Alphabet and Apple talk up AI potential during lackluster earnings calls; "It will impact every product and every service"

Apple has been praised for a deliberate hiring approach that has so far kept it from having to conduct mass layoffs. But not even the iPhone maker is immune from economic headwinds. In quarterly earnings posted today, it notched its first year-over-year loss since before the pandemic, with its services revenue one of few bright spots. (CEO Tim Cook also told investors and reporters on the call that AI is now a "major focus" at Apple, adding, "We see enormous potential in this space to affect virtually everything we do... It will affect every product and every service that we have . . .") TechCrunch has more here.

Alphabet also disappointed investors today, reporting its fourth consecutive drop in quarterly profit, weeks after culling 6% of its workforce, or 12,000 employees, to cut costs.

Meanwhile, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai also put AI front-and-center in his discussion of the company's results. “I’m excited by the AI-driven leaps we’re about to unveil in Search and beyond,” Pichai said in a statement, explaining that Google will make AI-based large language models like LaMDA available “in the coming weeks and months" and that users will soon be able to use language models “as a companion to search.” Bloomberg has more here.

A dog named Bobi that lives in Portugal has been declared as both the world's oldest living dog and the world's oldest dog ever, Guinness World Records announced today. He 30 years and 267 days old; his family attributes Bobi's longevity to his calm demeanor, his four cat siblings, and the occasional bowl of red wine.

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MNT-Halan, a 4.5-year-old, Cairo, Egypt-based digital lender to the unbanked, has raised up to $400 million in equity and debt financing ($260 million in equity), with the equity piece coming primarily from Abu Dhabi–based Chimera Investments. The company also received backing from the International Finance Corp. TechCrunch has more here.

Zopa, an 18-year-old London company that provides consumers with lending services, credit cards, and savings accounts, raised a $93 million round at a valuation of more than $1 billion from previous investors including IAG Silverstripe, Uprising, and Augmentum.  (Another earlier backer, SoftBank, which led a $300 million round in Zopa in October 2021 that valued the business at $1 billion, sat out this round.) Zopa has raised a whopping $698 million over the years. TechCrunch has more here.

AnswersNow, a seven-year-old startup based in Richmond, Va,, that has built a telehealth platform for the treatment of individuals with autism, ADHD, and other developmental disabilities, raised an $11 million Series A round. Left Lane Capital was the deal lead. More here.

Beek, a seven-year-old, Mexico City-based Spanish creator audio app, has raised $13 million in a Series A round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Figma cofounder Dylan Field among others. TechCrunch has more here.

BlockJoy, a year-old Boston-based outfit providing a white label blockchain nodes-as-a-service for node hosting enterprises, says it has raised $11 million in combined Seed + Series A funding from Gradient Ventures, Draper Dragon, Dragon Roark, Active Capital, Borderless HNT, and Renegade Ventures, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Dimension Inx, a six-year-old Chicago startup that designs, develops, and manufactures therapeutic products that require advanced biomaterials, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Prime Movers Lab, with participation from KdT Ventures, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Solas BioVentures, Portal Innovation Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. The company has raised a total of $17.7 million. More here.

Freeform, a startup based in Hawthorne, Ca., founded by SpaceX employees that is building a 3D printing factory, raised a $45 million round. Investors included Two Sigma Ventures, Founders Fund, and Threshold Ventures. Bloomberg has more here.

Freightify, a Singapore startup that helps freight forwarders compare pricing data, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Sequoia Capital India, with additional participation by Trail Mix Ventures, Alteria Capital, and previous investors Nordic Eye Venture Capital and Motion Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Gem Security, a four-year-old New York and Tel Aviv startup that focuses on detecting and preventing cloud-based cyberattacks, raised an $11 million seed round led by Team8. TechCrunch has more here.

Gradient, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that aims to design and develop environmentally-friendly HVAC products for consumers, raised an $18 million Series A round. Sustainable Future Ventures and previous investor Ajax Ventures co-led the deal. More here.

