TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: SOPA Images / Contributor / Getty Images

Stripe doubles down on embedded finance: The fintech giant announced that it will be decoupling payments from the rest of its financial services stack. Ingrid Lunden writes that "this is a big change, considering that in the past, even as Stripe grew its list of services, it required businesses to be payments customers in order to use any of the rest." Read More

Nvidia acquires Run:ai: The Tel Aviv-based company makes it easier for developers and operations teams to manage and optimize their AI hardware infrastructure. Nvidia says that it'll continue to offer Run:ai's products "under the same business model" and will invest in Run:ai's product roadmap as part of Nvidia's DGX Cloud AI platform. Read More

Snowflake gets into generative AI: Arctic LLM is optimized for "enterprise workloads," including generating database code, Snowflake says, and is free for research and commercial use. Read More

Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Zawrzel / NurPhoto / Getty Images

Inside the bill that bans TikTok: President Joe Biden signed a bill that will ban TikTok in the United States if parent company ByteDance doesn't divest itself of the company within a year. Read More

New features for WhatsApp: WhatsApp introduces support for passkey verification on iOS, removing the need for users to deal with SMS one-time passcodes. Read More

Square for Bitcoin lovers: Block, which owns Square and Cash App, has a new program where merchants using Square can convert a percentage of their daily sales to bitcoin. Read More

Meet Nova AI: The startup's founder says it is attempting to best its competitors with its end-to-end testing tools by breaking many of the Silicon Valley rules of how startups should operate. Read More

Reddit upgrades its mobile app: Users can access a new media player by clicking on an image or video so there is a more consistent conversation navigation across post types. Read More

Anon and its automated authentication layer: Find out how the startup focused on authentication when it initially wanted to develop an AI agent. Read More

Hello? Bugs here: Zack Whittaker looks into vulnerabilities in the tracking app iSharing. These "bugs" allowed anyone using the app to access anyone else's coordinates, even if the user wasn't actively sharing their location data with anybody else. Read More

Spotify's new app in the EU: Spotify submitted a new update to Apple for European Union users with pricing information and basic site information. Read More

When is a merger not a merger?: Apparently if you are Big Tech. The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority is probing whether close-knit tie-ups and hiring practices involving Microsoft, Amazon and a trio of AI startups fall within the scope of its merger rules — and whether the arrangements could impact competition in the U.K. market. Read More

Money, money, money

Tines taps $50 million to expand its workflow automation beyond security teams. Read More

Dripos raises an $11 million Series A to replace Square, Toast and eight other pieces of software. Read More

Seed-stage firm Eniac Ventures raises $220 million across two funds. Read More

Stainless, which closed a $3.5 million seed round, is helping OpenAI, Anthropic and others build SDKs for their APIs. Read More

Diddo's new $2.8 million in funding will bring its shoppable TV API to streaming platforms. Read More

Around the web

Tesla shares continued to rally again Wednesday after CEO Elon Musk said the company does indeed have plans to produce more affordable EV models by early 2025, CNBC reports.

Meanwhile, people are just having fun knocking Humane Ai while the company is down. Engadget's review of Rabbit R1 pokes fun, saying it is "already more fun and accessible than the Humane Ai Pin."

And over on Axios, Dan Primack tells venture capitalists that they are "blowing it."

A MESSAGE FROM BRAINDATE

Transforming Connections: The Braindate Impact at Tech Conferences

Conferences, particularly in the tech industry, are large gatherings that can generate important opportunities for learning and networking. However, amid all of the sessions and activities, attendees often miss out on making meaningful connections. This is where Braindate steps in — offering a solution that helps all participants engage more deeply and find the value they're looking for!

Learn More

TechCrunch Minute

Perplexity AI could be worth up to $3B. Here's why: Perplexity AI's latest, large fundraising event could be quickly superseded by another, even larger chunk of capital. This comes amid news from Amazon and Microsoft and Meta and Adobe in the AI realm that feels like a reminder that Big Tech is going to try to eat the AI moment. Hit play and let's have a chat!