Latest from TechCrunch
TechCrunch
27 minutes ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Trump's prospective TikTok buyer reportedly includes Oracle, Blackstone, a16z
In Brief After pushing the TikTok sale date back yet again, President Donald Trump said in an interview on Sunday that he had found a potential buyer for the ByteDance-owned platform. Though the president said he will not reveal the identities of the buyers for another couple weeks, Bloomberg is reporting that the buyer is a group of investors from Oracle, Blackstone, and VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). According to the report, these investors had made a bid, but it lost momentum amid tensions between the U.S. and China due to Trump's tariff proposals. Oracle has long been engaged with TikTok as part of its Project Texas initiative to make sure that U.S. user data is stored in the States.
TechCrunch
36 minutes ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
How Circle co-founder Sean Neville plans to build the first AI-native financial institution
This week on StrictlyVC Download, Circle co-founder Sean Neville joins Alex Gove of StrictlyVC to discuss building banking infrastructure for AI agents. Fresh off Circle's 450% IPO surge, Neville has raised $18 million from a16z to create Catena Labs, the first fully regulated AI-native financial institution. They explore what 'agent-native finance' actually means, how AI agents will soon handle our payments and treasury management, and why the financial world needs new standards and protocols to make this safe and reliable.
TechCrunch
37 minutes ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Amazon deploys its one millionth robot, releases generative AI model
After 13 years of deploying robots into its warehouses, Amazon reached a new milestone. The tech behemoth now has one million robots in its warehouses, the company announced Monday. This one millionth robot was recently delivered to an Amazon fulfillment facility in Japan. That figure puts Amazon on track to reach another landmark: its vast network of warehouses may soon have the same number of robots working as people, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ also reported that 75% of Amazon's global deliveries are now assisted in some way by a robot. TechCrunch reached out to Amazon for more information. The company also announced it's releasing a new generative AI model called DeepFleet for its warehouse robots. This AI model, which can coordinate the robots' routes within the company's warehouses more efficiently, will help increase the speed of its robotic fleet by 10%, according to Amazon. The company used Amazon Sagemaker — the AWS cloud studio that helps build and deploy AI models — to create DeepFleet. Amazon trained the model on its own warehouse and inventory data. Amazon's one-millionth robot represents more than just a number. The company has improved its fleet of robots in recent years, adding new capabilities and models. Techcrunch event Save $450 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW In May, the company unveiled its latest robot, Vulcan. This model has two arms, one designed for rearranging inventory, and another with a camera and suction cup to grab items. Most notably, these Vulcan robots have a sense of 'touch' that allows it to feel the items it is grabbing, according to Amazon. In October 2024, the company announced its 'next-generation fulfillment centers' which would include 10x as many robots as their current facilities, in addition to human workers. The first of these new robotic-powered centers opened shortly after in Shreveport, Louisiana, near the state's Texas border. Amazon originally started building up its robotic capabilities back in 2012 alongside its acquisition of Kiva Systems.
TechCrunch
an hour ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Nikita Bier joins X as Head of Product: ‘I've officially posted my way to the top'
In Brief Elon Musk's X has appointed serial entrepreneur and growth hacker Nikita Bier as its new Head of Product. 'I've officially posted my way to the top,' Bier wrote on X, alluding to his large presence on the app. Bier is best known as the founder of apps like Gas, which was acquired by Discord, and TBH, which was acquired by Facebook. Both Gas and TBH were apps geared toward teens, who were encouraged to leave one another compliments. More recently, Bier has been working as a venture partner at Lightspeed and as an advisor to the Solana Foundation. Never give up — Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) June 30, 2025 'While I already spend every waking hour on this app, I'll now be spending that time helping others unlock that same value,' Bier wrote on X about his new position.' And we'll certainly be leveraging the power of Grok to create hyper-relevant timelines and help people understand everything that's happening. Thanks @elonmusk and the X team for inviting me to work on the product that I live and breathe.' Elon Musk, in return, posted 'Welcome to X' and replied to Bier, saying 'LFG' followed by two rocket ship emojis. Bier's success to date has relied not only on his ability to build apps that resonate with a younger demographic, but also on driving growth for those apps over a short period. At X, he could potentially build features that drive adoption beyond the user base that's typically drawn to text-first social networks. Techcrunch event Save $450 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW Already, he's hinted at plans for what comes next, posting to X that 'someone should fix notifications,' and suggesting he had prototyped a deeper Grok integration during his interview.
