Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up <\/em>here<\/em><\/a> to get it in your inbox every Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n This week, DocSend dropped a big load of statistics about the VC activity over the past half year or so. For TC+, I did a deep dive into the trends that are starting to show up<\/a>. Subscribe for the full story, but since you\u2019re a trusty reader of this fair newsletter, I\u2019ll give you the TL;DR:<\/p>\n Okay. Lemme put my little soapbox away and look at what else has been alive in the land of startups this week!<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Cruise<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMove fast and break things\u201d has been the mantra at Facebook\/Meta for a long time. The idea is to not get shy about taking risks. That might work if the worst thing that can happen is that your aunt can\u2019t see the picture of their niece for a few hours, but in the world of self-driving cars, that doesn\u2019t work. This week, regulators laid down the law, telling Cruise to reduce its robotaxi fleet 50% <\/a>following a crash (with a fire truck<\/a>, no less. You know, those small, quiet, and subtle vehicles that are so easy to miss). Personally, I keep doing double takes when I see the little Chevy Bolt EVs cruising around in San Francisco without anyone in the driver\u2019s seat, but maybe that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n One cool nugget of news is that CATL, who, among other things, supplies batteries to Tesla, showed off a battery that can charge 400 km in 10 minutes<\/a>. Super cool. Apropos Tesla, our transportation team has been kept hella busy with the EV manufacturer this week. It said that the data breach impacting 75,000 employees<\/a> was an insider job (whoops), and the company launched cheaper Model X and Model S options with less range<\/a>\u00a0and tried to reassure Chinese users on data security amid spying concerns<\/a>. A grieving widow also sued the company over a deadly Model 3 crash and explosion<\/a>. We would<\/em> say that Musk has his hands full with his pet car company, but it seems his attention is mostly on making sure you won\u2019t be able to \u201cblock\u201d people anymore<\/a> on the Platform Formerly Known as Twitter. That sounds like an idea. Not a good idea by any measure, but an idea nonetheless.<\/p>\n One aspect of EVs that\u2019s worth keeping an eye on from a startup perspective is their insatiable need for batteries. That plays out in lots of different ways in different markets, but worth noting this week is Swedish EV battery maker Northvolt raising $1.2 billion<\/a> to expand to North America and GM partnering with startup Mitra Chem<\/a> to develop affordable EV batteries. And Rebecca took a closer look at the EV battery factory construction boom<\/a> across North America.<\/p>\n Free falling<\/strong>: It\u2019s rough out there in the stock markets. For example, EV maker VinFast is still worth more than Ford and GM<\/a> even after its stock took a 19% nosedive.<\/p>\n Toot toot, pew pew<\/strong>: Harri and I had a ton of fun driving around in Las Vegas on an Arcimoto at CES this year. It strikes me as a bit of a head scratcher to hear that the startup hooked up with a defense contractor<\/a>. The bombs and rockets industry isn\u2019t known for its green cred, and the vehicles don\u2019t seem rugged enough for even the lightest of off-roading, but it\u2019s one to keep an eye on for sure.<\/p>\n Anywhere here is fine, driver<\/strong>: It seems like reports that people are getting hot and heavy in the back of robotaxis<\/a> and the aforementioned crashes are a reminder that all press is good press: Cruise and Waymo are seeing a surge<\/a> in robotaxi app downloads.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Bryce Durbin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As we were dredging through the thousands of TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield 200 companies, we kept noticing that the trend we spotted at CES<\/a> earlier this year continues: We are seeing a huge amount of waste recycling, poop and urine startups<\/a>.<\/p>\n This past week, we saw two global payments companies release earnings with wildly different results. Uruguayan fintech company dLocal<\/a> saw its stock surge by over 30% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, shares of Dutch payments processor Adyen sank \u201cto their lowest level in more than three years\u201d on Friday, as reported by Reuters and others. Christine and Mary Ann compare and contrast what\u2019s going on in our sibling newsletter, The Interchange<\/a>. Which, incidentally, is well worth subscribing<\/a> to.<\/p>\n Apropos crap \u2014 after I went out of my way to buy a guest article on TechCrunch<\/a> (spoiler alert: I failed, but I learned some things along the way), we rebooted our program for non-crap guest posts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Okay, fine, it\u2019s not all crap news this week, although there\u2019s def some highs and lows:<\/p>\n That\u2019s a heavy haircut<\/strong>: Fintech startup Ramp raises $300 million at a $ 5.5 billion valuation<\/a>. That sounds pretty good, until you remember that the company last raised in March last year at a\u00a0 $8.1 billion valuation. I wouldn\u2019t like to be the CEO in the boardroom when they admit to having to take a 28% valuation cut.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n Hope springs infernal<\/strong>: Alex is one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for tech IPOs that I know, and he\u2019s bouncing around like an overcaffeinated toddler at the idea that everyone\u2019s talking about tech IPOs again<\/a>.\u00a0Read about it over on TC+.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Carol Yepes \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Every time I do another Startups Weekly, I think, Maybe this time I won\u2019t have a section on AI.<\/em> And then I look at what is performing well on the site, before sighing and muttering, \u201cHere we go again.\u201d Artificial Intelligence continues to be hot, hot, hot.<\/p>\n This week, the tool that caught my eye was Moemate, an assistant that analyzes what is actually happening on your screen to offer context-aware advice and support. To me, it sounds like a bit of a privacy nightmare, but the idea is fascinating. Kyle reports spotty but curious results<\/a>.<\/p>\n OpenAI goes shopping<\/strong>: As far as we know, OpenAI acquiring AI design studio Global Illumination<\/a> is the first acquisition the company has made since it was founded seven years ago.<\/p>\n Content is king<\/strong>: Large language models are awesome and all, but the datasets contained within them are often kept a secret. That has some interesting issues<\/a>. The Allen Institute for AI is taking a different tack and just dropped the biggest open dataset yet<\/a> for training language models.<\/p>\n A network you can swim in<\/strong>: The lingo comes fast and hard in the land of artificial intelligence, and my favorite deep dive this week (pun intended) was Brian\u2019s article on liquid neural networks<\/a> \u2014 ones that can continue to adapt even after the model is trained.<\/p>\n Moar? You want moar?<\/p>\n Fiiiiine.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another handful of the most-read startup stories on Ye Olde Teche Crunche:<\/p>\n Join 10,000 startup leaders in San Francisco at TechCrunch Disrupt on September 19\u201321. Last-minute passes are still available. Save 15% with code STARTUPS. Register now<\/strong><\/a>!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
Move slow and please don\u2019t break things<\/h2>\n
There\u2019s a lot of crap out there<\/h2>\n
![\"poop](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/poop-emoji-disrupt.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThere\u2019s no stopping the AI train<\/h2>\n
![\"Bot](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/GettyImages-1451031353.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTop reads on TechCrunch this week<\/h2>\n
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Grab your pass to TC Disrupt 2023<\/h2>\n