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Pornhub has been playing a game of chicken with a bunch of state legislatures for a while now. Last year, the retailer blocked access to users in Mississippi, Virginia and Utah.
And this week, the site went offline if you live in the Lone Star State. That’s right, Texans are now officially banned from the hallowed halls of Pornhub, unless they’re savvy enough with a VPN to sneak past the digital bouncers. This major development comes thanks to a controversy over age verification laws, which have sprung up like unwanted weeds in various states.
In a twist that surprises exactly no one, Pornhub isn’t thrilled about asking its customers to flash their digital IDs at the door. Rumblings about this have been going on for a while now, but citing concerns that would make any privacy advocate nod vigorously, the site chose to simply block Texans rather than risk the data security buff. It’s a bold move, especially considering they initially played ball with Louisiana’s similar law. As you can imagine, users eager to see people build the beast with two backs wouldn’t necessarily want to upload their driver’s license before enjoying the feast of the flesh, so that pretty much shuts down access.
Pornhub isn’t exactly a startup, so why are we featuring it front and center in the Startups Weekly newsletter? So, as a connoisseur of adult entertainment and deeply fascinated by the power struggle between corporations and regulation, I thought you might share those fascinations. If not, don’t worry, I won’t mention the unmentioned again for the rest of this edition.
Let’s continue with the slightly less heartwarming stories from last week…
The most interesting startup stories this week
Image Credits: TechCrunch
In the latest episode of “Corporate Drama: The Techstars Chronicles,” we find our protagonist, Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet, in a Zoom meeting with some spicy implications. Gavet revealed that the Advancing Cities Fund, an $80 million venture that aims to support underrepresented founders, isn’t quite the rainbow bridge to diversity he’d hoped for. Take a collective breath from JP Morgan, the financial giant whose clients dreamed of diversity dividends.
“Well, looks like you’ve had fun lately,” said a friend as he joined me for coffee. There, in the middle of my dining room table, was a device that, now that I mention it, looks a lot like a sex toy. Moonbird’s raison d’être isn’t to get your pulse racing and make you breathe heavily. Quite the opposite. The Belgian company has helped more than 35,000 customers find sleep and reduce stress through breathing exercises.
Will the IPO get an upboat?: Reddit, the digital hotbed for everything from cat memes to existential debates, is marching toward its IPO with the confidence of a peacock in mating season, eyeing a valuation that ranges between “impressive” and “are you kidding me?” With a price per share that could make Scrooge McDuck do double duty, Reddit is aiming for a valuation north of $5 billion, positioning itself somewhere between “we’re kind of a big deal” and “we’re not profitable, but have you seen our AI designs?’
We find some problems: Inscribe, an artificial intelligence fraud detection startup, has cut its cast by nearly 40%. Despite a hefty $25 million in Series B funding, Inscribe found itself struggling with the harsh reality of missed revenue targets and a market as forgiving as a brick wall.
You get a GPU! You get a GPU!: The AI2 Incubator hit the jackpot with a whopping $200 million in computing resources from an anonymous source, making it the fairy godmother for AI startups desperate for a streak of computing magic.
The most interesting fundraisers this week
Image Credits: Pallet exchange (opens in new window)
In breaking “because we sure needed more of this in the world” news, Tavus, a startup that’s essentially the digital Frankenstein of our time, has raised $18 million to perfect the art of cloning people into digital replicas for personalized video campaigns. Nothing says “personal touch” like a cloned CEO thanking you for your purchase. Now opening up its platform to third-party software integrations, this four-year-old AI wunderkind is on a mission to make sales and marketing as eerily personalized as possible.
The phrase “innovative disruption” gets tossed around like confetti at a parade — but Ted Schlein and his merry band of cybersecurity bodyguards at Ballistic Ventures decided to continue the middle ages in the industry. Schlein released Ballistic for $300 million a few years ago, only to go up with a $360 million sequel now. Unlike the “please don’t bother me” approach of their VC colleagues, the Ballistic crew is so welcoming to their startups, they stop short of moving in, bringing a whole new meaning to “value-added investor.” .”
Bro, won’t you buy an NFT?: Remember NFTs? Pallet Exchange is doubling down on the dream that people still want to exchange digital gifts on a blockchain no one has heard of. Co-founders Kelvin Wang and Davy Li, fresh from their stint at web3 gaming playground, somehow convinced investors to part with $2.5 million in the belief that NFTs have a future… somewhere.
The pint-sized pickup attracts top-shelf talent: In a world obsessed with “bigger is better,” Telo Trucks zigzags where others zigzag, unveiling a vehicle that has small truck enthusiasts and fleet managers in a tizzy. Telo has raised $5.4 million and is adding a Tesla co-founder to its board.
Take it to the grave: Death remains as uncomfortably certain as taxes, and Empathy has emerged as the bereaved’s expert fairy godmother, with $47 million in cash to sprinkle some digital magic into the grim task of postmortem paperwork—and the grieving process.
Other Unmissable TechCrunch Stories…
Every week, there are always a few stories that I want to share with you, but that somehow don’t fit into the above categories. It would be a shame if you missed them, so here’s a random goodie bag for you:
Surprise, Baby Rivian!: Last week, Rivian made a surprise announcement of an all-electric hatchback called the R3 – giving the company a big Apple-like “one more thing” announcement at the event that was ostensibly supposed to be about its new R2 SUV.
It’s LLM in the mornings: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI will open Grok, the chatbot that rivals ChatGPT, this week, the entrepreneur said, days after OpenAI sued and complained that the Microsoft-backed startup had strayed from its roots open source.
Several people type: It’s not often you see an established company record three CEOs in less than a year. But through circumstances beyond her control, this happened to Slack.
Convert to deadlock: Phantom Auto, a remote-driving startup launched seven years ago amid self-driving technology, is shutting down after failing to secure new funding.
This heavy feeling: Lucid Motors is at risk of losing the trademark for its Gravity SUV name, just months before the company is supposed to go into production.
