How Max Altschuler accidentally founded a VC firm that just raised another $54M  

Four years after accidentally launching a VC firm, GTMfund founder and general partner Max Altschuler has raised a second $54 million fund. He was aiming for $50 million.  GTMfund is one of a rising crop of “operator led” funds, meaning the limited partner investors are people who have wo

DSTLRY, the comic books marketplace, launches new customization features for artists

DSTLRY, a venture-backed digital comic books marketplace, on Tuesday added a pair of features designed to bring customization to the platform. The first feature, dubbed Commissioned Digital Remarques, allows creators to add personalized sketches and signatures to digital comics. The second, Unlimit

Apple launches Invites, a new app for creating custom invitations

Apple on Tuesday launched a new app called “Invites” that allows users to create custom invitations for any occasion. With Invites, users can create and share invitations on their iPhone, RSVP, contribute to Shared Albums, and curate event soundtracks. To create an invitation, you need

Deepfake videos are getting shockingly good

Researchers from TikTok owner ByteDance have demoed a new AI system, OmniHuman-1, that can generate perhaps the most realistic deepfake videos to date. Deepfaking AI is a commodity. There’s no shortage of apps that can insert someone into a photo, or make a person appear to say something the

LogicStar is building AI agents for app maintenance

Swiss startup LogicStar is bent on joining the AI agent game. The summer 2024-founded startup has bagged $3 million in pre-seed funding to bring tools to the developer market that can do autonomous maintenance of software applications, rather than the more typical AI agent use case of code co-devel

Spotify reports its first full year of profitability, adds 35M monthly active users

On Tuesday morning, Spotify announced its fourth-quarter earnings, marking its first full year of profitability since its inception 17 years ago. The operating income for the quarter reached a record €477 million ($509.48 million) and amounted to €1.4 billion ($1.495 billion) for the 2024 fisca

Team behind Twitterrific launches a multi-feed app called Tapestry

After Elon Musk took over Twitter, the company blocked third-party clients in 2023, including ones like Twitterrific, Tweetbot, and Fenix. Iconfactory, the company behind Twitterrifc, on Tuesday is finally launching its multi-feed app called Tapestry, which allows you to add sources like RSS, YouTu

Sotira lands $2M to help brands offload and monetize their surplus inventory

An estimated 20% to 30% of all inventory in the U.S. is surplus, with much of it ending up in landfills. A startup called Sotira wants to help address this problem: It leverages AI to help companies offload and monetize their surplus inventory. Sotira partners with brands to offload millions of pou

OpenAI’s Operator agent helped me move, but I had to help it, too

OpenAI gave me one week to test its new AI agent, Operator, a system that can independently do tasks for you on the internet. Operator is the closest thing I’ve seen to the tech industry’s vision of AI agents — systems that can automate the boring parts of life, freeing us up to do t

Snap unveils AI text-to-image model for mobile devices

Snap has unveiled an AI text-to-image research model for mobile devices that will power some of Snapchat’s features in the coming months. The company said on Tuesday that the model can produce high-resolution images in around 1.4 seconds on an iPhone 16 Pro Max.  The new diffusion model

LinkedIn amps up vertical video tools as uploads jump 36%

Video reigns supreme on social media like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. And now, video is becoming a bigger business for LinkedIn.  The Microsoft-owned social network for the working world has yet to go full TikTok. But with a big boost of usage — today it said that video uploads jumped b

Walkstar is a new iOS app that pauses songs when you stop moving

There are plenty of pedometer and step-counter apps in the world, but this new app has a fun twist. Walkstar, which launched Tuesday in the App Store, enhances your workout by syncing your tunes with your movement. The moment you pause, the music fades away, making it a perfect motivator for those

Canada’s StackAdapt snaps up $235M for its AI-based programmatic platform

While the U.S. and Canada duke it out over tariffs between the two countries, a tech company based out of Toronto is announcing a major round of funding led by a homegrown VC. StackAdapt, a programmatic advertising startup, says that it has raised $235 million in equity funding, with Teachers'

Egypt's Khazna banks $16M for its financial super app and expansion into Saudi Arabia

A large portion of Egypt's population lacks access to traditional banking, forcing many to rely on cash transactions and informal lending. Khazna, a fintech startup founded in 2019, is tackling this issue by offering financial services tailored toward low- and middle-income workers. The company