To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3pm PDT, subscribe here.
Happy Thursday, Crunchers!
A deal between a group of the nation’s largest banks to deposit some $30 billion with First Republic Bank could save its bacon, Christine report, and on TC+, to hit SVB breaks down everything you need to tackle the crisis.
During this, Annie And Take Consider the wider implications of SVB being in hot water, reporting how it is forcing African startups to rethink their banking options.
With the national banking meltdown out of the way… let’s get on with the rest of the tech news!
Don’t forget to wear something green tomorrow! , Christine And He came
TechCrunch Top 3 Don’t wait any longer: Ivan Reports that Bing no longer has a waiting list for GPT-4 powered chat. enjoy! AI Entering Apple: Apple isn’t going to let all those big tech companies join in on the AI ​​fun. a new story, also by Ivan, reports that Apple is reportedly experimenting with language-generating AI to better understand Siri questions. Charge It Up: Parker is taking on the world of corporate cards — and trying to grab a piece of the market from companies like Brax and Ramp — with its new credit offering tailored to the needs of e-commerce brands. Christine has more. Startups and VC
A major challenge for companies drawing on the gig economy is managing payroll and benefits. inspired to solve it Kelly reports that Wingspan leaps to the rescue with a payroll platform aimed primarily at firms that employ freelancers.
Here are six more stories, including a bonus one because Haje decided to do his story favor in this volume. Such preferential treatment, tut tut.
How to pitch me: 7 investors discuss what they’re looking for in March 2023
Image credit: Sean Gladwell (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
It’s too early to determine whether the collapse of the Silicon Valley bank ushered in a new era for venture capital, but based on anecdotal evidence, off-the-record discussions, and conversations with colleagues, it looks like we’ve always had are kind of back in business where pre-revenue startup fundraising is concerned.
Ahead of the SVB failure, Walter Thompson interviewed seven investors to find out where they’d like to invest, how they prefer to be approached, and whether they had any general advice for first-time founders:
Brian Bakin, General Partner, Lightship Capital Masha Butcher, Founder and General Partner, Day One Ventures Rebecca Liu-Doyle, Managing Director, Insight Partners Clelia Warburg Peters, Managing Partner, Era Ventures Nick Adams, Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Differential Ventures Lisa Lambert, Founder and President, National Grid Partners Elizabeth Yin, Co-Founder and General Partner, The Hustle Fund
Three more from the TC+ team:
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use the code “DC” for 15% off annual membership!
Big Tech Inc.
Via, making good on its promise to make more acquisitions to strengthen its transportation technology offerings, has now acquired trip planning app Citymapper. Rebecca And ingrid Note that it was “rumored for years that Citymapper was trying to find a buyer” and even some big names like Google and Apple were involved, but it all went quiet until via Via The news did not come.
Now let’s move on to Microsoft, which unveiled Microsoft 365 Copilot, a suite of productivity and enterprise apps packed with artificial intelligence-powered goodies. Kelly has more.
And we have five more for you:
Go for main engine pause: Sometimes all you have to do is press “pause” and that’s what Virgin Orbit is doing to find the cash, Davin reports. Delisted: Five Internet companies linked to Russia, including Yandex, are being formally delisted from the Nasdaq and NYSE. Paul Writes Taking a step back: After more than a decade at the helm of Twitch, CEO Emmett Scher is moving on to something else, Tailor Writes Dating in the Age of Apps: Tinder has a whole host of new features, some of which help better define what kind of relationship type users are looking for, Sarah Report. The SVB crash is affecting everyone, even the robots: Brian WebMD spoke to some of the founders and investors to get a sense of how the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank will affect the robotics industry.