Stripe Considers Exit, Dell Bets on the Cloud, and Shutterstock Embraces Generative AI • TechCrunch
Stripe Considers Exit, Dell Bets on the Cloud, and Shutterstock Embraces Generative AI • TechCrunch
Hey, party people, it’s Kyle, who continues to fill in for Greg to write Week in Review as he spends time with his newborn baby. I don’t know about y’all but it’s been a long time one week. I’m dead tired and grateful it’s over. But because news never sleeps, I rally with the help of a fourth cup of coffee. Wish me good luck.
I’ve spoken to your ears about it at this point, but I’m under a contractual obligation (not really, but still) to mention TechCrunch’s upcoming Early Stage 2023 event in Boston on April 20th. The one-day Startup Summit will include tips and takeaways from top experts, as well as opportunities to meet other founders and share your own entrepreneurial experiences. Don’t miss it.
Speaking 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 yet available, but will be in the near future. Sign up here for updates.
With the call to action passed (phew), here’s this week in the tech news!
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Stripe eyes an output: Mary Ann and Natasha write that fintech startup Stripe has set itself a 12-month deadline to go public, either through a direct listing or by pursuing a transaction in the private market. The payments giant was founded in 2010, so the fact that it is exploring exit routes isn’t entirely surprising. But Stripe has not been immune to the global downturn, recently laying off 14% of its staff (about 1,120 people) and reducing its internal valuation several times. In a twist, Stripe reportedly attempted to raise at least $2 billion in capital recently, according 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 as much as $100 million. The purchase comes as DevOps startups continue to attract investor attention, with venture capital funding in the sector reaching $4 billion in the second quarter of 2021, according to PitchBook.
Shutterstock embraces generative AI: In a partnership with OpenAI, the AI startup that recently attracted a multi-billion dollar investment from Microsoft, Shutterstock this week rolled out a tool that allows customers to create images based on text prompts. Powered by technology from OpenAI, specifically DALL-E 2, the tool creates “license-ready” images after they are created. This is important given that one of Shutterstock’s biggest competitors, Getty Images, is currently embroiled in a lawsuit against Stability AI – makers of another generative AI service called Stable Diffusion – for using its images to train their AI without permission from Getty or the rights holders.
The bidet brand acquires a shower start-up: Harris has the scoop on Brondell’s purchase of Nebia, the tech showerhead 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 propelled users with a fine mist while retaining up to 70% of the water that a typical showerhead sprays. Co-founder Philip Winter told TechCrunch this week that Nebia’s products, including those made with Moen, have reached more than 100,000 homes.
An AI maestro, never before seen: An impressive new AI system from Google can generate music in any genre with text description. But the company, fearing the risks, does not intend to release him immediately. Called MusicLM, the system was trained on a dataset of 280,000 hours of music to learn how to generate consistent songs for descriptions such as “enchanting jazz song with a memorable saxophone solo and lead vocalist” or “Techno 90s Berlin with low and strong bass”. kick.” His songs, remarkably, sound like a human artist might compose, but not necessarily as inventive or musically cohesive.
No rest for Musk’s Twitter: Owner of Twitter and self-proclaimed “free speech absolutistElon Musk is facing a legal challenge in Germany over how the platform would not enforce its own rules against anti-Semitic content, including Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany – which has strict laws prohibiting anti-Semitic hate speech – making the Berlin court a key arena to hear such a challenge.For his part, Musk has repeatedly asserted that Twitter will abide by all laws of the countries where it operates, including European speech laws, although he has yet to comment publicly on this specific lawsuit.
Text until you drop: Walmart recently introduced a new way to shop via chatbot. Sarah I tried and found the experience leaves a lot to be desired. She writes, “It felt like the process of ordering a few basic items had become an ordeal and took a lot longer than the traditional method of searching the Walmart app and adding items to cart. If conversational commerce like this is the future, I’d say it’s still a work in progress.
Flutter to the future: Flutter, Google’s open-source framework for building cross-platform apps for mobile, web, and desktop, is making good progress. Frederic writes that at a recent conference, the tech giant highlighted the latest version of Flutter, which brings dramatically improved graphics performance, the ability to more easily embed Flutter code into existing web and mobile apps, and support for new architectures such as WebAssembly and RISC-V.
audio tour
For your listening pleasure, TechCrunch has a crop of compelling new podcast episodes in the queue (as it does every week, might I add). At Equity, the team took the mic to talk about deals of the week, the departure of the CEO of All Raise, what Google’s antitrust lawsuit means for startups, the impact of the downturn on how companies are hiring and why femtech stood out in 2022. On Found, Darrell and Beca were joined by Klarna co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski to talk about how the company is growing beyond buy it now, pay later space to become a neobank. And TC’s crypto-focused chain reaction spotlighted Mo Shaikh, co-founder and CEO of layer-1 blockchain Aptos, which builds infrastructure for Web3 applications and products.
Tech Crunch+
TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and polls – which you know if you’re already one. If not, consider signing up. I doubt you will regret it. Check out this week’s highlights:
Salesforce under siege: Salesforce finds itself under threat from activist investor Elliott Management, which has announced it is taking a multi-billion dollar position in the CRM leader. Ron examines what could be next for Salesforce as the company seeks to cut costs and potentially sell off unprofitable parts of the organization.
The energy transition is winning 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 have invested $1.11 trillion in low-carbon technologies, just over 30% more than in 2021 and the second year consecutive year in which the growth rate has exceeded this figure.
Increased control: Rebecca writes that startups should expect more scrutiny from VCs over their hiring plans. Startups went on a hiring spree in 2021 as venture capital cash flowed in and the job market was hot. But many abused the talent pool and then had to make major cuts and layoffs in 2022.
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