The company behind Grok’s image generation could be worth $1B

Friday, September 20, 2024 Posted by bloggerdaddy

Friday, September 20, 2024

Welcome to TC PM and happy Friday! Today we're digging into Black Forest Labs' new $100 million fundraise; Tumblr's surge in popularity after Brazil banned X; and when Apple Intelligence features will roll out. Have a great weekend!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

💵 Monster fundraise: Black Forest Labs was co-founded by the engineers who built the technology behind Stability AI and is the tech used in Elon Musk's xAI to power image generation in its Grok chatbot. Sources tell Ingrid Lunden that the company is closing a $100 million round at a $1 billion valuation. Read more

🤔 LinkedIn AI: The U.K.'s privacy watchdog has confirmed that Microsoft's LinkedIn is no longer using its users' data to train its AI model. The timing of this confirmation is interesting considering Meta just resumed training on U.K. users' data last week. Read more

🇧🇷 Tumblr's rise in Brazil: X's loss of the Brazil market is seemingly every other social media sites' gain. Last week, Bluesky reported a surge in new users. This week, Tumblr is saying the same: It saw a 350% growth in users. Read more

A Message from Roku

Roku Ads Manager: Built for CTV Performance

Roku Ads Manager's optimization algorithms are built for CTV. Growth marketers can easily get campaigns live, reach engaged audiences, optimize their ads, and track results in real time. Get started for as little as $500 and see how Roku can help you reach your audience on CTV.

Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: YouTube

🎙️ Equity: In today's episode of Equity, the crew dove into the week's weird and cool startup news, including TuSimple's not-so-simple pivot, Luminate's hair loss prevention helmet, and more money for quick commerce. Listen here

🛒 Simpler online checkout: Rania Lamprou started Simpler to build a company that made online checkout easier. The startup is entering a crowded field that includes companies like Bolt and Shop Pay, but Lamprou thinks its focus on the European market gives it an edge. Read more

🎬 Recall protections: YouTube is testing a new way for creators to respond when one of their videos gets taken down due to violating YouTube's Community Guidelines. This is meant to make it easier for creators to get videos back online that were taken off in error. Read more

🚀 More SpaceX drama: SpaceX sent a letter to congressional leaders on Wednesday denying that it violated its launch licenses last year, which resulted in a Federal Aviation Administration fine. Regulators had asked for a measly $633,000 from the behemoth. Read more

📱 Intelligence on Apple Intelligence: While Apple Intelligence isn't available to everyone yet, it's coming. Ivan Mehta gives a rundown on what its features will look like and when they will start rolling out. Read more

📝 Plaud NotePin review: Brian Heater has been spending time with Plaud's ChatGPT-powered note-taking NotePin. He loves that it's small and convenient, but whether people will find it useful depends on how many meetings they attend. Read more

A Message from Northwestern University

Northwestern Online MS in Information Systems

Enhance your technical and managerial skills for a successful career in IT management. Expand your expertise and network by engaging with a faculty of leading data science professionals. Learn entirely online, at your own pace, and choose from eight specializations tailored to your goals.

Apply Now

Around the web

🇨🇳 Down and to the right: China's once thriving venture capital ecosystem seems to have hit a snag. Axios' Dan Primack dives into why the market has seen less investment due to the local and international political landscapes. Read more

💬 WhatsApp AI: Meta rolled out its Llama AI into its applications last year. The majority of people using Meta's AI daily are doing so on WhatsApp. The second largest daily use case was through Facebook with very few people using it on Instagram. The Information has more