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Happy Monday!
We’re late to the party, but today this crazy youtube video plays repeatedly. And maybe we did a little practice in front of the mirror. Sssh, don’t tell anyone.
Now that we’ve got you: stretch. Breath. Let’s get into this week and show who’s boss! — Christine and hi
The londonbusinessblog.com Top 3
- Pooh, back to the drawing board: Rockstar Games has confirmed that approximately 90 videos of early development versions of Grand Theft Auto have been leaked, darrell reports.
- Man on the run?: Kate and manish linked to give us the latest on Do Kwon from Terraform Labs. It seems that Kwon is not interested in collaborating with researchers regarding the destruction of Luna cryptocurrency and the South Korean authorities have requested a “red notice”, which is fancy Interpol talk for “no visa for you”.
- You say AI, we say deepfake: Deep Nostalgia creator D-ID has a new product that allows you to create AI-generated videos from a single image, Ivan writes.
Startups and VC
Everyone wants to get in on the AI image generation action, but if you’re intimidated by the existing options where you have to swipe your 1337 command-line skillz, you’re in luck: Diffusion Bee is a simple Mac app that gives you everything you need. you need to generate your own images from text prompts using the open source AI framework for image generation, darrell writes.
“Over the past 12 months, founders in Africa have contacted me for advice and I have personally invested,” said Byld Ventures founder in an interview with Tage about his new $15 million fund. “So I decided to institutionalize it and put together a fund.”
Nut:
- Size Matters: Connie reports that VC Ann Miura-Ko wants to help more students answer the question: Is this idea big enough?
- Like a bank vault, except your house, and digital: Fintech app Portabl raises $2.5 million to help consumers securely store financial data, reports Dominic-Madori.
- Burn, baby, bur… Wait, no, please, don’t: hi reports that Pano has a burning desire to apply AI smarts to wildfire detection.
- Ola brakes on the brake: manish reports that SoftBank-backed Ola will cut 200 jobs in India.
- Oh Deere, that’s encouraging: InnerPlant grows with new $16 million John Deere-led funding round to drive sustainable agriculture, Christine reports.
Why growth activation is important
Image Credits: Koldunova Anna (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
In his latest TC+ post, growth expert Jonathan Martinez looks at the grim reality of user acquisition. The simple fact is that few people motivated enough to go through the entire registration flow ever create any value.
“About 95.87% of iOS users drop out after day 30,” Martinez writes. “As a startup founder, how do you avoid leakage after spending significant resources recruiting people at the top of the funnel?”
For starters, product teams need to identify optimal activation metrics that showcase the right users — those who find usefulness and pleasure in your offerings.
Other great TC+ stories published in the past few days:
londonbusinessblog.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams stay ahead. You can register here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
It’s not a new iPhone unless something on it is a mystery. In this case, colleagues talked so much about setting up the eSIM that Ivan thought a story about it might be popular. He was right.
There’s nothing like a little competition to get the gears grinding, amirite? Seeing the myriad competitors launching new electric vehicles in the coming years, Tesla is ramping up production at its Texas and Shanghai plants to stay ahead of the vehicle wave. Jaclyn reports.