Built with feedback from disabled communities, Apple unveils 'Assistive Access' iOS update

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

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Today we bring you several new Apple features, a humanoid robot and a smart hummingbird feeder. Who says tech can’t be fun? This is your Daily Crunch for Tuesday. — Christine

In today’s top story, TechCrunch spoke with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and venture capitalist Blake Byers about longevity startup NewLimit raising $40 million. Of course, talking about life also means talking about death, so get ready for some “inevitable jokes centered on billionaires trying to escape death by throwing money at it.” Get the full scoop.

Meanwhile, Elad Gil has a long track record of successful investing, from Stripe to Notion to Airtable and many in between, enough to earn the title of “Silicon Valley’s biggest solo venture capitalist.” Now read about where he’s putting massive amounts of capital, including some on behalf of institutions that reportedly include Harvard’s endowment.

Now over to Apple, which previewed a suite of new features, built with feedback from disabled communities, designed to improve cognitive, vision and speech accessibility that are slated to be available on the iPhone, iPad and Mac later this year. See what’s new.

It’s official: Kustomer, a CRM startup acquired by Meta last year for $1 billion, was spun out on a $250 million valuation. Meta originally planned to divest the company in March as part of cost-cutting measures. Find out what’s in store for Kustomer.

A team of ex-Googlers is making 3D model creation easier. Rooms.xyz is in beta testing with its browser-based tool for designing 3D spaces using drag-and-drop, editable objects or code to enable users to design rooms, basic games or other interactive activities. Bonus — it now has $10 million in a new round of fresh capital led by a16z. Read more.

Hippocratic, which raised a whopping $50 million in seed funding, is building a large language model for healthcare. Find out more.

Jenfi raises more funding for its “growth capital as a service” platform. Get the scoop.

Find out which U.K. startup plans to radically shake up the antiquated world of COPD measurement. Click here to read more.

Birds just wanna have fun, too. And they can with Bird Buddy’s new AI-powered Smart Hummingbird Feeder and Bird Bath. See what it looks like.

Royal’s web3 marketplace has some fresh funding after finding success with Rihanna’s music rights. Find out how they did it.

Youth mental health startup Somethings launches with $3.2 million in new funding led by General Catalyst. Get the scoop.

Now that Spiff has $50 million in Series C funding, it is undertaking a “massive overhaul of its core sales commission engine.” Read more.

Image Credits: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg / Getty Images (Image has been modified)

Big Tech Inc.

Tesla said it was building a humanoid robot in 2021, and now everyone’s doing it. We’re not necessarily saying it is “the golden age of humanoid robots,” but it might be nice to have one that stands 5’7” and lifts 55 pounds — you know, to reach things in high places. Meet Sanctuary AI’s new humanoid robot.

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff has been so busy, let me count the ways: exiting Ring; selling another startup, Honest Day’s Work, to Latch, a proptech smart lock company; and becoming Latch’s CEO. Read more about Siminoff’s plans for the company.

Logitech is a familiar name in gadgets of all kinds, but now it has the Logitech G Cloud gaming handheld, which it has launched in Europe. See what it looks like.

PharMerica, a U.S. pharmacy giant, confirmed that hackers accessed the personal data of almost 6 million patients. Find out more.

Apple is targeting rivals, like Spotify, with new concert discovery features for Apple Music and Apple Maps. Read more.

IBM acquired Israeli company Polar Security for $60 million to automate cloud data management. Read more about the deal.

If you haven’t signed into that Google account in two years, get ready for it to be taken away. Here’s why Google is deleting accounts.

Meanwhile, Spotify is doing its thing, expanding its AI-powered DJ feature to the U.K. and Ireland. Get the details.

What InfoSec Framework Do You Need to Close Big Deals?

Active founders make good investors, but do they make good VCs?

In professional sports, player-coaches can be extraordinarily effective: Celtics center Bill Russell won two NBA championships between 1966 and 1969.

A recent study suggests that this principle also applies to venture capital. “Recent data from AngelList, pulled for Flex Capital, shows that the founder-led funds raised through its platform outperformed the other funds raised on AngelList,” reports Rebecca Szkutak.

At the same time, “it’s important to note that women founders are largely left out of this trend,” she writes.

“While having these side gigs is largely seen as a positive by VCs for male founders, multiple women founders have told TechCrunch+ that they aren’t given the same luxury. In fact, they are advised against it.”

Three more from the team:

Quilt raises $9M seed round to become the Nest of heat pumps

Self-driving cars are taking ages to become a reality, but they won’t take forever

Without Black representation in climate tech, ‘the planet will burn’

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