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Fri-yay Crunch!
We are very excited that Disrupt 2023 will have an entire stage dedicated to fintech. And while we’re talking about events… There are only a few hours left to save $200 on TC Early Stage tickets in Boston in a couple of weeks, so buy your tickets while you can!
On that note, enjoy your weekend! — christina and The wine
TechCrunch Top 3
- Italy kicks ChatGPT: The government of Italy has been on a lockdown kick lately. A few days ago, we wrote about a possible ban on cultured meat, and today Italy wants to block ChatGPT, citing data protection concerns. Natasha L. writes that the country’s data protection authority is opening an investigation into whether OpenAI is violating the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.
- Groupon Gets Your Czech Book: ingrid reports that Groupon has lost 99.4% of its value since going public and now has a new CEO who will run the business from the Czech Republic.
- Jio gets going: manish writes that Mukesh Ambani, CEO of Indian streaming giant Jio, sees the Indian Premier League cricket tournament as “the perfect opportunity to revamp Jio’s service adoption strategy, even as the company recognizes that cricket broadcasting will not make a profit for several years.”
Startups and VCs
What do you do when you have a very successful and popular product (marijuana) that is legal in some places, but federally has been a Schedule 1 drug since 1970? Well, you can’t trust any national institution as your business partner, The wine reports. One of the main places it shows up is in payments and payment processing; even after recreational cannabis became legal in 21 states and decriminalized in another dozen or so, cannabis has largely become a cash business. In an increasingly cashless world, that’s a problem for both consumers and businesses. Smoakland is currently testing a loophole that allows its customers to pay by credit card. It turns out that the secret is cryptography.
Need something else to get you through the long, grim “less-tech news” gap known as the weekend? Don’t worry family, we have:
Yes, of course, the YC winter class is packed with AI companies.
Image Credits: fake images
Just over a third of budding startups in the latest Y Combinator class say “they are an AI company or use AI in some way,” reports Rebecca Szkutak.
“YC companies cannot be blamed for leaning on AI,” he writes. “If you saw VCs pouring dollars, in a tougher fundraising market, no less, into a technology like AI that you could implement in your own business, why wouldn’t you?”
Three more from the TC+ team:
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps start-up founders and teams get ahead of the rest. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” to get 15% off an annual subscription!
big tech inc
Checkout.com has a new president who recently spoke with maria anna on being optimistic about a US expansion and how he “welcomes” comparisons to Stripe. Céline Dufétel says of the payments industry this year: “Now more than ever, amid the uncertain economic landscape, CFOs and heads of payments are reducing the impact of payments on growth and top-line profitability. Increasingly, business leaders are recognizing the measurable impact of high-performance payment systems in maximizing acceptance rates, minimizing costly fraud concerns, and reducing operational costs.”
And we have five more for you:
