Leading VC-backed startup Teamshares is quietly acquiring small mom-and-pop shops, causing a stir in the small business landscape. This New York-based company aims to capitalize on the opportunity presented by small businesses without a succession plan. While Teamshares sometimes pays below market price for these companies, it takes a unique approach by installing a new president and granting 10% of the business’s stock to its employees. Rather than relying solely on the acquired businesses, Teamshares plans to generate revenue from a range of fintech products that it sells to the businesses it buys.
In other news, Indian instant grocery delivery startup Zepto has raised $200 million in a funding round, making it the country’s first unicorn of 2023. With a valuation of $1.4 billion, Zepto stands out among other struggling or failed companies in the same category. The startup, which operates in seven cities in India, handles over 300,000 orders per day and is planning to go public in 2025.
Meanwhile, OpenAI, the AI research organization, is launching ChatGPT Enterprise, an enterprise-focused version of its AI-powered chatbot app. Building on the success of ChatGPT, the enterprise edition offers enhanced privacy and data analysis capabilities, improved performance, and customization options to cater to the needs of businesses.
Google has also made a major announcement at the recent Google Cloud Next conference. The company unveiled BigQuery Studio, a new service within its fully managed serverless data warehouse, BigQuery. BigQuery Studio allows teams to edit programming languages like SQL, Python, and Spark, providing the ability to run analytics and machine learning workloads at a large scale. The service also offers added controls for enterprise-level data governance, regulation, and compliance.
In the tech giant’s camp, Apple is gearing up for its next iPhone event scheduled for September 12. Speculations are high that the event will unveil the highly anticipated iPhone 15, alongside the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Vision Pro, Apple’s AR headset.
Additionally, Google Flights is rolling out a new feature to help travelers determine the best time to book flights. Leveraging historical trend data, this insight feature allows users to identify periods when prices have traditionally been lower for their desired destination on chosen dates. In some cases, Google will even refund the difference if the fare decreases before departure.
On the security front, a Portuguese-language spyware called WebDetetive has compromised more than 76,000 Android phones in South America, mainly in Brazil. Highlighting the vulnerability of phone spyware companies, hackers managed to exploit security vulnerabilities in WebDetetive’s servers and gain access to user databases.
There’s also news for Amazon customers as the e-commerce giant increases its free shipping minimum for non-Prime members in some regions. The threshold has been raised from $25 to $35, with Amazon randomly testing the new limit across different ZIP code regions.
Unfortunately, London telehealth startup Babylon Health faces an uncertain future. Once valued at nearly $2 billion and backed by the founders of DeepMind, the company became insolvent earlier this month. Its U.K. subsidiary has now gone into administration, with a significant portion of its assets being sold to eMed Healthcare UK, a subsidiary of U.S. firm eMed.
On a positive note, internet users in the European Union now have the power to opt out of AI-driven personalized content feeds on mainstream social networks, thanks to the bloc’s Digital Services Act. Users can choose a more traditional news feed that displays posts from friends in chronological order, rather than being subjected to algorithms that curate content based on relevance and tracking.
Lastly, for podcast enthusiasts, TechCrunch offers a selection of podcasts covering various topics and featuring prominent guests. Equity delves into the success of great founders in achieving cash-flow positivity, Found interviews Ida Josefiina, the CEO of social knowledge sharing platform Sane, and Chain Reaction spotlights Craig Salm, the chief legal officer at Grayscale Investments, a digital asset investment firm.
Overall, these recent developments in the tech industry highlight the continuous advancements and changes shaping various sectors, from startups and artificial intelligence to e-commerce and data analytics.
