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Several startups announced new rounds this week without disclosing their valuation. This doesn’t mean that these were down rounds, but rather it confirms that our collective focus has shifted far away from unicorns: These days, $1 billion can be the ARR (annual recurring revenue) figure a company wants to hit before going public.

Most interesting startup stories from the week

IPOs are making their way back into the conversation, but not everyone is lamenting their absence.

Secondhand: Vinted was valued at €5 billion in a secondary share sale. The Lithuanian secondhand marketplace joins the growing number of European scale-ups that have followed this route to unlock liquidity for their stakeholders in the absence of IPOs on their roadmap.

Bright side: Ro CEO Zachariah Reitano would “never say never” to taking the telehealth company public, but he thinks the benefits of being a private company are growing, he said in a recent interview.

Checking boxes: Checking boxes: Wiz hopes that 2025 will be the year its ARR reaches $1 billion, a number its co-founders see as a prerequisite for the cybersecurity company to go public after it declined to get acquired by Google for $23 billion.

Big moves: Fintech company Groww is one of several Indian startups that are relocating their headquarters to India to better comply with local legislation and potentially go public more easily, TechCrunch’s Manish Singh reported.

Tailwinds: U.S. federal regulators have cleared the way for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to share U.S. airspace with planes and helicopters, a big win for startups in this category.

Most interesting fundraises this week

Just a handful of AI-related funding rounds this week, but AI will be central to some really big ones that may be around the corner.

Counter-Stripe: One year after becoming a payment processor, fintech startup Finix raised a $75 million Series C round of funding that will help it grow in the U.S. and expand into more countries. 

Money circle: Concentric AI recently raised a $45 million Series B round. The San Mateo-based startup operates in the data security posture management space, which had several M&As in recent years.

Open checks: Socket raised $40 million to detect security vulnerabilities in open source code, which software companies are increasingly relying on. 

Augmented: Fixify closed a $25 million Series A round to help IT teams deal with ticket overload thanks to a combination of automation and human analysts.

Rumors: AI search engine Perplexity is reportedly seeking to raise $500 million. Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati is also said to be fundraising for a new AI startup. 

Most interesting VC and fund news this week

Ducks in a row: Privacy-focused company DuckDuckGo will invest into similarly minded early-stage startups and consider acquisitions. Its past investments include AI model training platform EverArt, TechCrunch learned.

Breathing room: Andreessen Horowitz is making a private GPU cluster available to AI startups in its portfolio through a program called Oxygen, the VC firm confirmed this week.

Partners only: Filings revealed that Benchmark is raising $170 million for a new fund. TechCrunch understands this will be a partners-only fund, where most of the funding will come from the firm’s historical and current partners.

Old and new: U.S. VC veteran firm General Catalyst raised $8 billion in fresh funds. As for new VC firm Chemistry, it raised $350 million for its debut fund.

Last but not least

The race for AI foundational models is only beginning, and smaller startups still stand a chance, Accel partner Philippe Botteri told TechCrunch. This includes European ones, despite the fundraising gap with their U.S. peers.

Apple has long been rumored to be working on noninvasive blood glucose monitoring. Now, a Bloomberg report says the company tested an app that helps people with prediabetes better manage their condition.

Citing anonymous Apple sources, Bloomberg notes the app required Apple employees to validate they were prediabetic via a blood test. Employees then monitored their blood sugar using “various devices available on the market” and logged changes related to what food they were eating.

Prediabetes is a metabolic condition when blood sugar levels are higher than normal, and increases a person’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. And while there is no cure for diabetes, prediabetes can be reversed through diet and exercise interventions. The idea for an app like this would be to show people how different choices can impact blood sugar levels. For example, a carb-heavy meal might spike blood sugar, but pairing the same meal with protein can blunt the spike.

The report notes that the app was intended to investigate what tools Apple could develop using blood sugar data. However, Bloomberg also says that Apple has since paused work on the app to focus on other health features. Even so, it’s possible that Apple will use its findings in future health tech offerings.

On a larger scale, metabolic health tracking is a burgeoning wearable trend. Earlier this year, Dexcom and Abbott both released over-the-counter CGMs that were aimed at prediabetic, non-diabetics, and Type 2 diabetics who don’t use insulin. There are also continuous glucose monitor (CGM) startups, like Nutrisense and Levels, that use CGM data to help people lose weight, fuel for endurance sports, or learn about how certain foods impact their blood sugar levels.

Given all that, it’s not surprising to hear Apple is interested in exploring this area. For starters, it’s largely shied away from native food logging while also increasing third-party CGM integrations. Apple itself has reportedly spent roughly 15 years tinkering on how to noninvasively monitor blood glucose, though that project is still likely years away from completion.

Can you get excited about a microchip? If you’ve never chosen your phone based on the chip inside, that may be worth considering when Snapdragon 8 Elite phones start to arrive. Qualcomm is doing for the next generation of smartphones what it recently did for Windows laptops, and phones that realize its vision will be different from anything we’ve seen before.

Last year, Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon X Elite chipset, a powerful processor that uses the sort of low-power cores normally found in smartphones. The obvious benefit is incredible battery life, since mobile processors are made to sip juice, not gulp. That benefit is now coming to smartphones, and I’m expecting great battery life gains in the next generation. All-day battery life is going to be the rule, not a rarity.

With the Snapdragon X Elite, Qualcomm created an incredibly powerful new chipset that includes its Oryon processing core. The X Elite is truly supercharged. The result was the fastest Windows laptops you could buy, and the first Windows laptops in years that could outperform a premium MacBook Pro.

This year, Qualcomm flew TechRadar to Maui for its Snapdragon Summit, and to check out the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which brings that Oryon core to smartphones. After all the speeches and bluster, I got to actually put the chips to work. Qualcomm provided a reference sample phone for benchmark comparisons – and the results completely blew me away.

I’m not usually a benchmark guy, but… wow!

Microsoft’s chief executive Satya Nadella earned $79.1m (£61m) last year, a rise of 63% compared to his compensation the year before.

That was despite a request from Mr Nadella to reduce one element of his pay package because of cybersecurity flaws at the tech giant – which resulted in him getting $5m less than he otherwise would have.

In common with many tech firms, Microsoft has cut thousands of jobs this year, including many in its gaming division.

But in a proxy statement filed with the US financial regulator, the board said the company’s revenue grew by 16% in the year to 30 June 2024.

“Mr. Nadella agreed that the Company’s performance was extremely strong,” Microsoft’s compensation committee wrote in a letter to shareholders.

It added he asked them “to consider departing from the established performance metrics and reduce his cash incentive to reflect his personal accountability” over a number of cyber attacks.

One such attack was reported in July 2023 by Microsoft, where hackers gained access to the email accounts of around 25 organisations, including government agencies.

Microsoft said the attack originated in China, though the Chinese embassy in London called this “disinformation”.

The fiscal period runs up to 30 June 2024 – just weeks before the massive internet outage which affected Microsoft Windows PCs, causing chaos around the world.

While that was not a cyber attack, later in July Microsoft apologised for another outage which was caused by a cyber attack.

The compensation committee said it reduced Mr Nadella’s cash pay by more than half, to $5.2m.

That represents less than 7% of his total pay.

The bulk of his pay, $71.2m, was made up of stock options.

High Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard said “superficially” the earnings made sense given Microsoft’s strong financial performance.

“However, we might also ask whether the extra $79 million on top of $49 million last year for someone who is already worth hundreds of millions, with more money than they could spent over multiple lifetimes of absolute luxury, is really necessary as a reward of incentive,” he told the BBC.

“None of Microsoft’s success would be possible without workers, customers and wider society so perhaps the proceeds of that success should be share a little more evenly,” he added.

Elsewhere in big tech, Apple boss Tim Cook earned $63.2m in 2023, while the chief executive of the world’s most valuable company Nvidia, Jensen Huang, was paid $34.2m in the 2024 fiscal year.

But none of them come close to Tesla boss Elon Musk, whose pay packet could be worth up to $56bn.

If you’re going to university or school, then you’ll probably want to aim for some solid budget laptops that are also pretty portable. Luckily, there are a lot of great options out there, and while you could absolutely aim for some of the best laptops on the market, you’re better off going for something that fits your needs and your budget. For example, there are a lot of great Chromebook deals you can take advantage of that are a lot cheaper than Windows laptops, although if you do need Windows, then there are a lot of great laptop deals for that, too.

Whatever you’re looking for, we’ve collected some of our favorite student laptop deals from that include HP laptop deals, Dell laptop deals, Acer laptop deals, and Lenovo laptop deals.

HP Laptop 14 — $200 $250 20% off

The HP Laptop 14 is a popular choice among students because of its entry level price point. It’s specs aren’t going to blow anyone away, but they’re good value for the price and are plenty to get the job done. This build of the HP Laptop 14 has 4GB of RAM and a quad-core Intel Celeron processor. It does check in with just 128GB of storage space — this may not be enough for some users, but if you aren’t planning on loading your laptop up with media this is one that will accompany you well around campus.

