Thursday, June 6, 2024

Good afternoon, and welcome to TechCrunch PM! Today was a busy news day, so strap in. SpaceX’s rocket goes and comes back, Rivian hopes to get in customers’ good graces again, U.K. retailers are not happy with Amazon, and many, many venture rounds. Let’s go!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: SpaceX

SpaceX celebration: Launching a rocket is hard, and SpaceX knows just how hard, all too well. However, it can now pop some bottles because its Starship flight test was a success, meeting the milestone of launching and then returning the booster and the upper stage back to Earth in controlled ocean splashdowns. Read more

Cara’s chef kiss to Meta: Artists have finally had enough with Meta’s predatory AI policies, but Meta’s loss is Cara’s gain. An artist-run, anti-AI social platform, Cara has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users within the last week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts. Read more

Two Rivian models get a face-lift: Rivian has changed 600 parts on its R1S SUV and R1T pickup truck in a bid to drive down manufacturing costs while improving performance of its flagship vehicles. The end goal is one that will play out over the coming year. And it’s an existential one. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

Fizz cofounders Carlo Kobe and Scott Smith

Image Credits: Fizz

Debit and credit never Fizz out: Kleiner Perkins leads a $14 million seed round into a young Y Combinator company called Fizz that wants to help Gen Z build their credit. Read more

U.K. retailers claim Amazon used data incorrectly: The British Independent Retailers Association, which has thousands of members, said it is filing a damages claim against Amazon valued at £1.1 billion ($1.3 billion at today’s rates) alleging that Amazon has illegally misused members’ proprietary data for competitive purposes. Read more

Revel makes layoffs: Revel has made a lot of pivots since initially launching in 2018 as a dockless e-moped sharing service. After dropping the moped-sharing business in 2023, Revel is pivoting once again to abandon one of the main things that made its ride-hail service unique: The startup is laying off its 1,000-plus drivers and embracing a gig worker model similar to that of rivals Lyft and Uber. Read more

A Meta two-fer: Meta announced AI-powered features for WhatsApp Business apps, such as helping with the creation of click-to-WhatsApp ads and generating responses to frequent customer messages. Read more

And the company rolls out its Meta Verified program for WhatsApp Business users in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia, and eventually to more countries. Read more

Google goes after the nudes: Google on Thursday is issuing new guidance for developers building AI apps distributed through Google Play, in hopes of cutting down on inappropriate and otherwise prohibited content. Read more

A different kind of streak: TikTok is testing streaks that are similar to what people see on Snapchat. Snapchat streaks are a status symbol among friends to prove how close you are to a person and how often you interact with them. TikTok is trying to invoke a similar sentiment with its own take. Read more

Startup freebie: Atlassian launched its Atlassian for Startups program today, which provides companies with under $10 million in funding a year of free access for up to 50 users. Read more

Sirion acquired Eigen: Sirion Labs, one of the early movers in no-code AI tools and a specialist in contracts, is acquiring another enterprise AI pioneer, Eigen Technologies, which focuses on parsing and extracting insights and data from documents in verticals like insurance, finance and law. Read more

Money, money, money

Prolific Machines, with a $55 million Series B, shines “light” on a better way to grow lab proteins for food and medicine. Read more

Tektonic AI raises $10 million to build generative AI agents for automating business operations. Read more

Qargo raises $14 million to digitize and decarbonize the trucking industry. Read more

Greptile raises $4 million to build an AI-fueled code base expert. Read more

Cube is building a “semantic layer” for company data. Read more

TechCrunch Minute

Is Elon Musk putting Tesla’s AI ambitions in the slow lane?: Elon Musk has said that Tesla has ambitious plans for AI, which will require it to more than double its usage of Nvidia’s flagship AI chips by the end of this year. But thousands of chips are being sent to X, not Tesla. Does that matter? Hit play, and let’s chat!

Around the web

Coffee and food go together just like peas and carrots: Reuters reports that Starbucks and Grubhub are now buds and will deliver coffees and other customized beverages in select U.S. markets starting this month. Starbucks has similar deals with other food delivery companies; however, when you have weak demand, you try something else, right? Read more

Humane on the sales block?: Yesterday, we reported on Humane’s Ai Pin troubles, and today it looks like the company is trying to sell itself to HP for $1 billion, according to The Verge. Read more

Yida Gao’s future: A Fortune investigation discovered Gao created a secret offshore entity and funneled assets belonging to his venture fund, Shima Capital, into the corporation set up under his own name. Read more