Just 7 days until the TC Early Stage early bird flies away

Discover the best digital marketing tools, normally $27 as my free gift. FREE|Success

Budget-minded entrepreneurs and early-stage startup founders take heed — this is no time to procrastinate. We have only 7 days left of early-bird pricing to TechCrunch Early Stage 2023 in Boston on April 20.

Don’t wait…the early bird gets the…SAVINGS: Buy a $249 founder pass and save $200 before prices increase on April 1 — that’s no joke.

TC Early Stage is our only event where you get hands-on training with experts to help your business succeed. No need to reinvent the startup wheel — you’ll have access to leading experts across a range of specialties.

During this one-day startup bootcamp, you’ll learn about legal issues, fundraising, marketing, growth, product-market fit, pitching, recruiting and more. We’re talking more than 40 highly engaging presentations, workshops and roundtables with interactive Q&As and plenty of time for networking.

Here are just a few examples of the topics we have on tap. You’ll find plenty more listed in the event agenda.

How to Tell Your TAM: Dayna Grayson from Construct Capital invests in the rebuilding of the most foundational and broken industries of our economy. Industries such as manufacturing and logistics, among others, that formed in an analog world have been neglected by advanced technology. Dayna will talk about how, beyond the idea, founders can pitch investors on their TAM, including how they will wedge into the market and how they will eventually disrupt it.

How to Think About Accelerators and Incubators: Founders often hear they should get involved with an incubator or accelerator, but when is the “right” time for early-stage founders to apply to these types of startup support ecosystems, and how can they best engage if accepted? In this talk, Harvard Innovation Labs executive director Matt Segneri will cover everything from the types of incubators and accelerators available to early-stage founders, to what startups should consider before applying, and tips for getting the most out of these ecosystems.

How to Raise Outside of SV in a Down Market: Silicon Valley’s funding market tends to be more immune to macroeconomic conditions than elsewhere in the world. So how do you raise outside the Valley bubble? General Catalyst’s Mark Crane has ample experience on both the founder and VC side from all over Europe, as well as a firm understanding of the funding landscape in the northeastern U.S., so he’ll give practical advice on how to stay alive and thrive.

At TechCrunch Early Stage you’ll walk away with a deeper working understanding of topics and skills that are essential to startup success. Founders save $200 with an early-bird founder ticket — college students pay just $99!

Just 7 days until the TC Early Stage early bird flies away by Alexandra Ames originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2518113

OpenAI unleashes GPT-4, SVB files for bankruptcy, and a PE firm acquires Pornhub

Discover the best digital marketing tools, normally $27 as my free gift. FREE|Success

Welcome to Week in Review, folks, TechCrunch’s regular recap of the week in tech. GPT-4, OpenAI’s text- and image-understanding AI, might’ve dominated the headlines over the past few days. But fresh drama around Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse emerged as well.

We cover all that and more in this edition, so grab a coffee and settle in.

Quick note, TechCrunch Early Stage 2023 is fast approaching. It’ll be in Boston on April 20 and will feature three concurrent tracks of founder-forward workshops, case studies and deep dives with experts in tech entrepreneurship. Further down the line, mark your calendar for TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, which will take place in San Francisco on September 19– 21. As always, it’ll be jampacked with roundtables, firesides, Q&As and showcases from luminaries in their fields. You won’t want to miss it.

Now, on to the news.

most read

OpenAI debuts GPT-4: After much anticipation, OpenAI, the AI startup with major backing from Microsoft, has released a powerful new AI model called GPT-4. GPT-4 can generate text and accept image and text inputs — an improvement over its predecessor, which only accepted text — and performs at “human level” on various benchmarks. But GPT-4 isn’t perfect. Like most other generative text AI, the model “hallucinates” facts and makes reasoning errors — sometimes with great confidence.

Microsoft goes all-in on AI: Leveraging the latest tech from OpenAI, including GPT-4, Microsoft launched new AI-powered features across its suite of productivity tools under the brand Copilot. Copilot handles different tasks depending on the app in which it’s used. For example, in Word, Copilot writes, edits, summarizes and generates text; in PowerPoint and Excel, Copilot turns natural language commands into designed presentations and data visualizations; and in Power Apps, Copilot helps refine ideas for low-code software.

SVB files for bankruptcy: One week after trading was halted for SVB Financial and after regulators took control of the holding company for Silicon Valley Bank and other subsidiaries, SVB Financial has taken the next inevitable step. On Friday, the bank announced that it has formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. This will mean that SVB Financial can apply — and plans to apply — to the courts to resume activities while finding buyers for its assets, which include going ahead with its plan to sell off SVB Securities and SVB Capital.

