Could Reddit’s upcoming IPO reward its power users?

Equity

TechCrunch

Business, News, Technology, Business News, Entrepreneurship

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is our Wednesday show, in which we talk through the week’s leading startup and venture capital news. This is short week, but there’s still a lot to talk about: Loora’s $12 million round is a reminder that AI is going to find purchase in a host of new markets. The company wants to use AI for conversational language training. Sure, humans are good at that, but they are also expensive. Software aims to be more affordable. Dili is building an AI service to help investors handle their due diligence. Given that some accounting and financial work can be described as rote, the concept here makes good sense. The company just closed $3.6 million. Reddit may include a neat way to get some of its power users onto its ownership docket for its upcoming IPO. And from the venture side of the startup coin, Bluestein Ventures has a new foodtech fund, while Partech has put together the largest African venture fund out there. We’ll be back Friday morning! Chat then! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to Equity, the Tech Ranch Podcast, where we unpack the numbers and the nuance behind the headlines.
0:18.0	This is Alex, Good Morning. Today is February 21st, 2024, and welcome to our Wednesday show,
0:25.2	where we dig into critical startup and venture capital stories
0:28.2	from the week thus far.
0:30.2	Now, if you were with us yesterday,
0:31.7	you're probably asking, hey, it's a holiday week has enough stuff actually happened to warrant another show and the answer is yes quite a lot has happened and we are going to talk about it on the show today we have AI in language learning, a neat
0:45.1	startup that wants to automate due diligence, Reddit IPO news, and then two new
0:49.8	venture funds for your notebook. Let's go. First on the docket for the startup category, we have a company called L-O-O-O-R-A. Why is it in the news? Well, the company announced today that it just closed a $12 million
1:06.7	series A. Laura, whose namesake is the Arabic word for language, offers learners several AI generated conversation subjects
1:15.1	and scenarios think sports, tech, business, fashion, books, TV, that sort of thing.
1:21.3	Its round was led by QP ventures, bringing the company's total raised capital that we know of
1:26.6	to about 21.25 million dollars.
1:30.1	The thesis behind companies like Laura is that they think that AI can do at scale, what language teachers can't.
1:37.0	Laura itself leans on conversational AI to teach students,
1:41.0	and it has built an iOS app that allows people to talk to an AI chat mod
1:44.9	that then gives them feedback on their English comprehension.
1:48.0	According to one of the company's co-founder Roy Moore, the idea for Laura came with their own frustration from learning language,
1:56.4	and they think that learning language apps today are geared towards beginner or casual learners,
2:01.1	and folks who want a human tutor to get better are a little bit
2:04.0	expensive so they want to split the difference and make a tool that is cheap and
2:08.7	available okay I really get that and I think it's really cool.
2:12.6	At the same time, I do wonder if we all learn to speak from digital robots,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TechCrunch, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TechCrunch and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.