Welcome to Startups Weekly – Haje’s weekly roundup of everything you can’t miss in the startup world. Register here to receive it in your inbox every Friday.
Look, I know this is our weekly startup newsletter, and as the most valuable company in the world, Apple is kind of the ultimate “not a startup,” but judging by the traffic on site, you’re all such rabid fans that it seems rude not to do a quick overview: Apple held a short 40-minute event this week, during which it showed off new iPad Airs, new iPad Pro (with fancy new stacked screen technology), new Magic Keyboard, new Pencil Pro, all-new M4 chips and more. Oh, and they finally “admitted” that iPads are more like small laptops than big iPhones, so the company moved the camera to the edge of the landscape – where it should have been all along, honestly .
Ooh! And I have some fun personal news: I’m joining the TechCrunch Equity podcast as a co-host, alongside the incredibly wonderful (and wonderfully awesome) Mary Ann Azevedo. You know, just in case you want my goofy humor in your ears, plus in your eyes.
Most interesting startup stories of the week
Buckle up for a wild ride as we delve into the saga of Newchip, an accelerator that promised startups a golden ticket to success but took them straight to bankruptcy court. Lacey Hunter thought she had hit the jackpot with her AI humanitarian aid startup TechAid when she joined Newchip’s program. Spoiler alert: she didn’t. Instead of speeding toward glory, Newchip filed for bankruptcy and auctioned off the warrants of more than 1,000 startups in a garage sale. And poor Hunter? She had no choice but to shut down TechAid in the middle of this hot mess.
In a spicy turn of events, Microsoft has just pressed CTRL+Z on US police departments using its Azure OpenAI service for facial recognition. This update to their terms and conditions was as subtle as a rhino in a china shop. Bottom line: If you have a badge, a handlebar mustache, and a pair of mirrored aviators, then no AI face games for you!
- Rabbit R1 isn’t supposed to be good (yet):Rabbit r1 is an AI gadget that apparently came out of the oven faster than a batch of underbaked cookies. Filled with more quirks than app integrations, this little carrot eater makes you wonder if it could have just been another app on your phone. But for now, that’s kind of the problem, Devin says.
- I have 99 problems, but technology is not one of them: Rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake have taken their feud to new heights – or should we say, depths? It’s all fun and games until Tupac is incorporated into your track.
- On your bike: On today’s episode of “How to Tank a $50 Billion Company,” Peloton, the once-glittering star of home fitness, continues its trudging march on the sad treadmill of doom. They cut 15% of their workforce (or around 400 people for those allergic to percentages), proving that mathematics is indeed a cruel mistress.
Problems in the transportation trenches
Henrik Fisker’s EV startup, Fisker Inc., is going through a bit of a mid-life crisis. After launching two prototypes last August – the Pear and the Alaska – the company is said to have put a strain on the engineering company that helped develop them. Bertrandt AG filed a $13 million lawsuit, claiming Fisker stopped payments and held on to his intellectual property like a jilted lover refusing to return his favorite sweatshirt. It appears this isn’t just an isolated case: It’s more like an episode of “Judge Judy” with more than 30 lawsuits alleging Lemon Law violations, claims for unpaid wages from former employees and suppliers suing for overdue invoices. Although Fisker’s vice president of communications insists Bertrandt’s lawsuit is “meritless,” this assortment of legal issues suggests there may be more cracks in the company than in Humpty Dumpty after his unfortunate wall incident.
- Tesla’s flirtation with lidar: Oh, the delicious irony! Elon Musk once called lidar sensors a “crutch” for self-driving cars, but Tesla is now Luminar’s main customer. The company spent so much on this supposedly useless technology that it accounted for more than 10% of Luminar’s revenue in the first quarter of 2024. That’s $2 million worth of crutches! Luminar itself, however, is in difficulty and has just laid off 20% of its staff.
- Rivian on the ropes: Here I thought my financial skills were questionable, but despite having a colossal $1.2 billion in revenue in the first quarter, they still managed to lose $1.45 billion! It seems their cost-cutting measures need a little more elbow grease before they can start dreaming of profitability.
- Hyundai breaks the bank: Meanwhile, Hyundai, in an effort to save us from the terror of our own driving abilities, shelled out nearly a billion dollars for Motional. This “generous” investment will give Hyundai majority ownership and allow this self-driving startup to continue operating (pun intended). It’s like a Cinderella story, but instead of a pumpkin that turns into a carriage, it’s your money that turns into autonomous vehicles.
The most interesting fundraisers this week
Iconiq Capital, the private firm that has held the cash of Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey since 2011, has just raised a whopping $5 billion across two funds for its seventh flagship fund. This major fundraising push puts them in the spotlight as other big players like Tiger Global tripped on their shoelaces with just $2.2 billion (their smallest amount since 2014, after sparking criticism that it was deploying his money too quickly).
- The cloud makes it rain: Alternative clouds are the new cool kids on the block, folks! CoreWeave just raised a whopping $1.1 billion and is now valued at $19 billion. For what? Because GPUs (those expensive tech powerhouses) are go-to tools for training AI models, but not everyone has deep enough pockets to buy their own.
- Let’s take a look inside: Remember the time when Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, boldly declared that radiologists would be obsolete in five years thanks to AI? Yeah… about that. Turns out we’re not there yet (shocking!). Now, having probably realized that robots aren’t ready to play doctor yet, Khosla is investing $50 million in Rad AI – a startup aiming to make radiologists’ lives easier without trying (yet) to replace them with machines.
- Expertise the roof: Itai Ben-Zaken is living proof that a failed startup is just a cha-cha in the entrepreneurial dance: he’s back with Honeycomb Insurance, leveraging AI to transform aerial photos of rooftops in property inspections for homeowners, bringing in $36 million for the company. Series B.
Other must-read TechCrunch stories…
Every week there are always a few stories I want to share with you that somehow don’t fit into the above categories. It would be a shame if you missed them, so here’s a bag of random goodies for you:
- All deepfakes, all the time: While we’re used to seeing Katy Perry dressed like an enchanted pet, this year she wasn’t even there – but you wouldn’t know that from the 10 million views that her fake image in a mossy dress received on social networks.
- Newer I saw the sun, shining so bright: So it looks like Jack Dorsey ghosted Bluesky faster than a Tinder date who just found out you own a tarantula. Mr. “I’m too cool for social media platforms” casually dropped during a conversation on X that he had left the board of his pet project, Bluesky. He didn’t even bother to give a reason or tweet a cryptic haiku about change and evolution – he simply responded with a simple no when asked if he was still a member of the board of directors. ‘administration.
- Apple’s new ad is disgusting: Apple’s latest commercial broke our hearts by literally crushing a pile of creative tools and analog objects into the form of an iPad. Oh, we get it, Apple! You say this skinny new iPad (who asked for that?) can replace all of these things, but your vision of a future without physical instruments and paper books seems pretty dystopian, and we don’t like it.
- A tail with a happy ending: In the latest episode of “Whale, Actually,” scientists spied on sperm whales with the help of machine learning. It turns out that these mammoths chatter using their own secret language! With a series of clicks (called “codas,” if you’re so inclined), the whales seem to form words and sentences that we’ve never understood before. How cool.
- LMGTFY: Stack Overflow decided to play nice with OpenAI. After initially launching ChatGPT out of fear of spammy responses, they changed their mind (or code?). They are now teaming up to improve AI responses to programming-related tasks.
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