Google Glass bids farewell: Google Glass, Google’s misunderstood bit of AR tech, is no more. Google announced this week that it would stop selling the last incarnation of Glass, Glass Enterprise Edition, on March 15 (but continue to support existing customers until September 15). Readers will recall that Glass, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last month, never quite managed to gain traction, becoming the subject of ridicule and parodies even after a pivot in focus from consumer to enterprise.

YouTube TV gets pricey: In a move sure to irk cord cutters, YouTube has announced that it’s raising the price of its YouTube TV subscription to $72.99 per month — an $8 increase from the current $64.99 monthly fee. The Google-owned company blames a rise in “content costs” for the change. (Perhaps not coincidentally, YouTube TV recently announced a streaming deal with NFL Sunday Ticket, which is reportedly worth $2 billion per season.)

Via acquires Citymapper: Transportation startup Via, which recently raised $110 million at a $3.5 billion valuation, has snatched up Citymapper, the London startup that produces the popular urban mapping app of the same name. Originally making a name for itself as an alternative to apps like Google Maps for consumers planning journeys in metropolitan areas using public transportation, Citymapper arguably never really managed to capitalize on its momentum and early promise.

Baidu’s ChatGPT rival flails: In other AI news this week, Ernie Bot, Chinese search giant Baidu’s answer to ChatGPT, underwhelmed. TechCrunch wasn’t able to try it, but industry observers inside and outside China pointed to the fact that rather than showcasing Ernie through a live demo, Baidu opted for a lengthy presentation with pre-recordings of Ernie’s answers. The company’s shares slumped as much as 10% in Hong Kong following Li’s presentation.

Pornhub meets private equity: MindGeek — owner of several adult entertainment sites, including Pornhub, Brazzers and Redtube — was acquired by a Canadian private equity firm, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP). The acquisition follows a rocky few years for the porn giant. MindGeek’s CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo both departed from the company in June 2022. MindGeek also is currently in the midst of multiple lawsuits that allege it has knowingly profited off of child sexual abuse material.

Dish customers in the dark: Dish customers are still looking for answers two weeks after the U.S. satellite television giant was hit by a ransomware attack. In a public filing published on February 28, Dish confirmed that ransomware was to blame for an ongoing outage and warned that hackers exfiltrated data, which “may” include customers’ personal information, from its systems. But Dish hasn’t provided a substantive update since, despite customers continuing to experience issues — and not knowing if their personal data is at risk.

audio

TechCrunch’s stable of quality podcasts grows by the hour. (Rejoice, those with long commutes.) This week on Equity, Alex and Natasha discussed the M&A spree that captured Qualtrics, Cvent, and Mint Mobile, as well as what’s followed the SVB collapse, GPT-4 and why Y Combinator is scaling back from late stage. Over at Found, meanwhile, Amanda and Darrell spoke with Teddy Solomon, the co-founder of Fizz, a social media app aimed at college students focusing on building community on campus. The interview touched on what Gen Z is looking for in their social media, how to thoroughly moderate a platform like Fizz and how this kind of community building could go far beyond colleges.

TechCrunch+

TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:

Rethinking points of failure: Natasha M writes about how, in light of the SVB collapse, perhaps founders should rethink entrusting a single person to lead their business to success. She polled a number of early-stage founders who are building companies that have raised a Series A or less to understand how they think about succession. The consensus is that it’s not top of mind, or even top of the list, in a world where founders are more focused on runway, product-market fit and growth.

Strange things afoot at Unearthly Materials: Tim reports on Unearthly Materials, a startup that claimed to have big-name investors behind its tech that could lead to a superconductor breakthrough. But as it turns out, those investors weren’t all on board, especially given Unearthly Materials’ questionable record.

Good news for software companies: Depressed from this week in news? Alex writes that it isn’t all doom and gloom. Some software companies are performing quite well during the wider tech industry crash — at least, if their earnings reports are anything to go by.

OpenAI unleashes GPT-4, SVB files for bankruptcy, and a PE firm acquires Pornhub by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2515021

The US government ramps up its pressure campaign against TikTok

Discover the best digital marketing tools, normally $27 as my free gift. FREE|Upgrade

The Biden administration is escalating its pressure campaign against TikTok, threatening a U.S. ban against the world’s most popular app if the company doesn’t split with its Chinese ownership.

The current administration’s public concerns around the hit app have ratcheted up considerably in recent days. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the U.S. government is again seeking to separate the app from its Chinese owners, demanding the sale through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS).

TikTok pushed back against the new White House demand, arguing that the proposed solution wouldn’t resolve the U.S. government’s concerns. TikTok claims that the company’s own unusual gesture at self-regulation — undergoing an audit by U.S.-based tech giant Oracle, among other measures — would offer more resolution.

“If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access,” TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan told TechCrunch. “The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, U.S.-based protection of U.S. user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification, which we are already implementing.”

That program, known as Project Texas, is part of an ongoing TikTok charm offensive in the U.S. that seeks to portray the company’s U.S. operations as transparent and accountable. The campaign comes with about $1.5 billion in infrastructure spending and corporate re-organization to erect a firewall between the company’s U.S. business and its Chinese ownership.

In an interview with the Journal, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew argued that Project Texas would place U.S. data beyond the reach of the Chinese government. He declined to answer if TikTok’s parent company ByteDance’s founders would be open to divesting.

“I do welcome feedback on what other risk we are talking about that is not addressed by this,” Chew said in the interview. “So far I haven’t heard anything that cannot actually be solved by this.”

The TikTok national security saga began during the Trump administration. The Trump White House’s threats against the company eventually culminated in a plan to force TikTok to sell its U.S. operations to Oracle in late 2020. At the time, TikTok also rejected an acquisition offer from Microsoft, but ultimately didn’t sell to Oracle either.

The deal was shelved indefinitely when the Biden took office the following year, a result of changing White House priorities and a flurry of successful court challenges by TikTok parent company ByteDance.

Last year, TikTok’s odd relationship with Oracle turned a new page, with the company shifting data on U.S.-based users to Oracle’s domestic servers. Around the same time, an explosive story from BuzzFeed documented internal TikTok discussions in which Chinese employees admitted to having open access to data on American users — reporting that ran counter to the company’s reassurances.

Since then, the Biden administration has expressed its own concerns over the hit Chinese app, which has taken the world by storm and dislodged U.S.-based social media incumbents.

On Thursday, Emily Baker-White, who has published a number of illuminating stories about TikTok and national security concerns, reported that the FBI and the Department of Justice are both investigating the company over concerns that it has surveilled American journalists. The U.K. also announced a TikTok ban for government devices Thursday — a move the U.S. government previously implemented. In recent months, some U.S. based colleges have also followed suit, complying with the guidance issued by state-level executive orders restricting the app.

In a recent Senate Intelligence hearing, FBI director Chris Wray voiced his agency’s own worries about the app and its ties to an authoritarian state with an increasingly adversarial relationship to the U.S. Wray confirmed his belief that the Chinese government could force TikTok’s U.S. operation to hand it control of the software, affecting many millions of Americans. If that came to pass, Wray argued that there might not be “outward signs” to indicate that the app was compromised at all.

“Something that’s very sacred in our country — the difference between the private sector and the public sector — that’s a line that is nonexistent in the way the CCP operates,” Wray said.

The timing of the Biden administration’s fresh efforts to raise alarm about TikTok probably isn’t random. Next week, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify before the House Energy and Commerce committee, the chief executive’s first time before Congress. The hearing, scheduled for March 23, will explore TikTok’s “consumer privacy and data security practices, the platform’s impact on kids, and their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party,” according to the now Republican-led committee.

“Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms,” Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers said.

More universities are banning TikTok from their campus networks and devices

The US government ramps up its pressure campaign against TikTok by Taylor Hatmaker originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2514646

How to pitch me: 7 investors discuss what they’re looking for in March 2023

Discover the best digital marketing tools, normally $27 as my free gift. AUDIT|Success

Walter Thompson
Contributor

Editorial Manager Walter Thompson edits staff and guest articles for TechCrunch+ and manages TechCrunch's guest contributor program.

Previously, he worked at a number of startups in various roles and as City Editor of Hoodline. He is the host of The Golden City, a podcast about San Francisco.

More posts by this contributor

• TechCrunch+ roundup: Beyond the Turing test, 3 VCs on SVB, usage-based pricing tactics
• TC+ roundup: Silicon Valley Bank fails, fintech VC survey, B2B growth tools

It’s too early to determine whether SVB’s downfall heralds a new era for venture capital, but based on anecdotal evidence, off-the-record discussions and chats with co-workers, it seems like we’re back to business as usual where pre-revenue startup fundraising is concerned.

Friday in tech vs Sunday in tech pic.twitter.com/NsuzK5fqty

— Yuri Sagalov (@yuris) March 13, 2023

Not a scientific sampling, but several investors signaled this week on Twitter that they remain interested in talking to founders who are still at the idea stage. My hot take: With contagion contained, the VC community feels good about writing smallish checks for pre-revenue startups, but Series A and up? Más o menos.

