Aye Finance Receives $37 Million in Funding from UK International Investment

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Aye Finance, an Indian startup that provides a digital lending platform for small businesses, continues to help small businesses grow their businesses and increase incomes for their employees, with $37.18 million in new funding round led by British International Investment was procured.

The Series F round brings Aye’s total funding to nearly $200 million and includes participation from Waterfield Fund of Funds and the startup’s existing investor A91 Partners. In 2020, the startup raised $27.5 million in a Series E funding round led by Alphabet’s CapitalG.

Founded in 2014, I agree — which means “Yes” in English and “Income” in Hindi — is a term used by underserved businesses that find it difficult to secure the necessary working capital from traditional lenders such as banks. We provide business loans in the form of mortgages, temporary security, and term credit to small and medium-sized enterprises. The startup uses a combination of in-house technology and analytics to offer a variety of financial solutions based on a company’s needs.

To date, the 10-year-old company claims to have provided more than $959 million in loans to more than 700,000 unorganized businesses. The company competes with companies such as Capital Float, Lendingkart and Indifi, which are working on providing credit to small and medium-sized enterprises in South Asia.

One of the main reasons why startups like Aye Finance are gaining enough traction in India is the lack of credit for small and medium enterprises.

India has over 63 million MSMEs. To contribute According to government data, it accounts for nearly 30% of gross domestic product, more than 43% of all exports, and employs more than 123 million people. The government considers the importance of these companies to the country’s overall growth and has introduced a number of initiatives to ease credit requirements. However, some small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are struggling to find funding to start and sustain their operations because the eligibility requirements for government systems and programs do not match their business model or size, or involve lengthy processes. I still find it difficult to procure. Startups like Aye are capitalizing on that gap by offering credit through their platforms.

“We believe there is tremendous potential in lending to underserved and small businesses, and the new capital is a strong complement to our complex story.” said Sanjay Sharma, co-founder, MD and CEO of Aye Finance, in a prepared statement.

“Aye Finance is on a growth path and we are pleased to partner with BII, which has a deep understanding of India’s financial services sector. It’s proof.”

Headquartered in Gurugram and present in 22 states through 395 offices, the start-up manages assets of over $959 million and generated over $9.59 million after tax in the first six months of FY24. He says it has brought benefits.

“Our investment in Aye Finance confirms our commitment to backing companies with strong philosophies that impact development and fostering financial inclusion for underserved groups in India. The i team stands out for its dedication and experience in delivering scalable technology-enabled financial solutions,” said Gaurav Malhotra, Director, UK International Investment Financial Services.

Source: techcrunch.com

FCC Denies $885 Million in Starlink Grants

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

The F.C.C. Starlink’s $885 million application finally rejected Despite spending public money to expand orbital communications infrastructure that covers parts of rural America, the company said it “has not been able to demonstrate that it can deliver the services it promised.”

As previously reported, the funds in question were part of the Provincial Digital Opportunity Fund. It’s a multibillion-dollar program that subsidizes the deployment of Internet service in areas where private companies have previously found it too expensive or remote. The $885 million was first set aside for Starlink in 2020, in response to the company’s bid to provide how much connectivity to which regions and at what cost.

The FCC explained that this initial application is high-level and short-term, and those who qualify will be subject to close scrutiny. For example, one organization that was allocated more than $1 billion in funding turned out to be a regional effort that was unable to scale as hoped.

In Starlink’s case, last summer’s proposal for satellite internet showed promise, but it turned out to be a “developing technology” that would require users to purchase a $600 dish. Most people wouldn’t pay that much for a year’s internet bill. Therefore, given the target audience of under-resourced people, this should be seriously considered. (In fact, the FCC considered not allowing orbital carriers to apply, but decided to let them compete on their own merits.)

This was in addition to “numerous financial and technical deficiencies” that authorities identified in the proposal and the company’s operations. This is not to say that this is a poorly run company that provides excellent service to some, but for the purpose of this auction and winning bid, there were serious questions:

After reviewing all information submitted by Starlink, the Bureau ultimately determined that Starlink would have a network of the scope, size, and scale necessary to serve 642,925 model locations in 35 states. We concluded that the company had not demonstrated a reasonable ability to meet RDOF’s requirements to deploy. That was the winning bidder.

Starlink called for a review of the decision, arguing among other things that the decision was made on the basis of “inappropriately burdensome criteria,” as is their right in this situation. (Apparently, the relevant parts have been edited in the latest version) order) claimed that although short-term tests showed a drop in speed and other metrics, the company has plans to launch more satellites and will be able to expand its network as claimed. It also relied on the promise of SpaceX’s super-heavy rocket Starship as proof of its claims.

However, the FCC notes that:

At the time of the station’s decision, Starship had not yet been launched.Certainly even today [i.e. over a year later], Starship has not yet been successfully launched. All attempted launches failed. Based on Starlink’s previous claims regarding plans to launch second-generation satellites via Starship and the information available at the time, [Wireline Competition] In making prospective judgments regarding Starlink’s ability to meet its RDOF obligations, the Secretariat necessarily considered the inability to continue to successfully launch Starship rockets.

A footnote notes that it was only after the denial was issued that SpaceX announced it would not use Starship after all for the second generation of Starlink satellites.

Fundamentally, they recognized the benefits of this approach, but were not 100% convinced that this was the best use of the lion’s share of $1 billion. Probably in the next fund.

Two Republican FCC commissioners, Brendan Carr and Nathan Symington, opposed the decision. Simington is probably correct in pointing out that “many RDOF recipients never deployed service at any speed or in any location,” while Starlink had service to 500,000 subscribers at the time of its rejection. many of which were in areas not served by other broadband options. He dismissed the launch issue as a ploy of the agency’s “motivated reasoning.”

Carr calls this politics. “After Elon Musk took over Twitter and used it to express his political and ideological views without filter, President Biden gave federal agencies the green light to pursue him… Elon Musk I became a ‘progressive enemy.’” No. 1. Today’s decision certainly fits the Biden administration’s pattern of regulatory harassment. ”

Of course, Starlink’s denial was made long before its acquisition and subsequent downfall of Elon Musk (what was he doing?), and the FCC is here today to reaffirm its case. It is not a new announcement. That’s quite a factual error.

Both prove that their faith in Starlink may or may not be misplaced. But given that $885 million is at stake, the FCC’s decision to err on the side of caution makes sense if it does so at all. Funds will be donated to other applicants and programs.

Although this money did not actually go to Starlink, the loss of income (or whatever such awards are classified as monetary) is not easy to endure. However, the company probably knows that the appeal of this decision will be difficult and has not counted on this funding for quite some time.

Although the company is not profitable, it recently reached what CEO Elon Musk calls “breakeven cash flow.” True, its revenues have soared (from about $222 million to $1.4 billion), but the significant operational costs of building and launching the satellites needed to serve thousands of new customers It took. The company, which has missed predictions for several years that it would be in the billions of dollars by now, has at least convincingly demonstrated its capabilities both at home and in war.

Maybe they don’t need that $885 million after all. The Pentagon’s money is just as green.

Source: techcrunch.com

Federal Authorities Push for Introducing Drunk-Driving Prevention Technology in Cars, But Face Challenges

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

The in-vehicle technology used by Ford, GM and others to ensure drivers pay attention to the road has come a long way. However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it is still not enough to prevent or reduce the harm caused by drunk driving.

This assessment is included throughout the agency’s new 99-page Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. released Tuesday was a pit stop of sorts on the way to enacting regulations that would require in-vehicle technology to recognize when a driver has been drinking.

NHTSA is currently seeking assistance in determining what technology should be incorporated into vehicles to completely reduce or prevent this problem, in part because NHTSA has no commercially available options. states that it does not exist. After the notice is published in the Federal Register, the public has 60 days to submit comments.

NHTSA says it evaluated 331 driver monitoring systems and found no commercially available systems that adequately handle the identification of alcohol impairment. The magazine noted that there are three DMS systems that claim to detect alcohol-induced impairment, but said they are still in the research and development stage. (We did not reveal the names of those systems.)

However, driver monitoring is not the only option at NHTSA’s disposal. NHTSA embarked on this mission after President Biden ordered the agency to find a solution in 2021 with bipartisan infrastructure legislation. The act charged NHTSA with developing federal motor vehicle safety standards that could determine whether a driver is impaired by passively monitoring the driver. Or it could be by passively (and accurately) detecting whether the blood alcohol concentration is too high, or a combination of both.

Accuracy is key, and NHTSA findings suggest that blood alcohol detection technology is a more viable solution in the short term. After all, dozens of states already require breathalyzer-based alcohol ignition interlocks for repeat offenders or high-BAC offenders. However, this technology is considered ‘active’, meaning that drivers must actively engage with it, which is contrary to the law’s passive requirement.

There may be another option.

Since 2008, NHTSA has been working with the Alliance for Automobile Traffic Safety (ACTS) on a public-private partnership called Driver Alcohol Sensing Systems for Safety (DADSS). As part of that program, DADSS has developed both breath-based and contact-based methods to detect driver impairment. Breath-based methods are also considered active and therefore non-starters, while touch sensors are designed to be embedded in something the driver needs to touch to operate the vehicle (such as a push-start button). NHTSA has “preliminarily determined that such touch sensors may be considered passive.”

ACTS CEO Robert Strassberger said he believes touch sensors may be the best option in the short term, given the technology’s limitations in being passive. He wants to know what the public thinks.

“That’s going to be one of the areas of interest for me when I read the comments that are ultimately submitted. How do people feel about it? Will it ultimately be accepted by consumers? It depends,” he says. “I think one of the things we definitely want to avoid doing is asking drivers to learn a new way of interacting with their cars.”

Timing is critical. Not only does drunk driving kill thousands of people each year and cost the country billions of dollars, final regulations need to be standardized by November 2024.

Judging by the number of questions NHTSA raises in its notice, achieving this goal may be difficult. The agency is raising all sorts of thorny questions, as well as seeking further comment on driver monitoring and the definition of “passive.” For example, if the start/stop button has a touch sensor, how does it know that the driver is pressing it? If the system determines that the driver is too drunk to start the car, Should you prevent your car from starting? What if the driver is trying to escape a wildfire?

“This is very complex rulemaking,” Strassberger said. “There are a lot of details that the agency needs to get right.”

Source: techcrunch.com

Rage and frustration sparked by COP28 draft excluding fossil fuel phase-out

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

DUBAI, UAE – A draft COP28 climate change agreement that does not include a phase-out of fossil fuels has drawn widespread criticism from key stakeholders, highlighting deep-seated rifts on the final day of the international summit. There is.

The document, released by the United Arab Emirates, which hosts the climate summit, emphasized the need to reduce emissions but did not call for a complete phase-out of fossil fuels. Scientists believe that fossil fuels the single biggest factor Contributing to potentially life-threatening climate change.

Representatives from the United States, the European Union and countries vulnerable to climate change, including many in Africa and the Pacific Islands, have issued dire warnings about the draft agreement, putting it at odds with many oil-producing countries.

Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s chief negotiator for COP28, told reporters that the draft was “clearly inadequate and inadequate to address the issues we need to address here.”

“It’s not because we want it, it’s not because the minister or I want it, it’s not because the Europeans want it,” Hoekstra said. “Because scientists clearly understand what is needed, and at the top of that list is the phasing out of fossil fuels. [correlation] Between doing so and ensuring we have the planet, we rescue people from danger. ”

Wopke Hoekstra, EU Commissioner for Climate Change.
Peter DeJong/Associated Press

US climate change envoy John Kerry expressed similar concerns, saying: Significant reductions are expected over the next 10 years. ”

“This is a war for survival,” he added.

The combustion of coal, oil, and gas accounts for more than three-quarters of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. This is why so many people asked for the results of COP28 to show that “We are truly at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.”

However, COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber said: faced a backlash last week He insisted there was “no science” behind calls to phase out fossil fuels and that such a move would not enable sustainable development “unless we want the world to go back into caves”. .

In response to the subsequent outcry, Jaber, who is also the chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), said his team “very much believes in and respects science.”

A COP28 spokesperson told CNBC at the time that Al-Jaber was “steadfast” in saying that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires action across many regions and sectors.

“We consider that there are elements in this document that are completely unacceptable,” Spain’s Minister of Environmental Transition, Teresa Rivera, told reporters after Monday’s publication of the draft, adding: “We believe there are elements in this document that are completely unacceptable.” How can we move forward in this important decade in the energy sector? ”

“I think it’s good to be clear about what we really want to create in this COP that the world needs, and whether we want this COP to create what it’s supposed to be: a turning point in the fight against climate change. ” she said. Added.

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Verbock said the text was misleading. “In this critical decade, there is a complete lack of need to urgently replace and reduce fossil fuels in the power sector. The language on coal is inconsistent with EU energy policy, and the construction of new coal-fired power plants is completely absent. “is tolerated,” she said.

“Above all, the context around fossil fuels is misleading the world. This suggests that fossils may continue to play a significant role in our future. and send a misleading signal to the market.”

The draft document outlines several options for countries to reduce emissions, including “to achieve net zero by, or before, 2050. It includes “reducing both the consumption and production of fossil fuels in a fair, orderly and equitable manner.”

COP28 President Jaber said on Monday that the nearly 200 countries taking part in the talks “still have a lot of work to do”.

“Progress is needed on many areas, including the language on fossil fuels,” he said, calling for “more flexibility” from stakeholders.

The UAE is a member of the powerful oil producing group OPEC and is among the top 10 oil producing countries in the world.

Natasha Tulak, CNBC

Natasha Tulak is a correspondent for CNBC.

Sam Meredith, CNBCcontributed.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

True Anomaly secures $100 million in funding for the expansion of space security technology

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

true anomaly has closed $100 million in new funding, a strong signal that the appetite for startups operating at the intersection of space and defense is not slowing down.

The new round was led by Riot Ventures with participation from Eclipse, ACME Capital, Menlo Ventures, Narya, 645 Ventures, Rocketship.vc, Champion Hill Ventures, and FiveNine Ventures. The funds will be used to continue expanding all parts of the business, according to a press release.

True Anomaly aims to fill critical gaps in space situational awareness and defensive operations through software and hardware, including a line of autonomous reconnaissance and tracking spacecraft called Jackals. These vehicles are equipped with an array of sensors and cameras to track, monitor, and collect data on objects in space. On the software side, the company is developing an integrated operating platform called Mosaic that will eventually be able to work in conjunction with the Jackal in orbit.

In a previous interview with TechCrunch, True Anomaly CEO Even Rogers pointed to a significant “information asymmetry” between the United States and its adversaries in space. Jackal, Mosaic, and the company’s other efforts in space domain awareness aim to fill that gap.

Founded in 2022 by a quartet of former Space Force members, the startup is rapidly moving towards this goal. During the company’s first full year of business, he opened his 35,000 square foot facility in Centennial, Colorado and doubled his headcount to more than 100 people.

In September, True Anomaly won a $17.4 million contract from the U.S. Space Force to help warfighters find and track objects in space, characterize those objects, and use artificial intelligence to predict changes in space. The agreement was signed to build a suite of space domain awareness capabilities, including prediction and identification. Object behavior.

The first two Jackal spacecraft are scheduled to launch on SpaceX’s Transporter 10 rideshare mission in March. In August, the company received permission from regulators to conduct imaging beyond Earth and demonstrate close space rendezvous operations with two spacecraft. This is such a huge technical challenge that I have no doubt that many people in both Silicon Valley and Washington will be paying close attention to how the demo mission unfolds.

Source: techcrunch.com

The Changing Debate on Fossil Fuels at COP28: Even if the Climate Summit Fails

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Climate change protester Risipriya Kangujam takes the stage during the COP28 debate on December 11th

Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Image

The COP28 climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has gone into extra time, with a real possibility that negotiations will fail given how far countries are separated on the future of oil, gas, and coal. It has become a target. But whatever the outcome, this summit changed the way the world talks about fossil fuels and climate change.

“The calculations are being made for fossil fuels,” he says. David Waskow at the World Resources Institute, an environmental nonprofit organization. “This has put the issue front and center and changed the conversation around it, and I hope that will continue to be the case.”

At the summit, and in the months leading up to it, many countries and many civil society organizations lobbied for strong language on phasing out fossil fuels in any deal reached in Dubai. The phasing out of fossil fuels received unexpected attention near the end of last year’s COP27 summit in Egypt, but the role of fossil fuels in driving climate change as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions has never been more important. There has never been a COP with such continuous focus.

“Even a year ago, the historic debate on phasing out fossil fuels currently taking place at COP28 was completely unthinkable,” he says. Jonas Kuehl At the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada. “The joint efforts of nearly 130 countries and civil society forced them into a process that has been fruitless for many years.”

The draft core agreement, published on December 11, drew heavy criticism from a number of countries and organizations yesterday for not mentioning the phasing out of fossil fuels. However, the draft does mention the need to reduce the production and use of fossil fuels and makes two other references to these fuels. This alone represents a significant change from past summits, which referred to emissions but not major sources.

“This is the first COP to actually include the word fossil fuels in a draft decision,” he said. Mohamed Addo At Powershift Africa, a Kenyan energy think tank. “This is the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.”

Summit participants are fundamentally divided on what should be included in the agreement. High-income Western countries, as well as small island states and some low-income countries such as Colombia and Kenya, are demanding stronger language on ending the use of fossil fuels to be part of the agreement. We are united. But countries that rely on oil and gas revenues, and those that consider fossil fuel development essential to future development, oppose disqualifying language.

“The United States, Canada, and Australia are all fossil fuel producers, but they are all perfectly aligned with European countries,” he says. Andrew Deutz At the Nature Conservancy. “This puts even more pressure on fossil fuel producing countries.”

Countries that oppose language phasing do so for a variety of reasons. For example, the Group of African States, while not totally opposed to such an agreement, recognizes that any agreement would have different responsibilities and timelines for phase-out, and that it is important for countries to implement energy transitions. It claims to provide support to do so.

“Asking Africa to phase out fossil fuels is like asking Africa to stop breathing without life support,” Nigeria’s Environment Minister Isiak Kunle Salako said at a press conference at the summit on December 12. African ministers also emphasized the need for further support. This is to adapt to the climate change that is already occurring.

Nigeria is part of a group of oil-exporting countries called OPEC, and its members, especially Saudi Arabia, have been the strongest opponents of the phase-out. But the overwhelming focus on fossil fuels means it may not matter in the long run.

“I think because of the pressure from oil and gas interests, if we don’t agree to phase out fossil fuels here, it’s likely to be a pyrrhic victory for them,” he said. bill hare At the think tank Climate Analytics. “They would have kept it going, but they wouldn’t have stopped it.”

