Travel startup Layla acquires AI itinerary building bot Roam Around

February 12, 2024

Travel startup Layla — backed by firstminute capital, M13, Booking.com co-founder Andy Phillips, Skyscanner co-founder Barry Smith, and Paris Hilton — said today that it has acquired AI-powered itinerary building bot Roam Around. Roam Around was founded last year by Shie Gabbai, a former Google employee who worked on Waze. The company raised $1 million […]

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This chart shows why heat pumps are still hot in the US

February 12, 2024
Heat pumps are still a hot technology, though sales in the US, one of the world’s largest markets, fell in 2023. Even with the drop, the appliances beat out gas furnaces for the second year in a row and saw their overall market share increase compared to furnaces, sales of which also fell last year.…

Bugcrowd snaps up $102M for a ‘bug bounty’ security platform that taps 500K+ hackers

February 12, 2024

Bugcrowd — the startup that taps into a database of half a million hackers to help organizations like OpenAI and the U.S. government set up and run bug bounty programs, cash rewards to freelancers who can identify bugs and vulnerabilities in their code — has picked up a big cash award of its own to […]

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Kenya’s Ilara Health gets $4.2M backing to expand clinic-support services

February 12, 2024

Ilara Health, a Kenya-based health-tech enabling private clinics to access diagnostic devices and pharmaceutical products, has secured $4.2 million debt-equity in a pre-Series A round. The funds will be used to scale operations in the East African country, and to deepen health care access to the masses through the rollout of a B2B health and […]

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Peak XV takes startups on a Silicon Valley trip in AI push

February 12, 2024

Peak XV, the venture capital firm that split from Sequoia Capital last year, is taking its portfolio companies from India, Southeast Asia and Australia on an “immersion” trip to Silicon Valley this week to meet several industry titans, the latest in the venture firm’s broadening offerings and networking flex. About 60 founders, many backed by […]

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Google’s and Microsoft’s chatbots are making up Super Bowl stats

February 12, 2024

If you needed more evidence that GenAI is prone to making stuff up, Google’s Gemini chatbot, formerly Bard, thinks that the 2024 Super Bowl already happened. It even has the (fictional) statistics to back it up. Per a Reddit thread, Gemini, powered by Google’s GenAI models of the same name, is answering questions about Super […]

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Uber hits a profit milestone, Ford builds an EV skunksworks and Fisker fumbles

February 11, 2024

TechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility – your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. This week was a busy one with […]

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