Politico: Sources: tech lobbying group NetChoice kicked TikTok off of its membership rolls after facing pressure from the office of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise — NetChoice, a right-of-center tech lobbying group, dumped the video app following scrutiny from GOP leadership on Capitol Hill. Source link
Min Jeong Lee / Bloomberg: Filings: SoftBank’s Vision Fund has seen its US portfolio shrink by ~$29B since the end of 2021 as, sources say, Masayoshi Son plans forays into AI and chips — Masayoshi Son turns away from aggressive style of venture capital investing, leaving the fund’s reduced staff as mostly caretakers. Source link
Brody Ford / Bloomberg: Employees say Oracle Health, formerly Cerner, has lost at least 12 of its major clients and product innovation has taken a backseat to upgrading legacy systems — Larry Ellison promised to modernize antiquated health-care technology. The reality has been more daunting. Source link
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Instant payment company TabaPay pulls out of its $9.7M deal to buy the assets of banking-as-a-service startup Synapse amid infighting among fintech players — TabaPay has abandoned its plans to purchase the assets of troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse, TabaPay confirmed to TechCrunch today. Source link
Kate Park / TechCrunch: South Korea-based DEEPX, which is building on-device AI chips, raised an ~$80M Series C led by SkyLake at a ~$529M valuation, taking its total funding to ~$95M — DEEPX is a South Korean on-device AI chip (NPU, or neural processing unit) startup that makes hardware and software for various AI applications
Bloomberg: Microsoft plans to launch its mobile game store in July on the web, first with its own games including Candy Crush Saga, and later open it to other publishers — The store will launch with Microsoft’s own games, including Candy Crush Saga, Xbox President Sarah Bond said Thursday at the Bloomberg Technology Summit. Source
Emily Bary / MarketWatch: Unity reports Q1 revenue down 8% YoY to $460M, vs. $433M est., a $291M net loss, including $212M of restructuring costs, compared with a $254M loss in Q1 2023 — Matt Bromberg, previously Zynga’s chief operating officer, will take over as Unity’s CEO later in May Source link
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat: ElevenLabs previews a music-generating AI model, showing samples of songs with lyrics generated from text prompts — Voice AI startup ElevenLabs is offering an early look at a new model that turns a prompt into song lyrics. To raise awareness, it’s following a similar playbook Sam Altman used … Source link
Tim Nudd / Ad Age: Apple apologizes for the “Crush” iPad Pro ad and scraps plans to run it on TV; Apple’s VP of marketing communications Tor Myhren says “we missed the mark” — The company says its ‘Crush’ spot fell short of its goal of empowering and celebrating creatives Source link
The Information: Sources: Gopuff, one of the last fast-delivery startups in the US after Getir’s exit, burned ~$400M in 2023 and wants to start generating cash by early 2025 — Instant-delivery pioneer Gopuff is the last speedy-delivery startup left standing in the U.S. after its best-funded competitor … Source link