ASUS Vivobook 14-inch — $280 $430 35% off

The ASUS Vivobook 14-inch is a great study companion due to quirks that make it perfect for late-night usage. Like other ASUS laptops (just one reason ASUS is featured among the best budget laptops) it sports a quiet keyboard with slender-pressing keys. And, in this case, they’re also backlit, meaning you can find the right keys easily even in the dark of night. Its 180-degree hinge, when fully opened, means the ASUS Vivobook can lie flat, allowing for multiple comfortable positions for in-bed studying. The ASUS Vivobook 16-inch features 8GB of RAM, 126GB of SSD storage, and an Intel Core i3-1215U processor.

IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook — $420 $550 23% off

Fitting in as one of the best Chromebooks for students, the IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook runs on 8GB of memory and an Intel i3 processor. The 14-inch FHD screen has a 100% sRGB color gamut and sides of the keyboard contain speakers, making it a serviceable video lecture companion. The IdeaPad Slim 3’s WiFi 6 allows for quick downloads and a solid internet connection. This, combined with the laptop’s 13-hour battery life, solidify it as the perfect laptop to throw in your bag and take notes with at class. You can still watch (purely educational, of course) YouTube videos, but the machine isn’t designed to be overly distracting.

IdeaPad Slim 3 — $430 $750 39% off

When we look at 15 inch laptops we shouldn’t ignore the IdeaPad Slim 3, which comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 7530U processor and Integrated AMD Radeon Graphics. Behind its 1080p, anti-glare screen is the 8GB of memory and a 512GB SSD storage drive. What makes the IdeaPad Slim 3 special is its tough exterior, made for withstanding harsh drops. This, along with its slim build, make it perfect to throw in the backpack and tug along with you wherever you go. Take even 15 minutes between classes for a charge session and you’ll get two full hours of usage out of your IdeaPad Slim 3, it is a truly versatile machine that is ready to go when you are.

HP Pavilion x360 Laptop 14t — $450 $709 36% off

If you’re willing to spend a little bit more, the HP Pavilion Laptop 15t really starts to ramp up the stats. The 8GB of RAM can be especially useful if you need to use advanced creative software, for example, and competes with the very best business laptops. Of course, the Intel Core i3-1315U processor won’t hurt either. Store you projects and PowerPoints locally on the 128GB SSD contained within, as you don’t want poor reception in the depths of the philosophy building keeping you from getting your points across. Overall, this is one of the best student laptop deals for those that need a little extra power but aren’t ready to break the bank on luxuries like an ultra-advanced display (the HP Pavilion Laptop 14t is 1080p).

ThinkPad E16 Gen 2 — $799 $1,331 40% off

When we think of the best Lenovo laptops, one line always comes to mind: ThinkPad. They have a reputation for high durability and good keyboards. While we’ve warned in the past that the latest laptop model isn’t always the best, there is something to be said about the ThinkPad E16 Gen 1 being a new arrival to the Lenovo store. It’s got the latest features that you’ll want for the long term, in abundance. For example its got both USB-C ports and WiFi 6, which are becoming increasingly useful. Furthermore, the ThinkPad E16 has a 16-inch 1920 x 1200p screen, 1 TB of storage, and a whopping 24 GB memory.

Dell XPS 14 — $1,010 $1,560 35% off

Consistently one of the best laptops around, the Dell XPS 14 is a dream in almost every way. The thinnest and lightest 14-inch XPS laptop yet, it’s powerful too. It has a Ultra 7 Processor 155H processor, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of SSD storage. Its 14.5-inch full HD+ display with a 1920 x 1200 resolution is a delight to look at with 500 nits of brightness ensuring it can handle all lighting situations too. An impressive battery life of up to 12 hours means it’ll handle the busiest days of classes while you can enjoy streaming your favorite shows in style later in the day thanks to the great display and bigger internal speakers than previous models.

HP Envy Laptop 17t — $1,250 $1,500 16% off

Featured among our best HP laptop deals as well, the HP ENVY Laptop 17t is praised for its photo connectivity features. By using HP Palette, you can search through the images of your college memories with photo recognition software. (Yes, the guy you went to chemistry with was also the awful karaoke singer last night.) The HP ENVY Laptop 17t also has quick file sharing between connected devices. Another thing to note about this laptop is how bit it is. It has a 17.3-inch, 1080p screen, so be sure to check out our favorite 17-inch laptop bags if you pick up this offering, as your current one might not be able to handle it. And that big size won’t go to waste at all, as it will not only help you see your pictures better, but also see yourself better from its 5MP built-in webcam. The HP ENVY Laptop 17t uses an Intel Core i7 processor, gets 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage.