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receive to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s hebdomadary recap of everything you ca n’t leave out from the populace of startups . Sign uphereto get it in your inbox every Friday .
In a crook that shocks absolutely no one and thrills pyromaniac who be intimate seeing money burn , Elon Musk ’s fresh speculation , xAI , has snagged a cursory $ 6 billion in financing . Valor , a16z , and Sequoia are stack the money on the xAI - form roulette table , with Musk spinning the wheel .
Ivan ponders whether Musk’slatest market stabwill eventually bring us an AI so advance , our runty human brains will be even more disused than they already are thanks to his other baseless projects .
I suppose it ’s completely bonkers . These investor seem to well over with immediate payment and are fresh out of skepticism . I can only guess the sales talk : “ Picture an AI so herculean , it makes HAL 9000 tone like a Roomba . ” And , of course , they threw money at it . Because , well … Honestly , I ca n’t see the logic .
Today is your last day to make unnecessary up to $ 800 on your Disrupt pass . Book your former - dame passby 11:59 p.m. PT tonight !
Most interesting startup stories from the week
receive to the Wild , Wild West of fintech ! Remember that bright shiny star call Synapse ? Yeah , it supernova’d . The banking - as - a - help startup was a segment that seemed to becareening toward the stratosphere , and Synapse itself was backed by a16z — but that did n’t serve any . Thecompany collapsedfaster than my New Year ’s resolutions . With 10 million consumers now leave behind in the lurch and many fintechs scrambling to nibble up the pieces , it ’s a full - botch catastrophe out there . It ’s like “ Game of Thrones ” but with more spreadsheet and fewer tartar . If you thought your week was crude , bare a view for those stuck trying to access their finances or save their jobs thanks to this mess . crumple up — it will be a bumpy ride ahead for fintech !
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Most interesting fundraises this week
Firefly , the cloud plus direction inauguration that ’s all about simplify your digital chaos with “ infrastructure as computer code , ” hassnagged $ 23 million in funding . This comes after an impossible tragedy — co - founder CTO Joseph “ Sefi ” Genis was kill by Hamas at a music festival . Despite this , Firefly ’s team chose resilience over hideaway and continued to grow their revenue fourfold in 2023 . So basically , Firefly is now disencumber swarm complexity and voyage through real - world turmoil like absolute champs .
Other unmissable TechCrunch stories…
stargaze of tech IPO bonanzas in 2024 ? Well , arouse up and smell the elevated pursuit rate ! Despite Reddit , Astera Labs , Ibotta , and Rubrik do to twitch through the IPO doorway to begin with this year , it look like most startups are still stick around at home in their PJs . Plaid ’s CEO declared they ’re stay private for now , and Figma and Stripe are busy with bid offers like they ’re hosting a bake sales event instead of prepping for an initial public offering . Databricks raised $ 500 million but is n’t feeling the public market vibes either ; maybe next class they ’ll feel more extroverted . And Canva ? They might take so long to go public that we ’ll be designing newssheet instantly from our brain implants by then . Stay tuned as TechCrunch continues totrack which inauguration will brave the stock market runwayor stay hidden behind their speculation capital curtain !
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