Lavender, a three-year-old Atlanta startup that integrates with email providers to serve up context on a sales prospect and suggest ways to optimize the message in order to receive a reply, announced that it had raised a total of $13.2 million from two financings - a Series A round led by Norwest Venture Partners with participation from Signia Venture Partners and a seed round led by Signia with contributions from CapitalX and Position Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

New School Foods, a three-year-old, Toronto-based plant-based "seafood" maker, says it has secured $12 million in seed funding, including from Lever VC, Hatch, Good Startup, Blue Horizon Ventures, and Basecamp Ventures, among others. New School Foods also has grants from Canadian government agencies, including Protein Industries Canada. The company has now raised $13 million in total; TechCrunch has more here.

Onehouse, a Menlo Park, Ca.-based managed data lakehouse company, says it has raised $25 million in Series A funding co-led by Addition and Greylock, which both co-led the outfit's seed round. It has now raised $33 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

PenPot, a five-year-old Madrid startup that has built an open source platform for designers and developers to collaborate on work in a single environment à la Figma, raised a $12 million "Series A+" round led by previous investor and Cisco affiliate Decibel and joined by Athos. TechCrunch has more here.

Phantom AI, a seven-year-old startup based in Mountain View, Ca., that is developing advanced driver assistance systems for automobiles, raised a $36.5 million Series C round. Investors included KT Investment, Renaissance Asset Management, InterVest, Shinhan GIB, and Samsung Ventures. The company has raised a total of $80.7 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Portside, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that allows aircraft operators to share schedules and financial and maintenance data with owners, banks, and insurance companies through a web-based portal, raised a $50 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, with I2BF Global Ventures also taking part. The company has raised a total of $67.3 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Recycleye, a three-year-old London startup whose refuse sorting robots are designed to discern between plastics, aluminum, and cardboard, raised a $17 million Series A round led by DCVC, with Promus Ventures, Playfair Capital, MMC Ventures, Creator Fund, Atypical, and Seaya Andromeda also contributing. The company has raised a total of $22.1 million. Tech.eu has more here

Samooha, a Singapore-based startup developing a “cross-cloud” data collaboration platform, says it has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by Altimeter Capital, Snowflake Ventures and a strategic community of angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Treasury Prime, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that develops software that automates bank processes, raised a $40 million Series C round led by BAM Elevate, with participation from Banc Funds, Invicta, and previous investors Deciens, QED, and SaaStr. TechCrunch has more here.

Triple Whale, a Columbus, Ohio–based platform for Shopify store owners that brings together all of their analytics into a single place to help them improve their conversion numbers and garner better insights into their marketing campaigns, has raised a $25 million Series B round from NFX and Elephant, with strategic participation from Shopify itself. TechCrunch has more here.

BloomX, an Israeli startup that uses AI and hardware to help honeybees pollinate, raised an $8 million seed round led by Ahern Agribusiness, with Vasuki Global Tech Fund, Bio Bee, and the Israeli Innovation Authority also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Beek, a seven-year-old, Mexico City-based Spanish creator audio app, has raised $13 million in a Series A round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Figma cofounder Dylan Field among others. TechCrunch has more here.

Doctify, an eight-year-old London startup that provides tools for healthcare providers looking to understand and benchmark their care, raised a $10 million round led by Beringea, with Keen Venture Partners, Amadeus Capital Partners, and Guinness Ventures also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $20.5 million. More here.

Frontrow Health, an Austin startup that helps medical providers to build digital stores for their patients, raised a $3 million seed round. Next Coast Ventures and NextGen Venture Partners were the co-leads. CityBiz has more here.

Instill AI, a three-year-old London startup that is using AI to derive insights from unstructured data, such as images, videos, audio, and text, raised a $3.6 million seed round led by RTP Global, with Lunar Ventures and previous investor Hive Ventures also contributing. TFN has more here.

Kubeark, a one-year-old New York startup that aims to help software vendors reduce the complexity of their application development lifecycle, raised a $2.8 million pre-seed round led by Credo Ventures and joined by Seedcamp, LAUNCHub Ventures, and 500 Emerging Europe. More here.

Michroma, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that uses fungal biofactories to produce natural food coloring and flavors, raised a $6.4 million seed round led by Supply Change Capital, with additional participating investors including Be8 Ventures, CJ CheilJedang, FEN Ventures, Boro Capital, The Mills Fabrica, Portfolia’s Food & Ag Tech Fund, New Luna Ventures, Siddhi Capital, Groundswell Ventures, and HackCapital. The company has raised a total of $7.1 million. Forbes has more here.

