“Voice skins” have become a very popular feature for AI-based voice assistants, to help personalize some of the more anodyne aspects of helpful, yet also kind of bland and robotic, speaking voices you get on services like Alexa. Now a startup that is building voice skins for different companies to use across their services, and […]
Lordstown Motors taps former Icahn exec as CEO to put its EV truck ambitions back on track
Lordstown Motors has hired Daniel A. Ninivaggi, a longtime automotive executive and former head of Carl C. Icahn’s holding company, as CEO and a board member. The appointment follows months of tumult at Lordstown, which became publicly traded via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. In June, founder and CEO Steve Burns and […]
Palantir glitch allegedly granted some FBI staff unauthorized access to a crypto hacker’s data
A new report claims Peter Thiel’s AI company Palantir had a glitch in its software used by the FBI that allowed unauthorized personnel to access private data for more than a year.
Porsche expands online marketplace to include US inventory of new cars
Porsche Cars North America has added its entire U.S. inventory of new cars to its online marketplace as the company seeks to keep up with customer demands and the industry’s shift to digital commerce.
Workera.ai, a precision upskilling platform, taps $16M to close enterprise skills gap
Finding the right learning platform can be difficult, especially as companies look to upskill and reskill their talent to meet demand.
Tuna raises $3M to address complexity of e-commerce payments in Latin America
Tuna is on a mission to “fine tune” the payments space in Latin America.
A16Z leads investment in Firemaps, a marketplace for home hardening against wildfires
Wildfires are burning in countries all around the world. California is dealing with some of the worst wildfires in its history (a superlative that I use essentially every year now) with the Caldor fire and others blazing in the state’s north. Meanwhile, Greece and other Mediterranean nations have been fighting fires for weeks to bring […]
Virtual clinic Hey Jane raises $2.2M to solve for state anti-abortion legislation
The idea for the company was driven by Missouri almost closing its one abortion clinic.
Celebrity chef Michael Chernow whips up new lifestyle brand, Kreatures of Habit, raises $2.2M
Michael Chernow is already known as a restaurateur, chef, television host and entrepreneur, but now he can also add lifestyle and wellness guru to that list.
Workstream’s text-based recruitment tool gets a $48M bet from BOND and beyond
It isn’t only tech giants that are struggling to fill open roles with talented individuals, it’s your local Jamba Juice, too. Since 2017, San Francisco-based Workstream has been working on an answer to recruitment for the hourly worker. The subset of employees are in high demand right now by employers managing high turnover, as the […]