AI & RoboticsNews

The European startup market’s data doesn’t match its energy — yet

The excitement for the European startup market was hard to ignore at the annual Slush conference in Helsinki last month. But the actual data on the state of the region’s venture market shows a different reality. The upshot: The European market has not recovered from the global venture capital reset that occurred in 2022 and 2023. But there is evidence it is on the cusp of a turnaround…
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AI & RoboticsNews

Marissa Mayer’s new startup Dazzle raises $8M led by Forerunner’s Kirsten Green

The former Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, refuses to sit on the sidelines of the generative AI revolution. After spending the last six years running Sunshine, a photo-sharing and contact-management startup with little success, the storied tech leader has shuttered the company to launch Dazzle, a new startup focused on building the next generation of AI personal assistants. While Mayer is not yet…
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AI & RoboticsNews

Splat’s app uses AI to turn your photos into coloring pages for kids

The team at Retro, a photo-sharing app for close friends and family, is experimenting with how generative AI can be put to more creative uses. To try out the latest, cutting-edge AI technologies, the team built a new app called Splat, which lets you turn any photo into a coloring book page for kids. As any parent will tell you, kids love to color. And thanks to the web, there’s a seemingly…
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AI & RoboticsNews

Databricks raises $4B at $134B valuation as its AI business heats up

The IPO window may have cracked open, but it seems some former startups have no intention of going public. Makes sense, in a way: IPOs were traditionally a way to raise money, and if you can manage to raise ungodly amounts without having to put your company through public scrutiny, why do it? Databricks is proving that point: The data intelligence company has just raised more than $4 billion in a…
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