Earthquake

Good morning,

Here are the most important things that happened this week in tech…

Top 5 hits

• Taiwan’s deadly 7.4 magnitude earthquake temporarily halted chip suppliers like TSMC, affecting US supply chain for a day.

• Apple is exploring ‘Mobile robots’ that follow users around their homes in an effort to create its next big thing—after sunsetting its car division.

• Google agrees to destroy web browsing data collected from its incognito mode as part of a proposed class action settlement.

• WeWork plans to emerge from bankruptcy by end of May after restructuring out of $8B in leases.

• 200 musicians (including Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish, and Katy Perry) signed an open letter calling on tech companies to not undermine human creativity with AI music generation tools.

Other news

• Google is exploring the possibility of buying Boston-based HubSpot, a CRM and marketing automation company with a market cap of $33B.

• Amazon’s AWS cuts hundreds of jobs in sales, training, and physical stores tech group.

• Ford delays production of 2 EVs; a next-gen EV pickup and a three-row EV SUV.

• Intel disclosed a $7B operating loss from its Foundry business.

• Apple’s new Spatial Personas feature for the Vision Pro brings your FaceTime callers into the same room.

• AWS launched a new service called Deadline Cloud that lets customers set up, deploy and scale up graphics and visual effects rendering pipelines on AWS cloud infrastructure.

• The billion-dollar e-commerce company Thrive Market may be the next multi-billion dollar grocery delivery company. It has raised $200M to date and done $500M in sales.

• OpenAI removed Sam Altman from ownership of its VC fund Startup Fund.

• Apple is expected to release an ‘AirPods Lite’ this year for $99 along with other AirPods models.

• Tesla increases its ads spend after years of resistance. This comes as deliveries drop 8.5% from a year ago.

• Shein profits double to over $2B ahead of its IPO.

• Mark Zuckerberg is personally emailing engineers at Google Deepmind to join Meta.

• OpenAI voice cloning AI model called Voice Engine can create synthetic voices based on a 15-second clip of someone.

Deal flow

• Data privacy startup Skyflow raises a $30M Series B extension round.

• Netgain, a startup specializing in finance and accounting solutions raises $35M.

• Homebase, an HR and team management startup raises a $60M Series D round.

• Flip, a social commerce platform, raises a $144M Series C at a $1.05B valuation.

• Yahoo is acquiring Instagram co-founders’ AI-powered news app Artifact for an undisclosed amount.

• Modal raises $25M to train corporate workers on data and AI.

• Tiger Global raised $2.2B for its latest VC fund, roughly one-third below its $6B target announced in 2022.

• Hailo raises $120M to keep battling Nvidia as most AI chip startups struggle.

• Goodbill, a startup helping employers vet hospital claims, raises a $2M round led by Founders’ Co-op, Maveron, and Liquid 2 Ventures.

• Connectivity solutions startup Firecell raises $7.2M seed rond.

• Agritech startup BioConsortia raises a $15M round led by Otter Capital.

• XION, a blockchain purpose-built for mainstream adoption, raises $25M.

• ViaLase, a medtech building a femtosecond laser for glaucoma treatment, raises a $40M Series C.

• Microsoft-backed Rubrik, a cloud and data security startup, files for IPO, revealing a $345M loss.

• Generative AI marketing startup Brandtech Group raises a $115M round at a $4B valuation from Fimalac, Nendo Labs, and more.

• InStride Health, a provider of specialty pediatric anxiety and OCD treatment, raises a $30M Series B round led by General Catalyst.

• Confetti, a platform for team-building activities, raises a $16M Series A round led by Entrée Capital and IN Venture.

• Italian mobile-app developer Bending Spoons ended its $687M pursuit of Vimeo due to a price disagreement.

• Consumer fintech Stash, valued at $1.4B is exploring options including a sale.

• Apollo Funds will acquire Panasonic’s entire stake in Panasonic Automotive Systems for $2.06B.

• Panasonic unit Blue Yonder will acquire US digital supply chain network supplier One Network Enterprises for $839M.

Interesting gems

• The rise of the unicorn tech worker: a Design Engineer. This article by design leader David Hoang breaks down the role in software.

• Scale AI CEO Alex Wang posts about the current era of hard tech.

• YC Demo Day shows promising startups in healthcare, chip design, and AI.

• A reflection on 10 years after Facebook acquired Oculus for $2B.

Was this forwarded to you?

That’s it for this week. Let me know what you think!

🌜 Loryn from Dark Mode Digest