Techmeme
September 9, 2024, 11:35 AM

Top News

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Bending Spoons plans to lay off 75% of WeTransfer staff after acquiring the file-sharing service in July 2024; WeTransfer reportedly has 350+ employees  —  Italy-based app company Bending Spoons, which owns Evernote and Meetup, is planning to lay off 75% of the staff of file transfer service WeTransfer, TechCrunch has learned.
Washington Post:
The US DOJ's case against Google's ad business may benefit Meta, Amazon, and news organizations that pay Google a cut of revenue for brokering their website ads  —  Federal prosecutors are seeking a divestment of Google's multibillion-dollar online advertising business, saying its monopoly power harms advertisers and publishers.
Dan Primack / Axios:
Source: Sequoia Capital completed its $861M purchase of Stripe shares from Sequoia limited partners last week; Stripe didn't receive any proceeds  —  - It also could become a model for how VC firms deal with long-in-the-tooth portfolio companies. … - Some LPs exited completely …
Jack Apollo George / The Guardian:
A writer who works for a tech company describes how he helps train AI models how to write, by making up pretend responses to hypothetical chatbot questions  —  Journalists and other writers are employed to improve the quality of chatbot replies.  The irony of working for an industry …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Miami-based Finally, which offers bookkeeping, accounting, and finance tools for SMBs, raised a $50M Series B from PeakSpan and secured a $150M credit line  —  The SMB-focused bookkeeping, accounting and finance startup Finally has raised $50 million in a Series B round of funding and secured …
More: PitchBook
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström's Atomico raised $1.24B for its sixth batch of new funds, including a $754M growth-stage fund and a $485M early-stage fund  —  LONDON — Atomico, an early investor in top European technology firms from Stripe to Klarna, announced Monday the launch …
Julie Jargon / Wall Street Journal:
Parents concerned about students' screen time at school are trying to opt their kids out of classroom tech, after working to ban smartphones in the classroom  —  After working to ban phones in the classroom, parents are now seeking a return to pencil and paper
Taro Fuse / Bloomberg:
Sources: Tokyo-based chip startup Rapidus seeks to raise ~$696M from existing and new investors by issuing new shares to finance its chip development efforts  —  - Government-funded startup is approaching Mizuho, SMBC and DBJ  — Rapidus part of Japan's campaign to regain leadership in chips
More: The Register
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple will launch Image Playground and Genmoji as part of iOS 18.2; Sonos cuts its plans to build ~1M Ace headphones units per year to ~100K per year  —  Apple's AI features keep getting delayed — and that slow rollout likely means that the iPhone 16 won't see a “super cycle” of orders.

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Austin Carr / Bloomberg: