Hi party people, I’m Kyle, who continues to fill in for Greg to write Week in Review as he spends time with his newborn. I don’t know about you, but it’s been one week. I’m dead tired and glad it’s over. But since the news never sleeps, I recover with the help of a fourth cup of coffee. Wish me luck.
I’ve talked a lot about this right now, but I’m contractually obligated (not really, but still) to mention TechCrunch’s upcoming Early Stage 2023 event in Boston on April 20. The one-day startup summit will include tips and insights from top experts, plus opportunities to meet fellow founders and share your own entrepreneurial experiences. Do not miss it.
On the subject of travel, it’s not too early to start thinking about this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, which will take place at the end of September in San Francisco. Tickets are not available yet, but will be in the near future. Sign up here to receive updates.
With the call to action out of the way (phew), here it is this week in tech news!
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Stripe eyes a way out: maria anna Y Natasha writes that fintech startup Stripe has set itself a 12-month deadline to go public, either through a direct listing or through a private market transaction. The payments giant was founded in 2010, so the fact that it’s exploring exit routes isn’t entirely surprising. But Stripe hasn’t been immune to the global recession, recently laying off 14% of its staff (about 1,120 people) and cutting its internal valuation multiple times. In a twist, Stripe reportedly tried to raise at least $2 billion in capital recently, according to to the Wall Street Journal.
Dell bets on the cloud: ingrid reports that Dell is making an acquisition to bolster its cloud services business, specifically its DevOps offering. the company is buying cloudify, an Israeli startup that has built a platform for cloud orchestration and infrastructure automation, sources say for up to $100 million. The purchase comes as DevOps startups continue to attract investor attention, with venture funding in the sector reaching $4 billion in Q2 2021. according to to PitchBook.
Shutterstock Embraces Generative AI: As part of a partnership with OpenAI, the AI startup that recently attracted a multi-million dollar investment from Microsoft, Shutterstock this week launched a tool that allows clients to create images based on text messages. Powered by OpenAI technology, specifically DALL-E 2, the tool creates images that are “license ready” once created. That’s significant given that one of Shutterstock’s biggest competitors, Getty Images, is currently involved in a lawsuit against Stability AI, creator of another generative AI service called Stable Diffusion, for using their images to train their AI without permission from Getty or the rights holders.
The bidet brand buys the start-up of showers: harry has the scoop on the purchase of Nebia by Brondell, the showerhead tech startup backed by Apple CEO Tim Cook and a host of other big names, including Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia. Nebia stood out when it launched with expensive nozzles that sprayed users with a fine mist while conserving up to 70% of the water a typical shower sprays. Co-founder Philip Winter told TechCrunch this week that Nebia’s products, including those he made with Moen, have reached more than 100,000 homes.
A Master of AI, Unpublished: An impressive new AI system from Google can generate music in any genre with a text description. But the company, fearing the risks, has no immediate plans to launch it. I call musicLM, the system was trained on a data set of 280,000 hours of music to learn how to generate consistent songs for descriptions such as “lovely jazz song with a memorable saxophone solo and lead singer” or “90s Berlin techno with a low bass and a strong kick.” ”His songs, remarkably, sound like a human artist could compose, though not necessarily as inventive or musically cohesive.
No rest for Musk’s Twitter: Owner of Twitter and self-proclaimed “freedom of expression absolutistElon Musk is facing a legal challenge in Germany over how the platform allegedly fails to enforce its own rules against anti-Semitic content, including Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany, which has strict laws banning anti-Semitic hate speech, making the Berlin court a compelling arena to hear such a challenge. For his part, Musk has repeatedly asserted that Twitter will abide by all laws of the countries in which it operates, including European speech laws, though he has yet to comment publicly on this specific lawsuit.
Text till you drop: Walmart recently introduced a new way to shop via chatbot. Sarah I gave it a try and found that the experience leaves a lot to be desired. She writes: “It seemed like the process of ordering a few basic things had become ordeal and had taken much longer than the traditional method of browsing the Walmart app and adding things to the cart. If conversational commerce like this is the future, I’d say it’s still a work in progress.”
I flutter into the future: FlutterGoogle’s open source framework for building cross-platform apps for mobile, web, and desktop, is doing great. Frederick writes that at a recent conference, the tech giant highlighted the latest version of Flutter, which brings vastly improved graphics performance, the ability to more easily integrate Flutter code into existing web and mobile apps, and support for new architectures like WebAssembly and RISC-V.
audio summary
For your listening pleasure, TechCrunch has a crop of compelling new podcast episodes waiting (as is the case on a weekly basis, I might add). Upon EquityThe team took to the mic to talk about the deals of the week, the CEO’s departure from All Raise, what Google’s antitrust lawsuit means for startups, how the recession has affected the way companies are hiring, and why. femtech stood out in 2022. found, darrell Y Scholarship joined Klarna co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski to discuss how the company is expanding beyond the buy now pay later space to become a neobank. And TC focused on crypto Chain reaction noted Mo Shaikh, co-founder and CEO of layer 1 blockchain Aptos, which is building infrastructure for web3 applications and products.
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TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth feedback, analysis, and surveys, which you know if you’re already one. If you’re not, consider signing up. I doubt you’ll regret it. Just take a look at this week’s highlights:
Salesforce under wins: Salesforce is under threat from activist investor Elliott Management, which has announced it would take a multi-billion dollar position in the CRM leader. Ron examines what might be next for Salesforce as the company looks to cut costs and potentially sell off unprofitable parts of the organization.
The energy transition is a winner with investors: Tim looks at investments in the energy transition, which took off last year. Businesses, financial institutions, governments and end-users around the world invested $1.11 trillion in low-carbon technologies, just over 30% more than in 2021 and the second year in a row that the rate growth exceeded that figure.
Increased scrutiny: Rebeca he writes that startups should expect increased scrutiny from venture capitalists in their hiring plans. Startups embarked on a hiring spree in 2021 as venture capital cash flowed and the job market was on the rise. But many overreached the talent pool and then had to make big cuts and layoffs in 2022.
