Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we’ve got updates on the demise of an EV startup, why genAI doesn’t necessarily need vast swathes of real world data, the rise of quick commerce in India, and, of course, money for AI.

A note before we jump in: TC AM won’t be coming to your inboxes tomorrow, as we’ll be off celebrating Juneteenth, perhaps with a self-guided walking tour of Brooklyn’s abolitionist history. To work! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP / Getty Images

1. Fisker files for bankruptcy: Look, we saw this coming, particularly after our pre-mortem into the EV startup’s collapse. Fisker last night filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a year after it delivered its first Ocean SUVs to customers. Read More

2. Google launches Gemini app in India: Just four months after debuting an app for its genAI assistant, Gemini, in the U.S., Google is now making the app available in India. The app runs on Gemini 1.0 but you can pay to access an advanced version that runs on Gemini 1.5 Pro. It also supports nine Indian languages. Google has also quietly released the app in Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Read More

3. The next gen of AI: Self-driving truck startup Waabi claims to have built AI for the physical world — one that doesn’t rely on vast swathes of real-world data and LLMs to learn. Rather, Waabi’s Driver adopts a reasoning-based approach that lets it learn to do far more than just drive trucks on highways. I, for one, can’t wait for a bot to do my grocery shopping and laundry while I write. Read More

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Morning Must Reads

Image Credits: Loop

A loop of misfortune: Car insurance company Loop is the latest to be forced to lay off staff. The company has apparently been trying to raise capital for 20 months now, and the layoffs come after an investor pulled out at the last moment. Loop started off as a project that sought to move away from structurally biased metrics like credit scores and education used by legacy models for pricing insurance. Read More

Quick commerce is thriving in India: Remember all those 10-minute delivery startups that cropped up and just as quickly died off? Well, they’re having a moment in India. Companies like Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy’s Instamart are already charting a path towards profitability, and they’re expanding beyond grocery delivery and into e-commerce. Read More

Finbourne raises $70M to help banks use their data in AI: London-based Finbourne has its roots in how the founder met the challenge of building more efficient data services at his institutional bank following the 2008 financial crisis. That eventually evolved into a startup that shapes how financial companies buy IT today, and how they organize and use their data in AI models. Read More

A search engine for materials: CuspAI just raised a cool $30 million round led by Hoxton Ventures to boost its genAI software for materials. The startup's platform functions like a search engine for materials, enabling the fast evaluation of a “vast number of novel structures.” Read More

SUSE tries on AI to get into the U.S.: Luxembourg-based open-source company SUSE is hoping that AI will reshuffle the playing field in IT, giving it a new entryway into the U.S. A major part of its new AI strategy is SUSE AI solutions, a new vendor- and LLM-agnostic genAI platform. Read More

Threads launches API for developers: Finally! Meta has at last launched its much-awaited API for Threads so developers can build cool stuff around the app. Developers can now use the API to publish posts, fetch their own content and deploy reply management tools. Read More

Bringing AI to the sewers: What can’t you apply AI to? The aptly named SewerAI has raised $15 million to use AI to spot defects in sewers. This may sound super unsexy, but you know what’s less sexy? Floods caused by climate change that lead to sewage backups that overwhelm wastewater treatment systems. Read More

Helping homeowners save on energy costs: Brought to you by Dandelion’s co-founder, Balto Energy has come out of stealth to help homeowners manage their energy system as a whole – including solar panels, backup batteries, heat pumps – and save money. To provide recommendations that make sense, Balto models energy usage for homes using customer-provided utility data. Read More

Is radar making a comeback?: South Korea’s Bitsensing certainly thinks so. The startup has just raised $25 million for its high-res 4D imaging radar, that’s being used to boost the sensor suite in autonomous vehicles. The company is also looking to apply its tech to smart cities and digital healthcare. Read More

Around the Web

Is the age of the social media creator over?: Content creators on social media say they’re not making as much money as they used to: platforms are compensating them less and brands are being pickier about what they want from sponsorship deals, reports the Wall Street Journal. Maybe brands are just waiting for genAI avatars like TikTok just launched. Read More

The real answer is always in the comments: Google’s search has been degrading for some time as the rules of SEO and all those annoying ads get in the way of the information and recommendations that people look for. So, people have apparently been taking to Reddit to find answers to their questions, reports the Wall Street Journal. I can confirm this, being one of those people. Read More

Crypto gets tethered to gold: Tether has introduced a new synthetic dollar that’s backed by physical gold stored in Switzerland. The stablecoin token will trade as USDT via smart contracts on the Ethereum Mainnet blockchain, reports Bloomberg. The company says Tether Gold has a market cap of about $573 million. Read More

Before You Go

Image Credits: Moor Studio / Getty Images

Tee up, folks: Golf has, allegedly, exploded in popularity in recent years, and it’s become difficult for players to get tee time at public courses. Loop Golf is hoping to fix that, acting as a digital matchmaker by finding and booking tee times for golfers whenever they become available — even if that's in the middle of the night. Read More