A complete failure at COP28 could help build momentum towards an unjust end to the fossil fuel era, Hare says. “Next year we’ll probably see more countries wanting to phase out fossil fuels, more countries thinking about it more and putting more pressure on oil and gas producers.”

topic:

Source: www.newscientist.com

Blue Origin, founded by Bezos, plans to finally return with a long-awaited launch next week

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

blue origin aims to finally end the more than 15-month grounding of its New Shepard suborbital rocket, with the company today announcing it will fly unmanned missions as early as Dec. 18.

The company confirmed its release social media accounts Followed by Bloomberg reporting Content of internal email for new target date. The mission, called NS-24, will carry 33 scientific research payloads and other cargo.

The new Shepard has been grounded since September 2022, when an engine nozzle problem triggered an automatic shutdown and released the unmanned capsule from its booster. The capsule landed safely. The booster was destroyed upon crashing to Earth. (This mission was also unmanned.)

The Federal Aviation Administration formally closed its investigation into the crash in September and directed Blue Origin to take 21 corrective actions, including redesigning engine and nozzle components and “organizational changes.”

This new launch date means Blue Origin has implemented all measures and received a revised launch license from the FAA. The amended license expires in August 2025 and is limited to launches only from Blue Origin’s West Texas facility, according to the regulator’s website.

Blue Origin has ambitious projects in development, including a heavy-lift rocket called New Glenn, which aims to take flight late next year, and a lunar lander called Blue Moon, for which it is seeking a $3.4 billion contract from NASA. The Shepard Flight Program is the only one currently in operation. To date, the vehicle has flown over his 22 flights, taking 31 people (including CEO Jeff Bezos himself) to the edge of space and back.

Source: techcrunch.com

Give Your Proposal Materials a Refresh with These Tips

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

The holidays are in full swing. So when people go on vacation, they might start receiving auto-reply emails.

But don’t let a relatively quiet holiday stop you from fundraising. According to DocSend’s report on funding trends, young startups don’t seem to be getting as much attention. This means that they have been trying to attract investors’ attention without success. For example, investors are spending less time on the “product” and “business model” slides, and significantly more time on the “competitor” slides.

All articles on TechCrunch+ are available to members only.
Use discount code TC Plus Roundup Save 20% on a 1-year or 2-year subscription.

Now is the perfect time to brush up your pitch deck, practice your pitch, and be ready for when it starts again next year, writes resident pitch deck expert Haje Jan Kamps.

thank you for reading!

Karin

Image credits: We/Getty Images

As I wrote last week, if startup IPOs pick up in 2024, as many predict, the secondary market could start to return to normal. But what are investors in the secondary venture market thinking now? One of the things venture reporter Rebecca Skutak found in her research is that LPs don’t actually want liquidity as much as you think.

Deep tech startups should use these 4 techniques when raising capital

Image credits: oxygen (Opens in new window) / Getty Images

Roman Axelrod, founder of smart contact lens maker XPANCEO, knows a thing or two about raising capital for deep technology startups. His company just raised a $40 million seed round. He offers his four tips on what to focus on when raising capital for his own deep tech business.

Why internal platforms can undermine your business strategy

Image credits: henrik sorensen (Opens in new window) / Getty Images

That’s natural. It’s better to build tools in-house than to buy or subscribe to them from a vendor. Having control over every aspect of your business reduces costs and even increases efficiency.

But not so soon, says Asanka Abeysinghe, CTO of WSO2. Having complete control over everything is an “illusion” and “leads organizations down a path full of unforeseen challenges and constraints.” What may seem like a comprehensive solution at first, quickly becomes can turn into a quagmire of rising costs, lack of focus, and suffocating complexity. ”

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Startups need to master operations

Image credits: Lujan Nagiyev/Getty Images

“While technological innovation gets most of the glory, operational innovation is the next big leap for companies looking to gain a competitive edge,” writes Accelsius CEO Josh Claman. He offers some tips on how companies should think about innovation rather than improvement and excellence.

Source: techcrunch.com

House cats consume more than 2,000 species, including turtles and insects.

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

cats are formidable predators

Gary John Norman / Alamy

Domestic cats have been recorded to eat more than 2,000 other species, and the actual number of species they eat is probably much higher. This is the result of a first attempt to create a comprehensive list.

“We know that cats eat a lot, but I don’t think anyone has really looked into the full story,” he says. Christopher Lepczyk At Auburn University in Alabama. “We started thinking, how big is this problem? Are there any animals that cats aren’t eating?”

Based on scientific papers, his team created a database of what cats ate and where they ate. This list includes 981 birds, 463 reptiles, 431 mammals (including humans), 119 insects, 57 amphibians, and 33 species belonging to other groups.

Of these 2,084 species, 347 are considered endangered or already extinct in the wild, including the western quoll, green turtle, and Newell’s shearwater, including the Stevens Island wren. But the study didn’t consider how big a role cat predation played in these cases, Lepczyk said.

These numbers are far from telling the complete story, he says. “We are just the tip of the iceberg.”

For example, in many cases where cats were recorded eating insects or other invertebrates, the species was not identified.

“The range of cats’ diets far exceeds what we’ve seen in many other carnivores and predators,” Lepczyk said. “There are few things cats won’t eat.”

Some of the species included in the database are also scavenged by cats, which is part of the reason why the list includes species too large for cats to kill. But in some cases, such as green sea turtles, cats can catch juveniles, Lepczyk said.

The study did not consider what could be done to reduce the amount of wildlife killed by domestic cats. However, some helpful measures include keeping your cat indoors or in a fenced yard, microchipping, and having your cat spayed or neutered.

It was also recently discovered that cats can spread the brain-altering parasite that causes toxoplasmosis to both wildlife and humans.

topic:

Source: www.newscientist.com

Coin Cloud, the Bitcoin ATM company, has been hacked and even the new owners are unsure of how it happened.

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

In November, cybersecurity collective vx-underground wrote on X (formerly Twitter): An unknown hacker claimed to have infiltrated Coincloud.a bankrupt Bitcoin ATM company.

According to vx-underground, the hackers claim to have stolen 70,000 customer photos taken from cameras embedded in ATMs, as well as the personal data of 300,000 customers. Name, surname, email address, phone number, current occupation, address, etc.

No one has publicly claimed hacking. A month later, what actually happened to Coin Cloud remains a mystery, even to the company’s new owners.

Coin Cloud was a company that managed thousands of Bitcoin ATMs in the United States and Brazil. According to the official website, to the company Filed for bankruptcy in February. In July, genesis coinanother Bitcoin ATM provider, acquired 5,700 ATMs from the defunct Coin Cloud. According to a press release issued at the time. Genesis Coin itself was acquired by Andrew Barnard and his associates in early January. Owned another cryptocurrency ATM company called Bitstop.

inquiry

Do you have more information about the Coin Cloud hack? We’d love to hear from you. Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai can be reached securely on Signal (+1 917 257 1382), Telegram, Keybase and Wire @lorenzofb, or email lorenzo@techcrunch.com. He can also be reached at TechCrunch via SecureDrop.

Mr. Bernard, who serves as CEO, Bitcoin ATMThe company, which rebranded itself after purchasing some of Coin Cloud’s assets in bankruptcy proceedings, told TechCrunch that his company launched an investigation following vx-underground’s tweet, but is unsure when the breach occurred or who identified it. He said he was unable to conclude whether he was responsible. He himself described the incident as a “mystery”.

“Coin Cloud has been hacked multiple times in the past when it was still a commercial company, so the data breach happened a while ago,” Bernard said. “I think the data is being held to ransom right now. It’s impossible to say. [when] There is little control throughout the software development process, with multiple international contractors having access to source code containing secrets. [database]” Bernard said in an email.

“Based on the information we have been shown, it does not appear that any services maintained by Coin Cloud have been recently compromised,” Barnard added. “Therefore, it is reasonable to think that this is data that was already stolen when Coincloud was hacked previously. It is an assumption, but a reasonable one. It’s impossible to say exactly what was compromised; so many vendors and internal employees had access to it that the same thing may have happened at different times over the years. ”

Barnard said that if someone were to obtain the source code containing the database’s administrator credentials, the hacker “would have access to all the files.” [Know Your Customer] Customer information. ”

Know Your Customer (KYC) is a check performed by technology and financial companies to verify a person’s identity to prevent fraud and money laundering. KYC checks often rely on customers submitting scans of their identification documents.

A former Coin Cloud employee told TechCrunch on condition of anonymity that Coin Cloud was “an absolute disaster to work for.”

“We didn’t have a security team,” the former employee said, adding that Coincloud had been hacked at least once in the last year and believed the company stored much of its data in plain text, meaning it wasn’t encrypted. He added that

Source: techcrunch.com

New Update Gives Google Maps Users Greater Control Over Their Information

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Google Maps today announced that it is introducing several new ways to give users more control over their personal information. The Navigation app now allows you to delete activity related to a specific location, and location controls are now easily accessible from the blue dot within the app.

The company says users will soon be able to see recent activity related to a specific location and easily delete searches, directions, visits and shares with just a few taps. Let’s say you’re going to the bakery and you use an app to navigate there. You’ll soon be able to view and delete all recent activity related to your bakery.

As for the blue dot that marks your location on Google Maps, you’ll soon be able to use it to access location controls. Click this to see whether your Location History and Timeline settings (Features of Maps that help you remember places you’ve been) are turned on, and whether you’ve given Maps access to your device’s location. It shows.

Google says the ability to remove location-related activity from Maps and new blue dot controls will begin rolling out to Android and iOS in the coming weeks.

Google Maps also announced that when you turn on Location History, your time will immediately be saved directly to your device.

