TechCrunch Roundup: AI Advances, Venture Capital Activity, and Executive Moves
A flurry of activity across the tech landscape saw advancements in artificial intelligence, significant venture capital investments, and key executive appointments this week.
Amazon's upgraded, generative AI-powered Alexa assistant, dubbed Alexa , became available to all U.S. customers on Wednesday, according to TechCrunch. Prime members receive unlimited access to Alexa across devices as part of their subscription. Non-Prime members can also use Alexa for free via the Alexa website or mobile app, albeit with some limitations. "We have tens of millions of customers using Alexa now, and now we’re going to make it available to all Prime members," said Daniel Rausch, VP of Alexa and Echo at Amazon. Alexa is model agnostic, running on a combination of Amazon's own foundation models and those from other companies.
In other news, Uber announced the promotion of Balaji Krishnamurthy to Chief Financial Officer, replacing Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah. Krishnamurthy, previously VP of strategic finance and investor relations, has been with Uber for over six years. His appointment may signal an increased focus on autonomous vehicle (AV) investments, given his frequent posts about the company's driverless ride-hailing efforts and his board seat at AV company Waabi. On Wednesday's Q4 earnings call, Krishnamurthy stated the company would invest capital in its AV software partners, work with AV makers through equity investments or offtake agreements, and support AV infrastructure partners.
Venture capital firm SNAK Venture Partners announced the close of its oversubscribed $50 million debut fund on Wednesday. The fund is anchored by the Pritzker Group. SNAK founders Sonia Nagar and Adam Koopersmith, formerly of Pritzker Group, will use the fund to back digital marketplaces. "It felt like the timing was right and there was support within the firm to go do this," Nagar said. "The vision is that there is still so much to digitize, like in supply chain and construction, and this is the moment to strike because even holdout industries are more comfortable adopting."
Apeiron Labs secured $29 million in funding to develop autonomous underwater robots. According to Ravi Pappu, founder and CEO of Apeiron Labs, the goal is to gather more data from the subsurface ocean, which is currently lacking compared to surface-level data obtained from satellites. "Getting data from the subsurface ocean has always been really hard," Pappu told TechCrunch. "It's really slow. You need a ship that costs $100,000 a day, and steams out slowly. Everything's an expedition."
Finally, Accel doubled down on Fibr AI, leading a $5.7 million seed round following an earlier $1.8 million pre-seed investment in 2024. The total funding for the startup now stands at $7.5 million. Fibr AI uses AI agents to personalize website experiences for each visitor, aiming to bridge the gap between personalized advertising and static webpages. WillowTree Ventures and MVP Ventures also participated in the funding round, with Fortune 100 operators joining as angel investors and advisors.
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