Category: info1
Kleiner Perkins is having a very good week
Even while the tech industry is still fanning its face over Figma’s hot IPO on Thursday, another significant tech IPO occurred this week: Ambiq Micro. On Wednesday, the chip maker for wearable devices saw its shares climb from the initial price of $24 to over $42 on Friday. There’s one thing both companies have in…
Venture firm CRV raises $750M, downsizing after returning capital to investors
CRV has secured $750 million toward the 55-year-old venture firm’s twentieth flagship fund, it announced on Friday. The new fund is smaller than the $1 billion early-stage fund CRV closed in the fall of 2022. At that time, the firm also announced a $500 million second Select fund, a capital pool for backing late-stage rounds…
Google bets on STAN, an Indian social gaming platform
Google has backed STAN, an Indian social gaming platform that connects gamers with creators, communities, and publishers. Google’s investment comes as part of an $8.5 million equity funding round, which also saw investment from Japanese gaming giants Bandai Namco Entertainment, Square Enix, and Reazon Holdings. Aptos Labs and King River Capital, as well as existing…
Tesla partly liable in Florida Autopilot trial, jury awards $329M in damages
A jury in federal court in Miami has found Tesla partly to blame for a fatal 2019 crash that involved the use of the company’s Autopilot driver assistance system. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $329 million in punitive and compensatory damages. Neither the driver of the car nor the Autopilot system braked in time to…
Female-founded semiconductor AI startup SixSense raises $8.5M
A Singapore-based deep tech startup called SixSense has developed an AI-powered platform that helps semiconductor manufacturers predict and detect potential chip defects on production lines in real time. It has raised $8.5 million in Series A bringing its total funding to around $12 million. The round was led by Peak XV’s Surge (formerly Sequoia India…
Handwave lends a hand to retailers with its European alternative to Amazon’s palm payments
Paying with a handwave once sounded like science fiction, but contactless palm recognition service Amazon One has already been used more than 8 million times, according to the company. That’s Amazon, though, which explains why it has been deployed in Amazon stores and more than 500 Whole Foods Market stores in the U.S., but only…
Google loses appeal over app store overhaul in Epic Games case
Google lost its appeal of a judge’s court order requiring the tech giant to revamp its app store in an antitrust case filed by Fortnite maker Epic Games, Reuters reported on Thursday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Google’s argument that the trial judge made legal errors in the antitrust case that unfairly favored…
Figma’s stock soars in its highly anticipated IPO, market cap instantly hits $45B
Figma began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday after a long delay. It soared so quickly that trading was halted for a short time due to market volatility. The price is currently bouncing between $101 and $112 with a mid-day market cap of $45 billion, Yahoo Finance reports. The company and existing…
Kleiner Perkins-backed Ambiq pops on IPO debut
Ambiq Micro, a 15-year-old manufacturer of energy-efficient chips for wearable and medical devices, closed its first day of trading on Wednesday at $38.53 a share, a 61% increase from the $24 IPO price the company set the previous day. The success of the IPO signals strong investor demand in the public market for new small-cap…
GitHub Copilot crosses 20 million all-time users
GitHub Copilot, an AI coding tool offered by Microsoft-owned GitHub, has now reached more than 20 million users, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on the company’s earnings call Wednesday. A GitHub spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that this number represents “all-time users.” That means five million people have tried out GitHub Copilot for the first time…