Image credits: Google

“As before, you can always remove all or part of your information or disable your settings completely,” Mario McGrid, product director for Google Maps, said in a blog post. “If you are buying a new phone or are worried about losing your existing phone, you can always choose to back up your data to the cloud to avoid data loss. Backup data will be automatically It’s encrypted so no one, including Google, can read your data.”

Additionally, when you turn on Location History for the first time, automatic deletion controls are set to 3 months by default. This option was previously set to 18 months.

Google says these changes will be rolled out gradually over the next year on Android and iOS. Users will receive a notification when this update is applied to their account.

Source: techcrunch.com

AI technology capable of translating brain waves into text

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

AI can decode brainwave recordings and predict words someone is reading

Vertigo3d/Getty Images

A team of scientists has announced that a sensor-equipped helmet, combined with artificial intelligence, can translate a person’s thoughts into text.

In this study, participants read passages of text while wearing hats, and their brain electrical activity was recorded through the scalp. These electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings were converted to text using an AI model called DeWave.

Lin Ching Tian Researchers from Australia’s University of Technology Sydney (UTS) say the technology is non-invasive, relatively cheap and portable.

The system is far from perfect, with an accuracy of about 40%, but recent data currently under peer review shows an improvement in accuracy of more than 60%, Lin said.

In a study published in NeurIPS conference In New Orleans, Louisiana, the DeWave program does not use spoken language, but instead has participants read sentences aloud. However, in the researchers’ latest study, participants read the text silently.

Last year, the team he led was jerry tan Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin reported similar accuracy in converting thoughts into text, but used MRI scans to interpret brain activity. Using EEG is more practical because the subject does not have to remain still in the scanner.

UTS team member Charles Zhou said the DeWave model was trained by looking at many examples where brain signals matched a particular sentence.

“For example, when you think of saying ‘hello,’ your brain sends a specific signal,” Zhou says. “DeWave learns how these signals relate to the word ‘hello’ by looking at many examples of these signals for different words and sentences.”

Once DeWave had a good understanding of the brain signals, the team connected it to an open-source large-scale language model (LLM) similar to the AI that powers ChatGPT.

“This LLM is like a smart writer who can craft sentences. We tell these writers to pay attention to the signals from DeWave and use that as a guide to craft their sentences. ” says Zhou.

Finally, the team trained both DeWave and a language model together to further improve their ability to write sentences based on EEG data.

Researchers predict that further improvements to the system could revolutionize communication for people who have lost language due to stroke or other conditions, and could also have applications in robotics.

craig gin from the University of Sydney said he was impressed by Lin’s team’s work. “It’s great progress,” he says.

“People have long wanted to convert brainwaves to text, and the team’s model shows amazing accuracy. A few years ago, EEG-to-text conversion was complete and utter nonsense. .”

topic:

Source: www.newscientist.com

Transforming Autobiographies into Interactive Black History Lessons with GenAI

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

We often talk about the negative aspects of AI, but what about the positive aspects, such as being able to interact with authors and historical figures based on feeding their writing into large-scale language models? james lowry He may not be a household name, but his history is part of the black experience in America. Lowry grew up in Chicago, spent time in the Peace Corps in the early 1960s, and was the first black person hired as a consultant at McKinsey in 1968.

He has dedicated his life to getting major companies to invest in historically underrepresented communities. He has recently published books such as: change agent. Looking at his life. His partner at Upfront Ventures, General Kobie Fuller, is turning to a customized approach to generative AI (which he calls his Kobie AI) as a way to reimagine blog posts as an interactive medium. It is working.

He has experimented with several themes, from bartending to emotions in marketing. The latest one is Jim Lowry AI for DEI. He fed Lowry’s book into a large-scale language model to allow users to ask questions about diversity, equity, and inclusion. The results were impressive. Fuller says he has the privilege of speaking with Fuller whenever he wants, and that this technology uniquely gives others that ability.

“This book is amazing. It basically presents the book in this interactive format where you can explore all the greatness of the gym,” Fuller told TechCrunch.

Lowry says he wrote the book as a way to educate people about his experiences in the world, but not everyone will read the book, and it’s important to note that AI will allow people to share their experiences in the world. He also recognizes that it gives him an opportunity to understand the department. In his life, you don’t have to read 300 pages, just ask a question.

American business consultant James Rowley became the first black consultant at McKinsey in 1968.

james lowry Image credits: boston consulting group

“I thought this would be powerful in terms of sharing the insights and wisdom that I’ve accumulated over the years with a lot of people. Even if people buy a book, they don’t necessarily read the entire book. No. What I would say is, I think using AI in this way is another part of this effort that is very powerful,” Rowley said.

This AI starts with a prompt asking the user to get started.

I have dedicated my life to working in DEI, and I understand that this story is very sensitive for many people. If you have any questions, we’re here. I also get to share some wisdom from my life’s journey. what’s on your mind?

Then you ask questions, and the answers you get are surprisingly sophisticated, perhaps because they’re based on what Laurie actually says and does. Students, historians, DEI experts, or anyone interested can ask questions about DEI issues and get detailed answers. You can also ask about specific experiences in Lowry’s life, such as meeting Senator Robert F. Kennedy while serving in the Peace Corps. -1960s.

This gives people the opportunity to interact with Lowery through his work, which will remain his legacy and pass on to future generations as an educational tool to understand his experiences as a Black man working in American business. It will be given to you.

While Fuller is researching this technology, he’s excited about the power of generative AI and how it can help people make sense of other people’s experiences, and perhaps even help others. It shows how it can be used to serve as a vehicle for interacting with important experiences. Historical figure.

Source: techcrunch.com

Fuzzy Door’s Viewscreen: On-set Augmented Reality Brings Computer-Generated Characters and Locations to Your Viewfinder

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Almost all TV shows and movies use computer graphics (CG) these days, but a show with fully digital characters takes it to another level. Seth MacFarlane’s “Ted” is one such show, and his production company Fuzzy Door has developed a new tool to enhance the filming process. This tool, called Viewscreen, turns the potentially messy process of working with CG characters and environments into an opportunity for collaboration and improvisation on set.

Viewscreen is an on-set augmented reality tool that allows for real-time interaction with CG assets through the camera. This has dramatically improved the creative process, making it easier to get the necessary shots faster, according to MacFarlane. Typically, the process of filming with CG assets occurs after the camera is turned off, and it involves using stand-ins like tennis balls and motion capture performers. The footage is then sent to a VFX person for adjustments, which can be a repetitive and traditional process, leaving little room for spontaneity.

Viewscreen Studio is a wireless system that can sync between multiple cameras and integrate various data streams simultaneously. This system creates a middle ground between pre and post-production, allowing for live compositing and positioning of CG assets in the viewfinder and on a monitor. It also allows for live adjustments, such as changing waypoints and lighting, and creating different shots and scenarios naturally.

This new tool enables directors and camera operators to see and interact with invisible CG elements in real time, allowing for more creative freedom and spontaneity. It has already been successfully used in the production of “Ted” to enhance over 3,000 shots in the film.

Fuzzy Door has made Viewscreen available today and is already working with several studios and productions. The company offers four specific modules, including a tracker, compositor, exporter, and motion, to assist in the filming process. This tool has the potential to revolutionize the way CG elements are integrated into live-action productions.

Source: techcrunch.com

$14 million investment to develop long-lasting cement, robotics, and AI technology for small service industry businesses

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Builders, bakers, and body conditioners may not be the first professions that come to mind when you think of how AI is changing the way we work. But today, growing interest in the company is driving healthy funding for startups building AI-powered business tools, especially for small businesses and the thousands of other categories that make up the service industry world. announced a funding round. product.

durable — Vancouver, Canada-based startup builds an AI website creator and a host of other AI-powered tools to help small business owners plan, create, and run business apps more easily — Series A We have raised $14 million which will be used to continue expanding our platform and customer base.

This round is not the largest Series A, but it comes with an interesting list of investors. Spark Capital led the round, along with Torch Capital, Altman Capital (a VC founded and managed by Jack Altman, brother of OpenAI’s Sam Altman), Dash Fund, South Park Commons, Infinity Ventures, Soma Capital ( All previous supporters) are participating. are also participating. The startup has now raised a total of $20 million.

Durable’s AI-powered website builder is aimed at people with a very novice online presence and has already been used to create more than 6 million websites since its launch a year ago. That’s what it means.

“We have a lot of traditional companies that have been around for a long time but don’t have an online presence. They don’t have the software, they don’t have the systems. That’s a big part of our customer base. ,” founder and CEO James Clift said in an interview. “Plumbers, skilled craftsmen, personal trainers. A lot of businesses with one to six people don’t have the time or resources to actually build an online presence or create marketing materials.”

Durable will continue to build on that momentum and leverage advances in the world of AI to build more tools for users.

The end goal, Clift said, is an omniscient assistant that not only answers users’ questions, but also proactively suggests ways to run their business better.

Clift said in an interview that a beta version of its “automated proactive assistant” will be released “soon,” likely within about three months.

Based on the different needs of a user’s specific profile (a baker may not want or need the same information as a body conditioner or a builder), we can train it in areas such as taxes. ” he said. “You press a button and your business runs in the background. He texts you once a day, and you have work booked on your calendar, so all you have to do is show up to work.”

Other tools Durable has built to complement its flagship website builder include a CRM platform, an invoicing service, a blog builder, and a precursor to Proactive Assistant, an AI bot that allows users to ask questions relevant to their business. there is. Her AI assistant uses LLM’s OpenAI, among other things.

