the full scoop. Meanwhile, Elad Gil has a long track record of successful investing, from Stripe to Notion to Airtable and many in between, enough to earn the title of "Silicon Valley's biggest solo venture capitalist." Now read about where he's putting massive amounts of capital, including some on behalf of institutions that reportedly include Harvard's endowment. Now over to Apple, which previewed a suite of new features, built with feedback from disabled communities, designed to improve cognitive, vision and speech accessibility that are slated to be available on the iPhone, iPad and Mac later this year. See what's new. It's official: Kustomer, a CRM startup acquired by Meta last year for $1 billion, was spun out on a $250 million valuation. Meta originally planned to divest the company in March as part of cost-cutting measures. Find out what’s in store for Kustomer. A team of ex-Googlers is making 3D model creation easier. Rooms.xyz is in beta testing with its browser-based tool for designing 3D spaces using drag-and-drop, editable objects or code to enable users to design rooms, basic games or other interactive activities. Bonus — it now has $10 million in a new round of fresh capital led by a16z. Read more. Hippocratic, which raised a whopping $50 million in seed funding, is building a large language model for healthcare. Find out more. Jenfi raises more funding for its "growth capital as a service" platform. Get the scoop. Find out which U.K. startup plans to radically shake up the antiquated world of COPD measurement. Click here to read more. Birds just wanna have fun, too. And they can with Bird Buddy's new AI-powered Smart Hummingbird Feeder and Bird Bath. See what it looks like. Royal's web3 marketplace has some fresh funding after finding success with Rihanna's music rights. Find out how they did it. Youth mental health startup Somethings launches with $3.2 million in new funding led by General Catalyst. Get the scoop. Now that Spiff has $50 million in Series C funding, it is undertaking a "massive overhaul of its core sales commission engine." Read more. Image Credits: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg / Getty Images (Image has been modified)

Big Tech Inc. Tesla said it was building a humanoid robot in 2021, and now everyone's doing it. We're not necessarily saying it is "the golden age of humanoid robots," but it might be nice to have one that stands 5'7" and lifts 55 pounds — you know, to reach things in high places. Meet Sanctuary AI's new humanoid robot. Ring founder Jamie Siminoff has been so busy, let me count the ways: exiting Ring; selling another startup, Honest Day's Work, to Latch, a proptech smart lock company; and becoming Latch's CEO. Read more about Siminoff's plans for the company. Logitech is a familiar name in gadgets of all kinds, but now it has the Logitech G Cloud gaming handheld, which it has launched in Europe. See what it looks like. PharMerica, a U.S. pharmacy giant, confirmed that hackers accessed the personal data of almost 6 million patients. Find out more. Apple is targeting rivals, like Spotify, with new concert discovery features for Apple Music and Apple Maps. Read more. IBM acquired Israeli company Polar Security for $60 million to automate cloud data management. Read more about the deal. If you haven't signed into that Google account in two years, get ready for it to be taken away. Here's why Google is deleting accounts. Meanwhile, Spotify is doing its thing, expanding its AI-powered DJ feature to the U.K. and Ireland. Get the details.

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Active founders make good investors, but do they make good VCs? In professional sports, player-coaches can be extraordinarily effective: Celtics center Bill Russell won two NBA championships between 1966 and 1969. A recent study suggests that this principle also applies to venture capital. "Recent data from AngelList, pulled for Flex Capital, shows that the founder-led funds raised through its platform outperformed the other funds raised on AngelList," reports Rebecca Szkutak. At the same time, "it's important to note that women founders are largely left out of this trend," she writes. "While having these side gigs is largely seen as a positive by VCs for male founders, multiple women founders have told TechCrunch+ that they aren't given the same luxury. In fact, they are advised against it." Three more from the team: Quilt raises $9M seed round to become the Nest of heat pumps   Self-driving cars are taking ages to become a reality, but they won't take forever Without Black representation in climate tech, 'the planet will burn' 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: Getty Images

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After fundraising problems, layoffs and a canceled buyout, ZestMoney's founders step down

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Monday, May 15, 2023

To get a roundup of TechCrunch's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Daily Crunch. I’ll be your guide moving forward as Haje leads our Startups Weekly newsletter. We have some exciting ideas for making the Daily Crunch better than ever. In the meantime, let’s get to it! — Christine The big news today is that Apple's partner Foxconn is investing $500 million in manufacturing plants in South India, which is "the latest in a series of bets from the key Apple contract partner as it expands its base in the South Asian market." Meanwhile, Africa-based asset financing platform M-Kopa took in a whopping $250+ million in new funding that included $55 million in equity and over $200 million in debt. The company offers underbanked African customers access to "productive assets" and the ability to pay for them via digital micropayments. Over at ZestMoney, founders Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma and Ashish Anantharaman told employees today that they were resigning. This is "the latest twist in the fate of the Indian fintech whose ability to underwrite small ticket loans to first-time internet customers once drew the backing of many high-profile investors, including Goldman Sachs." Cold-chain startup Figorr raises $1.5 million as it backs the rollout of data-driven perishables insurance. Blackstone sells its IBS Software stake to Apax for $450 million. U.K. pension startup Smart secured $95 million to expand internationally and make acquisitions. Image Credits: triloks

Big Tech Inc. It's not Christmas yet, but hardware startup Telly doesn't care. It's giving away 500,000 of its new smart TVs for free — yes, that's free. Oh, but wait, there's a catch: Users must watch 24/7 ads while simultaneously streaming TV shows and movies. Media company Vice, which was valued at $5.7 billion just six years ago, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, while three of its lenders have agreed to buy the company for $225 million. We reported that "Vice's financial issues are not a pure reflection of the media business at large, though. The company made severe managerial missteps and allegedly fostered a culture of sexual harassment." Apple released a satellite-based emergency SOS feature in Australia and New Zealand. Damo Academy, Alibaba's autonomous driving lab, will merge with Cainiao and will now focus more on monetization. The European Commission gave its blessing to Microsoft's $68.7 billion Activision acquisition, but expected some future oversight. U.K.'s Space Forge debuts new reentry tech for in-space manufacturing satellites. For you Lord of the Rings fans, Amazon is developing a multiplayer online game.

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How to avoid AI commoditization: 3 tactics for running successful pilot programs Companies in search of AI-powered business solutions have a lot more options to choose from than they did a few months ago. But where does that leave startups that are trying to differentiate their offerings? “The real moat is a combination of AI models trained on proprietary data, as well as a deep understanding of how an expert goes about their daily tasks to solve nuanced workflow problems,” says Chaitanya Vaidya, co-founder of Deeprisk.ai. In this TC+ article, he shares three tactics AI startups can use to manage iterative pilot programs that create customer delight by studying user behavior. "Leveraging deep relationships with customers in your domain is a simple, yet effective tactic," writes Vaidya. Two more for you: Binance is banking big on M&A and VC deals VCs love to talk about AI, but they aren't writing as many checks as you might think 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: Unknown / Getty Images

Calling all early-stage startups! Apply to join the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. All finalists get expert training, VC networking, a booth at Disrupt, and the chance to compete for $100,000 in equity-free funds. Applications close May 15. Read More

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Newest Jobs from Crunchboard Strategic Marketing Director at NXT1 (Bel Air, MD, USA) Senior Manager, Information Systems & Technology at Viristar (Anywhere) Information Security Officer at Human Rights Watch (Berlin, Germany) Inside Sales Agent - Public Safety at MD Ally Technologies, Inc. (NYC, NY, USA) Lab Technician Vulcan Steam Cooking at SmartRecruiters (Troy, OH, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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