TechCrunch Newsletters - Y Combinator narrows its focus

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Good afternoon, and welcome to TechCrunch PM. Love is in the air today, as is some big news. Today we get into Y Combinator’s call for startups, some robotics jobs if you have the skills, why dating apps aren’t getting the job done and a handful of funding rounds.

— Christine

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

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TechCrunch PM Top 3

Y Combinator sets its sights on new areas: Spatial computing, climate tech and applications of AI technology join the newly announced list of startup incubator Y Combinator’s newest request for startups. That’s not to say it won’t accept companies in other industries, but it’s all about what the investors will ultimately like.

Seeking a robotics job?: We’ve got you covered with this list of companies and the number of open roles.

Rasa raises $30M: We’ve featured enough stories in this newsletter lately to confidently say that conversational AI is having a moment. Rasa is the latest startup attracting venture capital attention in this area for its approach to making interacting with chatbots more human-like.

Image Credits: Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch, with stock photos from Getty under license

More top reads

Roses are red: We can’t do Valentine’s Day without some dating news. It might come as a surprise that dating app downloads are slowing down. Why? There are actually a number of reasons, and some may not surprise you.

Where do satellites go after they are retired?: We’ll have to ask SpaceX, which made the decision to de-orbit 100 of its Starlink satellites that were discovered to have a flaw that has not been identified yet.

Slack’s search gets smarter: Throw away those conventional search tools — Slack has a few new features designed to make finding all that institutional knowledge hiding in channels more accessible. Summaries are big now — just ask Otter — so you’ll see one of those in Slack, too.

Classify this under emails we don’t like to get: The U.S. military had the unpleasant job of notifying 20,000 people that their personal information was exposed during a large spill of unclassified emails.

The security hits keep coming: We learned that a researcher scanning the internet came across some sensitive company information belonging to BMW.

Developers like Apple’s Vision Pro: And they are wasting no time in designing apps. Two weeks after its debut, there are now over 1,000 apps specifically made for the new device.

Who would have thought robots don’t like routine?: Robots, in many ways, were built to help humans avoid the mundane. However, software designed for robots tries to correct that, leading to problems. Jacobi Robotics is out to fix that.

Startups, but ethically started: Over on TechCrunch+, Haje speaks with some founders who have come up with an alternative organizational structure for more sustainability and regenerative business practices.

Get growing: Hippo Harvest lands $21 million to combine robotics and AI with indoor farming to grow lettuce for Amazon Fresh and others.

Image Credits: skodonnell / Getty Images under a CC BY 2.0 license.

On the pods

Today’s Equity walks through the week’s leading startup and venture capital news. Alex gets into Bret Taylor’s new startup, a bunch of new funding rounds in fintech and software, some new funds and mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms. Listen here.