AI hardware has taken on a new shape with Friend’s $99 necklace — a pendant that gives you an AI friend to talk to and … that’s about it. Friend’s pitch is that its wearable can help combat loneliness, but other AI hardware products that have come to market lately — like Humane’s Ai Pin and Rabbit’s r1 — have fallen short of expectations. Even OpenAI, the leader in the space, has come out later than expected with its hyper realistic AI assistant, and only today to a small “alpha group” of users, making it difficult to assess the product’s capabilities.
However, one AI buddy that seems to hit the mark, at least from a user design standpoint, is Heeyo and its chatbot and learning platform for kids. Rebecca Bellan covered Heeyo’s launch exclusively for TechCrunch.
That’s not all we talked about on today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast.
On the other side of the AI coin is deepfakes and hallucinations. The team touched on this topic, noting how Meta’s AI assistant hallucinated when it said that there was no assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. Rebecca asked Devin Coldewey if he thought AI companies should take greater care to block users from asking questions about sensitive topics until they could solve for hallucinations, and if they should block users from making deepfakes about certain A-list people, particularly during an election year. His answer? Yes, but it’s probably not as easy as it sounds.
Kirsten Korosec led the discussion around FranShares, a Chicago-based startup that lets people invest in franchise businesses starting with as little as $500 with a goal of providing passive income and portfolio diversification. Apparently, a lot of Gen Z and millennials are investing in franchises through this platform, which just raised a $4.2 million seed round led by Chicago Ventures with participation from The Pitch Fund and Litquidity Ventures. Kirsten asked Rebecca if she, as a millennial, would invest in a franchise, and her answer may surprise you.
Kirsten and Rebecca also talked about Kennet of London, a 25-year-old growth equity investor that just raised $287 million for its largest fund to date, and it’s a growth fund. Kennet’s approach is interesting because they focus on B2B SaaS companies that are founder owned and bootstrapped, and thus potentially more capital efficient.
Finally, the team discussed VC movings and shakings. Specifically, Alex Cook, a former partner at Tiger Global who oversaw some of its largest fintech investments and India deals, has left the firm after nearly seven years. Cook is the latest VC to leave a firm before the fund closed and he could see a return on investment. There must be something in the water.
We had a lot of fun this episode, so give it a listen!
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.
Global startup funding was up 16% in the second quarter, according to Crunchbase data, led by an uptick in mega-rounds. That increase was led, unsurprisingly,…
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. Today’s episode is packed with M&A talk, how one YouTuber…
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is packed with some significant fundraises, a potentially…
Maven Ventures general partner Sara Deshpande has been investing in the consumer tech space for a decade. Over time, the seed-stage venture firm has backed…
On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan did a deep dive into the CrowdStrike outage that affected around 8.5 million Windows devices around the world,…
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is packed with deals, antitrust musings, AI and…
Renegade Partners co-founders Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek have seen it all in their careers — notably over the past four years when they launched…
On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan explored Google’s reported talks to acquire Wiz, a cloud security company, for around $23 billion. Wiz provides an…
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is packed with deals, antitrust musings, AI and…
Mike Maples Jr. is a prolific angel investor and co-founder of early-stage venture firm Floodgate. Over the years, he’s taken a lot of bets. Some…
On today’s episode of Equity, we’re taking a look at news you might’ve missed over the holiday weekend here in the U.S., starting with the…
What’s the common thread between Tesla, building startups, General Motors venture capital and Lyft? Jon McNeill, co-founder and partner of DVx Ventures, joins TechCrunch editor…
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is jam-packed with deals, hot topics and the…
Apple has been named the first of tech’s so-called “gatekeepers” to be charged for violating the EU’s Digital Markets Act. In a press release this…
Get ready for a jam-packed episode of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups! This week, co-hosts Mary Ann Azevedo and Haje Kamps…
In this week’s episode of Equity, Haje Kamps and Mary Ann Azevedo delve into the recent decision by fintech company Brex to abandon its co-CEO…
This week on Equity, we discussed some big news that really matters: How Black founders are addressing the diversity gap in AI chatbots. We’ve all…
In today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Mary Ann Azevedo, Becca Szkutak and Haje Kamps dug into three very different but all interesting deals of the week. Haje…
Vanessa Larco, a partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), believes that generative AI’s impact on the world of SaaS could be huge. The investor joined…
Apple’s WWDC is just hours away, and we’re gearing up for big announcements on — you guessed it — AI. TechCrunch’s Brian Heater tells us…
As always, there was a lot happening in startup land this week, and the Equity team had so much fun breaking it down for you.…
Consumer startups have taken a hit when it comes to venture funding. But according to Eurie Kim, partner at Forerunner Ventures and founding member of…
We’re kicking off the week with a deep dive from this weekend into the demise of electric vehicle startup Fisker at the hands of its…
Welcome back to Friday Equity! We kick things off with the Deal of the Week. First up, xAI. Elon Musk has once again proven that…
It’s no secret that the bar for startups to land a Series A has risen, but has it risen too high? According to Jenny Fielding,…
We’re kicking off the short week with news about Elon Musk, and no, it’s not about X or Tesla. Instead, we’re talking about Musk’s other…
It was an event-filled week in startup land, and the Equity crew had a blast breaking it down for you. On today’s episode of TechCrunch’s…
For this episode of Equity, we spoke to two Aussie VCs: Dan Krasnostein of Square Peg and Gabrielle Munzer of Main Sequence.
Last week was a big one for AI news, and one thing that stood out to us was OpenAI’s deal with Reddit. Per the terms of…
If there was one thing we heard about this week, it was AI. As a matter of fact, there were so many AI updates to…
