TechCrunch Startup News

A U.K. startup, originating from founder Jacob Nathan’s high school science project on using enzymes to break down plastic waste, has secured an oversubscribed $18.3 million in Series A funding. Founded in 2019 in London, Epoch Biodesign now a 30+ strong multidisciplinary team of chemists, biologists and software engineers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The drive to decarbonize our economies through electrification and clean energy continues to generate momentum around battery technologies, as storage has a key role to play in enabling the green transition. While renewables are clean sources of energy compared to burning fossil fuels, their power output isn’t always consistent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sequoia-backed Mach Industries, the defense tech founded by 21-year-old Ethan Thornton, landed a contract with the U.S. Army and has plans for its first factory, Thornton told TechCrunch. The factory will be 115,000 square feet in Huntington Beach, California, where Mach’s headquarters is located, CEO Thorton said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With just a few words, AI models can be prompted to create a story, an image, or even a short film. But according to Weber Wong, these models are all “made by non-creatives for other non-creatives to feel creative.” In other words, they’re not built for actual creative professionals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The software supply chain is notoriously porous: a reported 81% of codebases contain high- or critical-risk open source vulnerabilities. A single vulnerability can have a far-reaching impact on the wider software supply chain, as evidenced by the likes of the Log4Shell exploit that saw millions of applications exposed to potential remote code execution hacks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fintech has fragmented into increasingly specialized, cucumber-sliced micro-services, ranging from embedded buy-now-pay-later loans to specialized neo banks to yet more payment processing systems. What opportunities remain for innovators in such a fragmented landscape? One U.K. startup, Just Move In, zoomed out and realised that the home had been overlooked by everyone in the industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI has the power to transform how people work, but getting tangible value out of AI isn’t as easy as throwing any AI application at any workflow. It can be hard for enterprises to figure out which AI applications help their business and which are just hype. Workhelix wants to solve that problem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inception, a new Palo Alto-based company started by Stanford computer science professor Stefano Ermon, claims to have developed a novel AI model based on “diffusion” technology. Inception calls it a diffusion-based large language model, or a “DLM” for short. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Being somewhat later than Europe in adopting the idea of parcel delivery, much of Asia built its delivery infrastructure around e-commerce, effectively ‘Uberising’ how deliveries worked down to the last mile. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A pioneering startup has raised $19 million to transform the due diligence process with AI technology. The focus is on utilizing AI agents to streamline data gathering for business decisions and M&A deals. The discussion also highlights the importance of transparency and diverse data sources to build trust in AI innovations. This funding marks a significant step towards revolutionizing how companies approach complex financial assessments.