The gap in the market that Durable is filling is actually a well-known one in the technology world.

Small businesses and sole proprietors have been an elusive target for startups developing business tools. Despite accounting for more than 99% of his total business in markets like we and EnglandSmall businesses are more complex users to litigate because they spend less individually than larger businesses (making ROI per customer harder for vendors) and are generally a fragmented population when it comes to their technology needs. This is a group of

Of course, none of the above is new information in the world of technology. There are dozens of startups and large tech companies targeting small and medium-sized businesses, especially those in the service industry and building apps to manage everything from teams, accounting, banking, payroll, and more.

Clift said Durable’s unique selling point is that it applies advances in AI to problems to bring small business owners and employees into the modern era.

In his view, AI has a democratizing role. First, SMBs now have access to more affordable tools that were previously out of reach. For example, Durable works to create a logo and branding builder for its users, but if that service were provided by a consultancy, it would have been beyond most customers’ budgets.

Second, the use of AI means that Durable itself can scale out its services more easily, avoiding the problems of selling and distributing services to a fragmented customer base.

“Advances in software will allow us to start delivering a ton of value that even last year would only have been available to enterprise customers,” he said. “We can now provide an even better level of service to independent stores who previously couldn’t afford something like this. It’s a very long tail, but it’s a huge market opportunity. .”

Durable turned to OpenAI after gaining access thanks to Altman Capital, which led Durable’s seed round.

“OpenAi has been a great partner from day one,” Clift said. Given the trajectory of OpenAI, which is reportedly working to close a new funding round with a valuation of more than $80 billion, the startup is probably one to watch as it is a close partner with ties to the CEO. right.

“One of the ideas I’m most interested in right now is how we can leverage AI to help founders build products from scratch that are 10x better than anything that exists today. in a space that helps you do it cheaper, faster and more accurately,” Jack Altman told me. “When I met James, I was not only very impressed with him as a founder, but also excited about the potential of what this product could do for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Since our initial investment. , seeing how well he and the team have done only increases my expectations for what Durable will be like.”

“At Spark, we have always pursued founders who challenge the status quo. James and the Durable team are not only doing this uniquely, but also helping entrepreneurs do the same with a frictionless user experience powered by AI. We are also creating a global platform for ,” said Natalie Sandman, general partner at Spark Capital. statement.

Source: techcrunch.com

Revealing the Ocean’s Secret Carbon Storage Capacity

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

New research published in Nature It has been suggested that the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is 20% higher than previously thought, at 15 gigatonnes per year. This study focused on the role of plankton in carbon transport to the ocean floor. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Research has revealed that the ocean is storing 20% more carbon dioxide than previously estimated, primarily due to plankton transporting carbon to the ocean floor. However, this new understanding will not have much of an impact on his current CO2 emissions crisis.

The ocean’s capacity to store atmospheric carbon dioxide is about 20% greater than estimates included in the latest IPCC report.^[1] These are the research results published in the journal Nature Led by an international team including biologists from the CNRS, it took place on December 6, 2023.^[2] Scientists investigated the role plankton plays in the natural transport of carbon from surface waters to the ocean floor.

Plankton absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into organic tissue as they grow. photosynthesis. When plankton dies, some of it turns into particles known as “marine snow.” Because these particles are denser than seawater, they sink to the ocean floor, where they store carbon and provide essential nutrients to a wide range of deep-sea organisms, from tiny bacteria to deep-sea fish.

Global distribution of organic carbon flux from the surface layer of the open ocean. Credit: © Wang et al., 2023, Nature.

By analyzing banks of data collected from around the world by ocean research vessels since the 1970s, a team of seven scientists was able to digitally map the flux of organic matter across the world’s oceans. The resulting new estimate of carbon storage capacity is 15 gigatonnes per year, an increase of about 20% compared to a previous study published by the IPCC in its 2021 report (11 gigatonnes per year).

This reassessment of the ocean’s storage capacity represents a significant advance in our understanding of carbon exchange between the atmosphere and ocean at the global level. The research team emphasizes that this absorption process takes place over tens of thousands of years and is therefore not sufficient to offset the exponential growth of CO.₂ Despite emissions caused by industrial activity around the world since 1750, this study highlights the importance of marine ecosystems as a key player in the long-term control of Earth’s climate.

Note

IPCC Climate Change 2021 Report, Fundamentals of the Physical Sciences, Chapter 5, Figure 5.12: Figure AR6 WG1 | Climate Change 2021: Fundamentals of the Physical Sciences (ipcc.ch)
From Marine Environmental Science Research Institute (CNRS/UBO/IFREMER/IRD)

Reference: “Estimating biological carbon pumps based on decades of hydrographic data” Wei-Lei Wang, Weiwei Fu, Frédéric AC Le Moigne, Robert T. Letscher, Yi Liu, Jin-Ming Tang, François W. Primeau , December 6, 2023, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06772-4

Source: scitechdaily.com

ID requirements, high fees and language gaps have long prevented some Latino immigrants from opening bank accounts in the United States. Comun I want to change that.

The New York-based neobank is a modern bank that offers banking services customized to the needs of immigrants. While many traditional banks require customers to provide a U.S. social security card or proof of address (such as a mortgage or utility bill), Comun allows customers to provide 100 different forms of identification in Latin America, including foreign passports. The certificate can be used to apply for an account.

Andres Santos and Aviel Gutierrez founded Comun in early 2022 to provide digital banking services such as instant payments, check deposits, and early payroll. They also wanted to give their customers 24/7 access to native Spanish speakers.

“Our mission is to bring local banking back to American immigrants,” Santos told TechCrunch. “We think this is a model that has continued to become obsolete at an alarming rate over the past 30 years. Basically, ‘too big to fail’ has taken away the lion’s share of the market share, shifting from 20,000 banks to I’ve seen it grow to less than 5,000 rows.”

Aviel Gutierrez and Andres Santos, co-founders of Comun. Image credits: Comun

Santos also explained that some banks were considering immigration during this time. But that group usually gets left behind because it doesn’t fit the model of potential customers you’re chasing.

“We want to reimagine local banking in the digital space, and that means communities and their unique needs to offer better products,” Komun added.

Banks make money from interest on deposits and from convenience fees to facilitate instant transactions similar to peer-to-peer transactions. It also began direct banking integration last month, which Santos said is growing rapidly and “already driving about 25% of our revenue and volume.” Comun also plans to collect fees on transactions once it launches a pilot remittance program that allows migrants to send money from the U.S. to Latin America.

The Commune is not the only one targeting immigrants. We partner with companies like Tanda, Bloom Money, Majority, Welcome Tech, and Pillar to help solve banking accessibility issues.

We are also participating in attracting venture capital for our approach. Today, Comun announced an additional $4.5 million in funding, bringing its total raised to $9 million. The latest investment was led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from a group of existing investors including Animo Ventures, South Park Commons, and FJ Labs.

In addition to offering a variety of identification methods to open an account, the company differentiates itself from competitors through its partnership with Community Federal Savings Bank. Santos said having direct relationships with banks allows Comun to quickly add new services in a compliant manner.

Comun has also developed a large network of partners that support cash deposits and withdrawals at over 90,000 physical locations.

The concept stuck. The bank not only achieved a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 86, more than four times the industry average in terms of customer satisfaction, but also achieved a 60% month-over-month revenue increase. Through the platform he has processed over $75 million.

Mr. Santos and Mr. Gutierrez plan to use the new funding to hire additional employees, expand Comun’s banking services, launch new products including insurance, and eventually launch credit and underwriting operations. .

Up-and-coming social app BeReal continues to attract users’ attention by adding more and more bells and whistles. next week, Bereal is rolling out two major new features: Behind the Scenes and RealGroups. Behind the Scenes is an iOS Live Photo-like feature that shows you a few seconds of video recorded just before you take the photo. RealGroups lets you share BeReal with a small group of friends and allows you to send messages directly within that group.

Behind the Scenes (BTS) is an opt-in feature that borrows a lot in UX from the way Apple set up Live Photos on the iPhone. When your friend enables her BTS and posts her BeReal, you will see a Live Photo symbol in the top corner of the image. If you press and hold this, you can watch a few seconds of video leading up to the BeReal photo.

The app is designed to connect you with your already close friends as it asks you to share your front and back camera photos at random times every day. You won’t be able to see other people’s posts unless you create her own BeReal posts. BeReals tend to be more unfiltered and — Because I can’t find any better words — It’s real, because you’re being prompted to take a photo at an unknown time (but if you get a notification to post while you’re in the bathroom… you might just post late). But now, BeReal is creating an experience for even closer friends. Start a RealGroup to share your BeReals more privately. To sweeten the deal, group admins will now be able to choose when daily notifications are sent. You can also DM BeReals within the group, but a group chat is also available. This is likely to be used to anger administrators who have chosen an inappropriate “BeReal time.” However, he can only belong to two groups, so choose carefully.

“Going off to college and missing your close friends from home? Create a RealGroup to stay close, share your dorm life adventures, see what’s going on at home, and stay connected no matter how far away you are.” Stay close to me even when you are away!!” BeReal wrote in a blog post.

BeReal is now on the brink of life or death. Will apps survive the hype cycle or will they fade away? According to Pew’s annual survey on teens and social media. 13% of US teens ages 13 to 17 have used BeReal. However, BeReal has rejected data from external sources in the past. In September, app analytics company Similarweb told TechCrunch that BeReal has about 16 million monthly active users (MAUs), including about 3 million in the United States. However, Apptopia told TechCrunch that BeReal’s MAU in 2023 was at its highest in October at 8.73 million, and at its lowest in February at 7.96 million. BeReal itself reports that in April it had 20 million daily active users worldwide, and in September it had 25 million daily active users.

