Rad Power Bikes faces closure in January without new funding
Rad Power Bikes has told employees it will close in January if it can’t find new funding or be acquired, according to internal staff emails seen by TechCrunch. In an email from Rad Power’s Human Resources team, the company’s management team is “still fighting to find a way to continue” and that “closing Rad is […]
Founder says AI PowerPoint killer Gamma is valued at $2.1 billion, with ARR of $100 million
Gamma, a startup that creates AI-generated presentations, websites, and social media posts, on Monday announced a $68 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz at a valuation of $2.1 billion. Co-founder and CEO Grant Lee posted on X that the company had 70 million users and $100 million in ARR, making it profitable. Lee […]
Wikipedia asks AI companies to stop using paid APIs and scraping
Wikipedia on Monday laid out a simple plan to ensure its website continues to be supported in the AI era, despite declining traffic. In a blog post, the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the popular online encyclopedia, called on AI developers to use their content “responsibly” by ensuring their contributions are properly attributed and accessed through […]
Consolidation begins to impact carbon credit markets
Carbon management startup Carbon Direct has acquired another carbon credit startup, Pachama, the companies announced today. Pachama laid off about 20 employees this summer as a result of the voluntary carbon market softening. The company had attracted investment from a variety of celebrities, including Amazon’s Climate Pledge, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, and prominent angel […]
Why so many people get hacked by government spyware
For more than a decade, makers of government spyware have defended themselves from criticism by insisting that their surveillance technology is intended to be used only against serious criminals and terrorists and in limited cases. However, evidence gathered from dozens, if not hundreds, of documented cases of spyware abuse around the world shows that none […]
6Sense founder Amanda Carlow raises $30 million for new human-replacement AI sales startup 1Mind
LLM-powered AI agents are a fairly new phenomenon, but one of the most popular areas so far is sales. 1Mind, a startup co-founded by Amanda Carlow, has been quietly shipping a reseller named Mindy for about a year. On Monday, the startup announced a $30 million Series A round led by Battery Ventures. This brings […]
Scribe, working to show where AI really pays dividends, hits $1.3 billion valuation
After helping several companies document how work actually gets done, Scribe raised $75 million at a $1.3 billion post-money valuation to deploy Scribe Optimize. Scribe Optimize is a platform that maps workflows across your enterprise to reveal where automation and AI actually generate benefits, rather than becoming new sunk costs. The all-stock Series C round […]
Blue Origin cancels second New Glenn launch, will try again on November 12th
Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin canceled the second launch of its New Glenn megarocket scheduled for Sunday afternoon, citing weather concerns, some minor issues with launch pad equipment and at least one cruise ship coming too close to the flight path. The company announced late Sunday that it would try again to launch New […]
Slow Ventures hosts a ‘finishing school’ to help founders learn to be fancy
This week, Slow Ventures hosted a three-hour “Etiquette Polishing School,” covering topics like the perfect handshake, public speaking, and office etiquette. There was a fashion show where models showed off different looks in different scenes, followed by a closing lesson on caviar and wine. Hundreds of founders applied to the free program, held at the […]
Blue Origin cancels second New Glenn launch due to weather and cruise ship traffic
Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin canceled the second launch of its New Glenn megarocket scheduled for Sunday afternoon, citing weather concerns, some minor problems with launch pad equipment and at least one cruise ship coming too close to the flight path. It was not immediately clear when the company would try again to launch […]