Startups Yearly: The most important startup tales from 2023

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Enroll right here to get it in your inbox each Friday.

Thanks for subscribing to Startups Weekly. This week, I’m taking my dad and mom to Yosemite to discover the snowy peaks and to see if my automobile can deal with snow. In lieu of a daily Startups Weekly, I figured I’d dive in and provide you with a reminder of a number of the largest startup tales from 2024 — each on TechCrunch and our subscription sibling TechCrunch+.

Listed here are a number of the largest themes which have echoed all through the startup ecosystem in 2023.

Crime and punishment

Among the largest startup tales on TechCrunch in 2023 had been associated to the deeds and misdeeds of these within the ecosystem.

By far one in all our most-read tales this yr was the homicide of Bob Lee, finest often called the creator of Money App and former CTO of Sq.. He was tragically killed in a stabbing incident in San Francisco, within the in any other case normally quiet Monetary District. Rolling Stone picked up the story from there, digging into who Bob Lee and his alleged assassin had been.

The different large story was the trial of Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes. She is now serving a jail sentence of 11 years and three months after being indicted for wire fraud in a scheme to defraud buyers. Theranos, as soon as valued at $10 billion, promised revolutionary blood testing know-how however was uncovered in 2015 for its nonfunctional know-how, which posed well being dangers to sufferers. The following unraveling of Theranos led to quite a few lawsuits and authorities investigations. The case serves as a stark reminder of the implications of fraudulent practices and that the “faux it until you make it” strategy that may be prevalent amongst startups doesn’t at all times work out.

The different large “hmm, possibly you shouldn’t have achieved that” serial story of the yr was the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, which prolonged over 5 weeks. It turned out to be a spectacle of evasion and reminiscence lapses. The previous CEO of FTX confronted the jury for a number of days, delivering a sworn statement that was outstanding principally for its lack of substance. When cross-examined by prosecutors about his previous selections and actions, Bankman-Fried’s responses had been predominantly “Yup” (372 occasions), “Unsure” (117 occasions), and “I don’t bear in mind” (73 occasions). He was discovered responsible on all seven prices of fraud and cash laundering, and might be sentenced in March 2024. Across the identical time, there’ll possible be a second trial, with a bunch of extra prices.

Extra from the courts and authorized techniques:

It’s not simply the startups . . . :  Former VC Mike Rothenberg, recognized for internet hosting extravagant events, was convicted on 21 counts final month, together with for financial institution fraud, false statements, cash laundering, and wire fraud. The conviction brings his journey from a promising entrepreneur, launching a VC agency in 2013, to being a convicted fraudster to a detailed. He was initially charged with fraud by the SEC in 2018, which resulted him having to pay $31 million. Sentencing within the fraud case is scheduled for March.

I’m attempting to achieve you about your prolonged guarantee: The FCC imposed a file $300 million positive on a robocaller operation for scamming individuals with faux auto guarantee gross sales. This operation made at the least 5 billion calls.

The Swiss military knife for hackers: Flipper Zero, a multi-tool hacking machine, is on observe to attain $80 million in gross sales this yr, a big improve from its $25 million gross sales final yr. Began in 2020, the machine can manipulate varied techniques like storage openers and RFID card techniques.

The enjoyable and quirky

The world of startups wasn’t simply murders, fraud and shenanigans — a few of our most-read tales this yr had been much more lighthearted, thank goodness.

One of many highlights was Apple’s 31 new emojis — together with a shaking face for while you’re “shook” and a pink coronary heart as a result of, clearly, we want extra coronary heart colours. There are even two pushing fingers that might imply “cease” or “excessive 5” — as a result of decoding imprecise hand gestures is what all of us wanted extra of. Wish to spam your mates with a moose or a jellyfish? Apple had your again this yr.

My different favorites within the more-or-less-quirky-news class:

[very recognizable drum riff]: MindGeek, the proprietor of grownup leisure websites resembling Pornhub, Brazzers, and RedTube, was acquired by Canadian personal fairness agency Moral Capital Companions. The phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Strap this laptop to your face: Apple’s new mixed-reality (XR) machine made a big influence with its high-quality {hardware} and options. It boasts 24 million pixels throughout two panels and superior optics. It has brand-new chips to make sure easy efficiency with out judder or body drops, with correct eye monitoring and gesture management. Panzer tried it out, and I argued that the machine could be a game-changer for startups working within the area.

We’re getting slightly bored of Elon’s antics: Sooner or later, TechCrunch editor Darrell determined he had sufficient, and penned this piece — concluding that sufficient is sufficient.

The yr of AI

There may be little doubt that, above all, for higher and for worse, 2023 was the yr of AI.

OpenAI was on everyone’s lips. The corporate made GPT-4 universally obtainable, which bought everybody hella excited. It additionally gave ChatGPT the power to browse the broader web, which unlocked a world of performance and pleasure.

The darker facet of AI bought its time within the limelight as properly. The development of AI porn turbines, resembling Unstable Diffusion, has raised important moral and societal issues. These turbines, which have improved in creating extra reasonable and numerous pictures, are posing some new dangers — and continues to make the web extra poisonous, particularly for girls (nearly all of deepfake pornography targets ladies and is usually used as a software for harassment). We had been additionally profitable in tricking Lensa into producing NSFW content material by placing crudely photoshopped images into its supply materials. Briefly: possibly deepfakes-for-all is worse than we thought.