Although the app was relatively stagnant at first, BeReal has rolled out a ton of new features, including messaging, the ability to post more photos, Spotify integration, and a “friends of friends” discovery feed. . Soon, the app will add his 2023 Year in Review feature and tagging, making it easy to repost tagged content, similar to Instagram.

Those who still think of Fortnite as a colorful, cartoonish battle royale game may be surprised to learn the true scope of Epic’s ambitions.

Fortnite’s large-scale, chaotic fight-to-the-death matches may still command the highest payouts, but Epic continues to steadily expand the scope of its flagship game into more of a game. platform More than just a simple standalone game.Fortnite’s psychedelic live event, monster Ariana Grande concert, and its infinity User-generated sandbox world All were hints about the final destination.

X may never be the be-all and end-all app, but Fortnite is already the be-all and end-all game. And it got even bigger.

Over the last week, Epic has released three new games within the game, starting with survival title Lego Fortnite on Thursday. Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game from the Rock Band development studio, and Rocket Racing, a fast-paced racing game from the makers of Rocket League, soon followed.

While Fortnite’s regular modes like Zero Build and the classic Battle Royale saw decent numbers over the weekend, and people also ventured into the other two new games, Lego Fortnite is on a whole different level. I made my debut.

Epic and Lego’s new Minecraft/Animal Crossing hybrid (more on this later in the review) peaks at 2.45 million concurrent players Immediately after launch. Over the weekend, it consistently hovered around the same high peak, sitting at about 1.1 million players by Monday. This in itself is an epic number that puts many hits on the Steam charts to shame. The live “Big Bang” event that introduced his three new games a little more than a week ago drew 11.6 million concurrent players and featured live Fortnite shows from artists like Marshmello and Travis Scott. Ta.

LEGO Fortnite is just one corner of Epic’s multiverse, but it’s clearly the one that’s getting the most attention right now. Fortnite’s total number of concurrent online players is much higher than that (all of Fortnite’s creative modes, ranked play, battle royale, etc. combined), but this is a completely different genre of family games. It is especially noteworthy that it has generated so much buzz. If LEGO Fortnite can maintain its momentum with a steady drip of engaging content that deepens the game, the free-to-play, multiplayer experience for the whole family may only get better.

Animal fat and coconut oil risks

On Monday, a jury sided with Epic Games over Google in an antitrust case that could change the way app marketplaces like Google Play operate.

The unanimous ruling ended a three-year legal battle between the two companies. Epic, the developer of the popular online multiplayer game Fortnite, first filed a lawsuit against Google in 2020, alleging that the company’s app store practices violated federal law and California antitrust law. He claimed that there was.

The lawsuit against Google was just part of Epic’s splashy effort to rally app developers large and small against the entrenched gatekeepers of mobile software. Epic’s war against Apple and Google revolves around the hit game Fortnite, which is free to play and available on almost every software platform imaginable, despite the current App Store and Google Play drama.

Epic alleges that both tech giants violate antitrust laws by forcing app users to pay through their systems, drastically reducing in-app revenue in the process. When defending themselves, Apple and Google typically point to security concerns and justify a shared desire to direct app users to central software authorities.

Apple and Google treat third-party apps differently. iOS doesn’t allow third-party apps, but Android allows “sideloading” of apps. This fact changed the shape of the battle between Epic and Google. Still, Google warns customers against installing external apps, and the process isn’t as simple as just downloading something on Google Play.

Faced with these facts, it wasn’t clear whether Epic would prevail in its lawsuit against Google Play’s relatively unrestricted ecosystem, but it did.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for all app developers and consumers around the world,” Epic Games said in a statement about the ruling. “This proves that Google’s app store practices are illegal and abuse its monopoly to charge exorbitant fees, stifle competition, and reduce innovation.”

Epic points to the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill and the EU Internal Digital Markets Act as examples of regulations on the way that could impose further restrictions on Apple and Google’s dominant software practices. I admired it.

In a statement provided to TechCrunch, Wilson White, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, confirmed the company’s plans to appeal.

“We intend to appeal the ruling. Android and Google Play offer more choice and openness than any other major mobile platform,” White said. “…We remain committed to the Android business model and remain deeply committed to our users, partners, and the broader Android ecosystem.”

If any of these look familiar, it’s probably because Epic fought the same battle against Apple. The highly publicized campaign began with a parody of Apple’s iconic “1984” ad and culminated in a mixed verdict two years ago.

The court’s ruling largely favored Apple, but called on the iPhone maker to open up its software market by allowing developers to direct customers to alternative payment options. In September, the companies asked the Supreme Court to reconsider the ruling and take the case, so essentially everything is still up in the air.

Epic started directing Fortnite players to download it in 2018, moving it away from Google’s Play Store. In 2020, Epic released Fortnite through Google’s official app marketplace, but it still accused the company of preventing users from downloading third-party apps. The popular game is no longer available on Google Play or installed on iOS devices through Apple’s App Store.

This isn’t the last we hear about Epic’s multi-pronged battle. Google should appeal soon. Still, between a somewhat unexpected victory in court and last week’s massive Lego Fortnite launch that attracted more than 2.4 million concurrent players, Epic has everything going for it right now.

Ford plans to cut production of all-electric pickup trucks in 2024 to meet consumer demand.

Ford executives said in October on a third-quarter earnings call that they plan to “adjust” all-electric vehicle production and defer about $12 billion in investments as demand for higher-priced premium electric vehicles slows. suggested.

The automaker did not explicitly mention the Lightning in its earnings call, instead pointing to other examples such as production cuts for the Mustang Mach-E and the decision to postpone a second battery plant in Kentucky.

Note to supplier. viewed, First reported by Automotive Newsplans to produce an average of about 1,600 Lightning trucks per week starting in January at its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford had planned annual production capacity for the Lightning at 150,000 units per year, or approximately 3,200 units per week. This means that the production target for 2024 will be halved.

A Ford spokeswoman did not confirm the memo. A spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the company “continues to align Lightning production with customer demand.”

The move is a reversal from January 2022, when Ford was elated with 200,000 truck reservations and announced it would nearly double production capacity to 150,000 a year by mid-2023 in response to customer demand. be. The company idled its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Michigan in early 2023 to perform factory upgrades to accommodate new production capacity.

Despite these improvements, demand for EVs was softening across the industry. EV sales in the U.S. continue to grow, at a pace of over 1 million units per year, a 50% increase over the previous year. Still, that growth has lagged behind the ambitious plans of major automakers, causing many to curb investment, delay factory upgrades and new construction, and cut production capacity.

According to one source, Hasbro plans to lay off 1,100 employees. SEC filing. Hasbro, the company behind series such as “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Transformers,” has already laid off employees. 800 employees In January. Some employees will learn the fate of their jobs on Tuesday, while others will be made redundant over the next year. Hasbro told shareholders it wants to cut costs by about $350 million to $400 million by 2025.

Hasbro CEO Chris Cox wrote: Memo to employee — shared in an SEC filing — says he will focus the company’s attention on licensing opportunities, entertainment expansion and “freebies.”[ing] Fund your own content to drive new brand development. He blamed the company’s losses on vague “market headwinds.”

Hasbro’s overall revenue was down 10% year over year. However, Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast (WoTC), the company that produces Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and Magic the Gathering. 1 billion dollars Every year. The division of the company that operates WoTC and digital games has seen an increase in revenue 40% compared to previous year Operating income was $423.6 million, and operating income was $203.4 million. Despite this significant growth, Hasbro has struggled overall. So Cox seems to be refocusing Hasbro’s efforts on what’s actually benefiting the company.

D&D has become increasingly popular over the past few years. This is largely thanks to the creators of third-party content such as Critical Role and Dimension 20, in which the ensemble cast plays her D&D for the entertainment of viewers. The series also made headlines this year with Baldur’s Gate III, a hugely successful Hollywood movie and video game licensed from the Dungeons & Dragons IP.Just last week, Baldur’s Gate won game of the year At the Game Awards.

Hasbro is at a strange crossroads. Even though the toy business is in decline, he suddenly has an unexpected cash cow in Wizards of the Coast, which he acquired 24 years ago.

“The D&D strategy is a broad four-quadrant strategy, and we have this strong brand with similar recognition, such as ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Harry Potter,'” Cox said. He said it on a program. Call to investors Last December, we received some insight into the company’s plans. But what makes Dungeons & Dragons (a game system where groups of players develop their own plots and characters) something like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, where all fans know the same characters and stories? Hasbro’s attempts to change are becoming increasingly painful.The movie “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor of Thieves” received positive reviews when it was released in March, but ultimately poor performance At the ticket office.

“To position Hasbro for growth, we must first ensure our fundamentals are strong and profitable,” Cox wrote in a company memo. “To do that, we need to modernize and become even leaner.”

helicity space has raised $5 million in seed funding to accelerate the development of technology that will ultimately enable fast and efficient travel in deep space.

That technology is nuclear fusion propulsion, which has long been the realm of science fiction. The startup says it has discovered a way to use plasma jets in fusion reactions. The project is the brainchild of Setthivoine You, a plasma physicist and co-founder of Helicity. He and two other co-founders, CEO and former banker Stefan Lintner and former Boeing Rocketdyne executive Marta Calvo, officially founded the business in 2018.

