TechCrunch Startup News

Machine learning has quickly gone from niche field to crucial component of innumerable software stacks, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The tools needed to create and manage it are enterprise-grade and often enterprise-only — but Determined AI aims to make them more accessible than ever by open-sourcing its entire AI infrastructure product. The company […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Fund, an early-stage investment firm with a memorably straightforward name, is looking beyond New York City as it starts investing its second fund. Founders Jenny Fielding (who’s also managing director at Techstars New York) and Scott Hartley (also co-founder and partner at Two Culture Capital) told me that in the past two years, they’ve […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet Biloba, a French startup that wants to leverage tech to make it easier to keep your children healthy. The company recently launched a new mobile app that lets you chat with a doctor whenever you want between 8 AM and 8 PM. This way, if you have questions about your kids, you can get […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Continuing our week’s coverage of new venture funds, this morning let’s dig into Kickstart’s latest capital pool. Kickstart Seed Fund, based in Utah’s Salt Lake City, has raised a $110 million Fund V it announced this morning, its largest to date. The firm’s rise to investing prominence has largely coincided with Utah’s own emergence as a […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mojo Vision’s technology still felt early-stage when we met with them back at CES. But the demos we did see were enough to convince us that there really could be something to the California startup’s smart content lens technology. Clearly we weren’t alone in that. The company just announced that it has raised more than […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More than 150 investors and entrepreneurs in India are funding dozens of projects in a bid to help millions better combat the COVID-19 epidemic and help the nation’s booming startup ecosystem withstand the economic devastation it has caused. The investors said they have contributed 1 billion Indian rupees — or $13 million — of their […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), has put together a new, $750 million fund to invest in both Europe and North America. The capital vehicle is larger than the group’s preceding European and North American funds combined. In 2019 OMERS Ventures announced a €300 million fund Europe-focused […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We weren’t alone in being impressed by Motiv. The startup helped flip the script on wearables by essentially cramming a fitness tracker’s worth of technology into a ring. This week, San Francisco ‘digital identity’ startup Proxy that it’s acquiring the company. The company’s site is littered in buzzwords, but Proxy specializes in digital key cards […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Divergent, the Los Angeles-based startup aiming to revolutionize vehicle manufacturing, has cut about one-third of its staff amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has upended startups and major corporations alike. The company, which employed about 160 people, laid off 57 workers, according to documents filed with the California Employment Development Department. Founder and CEO Kevin Czinger […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If we continue to view the USPS as simply a balance sheet and optimize for profitability in a vacuum, we ultimately stand to lose far more than we gain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices