Machine Learning Technology
Google Photos redesigns its Memories feature with vertical swiping, more video and other creative tools
As consumer social apps shift their focus to video for social expression and adopt more creative tools, like those for collage-making, Google Photos’ often more utilitarian app will now do…
Sustainability data platform Worldfavor fuels up for ecosystem opportunities
More funding for sustainability reporting: Sweden’s Worldfavor, an early mover platform focused on building digital infrastructure to support supply chain transparency and cater to organizations’ ESG (environmental, social, governance) reporting…
Swiss startup Typewise is showing the power of sticking at it: The team behind patented text prediction technology — whose fascination with typing productivity started off as a consumer keyboard-focused…
This Week in Apps: Twitter Notes, Instagram age verification, Spotify’s Live Events
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues…
Spotify puts its Podz acquisition to use with test of new podcast discovery feature
Spotify acquired podcast discovery platform Podz last summer for roughly $49.4 million, per a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, to help accelerate the streamer’s extensive investments in podcasts. Now, Spotify…
Bumble makes its first acquisition with deal for French Gen Z dating app, Fruitz
Dating app company Bumble, Inc. is making its first acquisition with today’s news that it’s adding the fast-growing French dating app Fruitz to its family of applications. Though Bumble, Inc.…
Daily Crunch: Google dumps FloC plan, proposes new Topics API for ad targeting
Today our cup overflows with news. There’s simply too much going on to cover in a single newsletter, so I’ve tried to fit in as much as possible.
Sylvera takes $32M to build trust in carbon offsetting ratings
Sylvera, a U.K.-based startup which uses machine learning technology to analyze a variety of visual data like satellite imagery and lidar with the goal of boosting accountability and credibility around…
Tim Draper leads $6M Series A in pee-testing wellness tracker, Vivoo
Billionaire VC Tim Draper (via Draper Associates) has led a $6 million Series A in wellness tracking startup, Vivoo. Also participating in the funding round is ONCE Ventures, Revo Capital,…
TikTok’s new ad products invite users to interact with taps, swipes, likes and more
TikTok this week presented its new plan to ramp up advertiser investment in its video platform with the expansion of e-commerce, a new promise of “brand safety” and the launch…
Israel’s DiA gets $14M to expand AI-driven ultrasound analysis
Israel-based AI healthtech company, DiA Imaging Analysis, which is using deep learning and machine learning to automate analysis of ultrasound scans, has closed a $14 million Series B round of…
Reface now lets users face-swap into pics and GIFs they upload
Buzzy face-swapping video app Reface is expanding its reality-shifting potential beyond selfies by letting users upload more of their own content for its AI to bring to life. Users of…
Kry closes $312M Series D after use of its telehealth tools grows 100% yoy
Swedish digital health startup Kry, which offers a telehealth service (and software tools) to connect clinicians with patients for remote consultations, last raised just before the pandemic hit in Western…
Hustle Fund backs Fintor, which wants to make it easier to invest in real estate
Farshad Yousefi and Masoud Jalali used to drive through Palo Alto neighborhoods and marvel at the outrageous home prices. But the drives sparked an idea. They were not in a…
Pinterest announces $500K Creator Fund, ‘Creator Code’ content policy, moderation tools and more
Pinterest today hosted an event focused on its creator community, where the company announced a series of updates including the launch of a $500,000 Creator Fund, a new content policy…
LA-based Metropolis raises $41 million to upgrade parking infrastructure
Metropolis is a new Los Angeles-based startup that’s looking to compete with BMW-owned ParkMobile for a slice of the automated parking lot management market. Upgrading parking with a computer vision-based…
Immunai raises $60M as it expands from improving immune therapies to discovering new ones, too
Just two years after its founding, biotech startup Immunai has raised $60 million in Series A funding, bringing its total raised to over $80 million. Despite its youth, Immunai has…
Reface grabs $5.5M seed led by A16z to stoke its viral face-swap video app
Buzzy face-swap video app Reface, which lends users celebrity ‘superpowers’ by turning their selfies into “eerily realistic” famous video clips at the tap of a button, has caught the attention…
One of the areas that is often left behind when it comes to cloud computing is the industrial sector. That’s because these facilities often have older equipment or proprietary systems…
Legaltech startup Orbital Witness scores £3.3M to create a ‘universal risk rating’ for real estate
Orbital Witness, a U.K.-based legaltech startup developing “AI-powered” software to transform the £4 billion U.K. property due diligence market, has raised £3.3 million in seed funding. The round is led…
Hustle CEO Sam Parr & SmartNews co-founder Rich Jaroslavsky on the future of media
In this episode: Sam Parr, co-founder and CEO of The Hustle, one of the fastest-growing email newsletters, and Rich Jaroslavsky, VP of Content and chief journalist at news aggregation startup…
Index and Credo lead a $2.75M seed in anti-fraud tech, Resistant AI
Prague based Resistant AI has nabbed a $2.75M seed round. The security startup’s machine learning technology is designed to be deployed on top of AI systems used for financial decision…
At its Cloud Next event in London, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian today announced that Smart Compose, the AI-powered feature that currently tries to complete phrases and sentences for you…
Vannevar Labs comes out of stealth to bring best-in-class AI tech to national security agencies
Few organizations have the complex data and analytics problems that challenge the defense and intelligence communities every single day. Whether it is managing petabytes of text, audio, or video data,…
Spirable refuels with $7.4M to serve more personalized video ads in the US
London based adtech startup Spirable has closed a £6M Series A. The round was led by Smedvig Capital, with existing backers Frontline Ventures, Downing Ventures and 24 Haymarket also participating.…
Wattpad partners with Sony Pictures Television in first-look deal for original programming
Wattpad, the online storytelling community whose authors’ works have been turned into Netflix movies, TV shows for Hulu and projects for other studios both in the U.S. and worldwide, announced…
Competition policy must change to help startups fight ‘winner takes all’ platforms, says UK report
A independent report commissioned by the UK government to examine how competition policy needs to adapt itself for the digital age has concluded that tech giants don’t face adequate competition…
Should you let AI help you pick your roommates? Barcelona-based urban room rental startup Badi thinks so, and it’s just closed a $30 million Series B funding round less than…
Miku watches your baby (and your baby’s heartbeat) while you relax
Using technology that sounds like it comes straight out of Predator, Miku is a new baby monitor that watches and senses your baby’s vitals in real time. The system not…
Companies tracking mutations in cancer cells can provide a key to unlocking better therapies
Investors and entrepreneurs are beginning to bring new diagnostic tools to market that promise better results for cancer patients through the identification of mutations in cancer cells that can create…
