Amazon has been No. 1 in the cloud for years, ever since it invented the concept in 2006. But now the company is in a place it may not be used to: taking on Microsoft when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Full TechCrunch+ articles are available to members only.
Use the discount code TCP PLUS ROUNDUP to save 20% on a one or two year subscription.
Microsoft has hitched its wagon to OpenAI, and Amazon is betting on Bedrock. Not to mention what Microsoft has done with Copilot versus Amazon’s Q debut. AI is still a nascent technology, and business buyers will shop around avoiding vendor lock-in just as they do in the cloud . But for now, it seems “Microsoft seems to have won the perception battle,” writes TechCrunch’s Ron Miller.
Thanks for reading,
VC Office Hours: Unlocking the Farmers’ Market with the Black Farmer Fund
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin
Investors love agtech and have been pumping money into the sector for years. However, according to Crunchbase, $98.6 million of the $39.4 billion has gone to just five black-owned agtech companies since 2018. To help combat these disparities, the Black Farmer Fund is raising the second round targeting $20 million to provide economic and social opportunity to black farmers and agri-food businesses in the Northeast, reports Dominic-Madori Davis.
Betting on beauty fads is big business
Image Credits: PM Images / Getty Images
Medical spas are expected to be a $30 billion business by the end of this decade, and investors and private equity firms are starting to take notice. But TechCrunch+ senior reporter Rebecca Szkutak wonders: How do investors think about risk?
“The success of these businesses rests entirely on the power of the underlying beauty molecules and largely on whatever unrealistic beauty standards consumers are currently trying to achieve,” he writes.
Pitch Deck Teardown: Scalestack’s $1M AI Sales Tech Seed Deck
Image Credits: Scalestack (opens in new window)
Scalestack closed its $1 million round using 18 slides. And that should come as no surprise, as it has three things going for it, writes Haje Jan Kamps: a killer team, impressive traction and a customer testimonial to die for.
But still, it is missing some very important information.
Get the TechCrunch+ Roundup newsletter in your inbox!
To receive the TechCrunch+ Roundup as an email every Tuesday and Friday, scroll down to the “subscribe for newsletters” section on this page, select “TechCrunch+ Roundup,” enter your email, and click “subscribe “.
Click here to register
The most important metrics for SaaS financing in 2024
Image Credits: Ong-ad Nuseewor (opens in new window) / Getty Images
TAM (total addressable market) and revenue growth just don’t cut it anymore when it comes to predicting a startup’s viability, says Capchase CEO and co-founder Miguel Fernandez. Companies are focusing on sustainable growth, and for SaaS companies, that means one thing: product scalability. And this is not measured by just one measurement.
Negotiating Cross-Border Investments: Insights from an Experienced Investor
Image Credits: Tim Roberts (opens in new window) / Getty Images
It’s easy to give away 30% or 40% of equity in the early stages of fundraising, especially when you’re desperate for funding. H2O Capital Innovation co-founder and general partner Daniel Lloreda writes that it’s often even harder to find reasonable terms when making cross-border investments.
