Welcome friends to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch's regular newsletter covering notable happenings in the tech industry.
This week Google thrown out two new open large language models, Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B, in its continued bid for the dominance of generative AI. The company, which describes the LLMs as “inspired by Gemini,” its flagship family of GenAI models, made them available for commercial and research use.
Elsewhere, database company MariaDB revealed which could be taken private in a $37 million deal. The non-binding proposal comes 14 months after MariaDB went public via SPAC, Paul writes.
Many more things happened. We summarize it all in this edition of WiR, but first, a reminder to register to receive the WiR newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.
News
Tragedy: Earlier this week, Marco Troper, the 19-year-old son of former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, was found dead at UC Berkeley from an apparent drug overdose.
Cake sale: The future of Cake, a bankrupt electric motorcycle startup, is still uncertain, but most of its US inventory will go to a man in Florida, Sean reports.
Change Healthcare Impact: Change Healthcare, one of the largest healthcare technology companies in the US, confirmed that a cyberattack on its systems recently occurred.
Layoffs at Rivan: Rivian is laying off 10% of its salaried workforce in a bid to cut costs in an increasingly tough market for electric vehicles, putting even more pressure on its future more affordable electric vehicle called the R2.
Dunzo Purchase: Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has been in talks in recent weeks about possibly acquiring Reliance Retail-backed hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo, Manish reports.
More privacy: Signal now lets you keep your phone number private with the release of usernames.
YouTube triumphant: YouTube dominates streaming television in the US, according to the latest Nielsen report.
Valuation Cut: Byju's says its recently launched $200 million rights issue has been fully subscribed, but the startup's founder urged some of its biggest investors to participate amid a rift between the edtech group and some of its largest shareholders, writes Manish.
Money
Lucrative grooming: France-based Planity has raised $48 million to expand its software-as-a-service product for salons.
Mason robots: Dutch startup Monumental landed a $25 million tranche for its carts and robotic arms that help place bricks for construction.
Analysis
Threatened segment: Alex and Ron discuss why parent company Twilio might put customer data company Segment up for sale. Activist pressure has a lot to do with it.
Podcasts
In EquityThe team talked about Reddit's upcoming IPO, along with some impressive raises for the edtech startup. praise, Biooptimus and Dili.
Found She dove into the wedding industry's enormous network with Shan-Lyn Ma, co-founder and CEO of Zola. Ma spoke about why she decided to launch the business after trying to buy a gift for a friend and realizing that wedding registries were still a thing of the past.
AND Chain reaction had on Steve Kaczynski, co-author of the book “The Everything Token” and co-host of the web3 morning show “Coffee with Captain.”
Bonus round
New AI chip company: SoftBank Group's Masayoshi Son is reportedly seeking $100 billion to build a new company that would compete with companies like Nvidia in the AI chip space.
OnePlus returns to watches: OnePlus' upcoming Watch 2, the company's first smartwatch in years, promises an astonishing 100 hours “in full smart mode.”