Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch PM! This afternoon, we bring you news about another group of venture capitalists who are making public which presidential candidate they support, a few funding rounds to advance AI tools, layoffs, and a robot that will move boxes for you. Happy Wednesday!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Drew Hallowell / Getty Images, Maggie Stamets / Cody Corrall / TechCrunch

💰 Now we see which VCs stump for Kamala Harris: Just as we saw investors Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and David Sacks throw their support for Donald Trump, investors including Reid Hoffman and Vinod Khosla are doing the same for Kamala Harris. Read more

🤝 Bending Spoons acquires WeTransfer: Bending Spoons already owns apps, including Evernote and Meetup, and is now adding the file transfer service. Not much is known yet about the fate of WeTransfer in the hands of Bending Spoon. We do know that it typically transforms the business models of companies it acquires. It also lays off staff from those companies. Stay tuned. Read more

🎧 AI for sales: Sybill, now with $11 million in new funding, built an AI assistant specifically for sales representatives. The company claims its ability to track and analyze many call transcripts and emails is what sets it apart. It does that by providing context-driven insights and summaries instead of only providing meeting notes and transcripts of one or two calls. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

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🍎 How to enable Apple Intelligence on your iPhone: Apple is finally releasing some of the Apple Intelligence features. However, if you don't want to deal with early-stage buggy software, wait for the stable release later this year. Read more

🔎 A helping hiring hand: AI agents are everywhere, so why not as a hiring manager. Tezi, which raised $9 million, is building an AI agent for hiring managers to automate the recruitment process. Read more

🤖 A robot that irons: Neura is one of a baker's dozen of firms that were given early access to Nvidia's humanoid development and deployment tools. This week, the German robotics manufacturer released a video of its humanoid robot, called 4NE-1, performing a variety of activities, like ironing and moving boxes. Read more

📱 Layoffs: You might be able to blame this one on generative AI. Match Group discontinued livestreaming services in its dating apps, resulting in a 6% reduction in its workforce. Match is shutting down the Hakuna app, acquired through its purchase of social networking company Hyperconnect in 2021. Read more

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Around the web

🚂 The seed train has slowed: New figures from Crunchbase News show the number of seed-round deals in the first half of 2024 slowed down. It's also taking longer for a seed-stage company to get to Series A, as it often does; however, now VCs say seed rounds are larger to accommodate. Read more

✈️ Meet Boeing's new CEO: Robert "Kelly" Ortberg, a former CEO at aerospace manufacturer Rockwell Collins, will succeed David Calhoun as CEO and president beginning August 8, ABC News reports. Read more

🧳 Delta says CrowdStrike outage will cost it $500M: The airline says it had to cancel over 5,000 flights as a result of the outage. Delta CEO Ed Bastian also said the company had no choice but to seek damages against CrowdStrike. CNBC has more