Helicity spent several years in stealth, “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, thinking about what we could do,” Lintner explained in a recent interview. “Fusion is a tainted field and we first needed to be sure we could handle it before raising venture capital capital.”

The Pasadena-based company has successfully raised funding from a prominent group. Airbus Ventures is the venture capital arm of a major European aerospace company. TRE Advisor; Voyager Space Holdings, the company behind the Starlab commercial space station. European space company E2MC Space. Urania Ventures and Geingels.

Lintner said Helicity’s key differentiator is that it focuses squarely on fusion propulsion, rather than fusion for ground-based applications. “Everything we’re doing is moving the spacecraft forward, not generating sustainable grid power,” Eh explained. In some ways, the former problem is easier than the latter. Space is a great vacuum, and that’s exactly the environment that his jet of plasma needs.

“Our concept is first uniquely tailored to be useful in space,” he said. “over time […] Ours may also turn into a nuclear reactor on Earth, but by that time others will have worked it out. That’s not our main goal. ”

The startup’s technology is based on a method called magnetic-magnetic fusion, which compresses a stable plasma jet with a magnetic nozzle. The plasma is heated to hundreds of millions of degrees, causing a fusion reaction that pushes the spacecraft forward.

The startup plans to use the funding to manufacture a proof-of-concept fusion drive that will demonstrate basic technology on a small scale. On a longer-term scale, Helicity aims to fly a complete prototype in space within about 10 years.

Lintner was upfront about the fact that there is still a lot to de-risk and a lot to learn when it comes to the emerging market for Fusion Drive.

“Look, it’s still early days,” he said.
“As economies develop in space, our engines will become increasingly important. The final business model is still a little difficult to predict.”

TikTok’s short-form video app is reaching a new milestone. The app is the first non-gaming mobile app to reach 1 billion monthly active users in 2021 and generate $10 billion in consumer spending across the Apple App Store and Google Play combined, according to new analysis by the app intelligence provider. It is said that it became. data.ai. The only other apps to achieve this include all games including King/Activision Blizzard’s Candy Crush Saga, which is the top earner at over $12 billion, Tencent’s Honor of Kings, XFLAG/Mixi’s Monster Strike, Including Supercell’s Clash of Clans.

Image credits: data.ai

The report notes that TikTok already entered 2023 with more than $6.2 billion in consumer spending and has since added another $3.8 billion over the course of the year, representing 61% year-to-date growth. This figure is 15% higher than the total of $3.3 billion in 2022, according to data.ai. For reference, that report only includes consumer spending on TikTok across iOS and Google Play, and does not include third-party Android app stores in China. In other words, TikTok’s total consumer spending could increase further.

This spending comes from TikTok’s in-app purchases of “coins,” a virtual currency that users can spend on gifts to creators on the platform. These gifts reward creators for their content and can be cashed out as fiat currency, with TikTok keeping his 50% of the payments. The app’s most popular in-app purchase is a bundle of 1,321 coins for $19.99, which accounts for a quarter of its revenue. TikTok also generates revenue from other sources besides in-app purchases, such as advertising and e-commerce through the TikTok Shop, but these are not counted in data.ai’s analysis.

Image credits: data.ai

According to Data.ai, US consumers and Chinese iOS users accounted for the majority of the in-app spending that pushed TikTok to the $10 billion milestone, with both markets accounting for around 30% of each revenue and In other words, it drives 60% of the total. Total when combined. This was followed by other markets such as Saudi Arabia, Germany, the UK, and Japan, which together accounted for 13% of his in-app purchase revenue.

TikTok is the only non-gaming app to reach $10 billion, but other non-gaming apps have also made billions of dollars, but far behind TikTok. The next closest competitors are Tinder and YouTube, both of which have a $2 billion to $3 billion lead over TikTok, the report said.

Image credits: data.ai

“TikTok is poised to become the most profitable mobile app in history, approaching the $15 billion milestone in 2024. Consumers are tipping their favorite content creators with more than $11 million per day. , which makes TikTok the world’s most lucrative mobile game ever, surpassing the beloved Candy Crush Saga,” said Lexi Sydow, Head of Insights at data.ai. At the announcement About new milestones. “TikTokers will spend 40 hours of work time each month within the app by the end of 2024, a 22% increase from 2023,” she added.

office Predict TikTok’s revenue will rise again in 2024, with consumer spending reaching $15 billion.

Apple today rolled out iOS 17.2, giving iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max users the ability to record spatial videos. This new feature will allow users to capture their favorite memories and special moments in three dimensions with their next mixed reality headset, Apple Vision Pro.

To create 3D videos, Apple explains that iPhone uses both the main camera and the ultra-wide camera when recording. This will be saved as a single file in a new album titled “Spatial” in the Photos app. Videos are also synced between devices using iCloud. Spatial video is captured at 1080p resolution and 30 frames per second.

Spatial video recording can be enabled by toggling on Spatial Video for Apple Vision Pro in the Camera section of Format in Settings. Apple recommends holding your iPhone horizontally for best results.

Spatial videos are available on all iPhones and other devices. However, it will be displayed as a regular 2D video.

Apple iPhone 15 Pro spatial video capture

Image credits: apple

The new feature allows users to record videos, and Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing Greg Jozwiak called it “magical” and “setting a new standard for what’s possible.” I am reviewing it. While this is a marketing story, it’s a differentiator for Apple’s high-end iPhones and deepens the user connection with Apple’s latest product, his AR/VR headset, which launches next year. It will be.

“iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max have the most powerful camera system we’ve ever created, including the best video quality in a smartphone. And now we’re excited to open up new possibilities. We set the standard and empower users to capture special moments as they happened.” Said In a statement.

As part of today’s iOS 17.2 release, Apple also released the Journal app. Redesigned Apple TV app And new access methods Healthcare app data Via Siri.

Apple has officially launched the Journal app with the release of iOS 17.2. announced on monday. First announced at WWDC in June, the new app is designed to encourage users to reflect on everyday moments and record special events.

This app allows you to capture these moments using text, photos, videos, audio recordings, locations, and more. Journal also leverages AI to provide users with personalized suggestions for journal entries. For example, an app may encourage you to write about new places you’ve visited or songs you’ve heard. Apple says you can control the type of content that appears in an app’s Suggestions.

Apple also announced that third-party journaling apps can now suggest moments to write about to users, thanks to a new Journaling Suggestion API. Apple said in a press release that developers can add personalized journaling suggestions to their apps using the new Journaling Suggestions API.

Image credits: apple

You can bring different types of content into the app and write about it, including news articles and podcasts. In Journal, you can browse past entries, bookmark, and filter by images, locations, and more.

If you’re new to journaling and still trying to establish a journaling habit, you can turn on scheduled notifications to receive reminders about recording your daily moments.

According to Apple, all Journal entries are end-to-end encrypted when stored in iCloud. For extra protection, you can lock the Journal app using your device passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID. Additionally, Apple says that journaling suggestions are created on-device, and users can choose which suggested moments they want to share with the Journal app to be added to their journal entries.

Image credits: apple

“We’re excited to bring the benefits of journaling to even more people,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of worldwide product marketing. press release. “Journal makes it easy to preserve rich, powerful memories and practice gratitude by intelligently curating your personal information directly from your iPhone. We’re enabling other journaling apps to offer similar personalized suggestions while maintaining your privacy.”

iPhone users have long used certain apps for journaling and even notes apps to record their daily experiences and memories. Now the company has launched a dedicated space for users to do so.

Apple’s entry into the journaling space could upset app makers. App makers often accuse Apple of “Sherlocking” popular app categories, a reference to the tech giant’s habit of taking ideas from its broader app developer and partner community. It is worth noting that Apple is currently under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice investigation Alleged anti-competitive conduct in the App Store and other commercial practices.

To learn more about Journal, check out TechCrunch’s review of the app.

david placek is the president and founder of lexicon branding. In developing category-changing names such as Sonos, Pentium, OnStar, Swiffer, Febreze, and BlackBerry, Lexicon is one of the world’s most influential brand agencies with more than 3,700 naming assignments in 22 countries. became.

while slowing down With the venture capital (VC) market in decline and funding for disruptive startups likely to decline, companies looking to attract capital need a strong brand now more than ever. A strong brand starts with its name. Nothing is used more often or for longer. Moreover, it’s the one thing your competitors can’t take away from you.

A brand name is the basis for an immediate impact on consumers and investors. In today’s digital and global economy, it can mean the difference between a brand being instantly remembered or completely forgotten.

A brand name is more than just a label or a clever description. They serve as powerful marketing tools for creating or changing consumer perceptions and as the first step in building entirely new markets.

Start-ups in particular need a name that indicates that the company and its products are about the future, not the past. You need a company name that creates a brand image, resonates with your target market, and supports your business plan.

A startup needs a name that indicates that the company and its products are about the future, not the past.

A brand name is usually the first thing a potential customer sees or hears about your software or other digital intangible product. In a brand new industry that is just emerging, brands need a distinct, breakthrough name to garner attention and generate early market share.

When we partner with a startup to develop a new name, we use an internal checklist to ask if our recommendations pass the test. Here are his five questions we ask ourselves to ensure the name we create for our startup is memorable, distinctive, and stands out from the crowd.

Was the name an original idea?

Don’t be fooled by the adage that a great brand name tells your story. It is impossible to do that with just one word. Instead, your brand name is the foundation on which your brand story is built. Do you want to build on a rock or sand foundation?

