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TechCrunch+ roundup: Big Data’s cloud backlash, CVC pitch tips, de-risking hardware startups

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For most of the Information Age, companies that wanted to scale invested in server farms and hired teams to keep them running.

At one of my first startup jobs, I walked in one day to find two sleeping co-workers who’d spent the night configuring servers at a co-locating facility 60 miles away. Soon after, when I worked at a publicly traded company, our on-prem data center was resilient enough to operate through a moderate earthquake.

The relatively recent shift to cloud computing promised to lower costs and boost productivity, but “cloud-first strategies may be hitting the limits of their efficacy, and in many cases, ROIs are diminishing,” writes Thomas Robinson, COO of Domino Data Lab.


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I started wearing sweaters at home after I got my last utility bill, but with enormous workloads from “ML, AI and deep learning programs that require dozens or even hundreds of GPUs and terabytes or even petabytes,” companies at scale can’t simply dial back their data usage.

Because “the great repatriation” now taking place among public companies also has direct implications for startup DevOps teams, Robinson shares suggestions for “a few things that can be done to ensure future flexibility for where workloads are created.”

Thanks for reading TC+ this week,

Walter Thompson
Editorial Manager, TechCrunch+
@yourprotagonist

The cloud backlash has begun: Why big data is pulling compute back on premises

When it comes to early-stage growth marketing, it’s often better to imitate than innovate

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I’m pleased to announce that self-described “growth marketing nerd” Jonathan Martinez has come aboard as a recurring TC+ contributor!

Martinez, who worked on growth teams at Uber, Postmates and Coinbase, is also the founder of SalesKiwi.

In his latest article, he explains why copying your rivals’ most successful marketing strategies can be one of the fastest ways to get traction with new customers.

“There’s no need to constantly reinvent the wheel,” he advises. “Conserve your resources to innovate for high-probability tests that you’re excited to try at various stages of your startup’s life.”

When it comes to early-stage growth marketing, it’s often better to imitate than innovate

SaaS is still open for business, but it’s going to take longer to buy and sell

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More than 225,000 tech workers have been laid off in the last year, which is having a direct effect on SaaS renewal and purchase cycles.

SaaS customers that reduced headcount are buying fewer seat licenses and sales cycles are taking a little longer than they used to, says Ryan Neu, CEO and co-founder of SaaS-buying platform Vendr.

“Over the last three years, our data has shown a steady decline in multiyear deals,” he writes in TC+. “Yet we have also seen a significant increase in [average contract value] from purchase to renewal in mission-critical and sticky software categories, like CRM or email.”

SaaS is still open for business, but it’s going to take longer to buy and sell

How to pitch CVCs

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As individual VC firms pulled back and began amassing dry powder in 2022, corporate venture capital (CVC) funds stepped up.

PitchBook found that CVCs played a part in 56.2% of all venture deals that took place last year, “up only a hair over 2021’s 25.6%,” reports Rebecca Szkutak, who spoke to a few experts to find out how startups in fundraising mode can get on their radar.

“If there isn’t a product integration angle, and we don’t see or can’t find evidence that a customer of ours or theirs would want to work together, it would be hard for us to work together,” said Andrew Ferguson, VP of corporate development and ventures at Databricks.

CVCs remained consistent investors in 2022

10 tips for de-risking hardware products

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With the right team, a software startup might only need weeks to go from the idea stage to billing their first customers.

Conversely, all hardware startups grapple with high capital expenditures and need time to ramp up production, which is why testing and evaluating demand are so important, says Narek Vardanyan, founder of Prelaunch.com, which recently closed a pre-seed round.

“You need to make decisions based on people’s actual behavior,” he said in an interview with TechCrunch+. “You need to make sure that the data you’re tracking is coming from the right types of people.”

10 tips for de-risking hardware products

Thinking about pulling the plug on your startup?

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I just read a Twitter post by angel investor Gokul Rajaram asserting that founders who raised large sums before the downturn but have yet to find product-market fit “are going through an excruciating psychological journey.”

Entrepreneurs are indoctrinated to pursue success at all costs, but “chasing endless pivots trying to find PMF is a bridge to nowhere,” wrote Rajaram, who shared a story about a founder who returned funds to investors before winding down operations:

“The relief they felt when they realized investors and employees were on board and 100% supportive of their decision, was palpable. (All employees received solid severance before the company shut down.)”

If you’re a founder who has decided to shut down (or an investor who’s counseled one), please consider sharing your story with TechCrunch+. To get in touch, send a note to guestcolumns@techcrunch.com.

Write a TechCrunch+ guest post that could help someone navigate this downturn

Corporate investment in AI is on the rise, driven by the tech’s promise

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Last year, global investors poured $77.5 billion into AI startups, a 115% YoY increase, reported Tortoise Intelligence.

According to Kyle Wiggers, corporate adoption of generative AI is fueling investor interest, as are the sector’s outsized returns: A 2022 poll found that 92% of large companies are “achieving returns on their data and AI investments.”

Corporate investment in AI is on the rise, driven by the tech’s promise

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AWS has confirmed its European “sovereign cloud” will go live by the end of 2025, enabling greater data residency for the region.

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Go Digit, an Indian insurance startup, has raised $141 million from investors including Goldman Sachs, ADIA, and Morgan Stanley as part of its IPO.

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Peakbridge intends to invest in between 16 and 20 companies, investing around $10 million in each company. It has made eight investments so far.

Food VC Peakbridge has new $187M fund to transform future of food, like lab-made cocoa

For over six decades, the nonprofit has been active in the financial services sector.

Accion’s new $152.5M fund will back financial institutions serving small businesses globally

Meta’s newest social network, Threads, is starting its own fact-checking program after piggybacking on Instagram and Facebook’s network for a few months.

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Looking Glass makes trippy-looking mixed-reality screens that make things look 3D without the need of special glasses. Today, it launches a pair of new displays, including a 16-inch mode that…

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Replacing Sutskever is Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s director of research.

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Intuitive Machines made history when it became the first private company to land a spacecraft on the moon, so it makes sense to adapt that tech for Mars.

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As Google revamps itself for the AI era, offering AI overviews within its search results, the company is introducing a new way to filter for just text-based links. With the…

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Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket will take a crew to suborbital space for the first time in nearly two years later this month, the company announced on Tuesday.  The NS-25…

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This will enable developers to use the on-device model to power their own AI features.

Google is building its Gemini Nano AI model into Chrome on the desktop

It ran 110 minutes, but Google managed to reference AI a whopping 121 times during Google I/O 2024 (by its own count). CEO Sundar Pichai referenced the figure to wrap…

Google mentioned ‘AI’ 120+ times during its I/O keynote

Firebase Genkit is an open source framework that enables developers to quickly build AI into new and existing applications.

Google launches Firebase Genkit, a new open source framework for building AI-powered apps

In the coming months, Google says it will open up the Gemini Nano model to more developers.

Patreon and Grammarly are already experimenting with Gemini Nano, says Google

As part of the update, Reddit also launched a dedicated AMA tab within the web post composer.

Reddit introduces new tools for ‘Ask Me Anything,’ its Q&A feature

Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

LearnLM is already powering features across Google products, including in YouTube, Google’s Gemini apps, Google Search and Google Classroom.

LearnLM is Google’s new family of AI models for education

The official launch comes almost a year after YouTube began experimenting with AI-generated quizzes on its mobile app. 

Google is bringing AI-generated quizzes to academic videos on YouTube

Around 550 employees across autonomous vehicle company Motional have been laid off, according to information taken from WARN notice filings and sources at the company.  Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported…

Motional cut about 550 employees, around 40%, in recent restructuring, sources say

The keynote kicks off at 10 a.m. PT on Tuesday and will offer glimpses into the latest versions of Android, Wear OS and Android TV.

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Google Play has a new discovery feature for apps, new ways to acquire users, updates to Play Points, and other enhancements to developer-facing tools.

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Soon, Android users will be able to drag and drop AI-generated images directly into their Gmail, Google Messages and other apps.

Gemini on Android becomes more capable and works with Gmail, Messages, YouTube and more

Veo can capture different visual and cinematic styles, including shots of landscapes and timelapses, and make edits and adjustments to already-generated footage.

Google Veo, a serious swing at AI-generated video, debuts at Google I/O 2024

In addition to the body of the emails themselves, the feature will also be able to analyze attachments, like PDFs.

Gemini comes to Gmail to summarize, draft emails, and more

The summaries are created based on Gemini’s analysis of insights from Google Maps’ community of more than 300 million contributors.

Google is bringing Gemini capabilities to Google Maps Platform

Google says that over 100,000 developers already tried the service.

Project IDX, Google’s next-gen IDE, is now in open beta

The system effectively listens for “conversation patterns commonly associated with scams” in-real time. 

Google will use Gemini to detect scams during calls