As long as this downturn persists, this investor Q&A will be a monthly TC+ column. If you’re a recently laid-off worker considering striking out on your own, an H-1B employee who’s had it up to here or just looking for tips and advice that can help you connect with early-stage investors, please read and share.

Thanks very much to all of the investors who took the time to answer these questions in such detail! If you’re an early-stage investor who wants to be included in future columns, email guestcolumns@techcrunch.com with “How to pitch me” in the subject line.

Here’s who participated:

• Brian Backeen, general partner, Lightship Capital
• Masha Bucher, founder and general partner, Day One Ventures
• Rebecca Liu-Doyle, managing director, Insight
• Clelia Warburg Peters, managing partner, Era Ventures
• Nick Adams, managing partner and co-founder, Differential Ventures
• Lisa Lambert, founder and president, National Grid Partners
• Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and general partner, Hustle Fund

Brian Backeen, general partner, Lightship Capital

What kind of investment opportunities are you looking for in March 2023?

Like many investors, we are bullish on AI. We made two AI-related investments in April and continue to look for opportunities in that space.

How do you prefer to be approached by a founder with their initial pitch: a cold email, a warm intro or another method?

We have an online portal at lightship.capital that founders can use to apply for investment. We do that to prevent an issue with VC investors called “network bias.” Founders should apply on our portal and follow on Twitter.

What’s one traditional fundraising tactic that founders should remove from their toolkit — something that no longer works but is still a common practice?

Asking for warm intros and trying to “build a relationship” with investors. Spend your time building a great business and you will gain investment. I don’t need new friends.

Tell us about the best pitch you’ve received recently. When during their presentation did you realize you were going to invest?

I was pitched by a firm called MuseTax recently. Excellent founders, subject matter experts, the real deal. They made me want to invest in the first 10 minutes. They are in diligence now.

Can you share one piece of advice that can help a first-time founder stand out?

Don’t focus on investment; focus on design. Don’t let your engineers build you an ugly product with a great password reset function but limited user value.

Don’t let the engineers tell you it’s not ready; it is. Push it out and learn.

Design it well and users or investors will follow. Engineer the first version well and you will end up with lots of engineering bills and no progress.

What are you reading/watching/listening to right now?

I keep rewatching season 1 of “Billions.” You know, before it got weird . Great show.

Masha Bucher, founder and general partner, Day One Ventures

What kind of investment opportunities are you looking for in March 2023?

During a healthy fundraising environment, the founders that do the best often lean into their storytelling prowess and can convince investors with their charisma. They’re the ones who are naturally good speakers and are articulate with their vision.

There’s a second type of founder with a different background. They’re often heads-down, scrappy and resource-oriented. I call them “survivors.” Survivors are often immigrant founders, people of color, women or others from underrepresented backgrounds.

I believe the survivors are the types of founders to back during a downturn. They’ve been pushed to be scrappy and survive their whole lives; they’re especially equipped to handle what the current times demand of them. They’re good at making something out of nothing and are extremely cost-efficient.

I’m looking for paths to monetization, business models and avenues to profitability. Investors are paying much more attention to numbers, business models and how well founders manage finances. Expect many more questions challenging the business model.

I’m looking at how much revenue comes from product quality versus marketing. Founders who generate virality based on the product’s quality show they can make money with little marketing spend.

We love companies with high EBITDA. We love companies like Quinn, which grew to millions in revenue in just a year from launch with viral, zero-cost marketing on TikTok.

How do you prefer to be approached by a founder with their initial pitch: a cold email, a warm intro or another method?

Cold email works great, but it’s surprising how few people can do it right. In a cold email, every single sentence should be convincing me to take a meeting. With every word and every sentence, you need to create the desire for an investor to meet you in person. You have to show a clear reason why they need to meet you now, not next month.

How to pitch me: 7 investors discuss what they’re looking for in March 2023 by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2501131

Daily Crunch: Japanese marketing tech firm Geniee acquires Zelto for $70M

Discover the best digital marketing tools, normally $27 as my free gift. AUDIT|Upgrade

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here.

Hello, you crunchy Crunchers! If you’ve been slacking and not bought yourself a Disrupt ticket yet, that’s cool, we still love you. But here’s a hot tip: This is your last chance for super-early-bird tickets, so maybe get on that sooner rather than later!  — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• All roads lead to acquisition: Manish writes that after Japan’s Geniee acquired AdPushup-operator Zelto for $70 million. He called the deal “a remarkable turnaround” for Zelto, a company that has stared down a few near-death experiences, including cash flow and product market fit problems, during its 10-year-old life.
• Sweet (South) Carolina, bup, bup, bup: VW-backed Scout Motors has plans to build a $2 billion factory in South Carolina to produce its all-electric vehicles. Tim Stevens has more.
• Fined: Manish also writes about India’s central bank, which fined Amazon’s payments unit over $370,000, claiming the company was noncompliant with certain know-your-customer guidelines.

Startups and VC

While most established automotive players call the shots from sprawling, corporate palaces, Scout bases much of its operations — at least for now — out of a WeWork near Washington, D.C., Tim Stevens reports. Scout Motors’ base of operations will eventually “anchor” near the $2 billion factory in South Carolina that was announced Friday, and the company plans to bring rugged, retro cred to the EV era.

And we have five more for you:

• Oh no, madam!: Jagmeet reports that Indian startup Yes Madam exposed sensitive data of customers and gig workers.
• Looking beyond the Matrix: Prog.ai wants to help recruiters find technical talent by inferring skills from GitHub code, Paul reports.
• Hydrogen takes to the skies: Mark reports that Universal Hydrogen takes to the air with the largest hydrogen fuel cell ever to fly.
• I like what you did here: Indent raises $8.1 million of funding for its AI-powered customer video review tool, Kate reports.
• Better update those security protocols: BetterHelp owes customers $7.8 million after FTC alleges data mishandling, Amanda writes.

To fix the climate, these 10 investors are betting the house on the ocean

Image Credits: Liang Wendong/VCG (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Tapping the ocean for energy led to disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which released nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Today, wind power and wave action are just two technologies leading investors to take a closer look at ocean conservation technology, reports Tim De Chant. To learn more about the opportunities they’re chasing and to discover how climate change is shaping their investment thesis, he surveyed:

• Daniela V. Fernandez, founder and CEO of Sustainable Ocean Alliance, managing partner at Seabird Ventures
• Tim Agnew, general partner, Bold Ocean Ventures
• Peter Bryant, program director (oceans), Builders Initiative
• Kate Danaher, managing director (oceans and seafood), S2G Ventures
• Francis O’Sullivan, managing director (oceans and seafood), S2G Ventures
• Stephan Feilhauer, managing director (clean energy), S2G Ventures
• Sanjeev Krishnan, senior managing director and chief investment officer, S2G Ventures
• Rita Sousa, partner, Faber Ventures
• Christian Lim, managing director, SWEN Blue Ocean Partners
• Reece Pacheco, partner, Propeller

To fix the climate, these 10 investors are betting the house on the ocean

Three more from the TC+ team:

• AI front and center: At Upfront Summit 2023, AI is the omnipresent celebrity, Natasha M discovers.
• (Sub)stacks o’ cash: Alex wonders if perhaps Substack can grow just fine without venture dollars.
• AI for PR: Camilla Tenn argues that startup PR professionals should be jumping on the AI bandwagon.

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!

Big Tech Inc.

It was only a matter of time before another company would try to mimic what Instacart has going for it. Today that is Uber. Rebecca writes that Uber is coming for Instacart with some updates to its one-year-old Shop and Pay feature that lets delivery workers opt in to receiving trips to do grocery or other retail shopping for customers before dropping off orders at the customer’s door. “Basically, it’s Uber’s attempt to follow the Instacart model, which is working well for the incumbent grocery delivery company,” she reports.

Autonomous trucking company Embark Trucks, which went public in 2021, is now laying off about 230 workers as it explores liquidating its self-driving truck assets, Kirsten reports.

And now here’s six more for your Friday:

• Can you hear me now?: While at Mobile World Congress, Brian reports that “pretty much everyone I engaged with this week echoed the sentiment that smartphones are in a rut. For the first time, however, it’s not a foregone conclusion that there’s a way of getting out.”
• Blast off: SpaceX’s acquisition of Swarm is paying off with new Starlink thrusters, Aria writes.
• Choo choo: Natasha L has an additional morsel from Mobile World Congress, writing that the “metaverse hype was hanging like a multicolored fog.”
• Sound the alarm: The U.S. government is warning that Royal ransomware is targeting critical infrastructure, Carly reports.
• Social (media) scene: Ivan reports that Twitter Blue is now available in over 20 countries while Aisha reports that Meta has new Facebook Reels features, including expanding video length to 90 seconds.
• Oops: A government watchdog found that Secret Service and ICE conducted warrantless stingray surveillance. Zack has more.

Daily Crunch: Japanese marketing tech firm Geniee acquires Zelto for $70M by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2494701