TechCrunch
2 hours ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Remark raises $16M to build out human-powered expert models for e-commerce
Startups working on AI-powered e-commerce tools often rely on external data or user signals to build and improve their models. However, a company called Remark is taking a different approach by letting thousands of human experts chat with users while they are purchasing items, and then using that knowledge to train models. Remark also makes those experts 'available' all the time by having their AI-powered persona answer questions. Remark said that this resulted in a 10% net revenue gain for partners, which was a great sign for investors. The startup on Tuesday announced $16 million in Series A funding led by Inspired Capital with participation from Stripe, Neo, Spero Ventures, Shine Capital, and Visible Ventures. This brings the startup's total funding to date to $27 million. Remark plans to use the funds to grow its team of 25 people and spend on model training. Remark joins a number of startups that are plugging AI into various areas of e-commerce, such as search, try-ons, chatbots, and dynamic page generation that is suited for AI-powered experiences. While these companies operate in different areas, merchants can only spend so much to enhance their online experience. In this market, Remark could have challenges in scaling and competing with other e-commerce startups using AI. While Remark previously depended on a cut of the sale to generate revenue, the company has moved to a SaaS-based (software-as-a-service) model for better cash flow and now takes a fee based on site traffic. Image Credits: Remark The company's CEO, Theo Satloff, said that physical stores tend to see high conversion rates of 30-35% compared to online stores that convert at roughly 1.5%. With Remark, the startup wanted to change that. 'The reason for low conversion rates on e-commerce sites is that people have a lot of questions when they shop. They have to go on Reddit or ask their friends to get advice about the purchase. In a store, a person with product knowledge helps them, so the conversion rate is high,' he explained. 'At Remark, we want to bring that kind of expertise to online shopping for our partners,' Satloff said in a call with TechCrunch. When a user visits a site that uses Remark, the startup's tool generates a set of dynamic questions that can drive the user's purchasing decision. If a user is looking for pots and pans, the site could ask what kind of stovetop they have, or if they use diesel conduction or gas. When the user clicks on one of these questions, a chat interface opens where they're matched with an expert who can offer advice about buying an item. Image Credits:Remark Remark matches an expert with a user based on skill set and locale, it says. If an expert is not available, the user is matched with an AI bot based on those experts who can help them with their shopping. The company is slowly expanding its expert network. Satloff said Remark works with a variety of accreditation agencies to verify the expertise of the people who work with them. (This is akin to Airbnb adding various experience providers for its platform.) Experts are paid for their time on the platform on a per-chat basis. They are also paid when their AI persona converts a sale. While the startup didn't provide an exact figure for the average earnings that an expert receives, it said its top 20% earn $60,000-$70,000 per year by spending more than 15-20 hours a week offering advice. The catch is that the human expert needs to be alert to requests from users. When a user activates a chat, experts get a notification on their phone on Remark's app, and they have five to eight seconds to claim the chat and respond to the buyer. Image Credits:Remark Remark also dynamically rewrites the content on the website based on the user's conversation with the expert and what they might be looking for. The company has been growing quickly. Following its $10 million fundraise in 2023, Remark has seen 4x revenue growth. It also increased its network of experts from 50,000 to 60,000. Kamran Ali, a Principal at Inspired Capital, said that Remark's utilization of human insights was an important factor in the VC firm investing in the startup. 'As AI continues to take over the Internet, we're going to continue to be inundated with just a ton of AI-generated content everywhere we go. The amount of AI-generated content we see today is dramatically more than a year ago, and that's there's no end in sight. So, having human insights and preferences will actually be at a premium, and that's what attracted us to invest in Remark,' he told TechCrunch over a call. Remark is now working on the ability to generate blog posts that recommend products based on expert conversations. Later, it plans to send personalized follow-up emails to users about a conversation they had with an expert.
