Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Commercetools, a pioneer in ‘headless commerce’, lays off dozens of staff

Commercetools — a “headless commerce” platform that provides APIs to companies building online storefronts — saw a major boost in its business just a few years ago, raising money at whopping $1.9 billion valuation as the world went shopping online in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and businesses rushed to improve their e-commerce operations. […]

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Shop Circle raises $60M to encircle ecommerce with an app suite

The boom in ecommerce post-pandemic meant shops moved online. However, some merchants ended up with dozens of separate app providers to accommodate everything from supply chains, inventory, and marketing. The founders of Shop Circle realized this and either built or bought many such apps. The company has now raised $60 million in a Series B […]

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Trump signs executive order to expand DOGE’s spending review powers

In a newly issued executive order (EO), the Trump Administration has instructed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Elon Musk-advised initiative to reduce federal spending, to create a “centralized technological system” in every agency to record contract and grant awards. As part of the ramp-up of these systems, agency employees who approved individual contract […]

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With Alexa+, Amazon makes an intriguing play in the consumer agent space

Amazon shared an impressive vision of an “agentic” future on Wednesday — one in which the company’s improved Alexa, Alexa+, handles countless mundane tasks, from booking restaurants to finding appliance repairmen. If Amazon can deliver, it could be the first out to the gate with a comprehensive, consumer-focused agent tool. The company hopes to marry […]

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a16z hires former Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry as advisor

Former North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry announced Wednesday that he landed a job with VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. He will be a Senior Advisor. His post on X said little about what the job entails, except to be advocating for startups (which a16z likes to call “little tech”) with policymakers. A16z did not immediately respond […]

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Maternity clinic Millie nabs $12M Series A from an all-star, all female class of VCs

Millie, a California-based maternity clinic, founded by Anu Sharma, announced the raise of a $12 million Series A by investors including RH Capital, TMV, and Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures.  Sharma was inspired to launch the company after the birth of her daughter in 2019. She faced pregnancy complications and, as the child of a […]

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Amazon’s new Alexa+ brings AI-powered ‘Explore’ and ‘Stories’ features for kids

As part of the reveal of Amazon’s new AI-powered Alexa+ assistant, the tech giant announced that it’s launching two new features designed for kids called “Explore with Alexa” and “Stories with Alexa.” The features, which leverage Alexa’s new AI capabilities, will be available to Amazon Kids+ subscribers. The company demonstrated the new features at a […]

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Alexa+ can do your grocery shopping, too

Amazon is not giving up on making its Alexa a virtual shopping assistant, On Wednesday, the company announced that Alexa+, its revamped Alexa experience, will be able to help consumers grocery shop from home using more natural conversations and requests. The feature will work with Amazon Fresh or any other grocery partner working with Amazon, […]

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Amazon says that Alexa+ is ‘model agnostic’

Amazon says that the new and improved Alexa unveiled on Wednesday, Alexa+, is powered by a “model agnostic” system that’s always using the “best” AI model for any given task. Onstage at a press event in NYC, Amazon VP Daniel Rausch said that Alexa+ draws on Bedrock, Amazon’s cloud platform designed to let organizations experiment […]

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YouTube surpasses 1B monthly podcast viewers

YouTube continues to assert its dominance in the podcasting space, presenting significant competition to both Spotify and Apple Podcasts. In an announcement on Wednesday, the company revealed YouTube has surpassed 1 billion monthly active podcast viewers.  This milestone highlights YouTube’s popularity in the podcast industry and emphasizes consumer preference for video-first formats. Last year, YouTube […]

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

ElevenLabs now lets authors create and publish audiobooks on its own platform

Voice AI company ElevenLabs is now letting authors publish AI-generated audiobooks on its own Reader app, TechCrunch has learned and the company confirmed. The announcement comes days after the company partnered with Spotify for AI-narrated audiobooks. ElevenLabs, which raised a $180 million mega-round last month, started inviting authors to try out their publishing program through […]

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German startup wins accolade for its fusion reactor design

Proxima Fusion, a two-year-old, German nuclear fusion startup, has published plans for a working fusion power plant in a peer-reviewed journal, in what is being touted as a step-change in the race to generate limitless energy. Today’s nuclear fission reactors create radioactive waste, whereas nuclear fusion releases vast amounts of energy, with zero carbon emissions and […]

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Claude: Everything you need to know about Anthropic’s AI

Anthropic, one of the world’s largest AI vendors, has a powerful family of generative AI models called Claude. These models can perform a range of tasks, from captioning images and writing emails to solving math and coding challenges. With Anthropic’s model ecosystem growing so quickly, it can be tough to keep track of which Claude […]

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