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Hellooooo, Crunchers! We’re back for another round of tech news from your favorite news site. It’s been a busy news day and Haje has a deadline and is trying to finish tearing down this week’s pitch deck, so let’s not hesitate and get right to it! — Christine And Hey
Table of Contents
The businessroundups.org Top 3
- Like student debt Superman: Candidly, a company helping financial institutions and employers integrate student debt optimization and savings products into employee benefits, plunges $20.5 million in new funding to address student debt relief where new U.S. policies ceases. Christine has more.
- Draw to your heart’s content: Devin turns on reMarkable’s e-paper tablet and examined every inch to bring you a product review worth getting off paper for good.
- Then I saw your game and now I’m a believer: Believer has secured $55 million in new funding from big names in venture capital such as Lightspeed and Andreessen Horowitz to focus on a new approach to multiplayer gaming that Ingrid writes will begin with “original IP and stories ‘where player choices matter.'”
Startups and VC
The economy is a little better – a little, maybe, a little? Although it seems to be moving in the right direction, it will be a long road. Besides, if you can’t find work, positive macroeconomic trends are cold comfort. One of the nice things Brian enjoy having a platform like businessroundups.org is the ability to help people in that difficult position – so here’s a list of robotics companies that are hiring.
The company is about to be hit by the generative AI hype as Salesforce prepares to invest in startups developing what it calls “responsible generative AI.” Paul writes.
Here’s another handful:
Gautam Narang from Gatik on the importance of knowing your customer
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin
As the derailment of the toxic train in East Palestine, Ohio, illustrates, our frail old supply chains are long overdue for an overhaul.
Autonomous vehicle startup Gatik operates approximately 40 self-driving heavy-duty semi-trailer trucks on routes up to 300 miles long, connecting distribution centers to smaller hubs.
Rebecca Bellan interviewed Gatik CEO and co-founder Gautam Narang to learn more about the company’s business and investor expectations, and how a lack of people drivers impacts growth.
“We’ve never delivered for free before,” he says. “So we’ve been doing commercial deliveries since 2019, which means we’ve been paid for every trip we’ve taken.”
Three more from the TC+ team:
businessroundups.org+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams lead the way. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
Sonos is preparing to launch two new speakers, so Brian got the scoop from Patrick Spence, CEO of the company, on the right to repair, spatial audio, and those endless lawsuits.
Speaking of Sonos, Brian also wrote about the company replacing its One with a spatial audio speaker called the Era 100. Also, Sonos is adding support for spatial audio on Apple Music, Aisha reports.
Thanks for reading and have a great Sonos day!
It’s a busy day, so how about six more:
