Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we're bringing you live coverage of SXSW; notes on Colossal's goal to reverse extinction, and the hype around China's much-touted AI agent, Manus. We've also got Redfin being taken private, Lithuania's defense strategy, why Neom has become a sinkhole, and fresh funding for anything that touches AI. Let's dive in! | | | Image Credits: Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images | 1. SXSW Live: TechCrunch is on the ground at SXSW this year, and we're bringing you news and tidbits live — everything from Disney's commitment to IRL world-building at its parks, to conversations with founders. Read More 2. Jurassic Park isn't what the CEO of Colossal is trying to bring about with his company's attempts to bring back extinct species like the woolly mammoth. The company instead wants to build a de-extinction toolkit since "modern conservation isn't working." Read More 3. Is the Manus hype legit? Manus, a new agentic AI platform from Chinese startup The Butterfly Effect, promises to do everything from buy real estate to program video games, and the AI world is freaking out. TC's Kyle Wiggers argues we need to look beyond the hype. Read More | | | Image Credits: Sundry Photography / Getty Images | The public markets aren't for everyone: Just take a look at Redfin, the real estate listing platform whose stock has been languishing below $10 after going skyhigh during the COVID pandemic. The company is now being taken private by Rocket Companies in an all-stock transaction that values it at $1.75 billion. Read More Code for me: Anysphere, which develops AI coding assistant Cursor, is working towards raising fresh venture capital at a valuation of close to $10 billion. That sky high valuation comes as investors are going bananas over AI that can write code. Read More Truckin' on: Nirvana is an AI-based insurance platform that uses real-time driving telematics and millions of miles of truck driving data to build and manage insurance policies for truckers. The startup has raised an $80 million Series C even as the trucking industry prepares for the negative impacts of Trump's tariffs. Read More Merger Monday: ServiceNow is buying Moveworks, a company that develops enterprise-focused automation and AI tools, for $2.85 billion in cash and stock. The two will combine ServiceNow's agentic AI with Moveworks' AI assistant. Read More Mirage or paradise? Saudi Arabia's Neom, the futuristic, carbon-neutral linear city, has become a financial sinkhole. The country has already spent $50 billion on the project, which reportedly still has another 55 years of construction and projected cost of $8.8 trillion. Read More | | | On stable ground: The world's largest banks and fintechs – from Bank of America to Revolut – are rushing to launch stablecoins so they can grab a slice of a cross-border payments market, reports Financial Times. The rush is being driven by Trump's embrace of crypto. Read More Shape up or ship out: Nearly a quarter of U.S. tech jobs posted this year want employees with AI skills, and over a third of IT jobs posted in January were related to AI. For the most part, companies are looking for people who can integrate AI into jobs that already exist, rather than hiring for completely new AI-focused roles, per The Washington Post. Read More | | | Image Credits: Courtesy of Viktorija Trimbel | | | Coming out the gate swinging: Lithuania isn't messing around when it comes to defense. The country is committing up to 6% of its GDP to military spending, including funding defense startups. Its sovereign VC firm, Coinvest Capital, is an outlier because it doesn't require its portfolio companies to build dual-use tech for civilian use cases. Read More | | | Featured jobs from CrunchBoard | | | Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. | | | Update your preferences here at any time | | Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 680 Folsom Street,San Francisco,CA | | | | |