One other large AI drama story of the yr was Sam Altman getting fired as OpenAI’s CEO. We put collectively an entire timeline, as a result of, goodness, that was fairly the saga.

From the desk of “didn’t see that coming”

If there’s one factor startups love doing, it’s throwing curveballs. This yr was no exception, and listed here are a handful of essentially the most stunning ones:

A banking collapse: Every part was positive one second, then instantly one of many largest startup banks — Silicon Valley Financial institution, or SVB amongst associates — took a nosedive. We put collectively a timeline of what occurred, together with a wall of protection and evaluation. Enterprise debt was one of many large query marks post-collapse.

The DPReview saga: DPReview, a famend digital digicam assessment web site, was shut down by Amazon after 25 years of operation, earlier than Gear Patrol purchased the property and revived it.

That submarine story: OceanGate attempting to dip right down to the Titanic and imploding within the course of was in every single place for a scorching second. A whistleblower was fired in January 2018 after presenting a scathing quality-control report on the vessel to OceanGate’s senior administration, together with founder and CEO Stockton Rush — who later died onboard the submarine. We initially coated the corporate again in 2017 when it first revealed the plans to go 3D-scan the Titanic.

Is it a hen? Is it a balloon?: Pathfinder 1 is an electrical airship that’s giving the Goodyear blimp a run for its cash. At 124.5 meters lengthy, it’s like the Hindenburg had a tech-savvy child with a drone. With 12 electrical motors and a penchant for helium (considerably safer than its high-explosive, Hindenburg-exploding hydrogen counterpart), it’s set to overcome the skies at a whopping 75 mph . . . ultimately.

Spherical after spherical after spherical of layoffs: Woof.

The most important hits from TC+

TechCrunch+ is TechCrunch’s subscription service, providing in-depth evaluation, unique articles, and complete stories on the know-how trade, startups, and enterprise capital. When you’re not a subscriber — properly, you must completely subscribe.

My common Pitch Deck Teardown sequence is as much as greater than 75 pattern pitch decks, full with evaluation for what’s working and what ain’t. And, in fact, there’s oodles of extra wonderful content material too. Right here’s a handful of tales you’ll have missed:

From cloud to on-premise: After a decade of cloud transformations, subtle enterprises are actually creating hybrid methods to help essential knowledge science initiatives, shifting away from unique reliance on cloud computing and bringing workloads again to on-premises techniques.

The evolution of layoffs: Again in July, we checked out how the period of tech layoffs was evolving, noting that whereas it was not over, it was shedding a few of its depth and was creating into its personal distinctive development.

Stage acceptable over perfection: Startups ought to focus on creating minimal viable merchandise which are laser-focused on answering particular questions, reasonably than attempting to scale too rapidly, losing assets within the course of.

Hey, OpenAI, generate a advertising and marketing technique: On this case research, we confirmed how utilizing OpenAI for producing advertising and marketing methods led to important enhancements in search engine marketing rating on Google, leading to a considerable improve in web site visitors, area ranking, and backlinks in lower than a yr.

Construct on another person’s tech and get burned: An replace on OpenAI’s ChatGPT allowed for PDF uploads. That was a spanner within the work for startups, particularly these constructed round a function hole in ChatGPT. It underscored the vulnerability of such companies to modifications in underlying applied sciences.

Development is difficult: The previous CEO of PlanGrid mirrored on key errors they made whereas main the corporate to $100 million in annual recurring income, providing insights to assist different founders keep away from comparable pitfalls.

Setting the stage for a battery gold rush: Volkswagen’s breakthrough in lithium-ion battery know-how might considerably influence the automotive trade, particularly because it grapples with elevated prices because of inflation and provide chain points.

F you, pay me: If an investor tells you to not take a wage after you’ve raised VC funding, inform them to go do one thing anatomically strenuous.

One of the best laid plans of mice and males: We look at the evolution of fintech over the previous decade, wanting on a number of hyped fintech concepts that finally failed to rework the monetary companies trade as supposed.

To distant or to not distant: We appeared on the shift in distant work startups, the place preliminary enthusiasm for devoted distant work instruments has waned, as corporations have tailored to a hybrid work mannequin reasonably than a purely distant one, resulting in challenges for startups centered solely on distant work options.

Right here’s why your pitch deck sucks: Within the yr of AI, I constructed a software that analyzes startup pitch decks (due to course I did — why wouldn’t I construct a software that places me out of enterprise) and located a ton of fascinating knowledge about what startup founders get mistaken once they create pitch decks.

Oh, and since I simply know you might be loopy curious: The featured picture of this submit was taken with an iPhone 14 Professional Max. I created the bauble utilizing the Round Title Decoration creator from Cuttle Labs, together with a Glowforge Aura. After I reviewed the entry-level laser cutter from Glowforge in July, I made a decision that I simply needed to have one. As a result of, properly, what sort of nerd would I be if I didn’t set shit on hearth on a semi-regular foundation.

Completely satisfied New Yr — see y’all in 2024!