Hey, people. You’ve reached the end of the week — congrats, by the way — and the Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter covering the week in tech. Here, in this little column of ours, we do our best to curate the top stories that have emerged over the past five days. Hope you find it useful.
Just a few PSAs before we move on to the news. On May 24, TechCrunch Live, TC’s podcast about founder stories, will host Romi Gubes, the co-founder of Sensi.AI, in a discussion about how the company uses audio-based software to monitor patients and assist medical staff and families with care. (Register here – it’s free.)
Meanwhile, TechCrunch City Spotlight will be virtual on June 7 with a focus on Atlanta, where speakers will present about building businesses in the exploding metro and startups will be available to participate in TC’s famous Battlefield 200.
Last but not least, Disrupt, TC’s flagship conference, returns in September (September 19–21) in San Francisco. Expect six stages of presenters, including a new AI-focused stage, and many surprises. Learn more here.
Now, without further ado, on to the news.
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The young billionaire bought Forbes: Austin Russell, the 28-year-old founder and CEO of Luminar, which develops vision-based lidar and machine perception technologies specifically for self-driving cars, told The Wall Street Journal this week that he will buy 82% stake in Forbes Global Media. Hold a deal that values the company at nearly $800 million.
New Teslas on the road: Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased two new electric cars on Tuesday at the automaker’s 2023 annual shareholder meeting. Tesla previously announced the new models during its Investor Day in March, showing a photo of the company’s entire lineup and several blank car outlines. One of the vehicles looks like the size of a van, roughly, and the other looks like a sedan or hatchback. Both are expected to be cheaper cars sold in higher volumes.
Free TV, but there’s a catch: Telly, a hardware startup led by Pluto TV co-founder Ilya Pozin, announced on Monday that it is giving away 500,000 of its new smart TVs for free. (Yes, we said free.) There’s a catch, though. Users have to watch 24/7 ads while simultaneously streaming TV shows and movies.
ChatGPT goes mobile: This week, OpenAI announced the launch of an official iOS app that lets users access the popular AI chatbot on the go — months after the App Store was flooded with dubious, unofficial services. The new ChatGPT app will be free to use and free of ads and will allow voice input, the company said, but will initially be limited to US users at launch.
Holmes goes to prison: After years of high-profile court proceedings, Elizabeth Holmes may actually be going to jail — literally this time. The former founder and CEO of Theranos was found guilty of defrauding investors in January, but has repeatedly delayed and appealed his sentence to remain in prison. Although the famed biotech entrepreneur is still appealing his 11-year sentence, a panel of Ninth Circuit judges ruled that Holmes’ legal team did not raise enough “substantial questions” to keep him out of prison .
Customer left Meta, generating money: Meta’s grand experiment in building an enterprise-ready customer service platform has come to an end. Facebook’s parent has officially spun off Kustomer, the CRM startup it acquired last year for $1 billion. The new entity began life with an infusion of $60 million from backers Battery, Redpoint and boldstart, plus a large cut of the previous valuation – it is now reported to be $250 million.
Lock and hide: WhatsApp today announced that it is introducing a new feature “Chat Lock” designed to give users an extra layer of security for their most intimate conversations. As the name suggests, the feature allows you to “lock” a chat, removing that thread from the inbox and placing it behind its own folder that can only be accessed with a password on your device. or biometric, such as a fingerprint.
Humanoid robots FTW: Vancouver, British Columbia-based Sanctuary AI this week unveiled Phoenix, its take on the humanoid robot form factor. The bipedal bot stands 5’7″ tall and weighs 155 pounds — not unlike the humans it’s designed to supplement (or replace, depending on who you ask). The system can lift payloads up to 55 pounds and travel up to three miles per hour. No word on pricing – yet.
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Need listening material for the weekend? Don’t worry – TechCrunch has you covered (and then some). This week on Equity, the crew covers Vice going bankrupt, Elon Musk’s first Twitter acquisition at the helm and what the future of corporate debt looks like. Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, the co-founder and CEO of Samooha, a startup that creates the critical infrastructure needed for data collaboration, is featured. Regarding Chain Reaction, Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, talked about the Chainlink protocol that provides an oracle network with the power of smart contracts. The TechCrunch Podcast does a deep dive into Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch. And TechCrunch Live profiled Richard Song, one of the co-founders of Persona, which built and offers a large suite of identity verification solutions, along with Persona investor and Index Ventures lead Mark Goldberg .
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers have access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you already know if you’re a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are some highlights from this week:
The new rules on venture debt: The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is not the end of venture debt, but it is likely the end of companies raising debt with the same ease that many are used to. Rebecca writes about the state of business debt after SVB and after the collapse of First Republic Bank and how it will change in the future.
Alibaba, in the clouds: Chinese tech giant Alibaba is shaking up its corporate structure in a series of moves that will allow large parts of its business to raise capital and possibly even go public. That might not be such a bad idea, when you consider that the conglomerate’s revenue rose by a half of 2% in Q1 2023 and its profitability has been falling (operating income fell 9%) from a year earlier.
AI in retail, maturing: As the retail sector becomes increasingly reliant and focused on data and AI, it’s important for retailers to understand how first-party data analytics can crystallize insights into customer behavior — and , in turn, a tangible competitive advantage. Hugh Cameron, head of data for Zitcha, looks at the three most important milestones on the road to predictive analytics in the context of retail media.
Calling all early stage startups! Apply to join the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. All finalists will get expert training, VC networking, a booth at Disrupt, and the chance to compete for $100,000 in equity-free funds . Applications close May 31. Apply now.