Site 20/20, an eight-year-old Canadian startup that develops products that help to manage traffic at construction sites, raised a $10 million round from Deep Field Asset Management. More here.

Tooljet, a nearly two-year-old India-based startup that's developed an open-source low-code framework used to build and deploy custom internal tools, just raised $4.6 million in a pre-Series A round led by Nexus Venture Partners. Others to participate in the financing included January Capital, Ratio ventures and a slew of angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

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Shamrock Capital, founded in 1978 as the family investment company for the late Roy E. Disney and today an institutionally backed PE firm, says it has garnered more than $600 million in commitments for its third equity fund, with the aim of creating a portfolio of entertainment and sports content and media rights. The Los Angeles-based outfit now has $4.4 billion in assets under management. Music Business WorldWide has more here.

The private equity giant Silver Lake said yesterday that it is considering a takeover of the customer-survey software maker Qualtrics. Silver Lake, which currently owns 4.2% of Qualtrics, plans to submit a proposal to buy the firm's remaining shares and delist the stock, it said on a filing. Software maker SAP last week announced plans to cut 3,000 jobs, or 2.5% of its global workforce, and explore the sale of its remaining 71% stake in Qualtrics. Reuters has more here.

After multiple fits and starts, Gawker.com appears to be finished. The once-influential gossip blog launched in 2003 has been shuttered by its current owner, Bustle Digital Group. WWD has more here.

Standard AI, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based autonomous checkout startup valued by its investors at $1 billion, has acquired Skip, a developer of self-checkout kiosks, says Axios. More here

The China Securities Regulatory Commission yesterday unveiled a long-awaited plan to roll out a registration-based listing mechanism to all domestic stock exchanges. But it comes with restrictions, notes Bloomberg. Financial firms and internet platform companies would need to obtain approval from industry watchdogs before seeking a listing, while liquor companies and tutoring firms are banned and those involved in Covid testing related business are discouraged from selling shares, according to the guidelines. More here.

David Cahn is joining Sequoia Capital as a partner on its growth team; he was previously a general partner and COO of venture capital with Coatue Management, where he spent the last five years. Axios has more here.

The wealthy Silicon Valley town of Atherton passed a modified Housing Element plan after a "marathon meeting" Tuesday night, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The plan, which is mandated by the state and calls for 348 homes in the next eight years, sparked concerns from residents including NBA star Steph Curry and his wife Ayesha (who are getting skewered over their pushback), billionaire VC Marc Andreessen and his wife Laura, and executives from Netflix, Benchmark, and (formerly) Google and Apple. The bulk of the city’s plan calls for allowing 280 accessory dwelling units, which can be backyard cottages or converted spaces into bedrooms, says the Chronicle. More here.

The Justice Department has been urged by representatives of a U.S. national-security panel to consider economic-espionage charges against leaders of TuSimple Holdings, an American self-driving-truck company with ties to China, according to the WSJ. More here.

Peer-to-peer car-sharing company Getaround is laying off 10% of staff starting today. The layoffs are part of a restructuring aimed to put Getaround on the path to “sustainable profitability and long-term growth,” the company said in a statement. Per LinkedIn, Getaround has 421 employees, so the staff cuts should affect around 42 employees, a number the company would not confirm to TechCrunch. More here.

The 10 roles that AI is most likely to replace the fastest.

ChatGPT is in the spotlight, but it’s Whisper -- OpenAI’s open-source speech-transcription program -- that shows us where machine learning is going, says The New Yorker.

A Chinese surveillance balloon is collecting intelligence over the continental United States “right now,” U.S. officials disclosed today, acknowledging that the Pentagon has been monitoring the craft for several days and briefly contemplated shooting it down before reconsidering. The Washington Post has more here.

Carson Block uses covert techniques to uncover fraud for profit. Now he’s under investigation himself.

Get ready for the Stallone family reality show.

The 100 best songs of last year.

An Airbnb in L.A, hosted by Seth Rogan.

Wallpaper everywhere.

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