At debut, Rivian promised to transform the way we view trucks and SUVs, but things have since slowed down a little. In a decision that shouts, "Whoa, we think we got ahead of ourselves," the corporation said it will be letting go of 10% of its staff. You might wonder, why? It appears that the EV market is a little more competitive than expected, since pricing pressure is building like the tension in a lousy thriller film. Rivian must now confront the harsh truth that producing cars is difficult, and turning a profit is much more difficult. The current round of layoffs comes after the company let go of 6% of its workforce a year ago and another 6% about eighteen months prior.

The manufacturer plans to introduce its R2 series cars early in the upcoming month, which could help the business's profit margins a little.

One can't help but wonder if this is only a hiccup in the path or a hint of more sinister clouds to come as Rivian navigates these choppy waters. Given the existence of the EV market, why needs soap operas?
 

This week's most fascinating startup stories

Remaining in the automotive industry, the leading edge of electric vehicle manufacturers has made significant strides.


Lucid Motors has chosen to lower prices across its array of electric sedans in a gallant attempt to turn its sales projections for 2023 into something positive. In a market where being the new kid on the block (Lucid was created in 2007) is about as useful as a skateboard in a Formula 1 race, the move shouts, "Please notice us!" The base model Lucid Air Pure, which was once on the verge of being worth $80,000, is now more reasonably priced at $69,900, making it a more tempting option for prospective buyers. This follows the company's somewhat humble revelation that it was only able to deliver 6,001 automobiles in 2023.It appears that the actual number will be a fraction of the 90,000 automobiles that the corporation once estimated it will be shipping in 2024.

Not just the newest residents of the neighborhood are having difficulties. Ford, which was founded a full 104 years before Lucid, has opted to lower the price of its electric Mustang Mach-E in reaction to the declining demand for high-end EVs. This decision is reminiscent of the schoolyard cliche, "if they can do it, so can we." It appears that people are suddenly realizing that money doesn't grow on trees—even if driving an electric car helps conserve trees—which appears to be a reality check for the electric vehicle business.

Following Tesla's price reductions, which set the standard for the EV sector, Ford and Lucid have also adjusted their prices. This suggests that the EV market is maturing and that consumers are becoming more cost-conscious.

An electric motorcycle fire sale: All of the Makka and Ösa motorcycles, accessories, and spare parts that had made their way into the United States were acquired by the owner of a Florida retail store, along with the majority of the Swedish electric motorbike firm Cake's U.S. inventory. Cake is rapidly heading toward insolvency.
 

They're still only a rat in a Faraday cage despite their fury: After failing to pay the rent for the previous two months, struggling electric vehicle startup Faraday Future owes the landlord of its Los Angeles offices around $1 million.

Maintaining focus on the roads: In an effort to challenge Google Maps, Hivemapper, a startup making waves in the tech world with its cutting-edge mapping technology, has now released the Bee dashcam. This dashcam is not like the others: Its purpose is to add to Hivemapper's global map by gathering and disseminating street-level imagery.


This week's most intriguing developments in fundraising

Global investment company Partech doubled down on its commitment to the continent's developing tech ecosystem by recently closing its second Africa fund at an astounding $300 million. The new fund intends to give African entrepreneurs the much-needed continuity of financial support by bridging the gap between seed and Series C fundraising rounds. The fund's approach is to enable entrepreneurs to grow both domestically and globally by providing them with access to a worldwide network, strategic advice, and financial injections.


Om nom nom: With $45 million in funding commitments, Bluestein Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Chicago, has closed its third fund. The company was established in 2014 and specializes on funding consumer-facing technologies such as digital, health and wellness, and proprietary food technology along the food supply chain.

Ready Player 2: The global video gaming business faced a difficult year in 2023 with large layoffs and a five-year low in venture capital, despite its enormous revenue surpassing that of film and music combined. VCs are still very optimistic about a turnaround in 2024, though.
 

You guys, that's a huge bag of money: A record-breaking Series B fundraising round of over $1 billion was reportedly received by Moonshot AI, a rapidly growing artificial intelligence business from China. This funding round represents the largest ever for Chinese large language model (LLM) researchers. Moonshot AI's valuation soars to an astounding $2.5 billion thanks to this financial boost.

This week's major trend: The AI train continues to roll.
 

Sora is a new generative AI model from OpenAI that can turn still photos or written descriptions into movies. One of Sora's unique selling points is its ability to produce high-definition, movie-like scenarios with several characters, different motions, and intricate backgrounds. Additionally, by adding missing elements to already-existing video recordings, this model may show off its profound comprehension of both language and the real world.

With a runtime of up to a minute, Sora may produce films in a variety of genres, including photorealistic, animated, and black and white, which is far longer than the majority of text-to-video models now in use. Even with certain drawbacks, such as sporadic errors in reproducing intricate physics or particular cause-and-effect situations, Sora's output has a high degree of coherence and stays clear of typical "AI weirdness" issues. Most likely, the public won't be able to access the model.

In other OpenAI news, the company's bid to trademark "GPT" has been denied by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which determined that the name is "merely descriptive" and cannot be registered.

Yes, that does indeed verify: Dili has raised $3.6 million in venture funding. The platform is intended to use AI to automate important phases in portfolio management and due diligence for private equity and venture capital organizations. Through the use of generative AI—more especially, big language models—the company hopes to reduce the workload associated with due diligence duties and optimize investor workflows.

Is there anything more that AI can assist you with right now? Sierra's method of providing customer support The goal of AI is to complement human agents, not to replace them. According to the business, AI can handle monotonous and mundane tasks, freeing up human agents to work on more intricate and subtle consumer interactions. To date, the company has raised $110 million.

XX-focused: The Gray Lady explained the origins of the present AI boom in a late-year New York Times article. The article went viral for omitting to mention women, not because of what was reported. We looked at the female leaders in artificial intelligence.
 

Some must-read TechCrunch storie

I always have a few stories I want to share with you each week, but they never quite fall into the categories above. I'm sorry if you missed these, but here's a random assortment of delights just for you:

Onshoring: Check out Aria's fantastic interview of Chris Power, the CEO and founder of Hadrian, a business focused on industrial automation. His goal is to use innovation in American industry to resist past trends of imperial fall. With the idea that the U.S. industrial base was in significant decline, Power set out on a voyage from Australia to the U.S. in 2019, drawing on his studies of historical cycles where empires fell as a result of exporting core sectors. He sensed a chance in that downturn.

Take all your money: With billions of dollars in income each year, ransomware has developed into a profitable business model for hackers. The victim's data is encrypted by this malicious software, rendering it unreadable, and it then demands a ransom for the decryption key. Carly investigates to learn how it developed into such a successful criminal operation.

Hi, this is Mr. I. It has been a while since Y Combinator released the ideas and categories that its partners "would like to see more people working on," but that doesn't mean that the RFS isn't worth reading. included a call for additional start-ups developing cancer therapies.
 

Hello, robot brick maker: While bricklaying robots aren't exactly a novel idea, our writer was drawn to Amsterdam-based Monumental, which specialized in the more widely recognized red clay version.

Seizing the means of production: Recently, Trader Joe's, Amazon, and SpaceX filed lawsuits contesting the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) constitutionality, raising the possibility of jeopardizing the country's long-standing worker safeguards.