Romain Dillet, Author at TechCrunch

YC-backed Formal brings a clever security reverse-proxy out of stealth

Romain Dillet — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:00:00 +0000

Formal is a security startup coming out of stealth on Tuesday with a nice list of investors and an interesting product positioning. The company has designed a reverse-proxy for data stores and APIs so that security teams can more easily secure access to sensitive data. In more practical terms, Formal is a proxy that you […]

Twenty is building an open source alternative to Salesforce

Romain Dillet — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

If a software product is successful enough, you’ll probably be able to find a company building an open source alternative. And yet, nobody has created a modern open source CRM product that can be considered as a serious competitor to Salesforce. That’s exactly what Twenty is trying to achieve. For the past couple of years, […]

Google tests removing news articles from search in EU, but it’s already backfiring

Romain Dillet — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 13:50:39 +0000

Under EU law, digital platforms have to pay for news reuse. But how much should Google pay for article previews? That’s what Google is trying to find out with an experiment in nine EU countries. During the test, 1% of users won’t see articles from EU-based news publishers in search and Google News so that […]

Almost all of this year’s top 40 startups at Station F use AI

Romain Dillet — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 16:11:53 +0000

Every year, more than 1,000 startups join Station F, the iconic startup campus in Paris. As it can be hard to sift through 1,000 startup descriptions, Station F selects the 40 most promising startups and shares a list of what it calls the “Future 40.” The campus also invests in 10 of these startups (but […]

After spending three years working on SMS verification at Zenly, Prelude founders want to fix SMS onboarding

Romain Dillet — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Prelude is a relatively new French startup that focuses on SMS verification; it’s announcing new funding from Singular and Seedcamp on Wednesday. The two founders met when they were working for Zenly, a popular location-sharing app with tens of millions of users that was acquired by Snap (and later shut down). While you might not […]

French newspapers want social media platform X to pay for news reuse

Romain Dillet — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 15:17:28 +0000

It’s rare when French newspapers team up and agree on something. But major publications, such as Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Le Parisien, have collectively decided to take legal action against X over neighboring rights, according to a statement sent to Reuters and the AFP. Under EU law, digital platforms are required to negotiate with […]

Agicap secures $48 million for its cash flow management platform

Romain Dillet — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 06:00:00 +0000

On average, Agicap’s clients manage 15 different bank accounts each. So the chief financial officers (CFOs) working for these companies sometimes struggle to make sure that there will be enough money in the right bank account to pay employees and suppliers across different subsidiaries, countries and currencies. That’s also why they turn to Agicap to […]

Alan unveils AI health assistant for its 680K health insurance members

Romain Dillet — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 09:27:54 +0000

Alan wants to build a super app for healthcare, so it's rolling out three new product updates, including an AI chatbot that's vetted by doctors.

Popular calendar app Fantastical lands on Windows

Romain Dillet — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Buzzy calendar apps tend to make a big splash and disappear after a while. Sometimes they get acquired, sometimes the company pivots to something else. That’s not the case with Fantastical, a popular calendar app for macOS, iOS, and other Apple platforms. Originally launched as a Mac app in 2011, the team behind Fantastical has […]

Apple Intelligence is coming to the EU in April 2025

Romain Dillet — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 17:21:35 +0000

Remember when Apple blamed EU tech rules — and more specifically the Digital Markets Act — to justify the fact that Apple Intelligence wouldn’t be available in the European Union? Maybe that was just an attempt to turn EU users against their regulators as Apple Intelligence is coming to the EU in April 2025 along […]

Remote ropes in Carta to simplify equity grants for distributed teams

Romain Dillet — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 12:00:00 +0000

A few months after acquiring equity management company Easop, Remote, an HR platform for managing geographically distributed teams, is doubling down on its focus on managing equity compensation with a new product, Remote Equity. Remote already makes it easy for companies to work with talent all around the globe. Companies can hire workers based anywhere […]

Filigran secures $35M for its cybersecurity threat management suite

Romain Dillet — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Paris-based startup Filigran is fast becoming the next cybersecurity rocket ship to track: The company just raised a $35 million Series B round, only a few months after it raised $16 million in a Series A round. Filigran’s main product is OpenCTI, an open source threat intelligence platform that lets companies or public sector organizations […]

Raspberry Pi releases more AI-focused add-ons

Romain Dillet — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 07:00:00 +0000

The Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ comes in 13 and 26 tera-operations per second (TOPS) variants, retailing at $70 and $110 respectively.

Cash collection startup Upflow also wants to handle B2B payments

Romain Dillet — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Upflow, a French startup we’ve been covering for quite a while, originally focused on managing outstanding invoices. The company is now announcing a shift in its strategy to become a B2B payment platform with its own payment gateway to complement its accounts receivable automation solution. Like many software-as-a-service products, Upflow started by building a central […]

Devialet launches new high-end audio amplifier

Romain Dillet — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 21:21:00 +0000

After releasing soundbars, portable speakers, wireless earbuds, Devialet is now going back to its roots with a new amplifier — the Devialet Astra.

Marc Andreessen says AI model makers are in ‘a race to the bottom’ and it’s not good for business

Romain Dillet — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 13:22:16 +0000

Marc Andreessen, general partner at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, was onstage at the Ray Summit conference earlier this month, talking about AI. CFO.com has pulled out the best quotes so you don’t have to watch the full interview. “Maybe all of these companies are in a race to the bottom,” Andreessen said when talking about […]

After learning that you can name group chats, Tim Cook chose the safest name possible

Romain Dillet — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:23:52 +0000

This week’s cover of WSJ Magazine is extremely minimalistic. That’s not surprising given that the main story is an in-depth interview with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple and the king of minimalistic design. In Cook’s interview with the WSJ’s Ben Cohen, we learn he still believes the Vision Pro is going to be a […]

Storio is helping other businesses unlock more value from solar energy

Romain Dillet — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Meet Storio, a French startup that’s focused on providing smart energy storage for commercial and industrial customers. Founded in 2023, the startup raised a €5 million seed round earlier this year (around $5.5 million at current exchange rates) and has signed its first client. Storio believes solar panels have a bright future. But the company […]

Gladia believes real-time processing is the next frontier of audio transcription APIs

Romain Dillet — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 11:00:00 +0000

French startup Gladia, which offers a speech-recognition application programming interface (API), has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round. Essentially, Gladia’s API lets you turn any audio file into text with a high level of accuracy and low turnaround time. While Amazon, Microsoft, and Google all offer speech-to-text APIs as part of their […]

European cyber insurance startup Stoïk secures $27M

Romain Dillet — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Cyber risk has become an increasingly important issue for small companies around the world. While many companies try to avoid and mitigate cyber risks, they rarely discuss transferring those risks to a third party. That’s why Stoïk is stepping in with a cybersecurity insurance product specifically designed for small- and medium-sized businesses. The French startup […]