Despite delays, plans to connect Tumblr’s blog site to the wider world of decentralized social media, also known as the “Fediverse,” appear to still be in the works. More than a year ago, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg (who acquired Tumblr from Verizon in 2019) announced that the site is the protocol that powers Twitter/X rival Mastodon and other decentralized social apps. It posted on Twitter that support for ActivityPub will be added “soon.” However, as time passed since the announcement, it wasn’t clear whether Tumblr was still moving in that direction.

To further complicate matters, Tumblr has recently cut a number of jobs, reassigning many of them to other projects within the parent company. automatic, which operates WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Pocket Casts, and more, including the recently acquired Texts.com. The reorganization was intended to relieve financial pressure on Tumblr as it continued to make losses. But at the same time, many Federation supporters began to wonder if Tumblr’s plans to join the world of decentralized social media were also scrapped.

In addition, Posted by Tumblr Employees They said that the Fediverse project had been moved to Tumblr Labs, Tumblr’s testing ground, which seemed to indicate that the project is currently on the back burner.

Now, CEO Matt Mullenweg is laying out the current state of Tumblr’s various ambitions in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) shared on his Tumblr blog.in response In response to a question from TechCrunch, Mullenweg said that despite the reorganization, which will see many Tumblr employees move on to other projects at the end of the year, Automattic is moving someone to Tumblr to work on the Fediverse integration. He explained that he had done so. new Year.

Still, Mullenweg cautioned that so far, Automattic has yet to see significant user demand for federated social media.

” activity pub and friend Both plugins for WordPress are provided by Automatticians, which has allowed us to work in this space, understand the community and protocols, and assess user demand. ” he writes Mullenweg. “We have less than 10,000 users on either side at the moment, so there hasn’t been a big user push for this yet,” he said.

But he said people will “dig into Tumblr’s codebase” to see what they can do to move forward with federation.

Reading between the lines, it appears that while Mullenweg supports a more open internet in general, the company isn’t ready to go all-in on ActivityPub.

“While I continue to be a strong believer in open standards and user freedom, I do not claim that any particular standard holds the truth about which is better or best, but in order to serve our customers. “We sincerely support doing everything we can to give our users more freedom, choice, and avoid lock-in,” he also said in the AMA. (Mullenweg said earlier this year that the company is also evaluating the value of other protocols such as his AT protocol for Bluesky and nostr).

Only one lap of Mastodon today. 1.5 million monthly active usersActivityPub has been going from strength to strength lately. Especially since his other Twitter/X competitor, Instagram Threads, is promising integration with Fediverse. Many in the community expect it to happen in early 2024. In the meantime, Threads users can take the first step by checking their profile on Mastodon. Other startups have also launched to make Fediverse more approachable for beginners, including Mozilla-backed app Mammoth and indie apps like Ivory, and companies like Flipboard and Medium have also embraced his Mastodon. Masu. This gives Tumblr the tools he needs in 2024 to determine whether ActivityPub is worth his time and whether it technically makes sense to bring his Tumblr blog to Mastodon. You might get a boost.

In other words, work is being done to integrate Tumblr into the Fediverse, but no agreement has been reached at this time.

In another AMA responseMullunweg also said the company is considering a large-scale effort to migrate Tumblr’s 500 million blogs to WordPress backend in the new year.

“We’re going to work on it, but we don’t know when,” the executive said.

The Browser Company today announced that it has onboarded its first set of users for its Windows client, launching it in beta today. Users and observers have been demanding a Windows version of Arc, especially after the company made its Mac client available to everyone after being in invite-only mode since 2022.

The company said it will bring more beta users on board this month and “rapidly” increase the rollout of invites in January. The company said it has more than 500,000 users I’m on the Windows waiting list.

The Thrive Capital-backed startup did not say whether the Windows client will have the same full functionality as the Mac client. However, he also mentioned that he is currently working on porting features such as Peek (a preview of his web page when hovering) and Mini Arc. Therefore, it is expected that some features will be missing at launch.

Last year, the founders josh miller and Harsh Agrawalhas talked about working on a Windows version and shipping it in 2023. And with only a few days left in the year, the company launched its Swift-based browser on the platform.

The company said its core team building on Windows included Alexandra Medway, product engineering lead, Darin Fischer, former vice president of Chrome, and Saleem Abdulrasool, a former Facebook engineer and Swift expert on Windows. I did. As the company develops, I’m trying to open source my code For Windows.

The Arc browser has had a busy year.The company introduced it in April. iPhone companion app A browser that allows users to save web pages in various workspaces and easily access them later from a desktop client. In May, it released a tool that lets you adjust web pages and remove some elements, such as the user suggestion box on X (formerly Twitter). In October, it finally rolled out AI-based features like renaming files and pinned tabs, page summary previews, and accessing ChatGPT from the command bar. Later that month, the company released a feature that allows users to share their folders and spaces and split views with non-Arc users.

Venture capital investment in the food technology sector fell for the eighth consecutive quarter in Q3 2023, with 205 deals reported reaching $2 billion in value. New PitchBook Report.

This is a 13.9% decrease compared to the previous quarter, when 268 investments were made worth $2.2 billion. And compared to the previous year, it was down more than 71%. At PitchBook, we consider “food tech” to be a field that includes alternative proteins, bioengineered foods, discovery and reviews, e-commerce, food production, restaurant and retail technology.

“It’s a little disappointing to see deal activity continue to be weak,” report author Alex Frederick, senior analyst for emerging technologies at PitchBook, told TechCrunch. “But the market is still developing.”

He believes one of the bright spots in the third quarter was Instacart’s IPO, and says there was excitement in that regard, especially since it did so well. But Frederick also said he hasn’t yet seen many other tech startups retreat.

He added: “The IPO window remains closed and venture activity will continue to be challenged.”

Investor opinion

Meir Rabkin, founder and managing partner of climate technology venture firm Blue Vision Capital, said in an interview that climate technology as a whole has been “very resilient” over the past two years. He notes that this resilience is about corporate valuations, and that the contraction felt in other sectors was not as widespread in climate technology.

Rabkin said investing in food tech is “a bit of a tough space” for a variety of reasons, including relatively high capital expenditures and time-consuming research and development.

“That being said, there’s a lot of disruption and innovation that needs to go on there,” Rabkin said. “It’s a very exciting space to be in.”

But Christina Rohr, managing director of food and agriculture investments at impact investment firm S2G Ventures, says capital constraints aren’t all bad.

She found that when the availability of capital decreased, companies’ business models became more resilient because founders considered more capital-efficient methods. She is also considering different types of collaborations, including licensing her models.

Lohr isn’t surprised that venture capital is lagging in food technology, as companies focus on achieving scalability and positive unit economics.

“We are in an environment that is influenced by commodity prices and supply chain costs,” Lohr said. “Given all of this, to be scalable, costs must be comparable to existing technology and products. With these large rounds coming together, investors are looking at technological milestones and , we look at the combined ability to achieve these milestones in a manner that has positive unit economics.”

Plant-based is not growing as fast

Meanwhile, the alternative protein sector saw $724.2 million invested in 46 deals in the third quarter. The report says venture capital funding for plant-based foods is “down significantly from its peak in Q3 2021,” but deal activity remains strong, with further increases for the second consecutive quarter. That’s what it means.

Despite the rise in plant-based investment deals, Pitchbook’s Frederick said the sector is “struggling” when it comes to meat substitutes, citing shrinking grocery store shelf allocations. Ta.

The reasons for this are primarily price and taste perception, and because these products are processed foods, it is difficult to get new customers to try these premium products, Frederick said.

“It’s hard to get it and keep it on the shelf,” he said. “Achieving results is critical for these companies.Currently, consumer packaged goods across the board are under significant challenge from rising prices.Consumers seek lower-cost alternatives. The trend is for plant-based beef companies to sell at a 2% price premium over conventional meat.”

Notable deals in alternative proteins in the third quarter include that of Meati. Series C extension is $200 millionMeatable’s $35 million round and €40 million raised is enough.

As seen on TechCrunch

Fresh capital injection puts Farmless on path to first alternative protein product

I wrote a funding update on Farmless, a company I reported on earlier this year. A Dutch startup working to develop alternative protein sources through fermentation technology has raised a further €4.8 million in seed funding. This will be applied to Farmless’ goal of discovering microorganisms that can be fermented and used in various food applications.

what else are you reading

Great deal: The Canadian Food Innovation Network has awarded Crush Dynamics approximately $2 million to develop and test new ingredients that improve food quality and reduce sugar and sodium content in foods. learn more.

Sustainable supply chain: The Clean Food Group has now received £1 million from the UK Government to fund a project to promote new low-emission food production systems. read more.

Cultured meat support: Alternative protein investor Big Idea Ventures has launched Nexture Bio, a startup that will develop scaffolding technology used to create 3D meat substitute products that more closely resemble whole cuts of meat. get the scoop.

Eye stain: The alternative seafood industry has a new advocate: the Future Ocean Foods Association, founded by Marissa Bronfman. It involves his 36 companies from 14 countries representing cultivation, plant-based and fermentation technologies. read more.

Next time I go to New York, I will: Stop by Eleven Madison Park to try The Every Company’s newly added plant-based egg alternatives to the menu. check it out.

If you have an interesting tip or information about something happening in the world of venture or food technology, please contact Christine Hall at chall.techcrunch@gmail.com or Signal at 832-862-1051. Anonymous requests will be honored.

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Reference:

Was the name an original idea?

Investor opinion

Plant-based is not growing as fast

As seen on TechCrunch

what else are you reading