Tech Guest Posts

Soon after launching Ocho, a startup offering personal finance support for business owners, Ankur Nagpal realized that the company’s debut product – a solo 401(k) retirement account – “is not a venture-backed business” in and of itself. Despite landing nearly 300 customers with that initial wedge, the entrepreneur is already focused on broadening the service […].

Given the rising interest in generative AI tools like text-based ChatGPT and image-based Midjourney, AI-powered apps are growing in numbers and popularity in both app stores. A report by analytics firm Apptopia suggests that 158 AI Chatbot apps — with the description having keywords like “AI Chat” or “AI Chatbot” — hit the app stores […].

I’m excited to announce the co-founder and CEO of Habi, Brynne McNulty Rojas, is joining me on an extra-special edition of TechCrunch Live on April 12 at 12 p.m. PDT. Brynne leads the hot real estate startup out of Colombia, which reached unicorn status last year with a $200 million raise. The topic is uncertainty. […].

Sophie Alcorn Contributor Share on Twitter Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Ask Sophie: How […].

Founded in 2015, MindX was created to address the lack of coding in Vietnamese school curriculums. The startup’s goal is to create “small Silicon Valleys” across Vietnam, with educational centers that help prepare students of all ages for careers in tech. Since TechCrunch covered MindX’s seed funding in November 2021, it’s tripled its geographical coverage […].

Tom Warren / The Verge: Nvidia RTX 4070 review: the most affordable RTX 40-series GPU yet at $599 with solid 1440p performance, but only 12GB of VRAM and struggles with 4K gaming  —  The RTX 4070 is the most affordable RTX 40-series GPU yet, with solid 1440p performance. … I could end this Nvidia RTX […].

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Intel Foundry Services partners with Arm to build low-power SoCs, giving customers using Arm’s designs access to Intel’s A18 process to make their chips  —  Intel Corp. said today its Intel Foundry Services business unit is partnering with the British chip design firm Arm Ltd … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/K7Tt9v6.

Financial Times: Sources: Thoma Bravo missed out on acquiring Qualtrics, which sold to Silver Lake and CPP for $12.5B in March, due to fears over a US antitrust investigation  —  Qualtrics eventually sold for $12.5bn to Silver Lake and CPP in largest leveraged buyout of year from Techmeme https://ift.tt/EhPiH9f.

Danielle Abril / Washington Post: PitchBook: Silicon Valley startups raised $74.9B in 2022, the lowest US share since 2012, followed by NYC’s $29.5B; Miami grew 278% from 2020-2022 to $5.39B  —  Layoffs, remote work and pandemic-era changes are reshaping where workers live and tech gets made. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/JbWK8XY.

Yueqi Yang / Bloomberg: Filings: FTX lawyers are exploring tax issues around rebooting FTX, billing $13.5M in February for recovering assets, exploring “long-term options”, and more  —  Whether FTX’s new chief executive officer actually pushes forward with an effort to restart the bankrupt crypto exchange, its lawyers are billing it for the job. from Techmeme […].

Small businesses in Latin America got another boost in lending support with the investment of $4 million in Kala, a Colombia-based company building fintech infrastructure for lending. The company, co-founded by Manuel Alemán, Rodolfo Lazo and Paul Cattólica in 2022, is developing a vertical SaaS product for institutions, like banks and credit unions, that want […].

It’s no secret that OpenAI’s viral AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, can be prompted to say sexist, racist and pretty vile things. But now, researchers have discovered how to consistently get the chatbot to be . . . well, the worst version of itself. A study co-authored by scientists at the Allen Institute for AI, the nonprofit […].

As Gen Z turns into their early-to-mid 20s, a new generation of business owners is coming online. Many of these new entrepreneurs do the vast majority of work on their phones. This is especially true in emerging markets like Latin America, where SMEs comprise 99.5% of firms in the region. In Mexico, for instance, 97.4% […].

Want to make a founder’s day, week, month, and possibly career? Then you’ll want to refer the top early-stage startups in your portfolio/pipeline Rolodex to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2023! TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200 is the world’s preeminent competition for early-stage startups. It’s also the absolute best way for an entrepreneur to get the […].

The march toward an open source ChatGPT-like AI continues. Today, Databricks released Dolly 2.0, a text-generating AI model that can power apps like chatbots, text summarizers and basic search engines. It’s the successor to the first-generation Dolly, which was released in late March. And — importantly — it’s licensed to allow independent developers and companies […].

FTX took $250 billion worth of crypto down with it when it fell. And while we can only speculate about what a Binance crash would do to the market, a $250 billion loss would be a drop in the ocean. from Techpoint Africa https://ift.tt/KeOZroY.

Megan Graham / Wall Street Journal: IAC and PwC: 2022 US digital ad revenue rose 10.8% YoY to $209.7B, down from 35% growth in 2021; social media ad revenue rose 3.6% YoY, down from ~39% in 2021  —  Headwinds from the economy and privacy protections were offset by growth in areas such as retail ad […].

Hannah Miller / Bloomberg: PitchBook: global VC funding for crypto startups fell to $2.4B in Q1 2023, down 80% from an all-time high of $12.3B in Q1 2022 and the lowest level since 2020  —  Venture capitalists are continuing to pull back from crypto, an industry that’s been plagued by scandals, a market downturn and […].

As the collapses of Signature Bank and Silvergate sent crypto companies scrambling, a virtual bank from Hong Kong is extending a warm welcome to web3 startups. Hong Kong-based ZA Bank is now allowed to serve as the settlement bank for regulated web3 companies in the city, the company said today at Hong Kong’s web3 festival, an […].

Elon Musk gave a rare interview to an actual reporter late on Tuesday, speaking to BBC reporter James Clayton on Twitter Spaces. During the interview, Clayton pressed Musk on whether his purchase of Twitter was, in the end, something he went through with willingly, or whether it was something he did because the active court […].