Tuesday, December 17, 2024 | | | Welcome to TechCrunch AM! There's never a dull moment in the tech world, and today is a perfect example of that: We've got huge funding rounds for travel and African fintech; TikTok's Hail Mary; where Cohere's AI has been quietly heading; fines for Meta; a list of VCs poised to score in 2025, and more. Let's go! — Rebecca | | | 1. Travel is finally back, and the tech community is ready to get into the mix. Hostaway, a startup that develops software to let property owners manage listings, bookings, and communications across platforms, plus its own marketplace, just raised a $365 million round at a valuation that falls just shy of unicorn status. Read More 2. A last ditch effort: As the TikTok ban approaches, ByteDance has asked the Supreme Court to — in the name of free speech — block the sell-or-ban law passed earlier this year. This comes as TikTok's CEO heads to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump, so my money is on the SC siding with the short video platform. Read More 3. The money's in defense: It seems like everywhere you turn, there's a new defense tech deal. TC has learned that AI startup Cohere has been quietly working with Palantir to deploy its AI technology to defense customers. Read More | | | Image Credits: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto / Getty Images | 😱 I've been hacked! Ireland has hit Meta with a $263 million fine for a 2017 Facebook security breach that affected millions of users. If you don't recall, it was a bad one that basically allowed people to take over other users' accounts and collect all their personal data. Read More 🎱 Game time: Agave Games, the Turkish startup behind casual mobile game "Find the Cat," has raised an $18 million Series A to work on future titles. The round follows two trends: the first is the rise in popularity of and revenue generated by such games, and the second is Turkey's increasing dominance in that industry. Read More 💸 The rise of African fintech: Fintech is popping off in Africa, with Tyme Group just securing $250 million in a Series D that pushed its valuation up to $1.5 billion. Tyme Group has 15 million customers across South Africa and the Philippines, and its latest investor happens to be no other than Nu Holdings, the owner of Nubank. Read More 🚕 Waymo is coming to Tokyo: The robotaxi company plans to begin testing its AV tech in Japan in early 2025. I'm curious how robotaxis will do in Tokyo, an extremely dense city where traffic is largely predictable due to a populace that loves following rules. Read More 🪖 The TuSimple drama continues: The autonomous trucking/AI gaming company's former co-founder has been on the war path as he tries to convince shareholders to help him throw out the current board of directors. I've been following the back and forth for over a year, and it's a fascinating case study in the game of business chess. Read More 🤝 Movin' it like white tops: Jay-Z's VC firm, Marcy Venture Partners, has merged with Pendulum Holdings' investment arm Pendulum Opportunities. The newly formed MarcyPen Capital Partners has a combined $900 million in assets under management. Read More | | | 🙅 No more junk fees: The Washington Post reports that the FTC issued long-awaited rules that require companies to display the full price of a hotel room, concert ticket, or sporting event up front to customers. That means they can't hide extra charges until you've already rationalized your spending and are about to check out. Lookin' at you, Airbnb. Read More 📷 Whip up a photo. It'll be fun! The Verge reported on Google's new AI tool called Whisk that lets you generate images using other images, rather than requiring a long text prompt. Finding the right words can be hard, so maybe let's get AI to do that, too? Read More 🏆 VC Hunger Games, 2025: The Information has a write up on which VCs are poised to win big in 2025 based on which startups are expected to IPO next year. On the list are startups like Chime and its early investors Forerunner, Homebrew, and Menlo; Snyk and its largest owners Accel and Boldstart; and CoreWeave and its major backer Magnetar. Read More | | | Image Credits: boonchai wedmakawand / Getty Images | | | 🤮 I won't say it! I refuse to play WordPress' newest game, where they won't let developers sign in to the portal and forum unless you agree to something so abhorrent that this New Yorker is sick to her stomach just thinking about it. Revile me if you must, but pineapple on pizza is absolutely disgusting. 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. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA | | | | |
