Envisics, a U.K.-based holographics company building in-car technology that projects navigation, safety alerts and other data onto the inside of a windscreen, has closed a $100 million Series C round.
The company announced the round’s first $50 million tranche in March, which brought Envisics up to a $500 million valuation. Envisics didn’t share an updated valuation with the closing of its Series C, but the startup did bring on new investors like M&G Investments. Scanner For Car Codes
The previous $50 million round was led by Hyundai Mobis, with participation from InMotion Ventures (the investment arm of Jaguar Land Rover) and Stellantis.
The closing of its Series C comes as Envisics gets nearer to commercializing its augmented reality heads-up display (AR HUD). General Motors has confirmed that Envisics’ second-generation displays will be available in the electric Cadillac Lyriq, but could not be reached in time to provide a timeline or additional details.
Dr. Jamieson Christmas, founder and CEO of Envisics, told TechCrunch in March that its first HUDs with GM are “remarkably, absolutely on track to be released this year.”
Christmas also said that Envisics is “working with just about everybody” at the moment, but didn’t name names beyond JLR (formerly Jaguar Land Rover) and GM. However, given the startup’s backers, it’s possible we’ll begin to see automakers like Stellantis, Hyundai and SAIC Motor start announcing similar tech.
Aside from automakers, Envisics has also partnered with Panasonic Automotive Systems, a major automotive supplier under consumer electronics giant Panasonic, which suggests rollouts across a wider range of vehicles at various price points in the future.
Automakers seem to be embracing AR HUDs as a means of relaying important information to the driver. Typically, navigation data and vehicle information can be seen on LED display screens, which are placed above a vehicle’s center console. But engaging with those displays requires the driver to take their eyes off the road, which could be a safety hazard.
For its part, BMW has unveiled two concept cars — Dee and Vision Neue Klasse — that both feature AR HUDs. The automaker didn’t say with which AR company it would work to power its HUDs, but in the past, BMW has partnered with Finnish company Basemark to bring the tech into BMW iX models.
The adoption of AR HUDs come as automakers also press ahead to advance advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and other forms of autonomous driving — see Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” beta advanced driver assistance system (ADAS); Polestar’s use of Mobileye’s hands-off, eyes-off ADAS; and XPeng’s XNGP.
The startup, which has roots in Germany but is based in London, has raised \u20ac285 million (just under $307 million). It plans to use the money to continue growing its business organically launching more financial services — around the card readers and other point-of-sale tools, it offers invoicing, loyalty, business accounts and more. It’s also eyeing up more geographies beyond the 36 where it is currently active.<\/p>\n
And it will also be turning its attention to inorganic growth — that is, M&A. The latter is something to watch: we are currently in a buyer’s market, with fintech startups facing a significantly tighter funding landscape, down by 36% globally in the last quarter, according to S&P<\/a>.<\/p>\n (Sometimes an M&A deal might check a couple of strategic boxes: when SumUp acquired the loyalty startup Fivestars in 2021<\/a>, that gave it a leg up in the U.S. and also introduced new services to the platform.)<\/p>\n Sixth Street Growth is leading this latest round, with previous backers Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, Fin Capital, and Liquidity Group also participating. SumUp has now raised around $1.5 billion, per PitchBook data<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hermione McKee, who was appointed as SumUp’ CFO earlier this year, described the round as “mostly equity” but declined to give more exact figures. She also declined to give a specific valuation for SumUp, except to say that it’s higher than the $8.5 billion<\/a> that SumUp reached in 2022 when it raised \u20ac590 million (half in equity; half in debt).<\/p>\n The company says that it has been “positive on an EBITDA basis since Q4 2022” (note: this is not the same as profitable). And that it has had over 30 percent “top line growth” year on year.<\/p><\/div>\n But on the other hand, there are other indications that business is tough right now. SumUp says that its customer base currently totals around 4 million, which is exactly the same figure it quoted two years ago.<\/p>\n And today’s funding news comes in the wake of some other rocky data points for the company. It was only a couple of months ago that Groupon disclosed that, as part of a larger group of secondary transactions between existing shareholders, it sold part of its stake in the company<\/a> at a valuation of $4.1 billion. In other words, it made the sale at less than half what the company was worth in 2022.<\/p>\n That $8.5 billion valuation from 2022, meanwhile, was a major discount on the \u20ac20 billion ($21.5 billion) SumUp had been hoping to achieve, underscoring how hard it has been to raise big equity rounds. (And in line with that, SumUp’s last raise, in August, was for a $100 million credit facility<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Payment tech businesses in Europe and the U.S. also faced some tough scrutiny and slower business.<\/p>\n PayPal and Square, two publicly-listed U.S. companies that compete directly with SumUp, have seen their share prices and market caps tank since 2022. (PayPal’s share price is currently less than $60\/share, down from a peak of nearly $300\/share. Square and parent company Block are trading at around 25% of its peak.) Stripe famously saw its valuation nearly halved to $50 billion<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n Closer to home, publicly listed Adyen has also been in the financial doldrums after reporting sluggish growth. But as a measure of how volatile the market is right now, and how thirsty investors are for any signs of good news, Adyen’s mere statement of a turnaround plan (plan, not results) sent the company’s stock up 30%<\/a>.<\/p>\n Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
(Sometimes an M&A deal might check a couple of strategic boxes: when SumUp acquired the loyalty startup Fivestars in 2021<\/a>, that gave it a leg up in the U.S. and also introduced new services to the platform.)<\/p>\n Sixth Street Growth is leading this latest round, with previous backers Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, Fin Capital, and Liquidity Group also participating. SumUp has now raised around $1.5 billion, per PitchBook data<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hermione McKee, who was appointed as SumUp’ CFO earlier this year, described the round as “mostly equity” but declined to give more exact figures. She also declined to give a specific valuation for SumUp, except to say that it’s higher than the $8.5 billion<\/a> that SumUp reached in 2022 when it raised \u20ac590 million (half in equity; half in debt).<\/p>\n The company says that it has been “positive on an EBITDA basis since Q4 2022” (note: this is not the same as profitable). And that it has had over 30 percent “top line growth” year on year.<\/p><\/div>\n But on the other hand, there are other indications that business is tough right now. SumUp says that its customer base currently totals around 4 million, which is exactly the same figure it quoted two years ago.<\/p>\n And today’s funding news comes in the wake of some other rocky data points for the company. It was only a couple of months ago that Groupon disclosed that, as part of a larger group of secondary transactions between existing shareholders, it sold part of its stake in the company<\/a> at a valuation of $4.1 billion. In other words, it made the sale at less than half what the company was worth in 2022.<\/p>\n That $8.5 billion valuation from 2022, meanwhile, was a major discount on the \u20ac20 billion ($21.5 billion) SumUp had been hoping to achieve, underscoring how hard it has been to raise big equity rounds. (And in line with that, SumUp’s last raise, in August, was for a $100 million credit facility<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Payment tech businesses in Europe and the U.S. also faced some tough scrutiny and slower business.<\/p>\n PayPal and Square, two publicly-listed U.S. companies that compete directly with SumUp, have seen their share prices and market caps tank since 2022. (PayPal’s share price is currently less than $60\/share, down from a peak of nearly $300\/share. Square and parent company Block are trading at around 25% of its peak.) Stripe famously saw its valuation nearly halved to $50 billion<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n Closer to home, publicly listed Adyen has also been in the financial doldrums after reporting sluggish growth. But as a measure of how volatile the market is right now, and how thirsty investors are for any signs of good news, Adyen’s mere statement of a turnaround plan (plan, not results) sent the company’s stock up 30%<\/a>.<\/p>\n Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Sixth Street Growth is leading this latest round, with previous backers Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, Fin Capital, and Liquidity Group also participating. SumUp has now raised around $1.5 billion, per PitchBook data<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hermione McKee, who was appointed as SumUp’ CFO earlier this year, described the round as “mostly equity” but declined to give more exact figures. She also declined to give a specific valuation for SumUp, except to say that it’s higher than the $8.5 billion<\/a> that SumUp reached in 2022 when it raised \u20ac590 million (half in equity; half in debt).<\/p>\n The company says that it has been “positive on an EBITDA basis since Q4 2022” (note: this is not the same as profitable). And that it has had over 30 percent “top line growth” year on year.<\/p><\/div>\n But on the other hand, there are other indications that business is tough right now. SumUp says that its customer base currently totals around 4 million, which is exactly the same figure it quoted two years ago.<\/p>\n And today’s funding news comes in the wake of some other rocky data points for the company. It was only a couple of months ago that Groupon disclosed that, as part of a larger group of secondary transactions between existing shareholders, it sold part of its stake in the company<\/a> at a valuation of $4.1 billion. In other words, it made the sale at less than half what the company was worth in 2022.<\/p>\n That $8.5 billion valuation from 2022, meanwhile, was a major discount on the \u20ac20 billion ($21.5 billion) SumUp had been hoping to achieve, underscoring how hard it has been to raise big equity rounds. (And in line with that, SumUp’s last raise, in August, was for a $100 million credit facility<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Payment tech businesses in Europe and the U.S. also faced some tough scrutiny and slower business.<\/p>\n PayPal and Square, two publicly-listed U.S. companies that compete directly with SumUp, have seen their share prices and market caps tank since 2022. (PayPal’s share price is currently less than $60\/share, down from a peak of nearly $300\/share. Square and parent company Block are trading at around 25% of its peak.) Stripe famously saw its valuation nearly halved to $50 billion<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n Closer to home, publicly listed Adyen has also been in the financial doldrums after reporting sluggish growth. But as a measure of how volatile the market is right now, and how thirsty investors are for any signs of good news, Adyen’s mere statement of a turnaround plan (plan, not results) sent the company’s stock up 30%<\/a>.<\/p>\n Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Hermione McKee, who was appointed as SumUp’ CFO earlier this year, described the round as “mostly equity” but declined to give more exact figures. She also declined to give a specific valuation for SumUp, except to say that it’s higher than the $8.5 billion<\/a> that SumUp reached in 2022 when it raised \u20ac590 million (half in equity; half in debt).<\/p>\n The company says that it has been “positive on an EBITDA basis since Q4 2022” (note: this is not the same as profitable). And that it has had over 30 percent “top line growth” year on year.<\/p><\/div>\n But on the other hand, there are other indications that business is tough right now. SumUp says that its customer base currently totals around 4 million, which is exactly the same figure it quoted two years ago.<\/p>\n And today’s funding news comes in the wake of some other rocky data points for the company. It was only a couple of months ago that Groupon disclosed that, as part of a larger group of secondary transactions between existing shareholders, it sold part of its stake in the company<\/a> at a valuation of $4.1 billion. In other words, it made the sale at less than half what the company was worth in 2022.<\/p>\n That $8.5 billion valuation from 2022, meanwhile, was a major discount on the \u20ac20 billion ($21.5 billion) SumUp had been hoping to achieve, underscoring how hard it has been to raise big equity rounds. (And in line with that, SumUp’s last raise, in August, was for a $100 million credit facility<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Payment tech businesses in Europe and the U.S. also faced some tough scrutiny and slower business.<\/p>\n PayPal and Square, two publicly-listed U.S. companies that compete directly with SumUp, have seen their share prices and market caps tank since 2022. (PayPal’s share price is currently less than $60\/share, down from a peak of nearly $300\/share. Square and parent company Block are trading at around 25% of its peak.) Stripe famously saw its valuation nearly halved to $50 billion<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n Closer to home, publicly listed Adyen has also been in the financial doldrums after reporting sluggish growth. But as a measure of how volatile the market is right now, and how thirsty investors are for any signs of good news, Adyen’s mere statement of a turnaround plan (plan, not results) sent the company’s stock up 30%<\/a>.<\/p>\n Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The company says that it has been “positive on an EBITDA basis since Q4 2022” (note: this is not the same as profitable). And that it has had over 30 percent “top line growth” year on year.<\/p><\/div>\n But on the other hand, there are other indications that business is tough right now. SumUp says that its customer base currently totals around 4 million, which is exactly the same figure it quoted two years ago.<\/p>\n And today’s funding news comes in the wake of some other rocky data points for the company. It was only a couple of months ago that Groupon disclosed that, as part of a larger group of secondary transactions between existing shareholders, it sold part of its stake in the company<\/a> at a valuation of $4.1 billion. In other words, it made the sale at less than half what the company was worth in 2022.<\/p>\n That $8.5 billion valuation from 2022, meanwhile, was a major discount on the \u20ac20 billion ($21.5 billion) SumUp had been hoping to achieve, underscoring how hard it has been to raise big equity rounds. (And in line with that, SumUp’s last raise, in August, was for a $100 million credit facility<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Payment tech businesses in Europe and the U.S. also faced some tough scrutiny and slower business.<\/p>\n PayPal and Square, two publicly-listed U.S. companies that compete directly with SumUp, have seen their share prices and market caps tank since 2022. (PayPal’s share price is currently less than $60\/share, down from a peak of nearly $300\/share. Square and parent company Block are trading at around 25% of its peak.) Stripe famously saw its valuation nearly halved to $50 billion<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n Closer to home, publicly listed Adyen has also been in the financial doldrums after reporting sluggish growth. But as a measure of how volatile the market is right now, and how thirsty investors are for any signs of good news, Adyen’s mere statement of a turnaround plan (plan, not results) sent the company’s stock up 30%<\/a>.<\/p>\n Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
But on the other hand, there are other indications that business is tough right now. SumUp says that its customer base currently totals around 4 million, which is exactly the same figure it quoted two years ago.<\/p>\n
And today’s funding news comes in the wake of some other rocky data points for the company. It was only a couple of months ago that Groupon disclosed that, as part of a larger group of secondary transactions between existing shareholders, it sold part of its stake in the company<\/a> at a valuation of $4.1 billion. In other words, it made the sale at less than half what the company was worth in 2022.<\/p>\n That $8.5 billion valuation from 2022, meanwhile, was a major discount on the \u20ac20 billion ($21.5 billion) SumUp had been hoping to achieve, underscoring how hard it has been to raise big equity rounds. (And in line with that, SumUp’s last raise, in August, was for a $100 million credit facility<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Payment tech businesses in Europe and the U.S. also faced some tough scrutiny and slower business.<\/p>\n PayPal and Square, two publicly-listed U.S. companies that compete directly with SumUp, have seen their share prices and market caps tank since 2022. (PayPal’s share price is currently less than $60\/share, down from a peak of nearly $300\/share. Square and parent company Block are trading at around 25% of its peak.) Stripe famously saw its valuation nearly halved to $50 billion<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n Closer to home, publicly listed Adyen has also been in the financial doldrums after reporting sluggish growth. But as a measure of how volatile the market is right now, and how thirsty investors are for any signs of good news, Adyen’s mere statement of a turnaround plan (plan, not results) sent the company’s stock up 30%<\/a>.<\/p>\n Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
That $8.5 billion valuation from 2022, meanwhile, was a major discount on the \u20ac20 billion ($21.5 billion) SumUp had been hoping to achieve, underscoring how hard it has been to raise big equity rounds. (And in line with that, SumUp’s last raise, in August, was for a $100 million credit facility<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Payment tech businesses in Europe and the U.S. also faced some tough scrutiny and slower business.<\/p>\n PayPal and Square, two publicly-listed U.S. companies that compete directly with SumUp, have seen their share prices and market caps tank since 2022. (PayPal’s share price is currently less than $60\/share, down from a peak of nearly $300\/share. Square and parent company Block are trading at around 25% of its peak.) Stripe famously saw its valuation nearly halved to $50 billion<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n Closer to home, publicly listed Adyen has also been in the financial doldrums after reporting sluggish growth. But as a measure of how volatile the market is right now, and how thirsty investors are for any signs of good news, Adyen’s mere statement of a turnaround plan (plan, not results) sent the company’s stock up 30%<\/a>.<\/p>\n Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Payment tech businesses in Europe and the U.S. also faced some tough scrutiny and slower business.<\/p>\n
PayPal and Square, two publicly-listed U.S. companies that compete directly with SumUp, have seen their share prices and market caps tank since 2022. (PayPal’s share price is currently less than $60\/share, down from a peak of nearly $300\/share. Square and parent company Block are trading at around 25% of its peak.) Stripe famously saw its valuation nearly halved to $50 billion<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n Closer to home, publicly listed Adyen has also been in the financial doldrums after reporting sluggish growth. But as a measure of how volatile the market is right now, and how thirsty investors are for any signs of good news, Adyen’s mere statement of a turnaround plan (plan, not results) sent the company’s stock up 30%<\/a>.<\/p>\n Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Closer to home, publicly listed Adyen has also been in the financial doldrums after reporting sluggish growth. But as a measure of how volatile the market is right now, and how thirsty investors are for any signs of good news, Adyen’s mere statement of a turnaround plan (plan, not results) sent the company’s stock up 30%<\/a>.<\/p>\n Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Klarna and Checkout have, so far, not been so lucky: Klarna’s valuation dropped some 85%<\/a> the last time it raised money; Checkout had a $40 billion valuation<\/a> when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but since then it’s reportedly marked down that figure to $10 billion<\/a> internally.<\/p>\n Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n \u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Now 11 years old and one of the biggest of the privately-held payments startups, SumUp is banking on its track record of longevity as a signal of its stability.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor over a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth and boldly entered and led entirely new product categories and markets,” said\u00a0Nari Ansari, MD at Sixth Street Growth in a statement. “This… track record and culture of innovation combined with SumUp\u2019s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency are well-aligned with Sixth Street Growth\u2019s investing strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SumUp — the fintech that provides payments and related services to some 4 million small businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia — has picked up some growth funding to navigate the choppy waters of the current fintech market, waters that have tipped and swayed SumUp itself. The startup, which has roots in Germany but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2639985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"69d8a4ac-4775-342c-9984-79dd3cef592b","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577030453,577030455],"tags":[63860,3860294],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nSumUp taps \u20ac285M more in growth funding to weather the fintech storm | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Ingrid is a writer and editor for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Before TechCrunch, Ingrid worked at paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
When it comes to work, she feels most comfortable speaking in English but can also speak Russian, Spanish and French (in descending order of competence).<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/tbebbexwnizrc5qurxt4.jpg.jpg","twitter":"ingridlunden","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/13119829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"author":[{"id":13119829,"name":"Ingrid Lunden","url":"","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/ingrid-lunden\/","slug":"ingrid-lunden","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6648ec93043f0f368091adece63c6d52?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6648ec93043f0f368091adece63c6d52?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6648ec93043f0f368091adece63c6d52?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nIngrid Lunden, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Ingrid is a writer and editor for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Before TechCrunch, Ingrid worked at paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
When it comes to work, she feels most comfortable speaking in English but can also speak Russian, Spanish and French (in descending order of competence).<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/tbebbexwnizrc5qurxt4.jpg.jpg","twitter":"ingridlunden","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/13119829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2639985,"date":"2023-12-10T17:26:27","slug":"air_alone_retail_jewelry_mastercard_2019_hr","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/12\/10\/sumup-taps-e285m-more-in-growth-funding-to-weather-the-fintech-storm\/air_alone_retail_jewelry_mastercard_2019_hr\/","title":{"rendered":"SumUp POS"},"author":13119829,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":{"source_key":"other","source":"SumUp","source_url":"SumUp.com","license_key":"cc by 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the latest news and coverage of fintech, which stands for \"financial technology,\" focusing on everything from disruptor banks and innovations at established financial institutions to expense management startups, P2P payment services, checkout tools and the technologies that enable them.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/fintech\/","name":"Fintech","slug":"fintech","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nFintech News | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n
After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 202<\/a>1 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a pan-EU AI law is definitively on the way.<\/p>\n Giving a triumphant but exhausted press conference in the small hours of Friday night\/Saturday morning local time key representatives for the European Parliament, Council and the Commission — the bloc’s co-legislators — hailed the agreement as hard fought, a milestone achievement and historic, respectively.<\/p>\n Taking to X to tweet the news<\/a>, the EU’s president, Ursula von der Leyen — who made delivering a regulation to promote “trustworthy” AI a key priority of her term when she took up the post in late 2019 — also lauded the political agreement as a “global first”.<\/p>\n\n\n The \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddfa AI Act is a global first. <\/p>\n A unique legal framework for the development of AI you can trust.<\/p>\n And for the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses.<\/p>\n A commitment we took in our political guidelines – and we delivered.<\/p><\/div>\n I welcome today's political agreement.<\/p>\n — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Giving a triumphant but exhausted press conference in the small hours of Friday night\/Saturday morning local time key representatives for the European Parliament, Council and the Commission — the bloc’s co-legislators — hailed the agreement as hard fought, a milestone achievement and historic, respectively.<\/p>\n
Taking to X to tweet the news<\/a>, the EU’s president, Ursula von der Leyen — who made delivering a regulation to promote “trustworthy” AI a key priority of her term when she took up the post in late 2019 — also lauded the political agreement as a “global first”.<\/p>\n\n\n The \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddfa AI Act is a global first. <\/p>\n A unique legal framework for the development of AI you can trust.<\/p>\n And for the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses.<\/p>\n A commitment we took in our political guidelines – and we delivered.<\/p><\/div>\n I welcome today's political agreement.<\/p>\n — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddfa AI Act is a global first. <\/p>\n
A unique legal framework for the development of AI you can trust.<\/p>\n
And for the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses.<\/p>\n
A commitment we took in our political guidelines – and we delivered.<\/p><\/div>\n I welcome today's political agreement.<\/p>\n — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I welcome today's political agreement.<\/p>\n
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Full details of what’s been agreed won’t be entirely confirmed until a final text is compiled and made public, which may take some weeks. But a press release<\/a> put out by the European Parliament confirms the deal reached with the Council includes a total prohibition on the use of AI for:<\/p>\n\nbiometric categorisation systems that use sensitive characteristics (e.g. political, religious, philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, race);<\/li>\nuntargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage to create facial recognition databases;<\/li>\nemotion recognition in the workplace and educational institutions;<\/li>\nsocial scoring based on social behaviour or personal characteristics;<\/li>\nAI systems that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent their free will;<\/li>\nAI used to exploit the vulnerabilities of people (due to their age, disability, social or economic situation).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n The use of remote biometric identification technology in public places by law enforcement has not been completely banned — but the parliament said negotiators had agreed on a series of safeguards and narrow exceptions to limit use of technologies such as facial recognition. This includes a requirement for prior judicial authorisation — and with uses limited to a “strictly defined” lists of crime.<\/p>\n Retrospective (non-real-time) use of remote biometric ID AIs will be limited to “the targeted search of a person convicted or suspected of having committed a serious crime”. While real-time use of this intrusive AI tech will be limited in time and location, and can only be used for the following purposes:<\/p>\n\ntargeted searches of victims (abduction, trafficking, sexual exploitation),<\/li>\nprevention of a specific and present terrorist threat, or<\/li>\nthe localisation or identification of a person suspected of having committed one of the specific crimes mentioned in the regulation (e.g. terrorism, trafficking, sexual exploitation, murder, kidnapping, rape, armed robbery, participation in a criminal organisation, environmental crime).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n The Council’s press release<\/a> on the deal emphasizes that the provisional agreement “clarifies that the regulation does not apply to areas outside the scope of EU law and should not, in any case, affect member states\u2019 competences in national security or any entity entrusted with tasks in this area”. It also confirms the AI act will not apply to systems exclusively for military or defence purposes.<\/p>\n “Similarly, the agreement provides that the regulation would not apply to AI systems used for the sole purpose of research and innovation, or for people using AI for non-professional reasons,” the Council added. \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Civil society groups have reacted sceptically — raising concerns the agreed limitations on state agencies’ use of biometric identification technologies will not go far enough to safeguard human rights. Digital rights group EDRi<\/a>, which was among those pushing for a full ban on remote biometrics, said that whilst the deal contains “some limited gains for human rights”, it looks like “a shell of the AI law Europe really needs”.<\/p>\n\n\n Real-time public facial recognition (RBI): disappointingly, but not surprisingly, member states resisted a full ban. The Parliament fought hard to narrow exceptions and add more safeguards, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to stop widespread biometric mass surveillance;<\/p>\n — Ella Jakubowska (@ellajakubowska1) December 9, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The use of remote biometric identification technology in public places by law enforcement has not been completely banned — but the parliament said negotiators had agreed on a series of safeguards and narrow exceptions to limit use of technologies such as facial recognition. This includes a requirement for prior judicial authorisation — and with uses limited to a “strictly defined” lists of crime.<\/p>\n
Retrospective (non-real-time) use of remote biometric ID AIs will be limited to “the targeted search of a person convicted or suspected of having committed a serious crime”. While real-time use of this intrusive AI tech will be limited in time and location, and can only be used for the following purposes:<\/p>\n\ntargeted searches of victims (abduction, trafficking, sexual exploitation),<\/li>\nprevention of a specific and present terrorist threat, or<\/li>\nthe localisation or identification of a person suspected of having committed one of the specific crimes mentioned in the regulation (e.g. terrorism, trafficking, sexual exploitation, murder, kidnapping, rape, armed robbery, participation in a criminal organisation, environmental crime).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n The Council’s press release<\/a> on the deal emphasizes that the provisional agreement “clarifies that the regulation does not apply to areas outside the scope of EU law and should not, in any case, affect member states\u2019 competences in national security or any entity entrusted with tasks in this area”. It also confirms the AI act will not apply to systems exclusively for military or defence purposes.<\/p>\n “Similarly, the agreement provides that the regulation would not apply to AI systems used for the sole purpose of research and innovation, or for people using AI for non-professional reasons,” the Council added. \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Civil society groups have reacted sceptically — raising concerns the agreed limitations on state agencies’ use of biometric identification technologies will not go far enough to safeguard human rights. Digital rights group EDRi<\/a>, which was among those pushing for a full ban on remote biometrics, said that whilst the deal contains “some limited gains for human rights”, it looks like “a shell of the AI law Europe really needs”.<\/p>\n\n\n Real-time public facial recognition (RBI): disappointingly, but not surprisingly, member states resisted a full ban. The Parliament fought hard to narrow exceptions and add more safeguards, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to stop widespread biometric mass surveillance;<\/p>\n — Ella Jakubowska (@ellajakubowska1) December 9, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Council’s press release<\/a> on the deal emphasizes that the provisional agreement “clarifies that the regulation does not apply to areas outside the scope of EU law and should not, in any case, affect member states\u2019 competences in national security or any entity entrusted with tasks in this area”. It also confirms the AI act will not apply to systems exclusively for military or defence purposes.<\/p>\n “Similarly, the agreement provides that the regulation would not apply to AI systems used for the sole purpose of research and innovation, or for people using AI for non-professional reasons,” the Council added. \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Civil society groups have reacted sceptically — raising concerns the agreed limitations on state agencies’ use of biometric identification technologies will not go far enough to safeguard human rights. Digital rights group EDRi<\/a>, which was among those pushing for a full ban on remote biometrics, said that whilst the deal contains “some limited gains for human rights”, it looks like “a shell of the AI law Europe really needs”.<\/p>\n\n\n Real-time public facial recognition (RBI): disappointingly, but not surprisingly, member states resisted a full ban. The Parliament fought hard to narrow exceptions and add more safeguards, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to stop widespread biometric mass surveillance;<\/p>\n — Ella Jakubowska (@ellajakubowska1) December 9, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
“Similarly, the agreement provides that the regulation would not apply to AI systems used for the sole purpose of research and innovation, or for people using AI for non-professional reasons,” the Council added. \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Civil society groups have reacted sceptically — raising concerns the agreed limitations on state agencies’ use of biometric identification technologies will not go far enough to safeguard human rights. Digital rights group EDRi<\/a>, which was among those pushing for a full ban on remote biometrics, said that whilst the deal contains “some limited gains for human rights”, it looks like “a shell of the AI law Europe really needs”.<\/p>\n\n\n Real-time public facial recognition (RBI): disappointingly, but not surprisingly, member states resisted a full ban. The Parliament fought hard to narrow exceptions and add more safeguards, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to stop widespread biometric mass surveillance;<\/p>\n — Ella Jakubowska (@ellajakubowska1) December 9, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Civil society groups have reacted sceptically — raising concerns the agreed limitations on state agencies’ use of biometric identification technologies will not go far enough to safeguard human rights. Digital rights group EDRi<\/a>, which was among those pushing for a full ban on remote biometrics, said that whilst the deal contains “some limited gains for human rights”, it looks like “a shell of the AI law Europe really needs”.<\/p>\n\n\n Real-time public facial recognition (RBI): disappointingly, but not surprisingly, member states resisted a full ban. The Parliament fought hard to narrow exceptions and add more safeguards, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to stop widespread biometric mass surveillance;<\/p>\n — Ella Jakubowska (@ellajakubowska1) December 9, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Real-time public facial recognition (RBI): disappointingly, but not surprisingly, member states resisted a full ban. The Parliament fought hard to narrow exceptions and add more safeguards, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to stop widespread biometric mass surveillance;<\/p>\n
— Ella Jakubowska (@ellajakubowska1) December 9, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The package agreed also includes obligations for AI systems that are classified as “high risk” owing to having “significant potential harm to health, safety, fundamental rights, environment, democracy and the rule of law”.<\/p>\n
“MEPs successfully managed to include a mandatory fundamental rights impact assessment, among other requirements, applicable also to the insurance and banking sectors. AI systems used to influence the outcome of elections and voter behaviour, are also classified as high-risk,” the parliament wrote. “Citizens will have a right to launch complaints about AI systems and receive explanations about decisions based on high-risk AI systems that impact their rights.”<\/p>\n
There was also agreement on a “two-tier” system of guardrails to be applied to “general” AI systems, such as the so-called foundational models underpinning the viral boom in generative AI applications like ChatGPT.<\/p>\n
As we reported earlier<\/a>, the deal reached on foundational models\/general purpose AIs (GPAIs) includes some transparency requirements for what co-legislators referred to as “low tier” AIs — meaning model makers must draw up technical documentation and produce (and publish) detailed summaries about the content used for training in order to support compliance with EU copyright law. For “high-impact” GPAIs (defined as the cumulative amount of compute used for their training measured in floating point operations is greater than 10^25) with so-called “systemic risk” there are more stringent obligations.<\/p>\n “If these models meet certain criteria they will have to conduct model evaluations, assess and mitigate systemic risks, conduct adversarial testing, report to the Commission on serious incidents, ensure cybersecurity and report on their energy efficiency,” the parliament wrote. “MEPs also insisted that, until harmonised EU standards are published, GPAIs with systemic risk may rely on codes of practice to comply with the regulation.”<\/p>\n The Commission has been working with industry on a stop-gap AI Pact for some months<\/a> — and it confirmed today this is intended to plug the practice gap until the AI Act comes into force.<\/p>\n While foundational models\/GPAIs that have been commercialized face regulation under the Act, R&D is not intended to be in scope of the law — and fully open sourced models will have lighter regulatory requirements than closed source, per today’s pronouncements.<\/p>\n The package agreed also promotes regulatory sandboxes and real-world-testing being established by national authorities to support startups and SMEs to develop and train AIs before placement on the market.<\/p>\nPenalties and entry into force<\/h2>\n Penalties for non-compliance can lead to fines ranging from \u20ac35 million or 7% of global turnover to \u20ac7.5 million or 1.5 % of turnover, depending on the infringement and size of the company, per the parliament.<\/p>\n The Council’s PR further stipulates that the higher sanction (7%) would apply for violations of the banned AI applications, while penalties of 1.5% would be levied for the supply of incorrect information. Additionally, it says sanctions of 3% could be imposed for violations of other AI Act obligations but also notes that the provisional agreement allows for “more proportionate caps” on administrative fines for SMEs and start-ups in case of infringements. So there looks to be some scope for AI startups to face smaller penalties for infringements than AI giants may invite.<\/p>\n The deal agreed today also allows for a phased entry into force after the law is adopted — with six months allowed until rules on prohibited use cases kick in; 12 months for transparency and governance requirements; and 24 months for all other requirements. So the full force of the EU’s AI Act may not be felt until 2026.<\/p>\n Carme Artigas, Spain’s secretary of state for digital and AI issues, who led the Council’s negotiations on the file as the country has held the rotating Council presidency since the summer, hailed the agreement on the heavily contested file as “the biggest milestone in the history of digital information in Europe”; both for the bloc’s single digital market — but also, she suggested, “for the world”.<\/p>\n “We have achieved the first international regulation for artificial intelligence in the world,” she announced during a post-midnight press conference to confirm the political agreement, adding: “We feel very proud.”<\/p>\n The law will support European developers, startups and future scale-ups by giving them “legal certainty with technical certainty”, she predicted.<\/p>\n Speaking on behalf of the European Parliament, co-rapporteurs Drago\u0219 Tudorache and Brando Benifei said their objective had been to deliver AI legislation that would ensure the ecosystem developed with a “human centric approach” which respects fundamental rights and European values.<\/p>\n Their assessment of the outcome was equally upbeat — citing the inclusion in the agreed text of a total ban on the use of AI for predictive policing and for biometric categorization as major wins.<\/p>\n “Finally we got in the right track, defending fundamental rights to the necessity that is there for our democracies to endure such incredible changes,” said Benifei, who just a few weeks ago<\/a> was sounding doubtful a deal could be found. “We are the first ones in the world to have a horizontal legislation that has this direction on fundamental rights, that supports the development of AI in our continent, and that is up to date to the frontier of the artificial intelligence with the most powerful models under clear obligation. So I think we delivered.”<\/p>\n “We have always been questioned whether there is enough protection, whether there is enough stimulant for innovation in this text, and I can say, this balance is there,” added Tudorache. “We have safeguards, we have all the provisions that we need, the redress that we need in giving trust to our citizens in the interaction with AI, in the products in the services that they will interact with from now on.<\/p>\n “We now have to use this blueprint to seek now global convergence because this is a global challenge for everyone. And I think that with the work that we’ve done, as difficult as it was — and it was difficult, this was a marathon negotiation by all standards, looking at all precedents so far — but I think we delivered.”<\/p>\n The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, also chipped in with his two euro-cents — describing the agreement clinched a little before midnight Brussels’ time as “historic”. “It is a full package. It is a complete deal. And this is why we spent so much time,” he intoned. “This is balancing user safety, innovation for startups, while also respecting… our fundamental rights and our European values.”<\/p>\nClear road ahead?<\/h2>\n Despite the EU very visibly patting itself on the back tonight on securing a deal on ‘world-first’ AI rules, it’s not quite yet the end of the road for the bloc’s lawmaking process as there are still some formal steps to go — not least the final text will face votes in the parliament and the Council to adopt it. But given how much division and disagreement there has been over how (or even whether) to regulate AI the biggest obstacles have been dismantled with this political deal and the path to passing the EU AI Act in the coming months looks clear.<\/p>\n The Commission is certainly projecting confidence. Per Breton, work to implement the agreement starts immediately with the set up of an AI Office within the EU’s executive — which will have the job of coordinating with the Member State oversight bodies that will need to enforce the rules on AI firms; and overseeing the most advanced AI models, including by contributing to fostering standards and testing practices. A\u00a0scientific panel of independent experts will be appointed to advise the AI Office about GPAI models. “We will welcome new colleagues… a lot of them,” said Breton. “We will work — starting tomorrow — to get ready.”<\/p>\n Opposition to the inclusion in the AI package of tiered rules for general purpose AIs has been led, in recent weeks, by France — and French AI startup Mistral, which had been lobbying for a total carve out from obligations for foundational models\/GPAIs<\/a>. In the event the deal agreed by the Spanish presidency does contain some obligations for GPAIs and foundation models. So it’s not the total carve out Mistral and its lobbyists have been pushing for.<\/p>\n Responding to news of the political deal last night, France’s digital minister’s office put out a statement attributed to Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot which said (translated from French using AI): “We will be carefully analyzing the compromise reached today, and in the coming weeks we will ensure that the text preserves Europe’s ability to develop its own artificial intelligence technologies, and safeguards its strategic autonomy.”<\/p>\n It remains unclear how much of a carve out Mistral’s business might enjoy under the deal agreed. Asked about this during the press conference, Artigas suggested the French AI startup would — once commercialized — be likely to fit in the “low tier” for GPAIs, meaning it would have only limited transparency obligations, since she said it does not hit the high capacity compute threshold triggering the systemic risk obligations (as she said it’s using what’s thought to be 10^23 of compute, not 10^25).<\/p>\n However, as Mistral is currently still in an R&D and pre-training phase for their models, she said they would be excluded from even the low tier compliance requirements.<\/p>\n This report was updated to include the response from the French digital ministry; link to the Council’s PR; and with additional details from the presser — including remarks about how the law might apply to Mistral. We also added details on civil society’s response\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n EU ‘final’ talks to fix AI rules to run into second day — but deal on foundational models is on the table<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
“If these models meet certain criteria they will have to conduct model evaluations, assess and mitigate systemic risks, conduct adversarial testing, report to the Commission on serious incidents, ensure cybersecurity and report on their energy efficiency,” the parliament wrote. “MEPs also insisted that, until harmonised EU standards are published, GPAIs with systemic risk may rely on codes of practice to comply with the regulation.”<\/p>\n
The Commission has been working with industry on a stop-gap AI Pact for some months<\/a> — and it confirmed today this is intended to plug the practice gap until the AI Act comes into force.<\/p>\n While foundational models\/GPAIs that have been commercialized face regulation under the Act, R&D is not intended to be in scope of the law — and fully open sourced models will have lighter regulatory requirements than closed source, per today’s pronouncements.<\/p>\n The package agreed also promotes regulatory sandboxes and real-world-testing being established by national authorities to support startups and SMEs to develop and train AIs before placement on the market.<\/p>\nPenalties and entry into force<\/h2>\n Penalties for non-compliance can lead to fines ranging from \u20ac35 million or 7% of global turnover to \u20ac7.5 million or 1.5 % of turnover, depending on the infringement and size of the company, per the parliament.<\/p>\n The Council’s PR further stipulates that the higher sanction (7%) would apply for violations of the banned AI applications, while penalties of 1.5% would be levied for the supply of incorrect information. Additionally, it says sanctions of 3% could be imposed for violations of other AI Act obligations but also notes that the provisional agreement allows for “more proportionate caps” on administrative fines for SMEs and start-ups in case of infringements. So there looks to be some scope for AI startups to face smaller penalties for infringements than AI giants may invite.<\/p>\n The deal agreed today also allows for a phased entry into force after the law is adopted — with six months allowed until rules on prohibited use cases kick in; 12 months for transparency and governance requirements; and 24 months for all other requirements. So the full force of the EU’s AI Act may not be felt until 2026.<\/p>\n Carme Artigas, Spain’s secretary of state for digital and AI issues, who led the Council’s negotiations on the file as the country has held the rotating Council presidency since the summer, hailed the agreement on the heavily contested file as “the biggest milestone in the history of digital information in Europe”; both for the bloc’s single digital market — but also, she suggested, “for the world”.<\/p>\n “We have achieved the first international regulation for artificial intelligence in the world,” she announced during a post-midnight press conference to confirm the political agreement, adding: “We feel very proud.”<\/p>\n The law will support European developers, startups and future scale-ups by giving them “legal certainty with technical certainty”, she predicted.<\/p>\n Speaking on behalf of the European Parliament, co-rapporteurs Drago\u0219 Tudorache and Brando Benifei said their objective had been to deliver AI legislation that would ensure the ecosystem developed with a “human centric approach” which respects fundamental rights and European values.<\/p>\n Their assessment of the outcome was equally upbeat — citing the inclusion in the agreed text of a total ban on the use of AI for predictive policing and for biometric categorization as major wins.<\/p>\n “Finally we got in the right track, defending fundamental rights to the necessity that is there for our democracies to endure such incredible changes,” said Benifei, who just a few weeks ago<\/a> was sounding doubtful a deal could be found. “We are the first ones in the world to have a horizontal legislation that has this direction on fundamental rights, that supports the development of AI in our continent, and that is up to date to the frontier of the artificial intelligence with the most powerful models under clear obligation. So I think we delivered.”<\/p>\n “We have always been questioned whether there is enough protection, whether there is enough stimulant for innovation in this text, and I can say, this balance is there,” added Tudorache. “We have safeguards, we have all the provisions that we need, the redress that we need in giving trust to our citizens in the interaction with AI, in the products in the services that they will interact with from now on.<\/p>\n “We now have to use this blueprint to seek now global convergence because this is a global challenge for everyone. And I think that with the work that we’ve done, as difficult as it was — and it was difficult, this was a marathon negotiation by all standards, looking at all precedents so far — but I think we delivered.”<\/p>\n The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, also chipped in with his two euro-cents — describing the agreement clinched a little before midnight Brussels’ time as “historic”. “It is a full package. It is a complete deal. And this is why we spent so much time,” he intoned. “This is balancing user safety, innovation for startups, while also respecting… our fundamental rights and our European values.”<\/p>\nClear road ahead?<\/h2>\n Despite the EU very visibly patting itself on the back tonight on securing a deal on ‘world-first’ AI rules, it’s not quite yet the end of the road for the bloc’s lawmaking process as there are still some formal steps to go — not least the final text will face votes in the parliament and the Council to adopt it. But given how much division and disagreement there has been over how (or even whether) to regulate AI the biggest obstacles have been dismantled with this political deal and the path to passing the EU AI Act in the coming months looks clear.<\/p>\n The Commission is certainly projecting confidence. Per Breton, work to implement the agreement starts immediately with the set up of an AI Office within the EU’s executive — which will have the job of coordinating with the Member State oversight bodies that will need to enforce the rules on AI firms; and overseeing the most advanced AI models, including by contributing to fostering standards and testing practices. A\u00a0scientific panel of independent experts will be appointed to advise the AI Office about GPAI models. “We will welcome new colleagues… a lot of them,” said Breton. “We will work — starting tomorrow — to get ready.”<\/p>\n Opposition to the inclusion in the AI package of tiered rules for general purpose AIs has been led, in recent weeks, by France — and French AI startup Mistral, which had been lobbying for a total carve out from obligations for foundational models\/GPAIs<\/a>. In the event the deal agreed by the Spanish presidency does contain some obligations for GPAIs and foundation models. So it’s not the total carve out Mistral and its lobbyists have been pushing for.<\/p>\n Responding to news of the political deal last night, France’s digital minister’s office put out a statement attributed to Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot which said (translated from French using AI): “We will be carefully analyzing the compromise reached today, and in the coming weeks we will ensure that the text preserves Europe’s ability to develop its own artificial intelligence technologies, and safeguards its strategic autonomy.”<\/p>\n It remains unclear how much of a carve out Mistral’s business might enjoy under the deal agreed. Asked about this during the press conference, Artigas suggested the French AI startup would — once commercialized — be likely to fit in the “low tier” for GPAIs, meaning it would have only limited transparency obligations, since she said it does not hit the high capacity compute threshold triggering the systemic risk obligations (as she said it’s using what’s thought to be 10^23 of compute, not 10^25).<\/p>\n However, as Mistral is currently still in an R&D and pre-training phase for their models, she said they would be excluded from even the low tier compliance requirements.<\/p>\n This report was updated to include the response from the French digital ministry; link to the Council’s PR; and with additional details from the presser — including remarks about how the law might apply to Mistral. We also added details on civil society’s response\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n EU ‘final’ talks to fix AI rules to run into second day — but deal on foundational models is on the table<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
While foundational models\/GPAIs that have been commercialized face regulation under the Act, R&D is not intended to be in scope of the law — and fully open sourced models will have lighter regulatory requirements than closed source, per today’s pronouncements.<\/p>\n
The package agreed also promotes regulatory sandboxes and real-world-testing being established by national authorities to support startups and SMEs to develop and train AIs before placement on the market.<\/p>\nPenalties and entry into force<\/h2>\n Penalties for non-compliance can lead to fines ranging from \u20ac35 million or 7% of global turnover to \u20ac7.5 million or 1.5 % of turnover, depending on the infringement and size of the company, per the parliament.<\/p>\n The Council’s PR further stipulates that the higher sanction (7%) would apply for violations of the banned AI applications, while penalties of 1.5% would be levied for the supply of incorrect information. Additionally, it says sanctions of 3% could be imposed for violations of other AI Act obligations but also notes that the provisional agreement allows for “more proportionate caps” on administrative fines for SMEs and start-ups in case of infringements. So there looks to be some scope for AI startups to face smaller penalties for infringements than AI giants may invite.<\/p>\n The deal agreed today also allows for a phased entry into force after the law is adopted — with six months allowed until rules on prohibited use cases kick in; 12 months for transparency and governance requirements; and 24 months for all other requirements. So the full force of the EU’s AI Act may not be felt until 2026.<\/p>\n Carme Artigas, Spain’s secretary of state for digital and AI issues, who led the Council’s negotiations on the file as the country has held the rotating Council presidency since the summer, hailed the agreement on the heavily contested file as “the biggest milestone in the history of digital information in Europe”; both for the bloc’s single digital market — but also, she suggested, “for the world”.<\/p>\n “We have achieved the first international regulation for artificial intelligence in the world,” she announced during a post-midnight press conference to confirm the political agreement, adding: “We feel very proud.”<\/p>\n The law will support European developers, startups and future scale-ups by giving them “legal certainty with technical certainty”, she predicted.<\/p>\n Speaking on behalf of the European Parliament, co-rapporteurs Drago\u0219 Tudorache and Brando Benifei said their objective had been to deliver AI legislation that would ensure the ecosystem developed with a “human centric approach” which respects fundamental rights and European values.<\/p>\n Their assessment of the outcome was equally upbeat — citing the inclusion in the agreed text of a total ban on the use of AI for predictive policing and for biometric categorization as major wins.<\/p>\n “Finally we got in the right track, defending fundamental rights to the necessity that is there for our democracies to endure such incredible changes,” said Benifei, who just a few weeks ago<\/a> was sounding doubtful a deal could be found. “We are the first ones in the world to have a horizontal legislation that has this direction on fundamental rights, that supports the development of AI in our continent, and that is up to date to the frontier of the artificial intelligence with the most powerful models under clear obligation. So I think we delivered.”<\/p>\n “We have always been questioned whether there is enough protection, whether there is enough stimulant for innovation in this text, and I can say, this balance is there,” added Tudorache. “We have safeguards, we have all the provisions that we need, the redress that we need in giving trust to our citizens in the interaction with AI, in the products in the services that they will interact with from now on.<\/p>\n “We now have to use this blueprint to seek now global convergence because this is a global challenge for everyone. And I think that with the work that we’ve done, as difficult as it was — and it was difficult, this was a marathon negotiation by all standards, looking at all precedents so far — but I think we delivered.”<\/p>\n The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, also chipped in with his two euro-cents — describing the agreement clinched a little before midnight Brussels’ time as “historic”. “It is a full package. It is a complete deal. And this is why we spent so much time,” he intoned. “This is balancing user safety, innovation for startups, while also respecting… our fundamental rights and our European values.”<\/p>\nClear road ahead?<\/h2>\n Despite the EU very visibly patting itself on the back tonight on securing a deal on ‘world-first’ AI rules, it’s not quite yet the end of the road for the bloc’s lawmaking process as there are still some formal steps to go — not least the final text will face votes in the parliament and the Council to adopt it. But given how much division and disagreement there has been over how (or even whether) to regulate AI the biggest obstacles have been dismantled with this political deal and the path to passing the EU AI Act in the coming months looks clear.<\/p>\n The Commission is certainly projecting confidence. Per Breton, work to implement the agreement starts immediately with the set up of an AI Office within the EU’s executive — which will have the job of coordinating with the Member State oversight bodies that will need to enforce the rules on AI firms; and overseeing the most advanced AI models, including by contributing to fostering standards and testing practices. A\u00a0scientific panel of independent experts will be appointed to advise the AI Office about GPAI models. “We will welcome new colleagues… a lot of them,” said Breton. “We will work — starting tomorrow — to get ready.”<\/p>\n Opposition to the inclusion in the AI package of tiered rules for general purpose AIs has been led, in recent weeks, by France — and French AI startup Mistral, which had been lobbying for a total carve out from obligations for foundational models\/GPAIs<\/a>. In the event the deal agreed by the Spanish presidency does contain some obligations for GPAIs and foundation models. So it’s not the total carve out Mistral and its lobbyists have been pushing for.<\/p>\n Responding to news of the political deal last night, France’s digital minister’s office put out a statement attributed to Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot which said (translated from French using AI): “We will be carefully analyzing the compromise reached today, and in the coming weeks we will ensure that the text preserves Europe’s ability to develop its own artificial intelligence technologies, and safeguards its strategic autonomy.”<\/p>\n It remains unclear how much of a carve out Mistral’s business might enjoy under the deal agreed. Asked about this during the press conference, Artigas suggested the French AI startup would — once commercialized — be likely to fit in the “low tier” for GPAIs, meaning it would have only limited transparency obligations, since she said it does not hit the high capacity compute threshold triggering the systemic risk obligations (as she said it’s using what’s thought to be 10^23 of compute, not 10^25).<\/p>\n However, as Mistral is currently still in an R&D and pre-training phase for their models, she said they would be excluded from even the low tier compliance requirements.<\/p>\n This report was updated to include the response from the French digital ministry; link to the Council’s PR; and with additional details from the presser — including remarks about how the law might apply to Mistral. We also added details on civil society’s response\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n EU ‘final’ talks to fix AI rules to run into second day — but deal on foundational models is on the table<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Penalties for non-compliance can lead to fines ranging from \u20ac35 million or 7% of global turnover to \u20ac7.5 million or 1.5 % of turnover, depending on the infringement and size of the company, per the parliament.<\/p>\n
The Council’s PR further stipulates that the higher sanction (7%) would apply for violations of the banned AI applications, while penalties of 1.5% would be levied for the supply of incorrect information. Additionally, it says sanctions of 3% could be imposed for violations of other AI Act obligations but also notes that the provisional agreement allows for “more proportionate caps” on administrative fines for SMEs and start-ups in case of infringements. So there looks to be some scope for AI startups to face smaller penalties for infringements than AI giants may invite.<\/p>\n
The deal agreed today also allows for a phased entry into force after the law is adopted — with six months allowed until rules on prohibited use cases kick in; 12 months for transparency and governance requirements; and 24 months for all other requirements. So the full force of the EU’s AI Act may not be felt until 2026.<\/p>\n
Carme Artigas, Spain’s secretary of state for digital and AI issues, who led the Council’s negotiations on the file as the country has held the rotating Council presidency since the summer, hailed the agreement on the heavily contested file as “the biggest milestone in the history of digital information in Europe”; both for the bloc’s single digital market — but also, she suggested, “for the world”.<\/p>\n
“We have achieved the first international regulation for artificial intelligence in the world,” she announced during a post-midnight press conference to confirm the political agreement, adding: “We feel very proud.”<\/p>\n
The law will support European developers, startups and future scale-ups by giving them “legal certainty with technical certainty”, she predicted.<\/p>\n
Speaking on behalf of the European Parliament, co-rapporteurs Drago\u0219 Tudorache and Brando Benifei said their objective had been to deliver AI legislation that would ensure the ecosystem developed with a “human centric approach” which respects fundamental rights and European values.<\/p>\n
Their assessment of the outcome was equally upbeat — citing the inclusion in the agreed text of a total ban on the use of AI for predictive policing and for biometric categorization as major wins.<\/p>\n
“Finally we got in the right track, defending fundamental rights to the necessity that is there for our democracies to endure such incredible changes,” said Benifei, who just a few weeks ago<\/a> was sounding doubtful a deal could be found. “We are the first ones in the world to have a horizontal legislation that has this direction on fundamental rights, that supports the development of AI in our continent, and that is up to date to the frontier of the artificial intelligence with the most powerful models under clear obligation. So I think we delivered.”<\/p>\n “We have always been questioned whether there is enough protection, whether there is enough stimulant for innovation in this text, and I can say, this balance is there,” added Tudorache. “We have safeguards, we have all the provisions that we need, the redress that we need in giving trust to our citizens in the interaction with AI, in the products in the services that they will interact with from now on.<\/p>\n “We now have to use this blueprint to seek now global convergence because this is a global challenge for everyone. And I think that with the work that we’ve done, as difficult as it was — and it was difficult, this was a marathon negotiation by all standards, looking at all precedents so far — but I think we delivered.”<\/p>\n The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, also chipped in with his two euro-cents — describing the agreement clinched a little before midnight Brussels’ time as “historic”. “It is a full package. It is a complete deal. And this is why we spent so much time,” he intoned. “This is balancing user safety, innovation for startups, while also respecting… our fundamental rights and our European values.”<\/p>\nClear road ahead?<\/h2>\n Despite the EU very visibly patting itself on the back tonight on securing a deal on ‘world-first’ AI rules, it’s not quite yet the end of the road for the bloc’s lawmaking process as there are still some formal steps to go — not least the final text will face votes in the parliament and the Council to adopt it. But given how much division and disagreement there has been over how (or even whether) to regulate AI the biggest obstacles have been dismantled with this political deal and the path to passing the EU AI Act in the coming months looks clear.<\/p>\n The Commission is certainly projecting confidence. Per Breton, work to implement the agreement starts immediately with the set up of an AI Office within the EU’s executive — which will have the job of coordinating with the Member State oversight bodies that will need to enforce the rules on AI firms; and overseeing the most advanced AI models, including by contributing to fostering standards and testing practices. A\u00a0scientific panel of independent experts will be appointed to advise the AI Office about GPAI models. “We will welcome new colleagues… a lot of them,” said Breton. “We will work — starting tomorrow — to get ready.”<\/p>\n Opposition to the inclusion in the AI package of tiered rules for general purpose AIs has been led, in recent weeks, by France — and French AI startup Mistral, which had been lobbying for a total carve out from obligations for foundational models\/GPAIs<\/a>. In the event the deal agreed by the Spanish presidency does contain some obligations for GPAIs and foundation models. So it’s not the total carve out Mistral and its lobbyists have been pushing for.<\/p>\n Responding to news of the political deal last night, France’s digital minister’s office put out a statement attributed to Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot which said (translated from French using AI): “We will be carefully analyzing the compromise reached today, and in the coming weeks we will ensure that the text preserves Europe’s ability to develop its own artificial intelligence technologies, and safeguards its strategic autonomy.”<\/p>\n It remains unclear how much of a carve out Mistral’s business might enjoy under the deal agreed. Asked about this during the press conference, Artigas suggested the French AI startup would — once commercialized — be likely to fit in the “low tier” for GPAIs, meaning it would have only limited transparency obligations, since she said it does not hit the high capacity compute threshold triggering the systemic risk obligations (as she said it’s using what’s thought to be 10^23 of compute, not 10^25).<\/p>\n However, as Mistral is currently still in an R&D and pre-training phase for their models, she said they would be excluded from even the low tier compliance requirements.<\/p>\n This report was updated to include the response from the French digital ministry; link to the Council’s PR; and with additional details from the presser — including remarks about how the law might apply to Mistral. We also added details on civil society’s response\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n EU ‘final’ talks to fix AI rules to run into second day — but deal on foundational models is on the table<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
“We have always been questioned whether there is enough protection, whether there is enough stimulant for innovation in this text, and I can say, this balance is there,” added Tudorache. “We have safeguards, we have all the provisions that we need, the redress that we need in giving trust to our citizens in the interaction with AI, in the products in the services that they will interact with from now on.<\/p>\n
“We now have to use this blueprint to seek now global convergence because this is a global challenge for everyone. And I think that with the work that we’ve done, as difficult as it was — and it was difficult, this was a marathon negotiation by all standards, looking at all precedents so far — but I think we delivered.”<\/p>\n
The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, also chipped in with his two euro-cents — describing the agreement clinched a little before midnight Brussels’ time as “historic”. “It is a full package. It is a complete deal. And this is why we spent so much time,” he intoned. “This is balancing user safety, innovation for startups, while also respecting… our fundamental rights and our European values.”<\/p>\nClear road ahead?<\/h2>\n Despite the EU very visibly patting itself on the back tonight on securing a deal on ‘world-first’ AI rules, it’s not quite yet the end of the road for the bloc’s lawmaking process as there are still some formal steps to go — not least the final text will face votes in the parliament and the Council to adopt it. But given how much division and disagreement there has been over how (or even whether) to regulate AI the biggest obstacles have been dismantled with this political deal and the path to passing the EU AI Act in the coming months looks clear.<\/p>\n The Commission is certainly projecting confidence. Per Breton, work to implement the agreement starts immediately with the set up of an AI Office within the EU’s executive — which will have the job of coordinating with the Member State oversight bodies that will need to enforce the rules on AI firms; and overseeing the most advanced AI models, including by contributing to fostering standards and testing practices. A\u00a0scientific panel of independent experts will be appointed to advise the AI Office about GPAI models. “We will welcome new colleagues… a lot of them,” said Breton. “We will work — starting tomorrow — to get ready.”<\/p>\n Opposition to the inclusion in the AI package of tiered rules for general purpose AIs has been led, in recent weeks, by France — and French AI startup Mistral, which had been lobbying for a total carve out from obligations for foundational models\/GPAIs<\/a>. In the event the deal agreed by the Spanish presidency does contain some obligations for GPAIs and foundation models. So it’s not the total carve out Mistral and its lobbyists have been pushing for.<\/p>\n Responding to news of the political deal last night, France’s digital minister’s office put out a statement attributed to Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot which said (translated from French using AI): “We will be carefully analyzing the compromise reached today, and in the coming weeks we will ensure that the text preserves Europe’s ability to develop its own artificial intelligence technologies, and safeguards its strategic autonomy.”<\/p>\n It remains unclear how much of a carve out Mistral’s business might enjoy under the deal agreed. Asked about this during the press conference, Artigas suggested the French AI startup would — once commercialized — be likely to fit in the “low tier” for GPAIs, meaning it would have only limited transparency obligations, since she said it does not hit the high capacity compute threshold triggering the systemic risk obligations (as she said it’s using what’s thought to be 10^23 of compute, not 10^25).<\/p>\n However, as Mistral is currently still in an R&D and pre-training phase for their models, she said they would be excluded from even the low tier compliance requirements.<\/p>\n This report was updated to include the response from the French digital ministry; link to the Council’s PR; and with additional details from the presser — including remarks about how the law might apply to Mistral. We also added details on civil society’s response\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n EU ‘final’ talks to fix AI rules to run into second day — but deal on foundational models is on the table<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Despite the EU very visibly patting itself on the back tonight on securing a deal on ‘world-first’ AI rules, it’s not quite yet the end of the road for the bloc’s lawmaking process as there are still some formal steps to go — not least the final text will face votes in the parliament and the Council to adopt it. But given how much division and disagreement there has been over how (or even whether) to regulate AI the biggest obstacles have been dismantled with this political deal and the path to passing the EU AI Act in the coming months looks clear.<\/p>\n
The Commission is certainly projecting confidence. Per Breton, work to implement the agreement starts immediately with the set up of an AI Office within the EU’s executive — which will have the job of coordinating with the Member State oversight bodies that will need to enforce the rules on AI firms; and overseeing the most advanced AI models, including by contributing to fostering standards and testing practices. A\u00a0scientific panel of independent experts will be appointed to advise the AI Office about GPAI models. “We will welcome new colleagues… a lot of them,” said Breton. “We will work — starting tomorrow — to get ready.”<\/p>\n
Opposition to the inclusion in the AI package of tiered rules for general purpose AIs has been led, in recent weeks, by France — and French AI startup Mistral, which had been lobbying for a total carve out from obligations for foundational models\/GPAIs<\/a>. In the event the deal agreed by the Spanish presidency does contain some obligations for GPAIs and foundation models. So it’s not the total carve out Mistral and its lobbyists have been pushing for.<\/p>\n Responding to news of the political deal last night, France’s digital minister’s office put out a statement attributed to Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot which said (translated from French using AI): “We will be carefully analyzing the compromise reached today, and in the coming weeks we will ensure that the text preserves Europe’s ability to develop its own artificial intelligence technologies, and safeguards its strategic autonomy.”<\/p>\n It remains unclear how much of a carve out Mistral’s business might enjoy under the deal agreed. Asked about this during the press conference, Artigas suggested the French AI startup would — once commercialized — be likely to fit in the “low tier” for GPAIs, meaning it would have only limited transparency obligations, since she said it does not hit the high capacity compute threshold triggering the systemic risk obligations (as she said it’s using what’s thought to be 10^23 of compute, not 10^25).<\/p>\n However, as Mistral is currently still in an R&D and pre-training phase for their models, she said they would be excluded from even the low tier compliance requirements.<\/p>\n This report was updated to include the response from the French digital ministry; link to the Council’s PR; and with additional details from the presser — including remarks about how the law might apply to Mistral. We also added details on civil society’s response\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n EU ‘final’ talks to fix AI rules to run into second day — but deal on foundational models is on the table<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Responding to news of the political deal last night, France’s digital minister’s office put out a statement attributed to Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot which said (translated from French using AI): “We will be carefully analyzing the compromise reached today, and in the coming weeks we will ensure that the text preserves Europe’s ability to develop its own artificial intelligence technologies, and safeguards its strategic autonomy.”<\/p>\n
It remains unclear how much of a carve out Mistral’s business might enjoy under the deal agreed. Asked about this during the press conference, Artigas suggested the French AI startup would — once commercialized — be likely to fit in the “low tier” for GPAIs, meaning it would have only limited transparency obligations, since she said it does not hit the high capacity compute threshold triggering the systemic risk obligations (as she said it’s using what’s thought to be 10^23 of compute, not 10^25).<\/p>\n
However, as Mistral is currently still in an R&D and pre-training phase for their models, she said they would be excluded from even the low tier compliance requirements.<\/p>\n
This report was updated to include the response from the French digital ministry; link to the Council’s PR; and with additional details from the presser — including remarks about how the law might apply to Mistral. We also added details on civil society’s response\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n EU ‘final’ talks to fix AI rules to run into second day — but deal on foundational models is on the table<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
EU ‘final’ talks to fix AI rules to run into second day — but deal on foundational models is on the table<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n\n Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Europe’s AI Act talks head for crunch point<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
After marathon ‘final’ talks which stretched to almost three days European Union lawmakers have tonight clinched a political deal on a risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence. The file was originally proposed back in April 2021 but it’s taken months of tricky three-way negotiations to get a deal over the line. The development means a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39990176,"featured_media":2639866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"2bd85bbd-b77e-32d7-a3e0-600ad6fdba73","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-09T02:28:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"2cafdf57-965c-4811-ab89-c2375e2300e3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-09T14:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ALK_fV5ZcSBGricI3XiMA4w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682],"tags":[576740804,577214040],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037503],"yoast_head":"\nEU lawmakers bag late night deal on 'global first' AI rules | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Natasha is a senior reporter for TechCrunch, joining September 2012, based in Europe. She joined TC after a stint reviewing smartphones for CNET UK and, prior to that, more than five years covering business technology for silicon.com (now folded into TechRepublic), where she focused on mobile and wireless, telecoms & networking, and IT skills issues. She has also freelanced for organisations including The Guardian and the BBC. Natasha holds a First Class degree in English from Cambridge University, and an MA in journalism from Goldsmiths College, University of London.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/575a81841b1b431463585c830bffd373.jpg.jpg","twitter":"riptari","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/39990176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"author":[{"id":39990176,"name":"Natasha Lomas","url":"","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/natasha-lomas\/","slug":"natasha-lomas","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/68a02f90ad0a6349a7b852ddce6f93e4?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/68a02f90ad0a6349a7b852ddce6f93e4?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/68a02f90ad0a6349a7b852ddce6f93e4?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nNatasha Lomas, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Natasha is a senior reporter for TechCrunch, joining September 2012, based in Europe. She joined TC after a stint reviewing smartphones for CNET UK and, prior to that, more than five years covering business technology for silicon.com (now folded into TechRepublic), where she focused on mobile and wireless, telecoms & networking, and IT skills issues. She has also freelanced for organisations including The Guardian and the BBC. Natasha holds a First Class degree in English from Cambridge University, and an MA in journalism from Goldsmiths College, University of London.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/575a81841b1b431463585c830bffd373.jpg.jpg","twitter":"riptari","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/39990176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2639866,"date":"2023-12-08T18:09:56","slug":"eu-ai-act-trilogue","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/12\/08\/eu-ai-act-political-deal\/eu-ai-act-trilogue\/","title":{"rendered":"eu ai act trilogue press conference"},"author":39990176,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":{"person":"European Commission","person_url":"https:\/\/newsroom.consilium.europa.eu\/events\/20231206-artificial-intelligence-act-trilogue"},"authors":[39990176],"caption":{"rendered":"
Image credits: European commission<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"eu ai act trilogue press conference","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/png","media_details":{"width":2410,"height":1683,"file":"2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png","filesize":3719141,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=150,105","width":150,"height":105,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=300,210","width":300,"height":210,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=768,536","width":768,"height":536,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=680,475","width":680,"height":475,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=1536,1073","width":1536,"height":1073,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=1536"},"2048x2048":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=2048,1430","width":2048,"height":1430,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=2048"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=1200,838","width":1200,"height":838,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?resize=50,35","width":50,"height":35,"filesize":3719141,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png?w=50"},"full":{"file":"eu-ai-act-trilogue.png","width":1024,"height":715,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu-ai-act-trilogue.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2639866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2639866"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/39990176"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577047203,"description":"News coverage on artificial intelligence and machine learning tech, the companies building them, and the ethical issues AI raises today. This encompasses generative AI, including large language models, text-to-image and text-to-video models; speech recognition and generation; and predictive analytics.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/artificial-intelligence\/","name":"AI","slug":"artificial-intelligence","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nAI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n
ByteDance’s TikTok wants to do more business in Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce market. So after facing roadblocks from the regulators, it’s now come up with a new route to get there.<\/p>\n
TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a new joint venture that will bring Tokopedia, the e-commerce unit of the Indonesian tech giant GoTo, together with TikTok Shop Indonesia, the local division of TikTok’s e-commerce business. TikTok will have a controlling stake of 75.01% in the new entity.<\/p>\n
The $1.5 billion is not coming in one investment but will be put into the combined business “over time,” the companies said in a statement<\/a> today. Initially, it will pay $840 million<\/a> to take its stake, according to Reuters. GoTo’s stake in the JV as a result of todays deal is 24.99% and that will remain fixed, it added.<\/p>\n That joint ownership detail is key: this deal comes on the heels of TikTok coming under the scrutiny of regulators over its wholly-owned effort, TikTok Shop Indonesia, which provided online shopping via TikTok’s wildly popular flagship social media app. About two months ago Jakarta banned direct payments for online purchases on social media platforms<\/a> to protect smaller local merchants and users’ data. TikTok was forced to suspend its e-commerce service<\/a> on 4 October to comply with the new rule.<\/p>\n This deal has a couple of parts to it that work in reverse to the final outcome. First, Tokopedia will actually acquire TikTok Shop’s Indonesia business for $340 million in the fourth quarter of this year, according to GoTo’s investor note<\/a>. Second, TikTok will acquire the majority stake in Tokopedia, via the new entity, for $840 million. Third, there will be further money invested up to $1.5 billion over an unspecified period to build out the JV further.<\/p>\n There are some forecasted valuations here at play as well as valuations that have been impacted by the regulatory issues. GoTo notes, for example, that TikTok Shop Indonesia “was valued based on a backward looking view of the TikTok Shop Indonesia business under the current environment during the fourth quarter of 2023 and does not reflect the forward looking potential of the combined entity.”<\/p>\n The overall transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024.<\/p><\/div>\n Today’s deal is a direct result of TikTok getting scuppered from doing business in Indonesia over the small business rules.<\/p>\n Indonesia has an outsized presence in the e-commerce landscape of Southeast Asia. Its value was estimated to between $50 billion<\/a> and$60 billion<\/a> in the past year, working out to around around two-thirds of the revenues generated across the region as a whole.<\/p>\n A lot of that e-commerce revenue comes from small and medium businesses selling on marketplaces. TikTok and GoTo are well aware of this fact and now working hard to show respect for it. They noted today that “more than 90 percent of the combined business\u2019s merchants are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the companies will undertake a series of joint initiatives to support them.”<\/p>\n But critically, now TikTok has also<\/em> conceded that it needs to have an Indonesian partner in the mix when working with them.<\/p>\n The ByteDance-owned short video app launched TikTok Shop Indonesia in 2021 and had around 106 million users in Indonesia as of October<\/a>, which came in second after the U.S. Indonesia is the third biggest market in Asia, only behind China and India<\/a> in terms of the number of active social media users at 167 million, with 60.4% of the total population<\/a> using these platforms.<\/p>\n “Going forward, TikTok, Tokopedia and GoTo will transform Indonesia\u2019s e-commerce sector, creating millions of new job opportunities over the next five years,” the two companies said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ByteDance’s TikTok wants to do more business in Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce market. So after facing roadblocks from the regulators, it’s now come up with a new route to get there. TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a new joint venture that will bring Tokopedia, the e-commerce unit of the Indonesian tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574478,"featured_media":2517524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"784b2ff4-077b-3be3-95f5-002e334639ad","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-11T08:50:58Z","apple_news_api_id":"67849e96-da4e-4d02-870f-51e4e8db6f5e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-11T10:00:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AZ4SeltpOTQKHD1Hk6NtvXg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,449557044],"tags":[576883035,122,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037497,577037500],"yoast_head":"\nTikTok to invest $1.5B in GoTo's Indonesia e-commerce business Tokopedia | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
That joint ownership detail is key: this deal comes on the heels of TikTok coming under the scrutiny of regulators over its wholly-owned effort, TikTok Shop Indonesia, which provided online shopping via TikTok’s wildly popular flagship social media app. About two months ago Jakarta banned direct payments for online purchases on social media platforms<\/a> to protect smaller local merchants and users’ data. TikTok was forced to suspend its e-commerce service<\/a> on 4 October to comply with the new rule.<\/p>\n This deal has a couple of parts to it that work in reverse to the final outcome. First, Tokopedia will actually acquire TikTok Shop’s Indonesia business for $340 million in the fourth quarter of this year, according to GoTo’s investor note<\/a>. Second, TikTok will acquire the majority stake in Tokopedia, via the new entity, for $840 million. Third, there will be further money invested up to $1.5 billion over an unspecified period to build out the JV further.<\/p>\n There are some forecasted valuations here at play as well as valuations that have been impacted by the regulatory issues. GoTo notes, for example, that TikTok Shop Indonesia “was valued based on a backward looking view of the TikTok Shop Indonesia business under the current environment during the fourth quarter of 2023 and does not reflect the forward looking potential of the combined entity.”<\/p>\n The overall transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024.<\/p><\/div>\n Today’s deal is a direct result of TikTok getting scuppered from doing business in Indonesia over the small business rules.<\/p>\n Indonesia has an outsized presence in the e-commerce landscape of Southeast Asia. Its value was estimated to between $50 billion<\/a> and$60 billion<\/a> in the past year, working out to around around two-thirds of the revenues generated across the region as a whole.<\/p>\n A lot of that e-commerce revenue comes from small and medium businesses selling on marketplaces. TikTok and GoTo are well aware of this fact and now working hard to show respect for it. They noted today that “more than 90 percent of the combined business\u2019s merchants are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the companies will undertake a series of joint initiatives to support them.”<\/p>\n But critically, now TikTok has also<\/em> conceded that it needs to have an Indonesian partner in the mix when working with them.<\/p>\n The ByteDance-owned short video app launched TikTok Shop Indonesia in 2021 and had around 106 million users in Indonesia as of October<\/a>, which came in second after the U.S. Indonesia is the third biggest market in Asia, only behind China and India<\/a> in terms of the number of active social media users at 167 million, with 60.4% of the total population<\/a> using these platforms.<\/p>\n “Going forward, TikTok, Tokopedia and GoTo will transform Indonesia\u2019s e-commerce sector, creating millions of new job opportunities over the next five years,” the two companies said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ByteDance’s TikTok wants to do more business in Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce market. So after facing roadblocks from the regulators, it’s now come up with a new route to get there. TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a new joint venture that will bring Tokopedia, the e-commerce unit of the Indonesian tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574478,"featured_media":2517524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"784b2ff4-077b-3be3-95f5-002e334639ad","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-11T08:50:58Z","apple_news_api_id":"67849e96-da4e-4d02-870f-51e4e8db6f5e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-11T10:00:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AZ4SeltpOTQKHD1Hk6NtvXg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,449557044],"tags":[576883035,122,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037497,577037500],"yoast_head":"\nTikTok to invest $1.5B in GoTo's Indonesia e-commerce business Tokopedia | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
This deal has a couple of parts to it that work in reverse to the final outcome. First, Tokopedia will actually acquire TikTok Shop’s Indonesia business for $340 million in the fourth quarter of this year, according to GoTo’s investor note<\/a>. Second, TikTok will acquire the majority stake in Tokopedia, via the new entity, for $840 million. Third, there will be further money invested up to $1.5 billion over an unspecified period to build out the JV further.<\/p>\n There are some forecasted valuations here at play as well as valuations that have been impacted by the regulatory issues. GoTo notes, for example, that TikTok Shop Indonesia “was valued based on a backward looking view of the TikTok Shop Indonesia business under the current environment during the fourth quarter of 2023 and does not reflect the forward looking potential of the combined entity.”<\/p>\n The overall transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024.<\/p><\/div>\n Today’s deal is a direct result of TikTok getting scuppered from doing business in Indonesia over the small business rules.<\/p>\n Indonesia has an outsized presence in the e-commerce landscape of Southeast Asia. Its value was estimated to between $50 billion<\/a> and$60 billion<\/a> in the past year, working out to around around two-thirds of the revenues generated across the region as a whole.<\/p>\n A lot of that e-commerce revenue comes from small and medium businesses selling on marketplaces. TikTok and GoTo are well aware of this fact and now working hard to show respect for it. They noted today that “more than 90 percent of the combined business\u2019s merchants are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the companies will undertake a series of joint initiatives to support them.”<\/p>\n But critically, now TikTok has also<\/em> conceded that it needs to have an Indonesian partner in the mix when working with them.<\/p>\n The ByteDance-owned short video app launched TikTok Shop Indonesia in 2021 and had around 106 million users in Indonesia as of October<\/a>, which came in second after the U.S. Indonesia is the third biggest market in Asia, only behind China and India<\/a> in terms of the number of active social media users at 167 million, with 60.4% of the total population<\/a> using these platforms.<\/p>\n “Going forward, TikTok, Tokopedia and GoTo will transform Indonesia\u2019s e-commerce sector, creating millions of new job opportunities over the next five years,” the two companies said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ByteDance’s TikTok wants to do more business in Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce market. So after facing roadblocks from the regulators, it’s now come up with a new route to get there. TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a new joint venture that will bring Tokopedia, the e-commerce unit of the Indonesian tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574478,"featured_media":2517524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"784b2ff4-077b-3be3-95f5-002e334639ad","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-11T08:50:58Z","apple_news_api_id":"67849e96-da4e-4d02-870f-51e4e8db6f5e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-11T10:00:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AZ4SeltpOTQKHD1Hk6NtvXg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,449557044],"tags":[576883035,122,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037497,577037500],"yoast_head":"\nTikTok to invest $1.5B in GoTo's Indonesia e-commerce business Tokopedia | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
There are some forecasted valuations here at play as well as valuations that have been impacted by the regulatory issues. GoTo notes, for example, that TikTok Shop Indonesia “was valued based on a backward looking view of the TikTok Shop Indonesia business under the current environment during the fourth quarter of 2023 and does not reflect the forward looking potential of the combined entity.”<\/p>\n
The overall transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024.<\/p><\/div>\n Today’s deal is a direct result of TikTok getting scuppered from doing business in Indonesia over the small business rules.<\/p>\n Indonesia has an outsized presence in the e-commerce landscape of Southeast Asia. Its value was estimated to between $50 billion<\/a> and$60 billion<\/a> in the past year, working out to around around two-thirds of the revenues generated across the region as a whole.<\/p>\n A lot of that e-commerce revenue comes from small and medium businesses selling on marketplaces. TikTok and GoTo are well aware of this fact and now working hard to show respect for it. They noted today that “more than 90 percent of the combined business\u2019s merchants are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the companies will undertake a series of joint initiatives to support them.”<\/p>\n But critically, now TikTok has also<\/em> conceded that it needs to have an Indonesian partner in the mix when working with them.<\/p>\n The ByteDance-owned short video app launched TikTok Shop Indonesia in 2021 and had around 106 million users in Indonesia as of October<\/a>, which came in second after the U.S. Indonesia is the third biggest market in Asia, only behind China and India<\/a> in terms of the number of active social media users at 167 million, with 60.4% of the total population<\/a> using these platforms.<\/p>\n “Going forward, TikTok, Tokopedia and GoTo will transform Indonesia\u2019s e-commerce sector, creating millions of new job opportunities over the next five years,” the two companies said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ByteDance’s TikTok wants to do more business in Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce market. So after facing roadblocks from the regulators, it’s now come up with a new route to get there. TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a new joint venture that will bring Tokopedia, the e-commerce unit of the Indonesian tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574478,"featured_media":2517524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"784b2ff4-077b-3be3-95f5-002e334639ad","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-11T08:50:58Z","apple_news_api_id":"67849e96-da4e-4d02-870f-51e4e8db6f5e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-11T10:00:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AZ4SeltpOTQKHD1Hk6NtvXg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,449557044],"tags":[576883035,122,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037497,577037500],"yoast_head":"\nTikTok to invest $1.5B in GoTo's Indonesia e-commerce business Tokopedia | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Today’s deal is a direct result of TikTok getting scuppered from doing business in Indonesia over the small business rules.<\/p>\n
Indonesia has an outsized presence in the e-commerce landscape of Southeast Asia. Its value was estimated to between $50 billion<\/a> and$60 billion<\/a> in the past year, working out to around around two-thirds of the revenues generated across the region as a whole.<\/p>\n A lot of that e-commerce revenue comes from small and medium businesses selling on marketplaces. TikTok and GoTo are well aware of this fact and now working hard to show respect for it. They noted today that “more than 90 percent of the combined business\u2019s merchants are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the companies will undertake a series of joint initiatives to support them.”<\/p>\n But critically, now TikTok has also<\/em> conceded that it needs to have an Indonesian partner in the mix when working with them.<\/p>\n The ByteDance-owned short video app launched TikTok Shop Indonesia in 2021 and had around 106 million users in Indonesia as of October<\/a>, which came in second after the U.S. Indonesia is the third biggest market in Asia, only behind China and India<\/a> in terms of the number of active social media users at 167 million, with 60.4% of the total population<\/a> using these platforms.<\/p>\n “Going forward, TikTok, Tokopedia and GoTo will transform Indonesia\u2019s e-commerce sector, creating millions of new job opportunities over the next five years,” the two companies said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ByteDance’s TikTok wants to do more business in Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce market. So after facing roadblocks from the regulators, it’s now come up with a new route to get there. TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a new joint venture that will bring Tokopedia, the e-commerce unit of the Indonesian tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574478,"featured_media":2517524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"784b2ff4-077b-3be3-95f5-002e334639ad","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-11T08:50:58Z","apple_news_api_id":"67849e96-da4e-4d02-870f-51e4e8db6f5e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-11T10:00:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AZ4SeltpOTQKHD1Hk6NtvXg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,449557044],"tags":[576883035,122,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037497,577037500],"yoast_head":"\nTikTok to invest $1.5B in GoTo's Indonesia e-commerce business Tokopedia | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
A lot of that e-commerce revenue comes from small and medium businesses selling on marketplaces. TikTok and GoTo are well aware of this fact and now working hard to show respect for it. They noted today that “more than 90 percent of the combined business\u2019s merchants are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the companies will undertake a series of joint initiatives to support them.”<\/p>\n
But critically, now TikTok has also<\/em> conceded that it needs to have an Indonesian partner in the mix when working with them.<\/p>\n The ByteDance-owned short video app launched TikTok Shop Indonesia in 2021 and had around 106 million users in Indonesia as of October<\/a>, which came in second after the U.S. Indonesia is the third biggest market in Asia, only behind China and India<\/a> in terms of the number of active social media users at 167 million, with 60.4% of the total population<\/a> using these platforms.<\/p>\n “Going forward, TikTok, Tokopedia and GoTo will transform Indonesia\u2019s e-commerce sector, creating millions of new job opportunities over the next five years,” the two companies said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ByteDance’s TikTok wants to do more business in Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce market. So after facing roadblocks from the regulators, it’s now come up with a new route to get there. TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a new joint venture that will bring Tokopedia, the e-commerce unit of the Indonesian tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574478,"featured_media":2517524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"784b2ff4-077b-3be3-95f5-002e334639ad","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-11T08:50:58Z","apple_news_api_id":"67849e96-da4e-4d02-870f-51e4e8db6f5e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-11T10:00:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AZ4SeltpOTQKHD1Hk6NtvXg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,449557044],"tags":[576883035,122,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037497,577037500],"yoast_head":"\nTikTok to invest $1.5B in GoTo's Indonesia e-commerce business Tokopedia | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The ByteDance-owned short video app launched TikTok Shop Indonesia in 2021 and had around 106 million users in Indonesia as of October<\/a>, which came in second after the U.S. Indonesia is the third biggest market in Asia, only behind China and India<\/a> in terms of the number of active social media users at 167 million, with 60.4% of the total population<\/a> using these platforms.<\/p>\n “Going forward, TikTok, Tokopedia and GoTo will transform Indonesia\u2019s e-commerce sector, creating millions of new job opportunities over the next five years,” the two companies said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ByteDance’s TikTok wants to do more business in Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce market. So after facing roadblocks from the regulators, it’s now come up with a new route to get there. TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a new joint venture that will bring Tokopedia, the e-commerce unit of the Indonesian tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574478,"featured_media":2517524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"784b2ff4-077b-3be3-95f5-002e334639ad","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-11T08:50:58Z","apple_news_api_id":"67849e96-da4e-4d02-870f-51e4e8db6f5e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-11T10:00:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AZ4SeltpOTQKHD1Hk6NtvXg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,449557044],"tags":[576883035,122,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037497,577037500],"yoast_head":"\nTikTok to invest $1.5B in GoTo's Indonesia e-commerce business Tokopedia | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
“Going forward, TikTok, Tokopedia and GoTo will transform Indonesia\u2019s e-commerce sector, creating millions of new job opportunities over the next five years,” the two companies said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ByteDance’s TikTok wants to do more business in Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce market. So after facing roadblocks from the regulators, it’s now come up with a new route to get there. TikTok is putting up $1.5 billion in a new joint venture that will bring Tokopedia, the e-commerce unit of the Indonesian tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574478,"featured_media":2517524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"784b2ff4-077b-3be3-95f5-002e334639ad","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-11T08:50:58Z","apple_news_api_id":"67849e96-da4e-4d02-870f-51e4e8db6f5e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-11T10:00:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AZ4SeltpOTQKHD1Hk6NtvXg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,449557044],"tags":[576883035,122,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037497,577037500],"yoast_head":"\nTikTok to invest $1.5B in GoTo's Indonesia e-commerce business Tokopedia | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The TikTok logo is displayed on signage outside TikTok social media app company offices in Culver City, California, on March 16, 2023. – China urged the United States to stop “unreasonably suppressing” TikTok on March 16, 2023, after Washington gave the popular video-sharing app an ultimatum to part ways with its Chinese owners or face […]<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"TikTok logo above the company's glass doors","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":2536,"height":1427,"file":"2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg","filesize":290595,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=150,84","width":150,"height":84,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=300,169","width":300,"height":169,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=768,432","width":768,"height":432,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=680,383","width":680,"height":383,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=1536,864","width":1536,"height":864,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=1536"},"2048x2048":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=2048,1152","width":2048,"height":1152,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=2048"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=1200,675","width":1200,"height":675,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?resize=50,28","width":50,"height":28,"filesize":290595,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"GettyImages-1248389907.jpg","width":1024,"height":576,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP via Getty Images","camera":"","caption":"The TikTok logo is displayed outside TikTok social media app company offices in Culver City, California, on March 16, 2023. - China urged the United States to stop \"unreasonably suppressing\" TikTok on March 16, 2023, after Washington gave the popular video-sharing app an ultimatum to part ways with its Chinese owners or face a nationwide ban. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon \/ AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON\/AFP via Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1678924800","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"US-CHINA-INTERNET-POLITICS-TIKTOK","orientation":"0","keywords":["internet","politics","Horizontal","topix","bestof"]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/GettyImages-1248389907.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2517524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2517524"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/24893112"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577052802,"description":"Retail, online shopping, e-commerce, and social commerce are a huge and ever-changing industry. Our commerce news covers everyone from Amazon, Shopify and Walmart to all the newest and hottest DTC brands, as well as influencers making the shift into selling products online.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/commerce\/","name":"Commerce","slug":"commerce","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nCommerce News | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n
It seems the<\/span> younger a startup is today, the better its fundraising prospects.<\/p>\n Recent data from Carta<\/a> pushes back against the narrative that 2023 has been tough on startups that are not building an AI product. In fact, grouping startups by maturity yields a very different picture.<\/p>\n\n The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Read it every morning on TechCrunch+<\/a> or get The Exchange newsletter<\/a> every Saturday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n Earlier-stage startups are seeing stronger valuations and smaller declines in total capital availability, welcome boons in a year of mostly negative news. However, late-stage investment has been in retreat, and since this segment usually accounts for the most dollars, people have been making the mistake of conflating a dramatic late-stage recession with general startup malaise.<\/p>\n <\/a>We don\u2019t mean to be glib. There are certainly many early-stage startups that are struggling and late-stage startups that are thriving. And Carta’s data is predicated on its customer base, which makes the information useful and directional, but not whole.<\/p>\n Still, the trends that we can spy are an effective argument against the logic of startups being encouraged to stay private as long as possible. For private-market investors looking to make the most of their investment, baking startups in the oven until they were fully ready worked for some time, but this method of running and scaling tech companies no longer looks so winsome.<\/p>\n Perhaps taking an early path to an IPO was the right idea all along. Let\u2019s explore.<\/p>\nHow fare startups today?<\/h2>\n Parsing data from Carta on the third quarter of 2023, it\u2019s clear that grouping startups by stage makes sense. For instance, the seed-stage was deemed to be immune to decline<\/a>, but there’s only been a 58% decline in capital raised by seed-stage startups in Q3 2023 compared to Q4 2021. Meanwhile, Series A, B, and C rounds were all down 80% or more in value in the third quarter compared to Q4 2021.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trends that we can spy inside the data are an effective argument against the era in which startups were encouraged to stay private as long as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574450,"featured_media":2569394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"77694c18-1e61-34b0-908e-084347880ca6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[20429,577030455],"tags":[576623485,576847237,577025428,5858894,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nStartups are doing fine, but scale-ups and unicorns are in deep water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Recent data from Carta<\/a> pushes back against the narrative that 2023 has been tough on startups that are not building an AI product. In fact, grouping startups by maturity yields a very different picture.<\/p>\n\n The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Read it every morning on TechCrunch+<\/a> or get The Exchange newsletter<\/a> every Saturday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n Earlier-stage startups are seeing stronger valuations and smaller declines in total capital availability, welcome boons in a year of mostly negative news. However, late-stage investment has been in retreat, and since this segment usually accounts for the most dollars, people have been making the mistake of conflating a dramatic late-stage recession with general startup malaise.<\/p>\n <\/a>We don\u2019t mean to be glib. There are certainly many early-stage startups that are struggling and late-stage startups that are thriving. And Carta’s data is predicated on its customer base, which makes the information useful and directional, but not whole.<\/p>\n Still, the trends that we can spy are an effective argument against the logic of startups being encouraged to stay private as long as possible. For private-market investors looking to make the most of their investment, baking startups in the oven until they were fully ready worked for some time, but this method of running and scaling tech companies no longer looks so winsome.<\/p>\n Perhaps taking an early path to an IPO was the right idea all along. Let\u2019s explore.<\/p>\nHow fare startups today?<\/h2>\n Parsing data from Carta on the third quarter of 2023, it\u2019s clear that grouping startups by stage makes sense. For instance, the seed-stage was deemed to be immune to decline<\/a>, but there’s only been a 58% decline in capital raised by seed-stage startups in Q3 2023 compared to Q4 2021. Meanwhile, Series A, B, and C rounds were all down 80% or more in value in the third quarter compared to Q4 2021.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trends that we can spy inside the data are an effective argument against the era in which startups were encouraged to stay private as long as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574450,"featured_media":2569394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"77694c18-1e61-34b0-908e-084347880ca6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[20429,577030455],"tags":[576623485,576847237,577025428,5858894,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nStartups are doing fine, but scale-ups and unicorns are in deep water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Read it every morning on TechCrunch+<\/a> or get The Exchange newsletter<\/a> every Saturday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n Earlier-stage startups are seeing stronger valuations and smaller declines in total capital availability, welcome boons in a year of mostly negative news. However, late-stage investment has been in retreat, and since this segment usually accounts for the most dollars, people have been making the mistake of conflating a dramatic late-stage recession with general startup malaise.<\/p>\n <\/a>We don\u2019t mean to be glib. There are certainly many early-stage startups that are struggling and late-stage startups that are thriving. And Carta’s data is predicated on its customer base, which makes the information useful and directional, but not whole.<\/p>\n Still, the trends that we can spy are an effective argument against the logic of startups being encouraged to stay private as long as possible. For private-market investors looking to make the most of their investment, baking startups in the oven until they were fully ready worked for some time, but this method of running and scaling tech companies no longer looks so winsome.<\/p>\n Perhaps taking an early path to an IPO was the right idea all along. Let\u2019s explore.<\/p>\nHow fare startups today?<\/h2>\n Parsing data from Carta on the third quarter of 2023, it\u2019s clear that grouping startups by stage makes sense. For instance, the seed-stage was deemed to be immune to decline<\/a>, but there’s only been a 58% decline in capital raised by seed-stage startups in Q3 2023 compared to Q4 2021. Meanwhile, Series A, B, and C rounds were all down 80% or more in value in the third quarter compared to Q4 2021.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trends that we can spy inside the data are an effective argument against the era in which startups were encouraged to stay private as long as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574450,"featured_media":2569394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"77694c18-1e61-34b0-908e-084347880ca6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[20429,577030455],"tags":[576623485,576847237,577025428,5858894,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nStartups are doing fine, but scale-ups and unicorns are in deep water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Read it every morning on TechCrunch+<\/a> or get The Exchange newsletter<\/a> every Saturday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n Earlier-stage startups are seeing stronger valuations and smaller declines in total capital availability, welcome boons in a year of mostly negative news. However, late-stage investment has been in retreat, and since this segment usually accounts for the most dollars, people have been making the mistake of conflating a dramatic late-stage recession with general startup malaise.<\/p>\n <\/a>We don\u2019t mean to be glib. There are certainly many early-stage startups that are struggling and late-stage startups that are thriving. And Carta’s data is predicated on its customer base, which makes the information useful and directional, but not whole.<\/p>\n Still, the trends that we can spy are an effective argument against the logic of startups being encouraged to stay private as long as possible. For private-market investors looking to make the most of their investment, baking startups in the oven until they were fully ready worked for some time, but this method of running and scaling tech companies no longer looks so winsome.<\/p>\n Perhaps taking an early path to an IPO was the right idea all along. Let\u2019s explore.<\/p>\nHow fare startups today?<\/h2>\n Parsing data from Carta on the third quarter of 2023, it\u2019s clear that grouping startups by stage makes sense. For instance, the seed-stage was deemed to be immune to decline<\/a>, but there’s only been a 58% decline in capital raised by seed-stage startups in Q3 2023 compared to Q4 2021. Meanwhile, Series A, B, and C rounds were all down 80% or more in value in the third quarter compared to Q4 2021.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trends that we can spy inside the data are an effective argument against the era in which startups were encouraged to stay private as long as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574450,"featured_media":2569394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"77694c18-1e61-34b0-908e-084347880ca6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[20429,577030455],"tags":[576623485,576847237,577025428,5858894,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nStartups are doing fine, but scale-ups and unicorns are in deep water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Earlier-stage startups are seeing stronger valuations and smaller declines in total capital availability, welcome boons in a year of mostly negative news. However, late-stage investment has been in retreat, and since this segment usually accounts for the most dollars, people have been making the mistake of conflating a dramatic late-stage recession with general startup malaise.<\/p>\n
<\/a>We don\u2019t mean to be glib. There are certainly many early-stage startups that are struggling and late-stage startups that are thriving. And Carta’s data is predicated on its customer base, which makes the information useful and directional, but not whole.<\/p>\n Still, the trends that we can spy are an effective argument against the logic of startups being encouraged to stay private as long as possible. For private-market investors looking to make the most of their investment, baking startups in the oven until they were fully ready worked for some time, but this method of running and scaling tech companies no longer looks so winsome.<\/p>\n Perhaps taking an early path to an IPO was the right idea all along. Let\u2019s explore.<\/p>\nHow fare startups today?<\/h2>\n Parsing data from Carta on the third quarter of 2023, it\u2019s clear that grouping startups by stage makes sense. For instance, the seed-stage was deemed to be immune to decline<\/a>, but there’s only been a 58% decline in capital raised by seed-stage startups in Q3 2023 compared to Q4 2021. Meanwhile, Series A, B, and C rounds were all down 80% or more in value in the third quarter compared to Q4 2021.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trends that we can spy inside the data are an effective argument against the era in which startups were encouraged to stay private as long as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574450,"featured_media":2569394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"77694c18-1e61-34b0-908e-084347880ca6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[20429,577030455],"tags":[576623485,576847237,577025428,5858894,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nStartups are doing fine, but scale-ups and unicorns are in deep water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Still, the trends that we can spy are an effective argument against the logic of startups being encouraged to stay private as long as possible. For private-market investors looking to make the most of their investment, baking startups in the oven until they were fully ready worked for some time, but this method of running and scaling tech companies no longer looks so winsome.<\/p>\n
Perhaps taking an early path to an IPO was the right idea all along. Let\u2019s explore.<\/p>\nHow fare startups today?<\/h2>\n Parsing data from Carta on the third quarter of 2023, it\u2019s clear that grouping startups by stage makes sense. For instance, the seed-stage was deemed to be immune to decline<\/a>, but there’s only been a 58% decline in capital raised by seed-stage startups in Q3 2023 compared to Q4 2021. Meanwhile, Series A, B, and C rounds were all down 80% or more in value in the third quarter compared to Q4 2021.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trends that we can spy inside the data are an effective argument against the era in which startups were encouraged to stay private as long as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574450,"featured_media":2569394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"77694c18-1e61-34b0-908e-084347880ca6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[20429,577030455],"tags":[576623485,576847237,577025428,5858894,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nStartups are doing fine, but scale-ups and unicorns are in deep water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Parsing data from Carta on the third quarter of 2023, it\u2019s clear that grouping startups by stage makes sense. For instance, the seed-stage was deemed to be immune to decline<\/a>, but there’s only been a 58% decline in capital raised by seed-stage startups in Q3 2023 compared to Q4 2021. Meanwhile, Series A, B, and C rounds were all down 80% or more in value in the third quarter compared to Q4 2021.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trends that we can spy inside the data are an effective argument against the era in which startups were encouraged to stay private as long as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574450,"featured_media":2569394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"77694c18-1e61-34b0-908e-084347880ca6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[20429,577030455],"tags":[576623485,576847237,577025428,5858894,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nStartups are doing fine, but scale-ups and unicorns are in deep water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The trends that we can spy inside the data are an effective argument against the era in which startups were encouraged to stay private as long as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574450,"featured_media":2569394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"77694c18-1e61-34b0-908e-084347880ca6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[20429,577030455],"tags":[576623485,576847237,577025428,5858894,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nStartups are doing fine, but scale-ups and unicorns are in deep water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Alex Wilhelm is Editor In Chief of TechCrunch+. He previously worked for Crunchbase News as Editor in Chief as well as The Next Web, TechCrunch, and Mattermark.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-12.12.07-PM.png","twitter":"alex"},{"id":133574450,"name":"Anna Heim","url":"","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/anna-heim\/","slug":"anna-heim","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d13d660551612def3a9b989dd7504c4c?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d13d660551612def3a9b989dd7504c4c?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d13d660551612def3a9b989dd7504c4c?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nAnna Heim, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Reporter at TechCrunch+, exploring SaaS and more. Former LATAM & Media Editor at The Next Web, startup founder and Sciences Po Paris alum.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/frtvjqwmk7of4y2m2xcw.jpeg","twitter":"abracarioca","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"author":[{"id":133574450,"name":"Anna Heim","url":"","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/anna-heim\/","slug":"anna-heim","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d13d660551612def3a9b989dd7504c4c?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d13d660551612def3a9b989dd7504c4c?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d13d660551612def3a9b989dd7504c4c?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nAnna Heim, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Reporter at TechCrunch+, exploring SaaS and more. Former LATAM & Media Editor at The Next Web, startup founder and Sciences Po Paris alum.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/frtvjqwmk7of4y2m2xcw.jpeg","twitter":"abracarioca","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2569394,"date":"2023-07-14T07:12:26","slug":"bullish-vs-bearish-markets-bull-and-bear-face-off-in-stock-market-exchange-up-and-down-market-competition-stock-market-trends-graph-stock-exchange-financial-bitcoin","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/07\/14\/seed-market-deal-counts-down\/bullish-vs-bearish-markets-bull-and-bear-face-off-in-stock-market-exchange-up-and-down-market-competition-stock-market-trends-graph-stock-exchange-financial-bitcoin\/","title":{"rendered":"Bullish vs Bearish Markets. Bull and bear face off in stock market exchange. Up and down market competition stock market trends. Graph, Stock exchange, Financial, Bitcoin."},"author":133574554,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":{"source_key":"getty images"},"authors":[133574554],"caption":{"rendered":"
While seed-focused investors are seeing good deal flow, seed deal count is going down. <\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"seed deals, deal count, venture capital","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":2951,"height":1889,"file":"2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg","filesize":415385,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=150,96","width":150,"height":96,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=300,192","width":300,"height":192,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=768,492","width":768,"height":492,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=680,435","width":680,"height":435,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=1536,983","width":1536,"height":983,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=1536"},"2048x2048":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=2048,1311","width":2048,"height":1311,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=2048"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=1200,768","width":1200,"height":768,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?resize=50,32","width":50,"height":32,"filesize":415385,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"GettyImages-1400003953.jpg","width":1024,"height":655,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"Getty Images\/iStockphoto","camera":"","caption":"Bullish vs Bearish Markets. Bull and bear face off in stock market exchange. Up and down market competition stock market trends. Graph, Stock exchange, Financial, Bitcoin.","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Bullish vs Bearish Markets. Bull and bear face off in stock market exchange. Up and down market competition stock market trends. Graph, Stock exchange, Financial, Bitcoin.","orientation":"1","keywords":["up","versus","vs"]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1400003953.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2569394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2569394"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574554"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":20429,"description":"Tech startup news that breaks down the funding, growth, and long-term trajectory of companies across every stage and industry. Startup coverage includes climate, crypto, fintech, SaaS, transportation, and consumer tech.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/startups\/","name":"Startups","slug":"startups","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nStartups | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n
I am haunted<\/span> by mulch posts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The most recent mulch video came to me in the middle of the night, when I was hours into scrolling through a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. The video<\/a> was an edit of a tiny dog surrounded by a frame of glittering hearts, with an AI-generated voice narrating, \u201cToday, I soilmaxxed to the highest potential. I am full of loam, asbestos and red 40.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @mulchandloam<\/a> <\/p>\n Enjoy your day my Mulch pups\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udeb4\u26fd\ufe0f\ud83d\udee2\ufe0f\ud83c\udf42\ud83e\udeb7\ud83e\udd0e\ud83c\udfdc\ufe0f #mulch<\/a> #loam<\/a> #mulchmaxxing<\/a> #sisteroftheloam<\/a> #mulching<\/a> #ilovemulch<\/a> #fyp<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c original sound – Sisters of the Loam\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udd0e<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The most recent mulch video came to me in the middle of the night, when I was hours into scrolling through a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. The video<\/a> was an edit of a tiny dog surrounded by a frame of glittering hearts, with an AI-generated voice narrating, \u201cToday, I soilmaxxed to the highest potential. I am full of loam, asbestos and red 40.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @mulchandloam<\/a> <\/p>\n Enjoy your day my Mulch pups\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udeb4\u26fd\ufe0f\ud83d\udee2\ufe0f\ud83c\udf42\ud83e\udeb7\ud83e\udd0e\ud83c\udfdc\ufe0f #mulch<\/a> #loam<\/a> #mulchmaxxing<\/a> #sisteroftheloam<\/a> #mulching<\/a> #ilovemulch<\/a> #fyp<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c original sound – Sisters of the Loam\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udd0e<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Enjoy your day my Mulch pups\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udeb4\u26fd\ufe0f\ud83d\udee2\ufe0f\ud83c\udf42\ud83e\udeb7\ud83e\udd0e\ud83c\udfdc\ufe0f #mulch<\/a> #loam<\/a> #mulchmaxxing<\/a> #sisteroftheloam<\/a> #mulching<\/a> #ilovemulch<\/a> #fyp<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c original sound – Sisters of the Loam\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udd0e<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u266c original sound – Sisters of the Loam\ud83e\udeb4\ud83e\udd0e<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Mulch posts have periodically appeared in my restless nights for months. In the hours that I know I should be sleeping, I am hounded by content of petite dogs proclaiming that they\u2019re soilpilled, or mulchmaxxing, or delighting in eating mulch with fellow sisters of the loam. The mulchgang prays for a plentiful harvest. Mulch posts celebrate a body nourished by microplastics and synthetic food dye. The silty clay earth feeds us all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Before the inevitable moral panic sets in once the trend gains enough mainstream attention: Mulch posts are not encouraging children to ingest dirt. Mulch memes are just that — silly posts that, like the absurd, post-ironic internet humor that has been popular for years, aren\u2019t that deep. The trend\u2019s earnestness provides a brief reprieve from the fatalist cynicism that tends to drive meme culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The meme came from, of all places, Instagram Reels. The spread of mulch posts across TikTok shows that Instagram still has influence in driving internet culture, despite Reels\u2019 rocky start. It\u2019s one of the first original Reels content to go viral beyond Instagram.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Mulchposting started with a post in May from Instagram meme account sme11a__, which featured the word \u201cmulch\u201d superimposed on a low-res image of a white dog. The post was captioned, \u201cmulch is here #mulchgang.\u201d The post itself wasn\u2019t particularly viral; in the last six months, it\u2019s gained about 10,000 likes. The meme didn\u2019t go viral until sme11a__ posted a Reel referencing the meme a month later, <\/span>Know Your Meme reports<\/span><\/a>, which gained over 103,000 likes. Other meme accounts started posting similar content \u2014 in a post of a comically fluffy dog with the text \u201csandy clay loam,\u201d the meme account qooslag even credited sme11a__ for starting the trend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by Mulch gang (@sme11a__)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Before the inevitable moral panic sets in once the trend gains enough mainstream attention: Mulch posts are not encouraging children to ingest dirt. Mulch memes are just that — silly posts that, like the absurd, post-ironic internet humor that has been popular for years, aren\u2019t that deep. The trend\u2019s earnestness provides a brief reprieve from the fatalist cynicism that tends to drive meme culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The meme came from, of all places, Instagram Reels. The spread of mulch posts across TikTok shows that Instagram still has influence in driving internet culture, despite Reels\u2019 rocky start. It\u2019s one of the first original Reels content to go viral beyond Instagram.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Mulchposting started with a post in May from Instagram meme account sme11a__, which featured the word \u201cmulch\u201d superimposed on a low-res image of a white dog. The post was captioned, \u201cmulch is here #mulchgang.\u201d The post itself wasn\u2019t particularly viral; in the last six months, it\u2019s gained about 10,000 likes. The meme didn\u2019t go viral until sme11a__ posted a Reel referencing the meme a month later, <\/span>Know Your Meme reports<\/span><\/a>, which gained over 103,000 likes. Other meme accounts started posting similar content \u2014 in a post of a comically fluffy dog with the text \u201csandy clay loam,\u201d the meme account qooslag even credited sme11a__ for starting the trend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by Mulch gang (@sme11a__)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The meme came from, of all places, Instagram Reels. The spread of mulch posts across TikTok shows that Instagram still has influence in driving internet culture, despite Reels\u2019 rocky start. It\u2019s one of the first original Reels content to go viral beyond Instagram.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Mulchposting started with a post in May from Instagram meme account sme11a__, which featured the word \u201cmulch\u201d superimposed on a low-res image of a white dog. The post was captioned, \u201cmulch is here #mulchgang.\u201d The post itself wasn\u2019t particularly viral; in the last six months, it\u2019s gained about 10,000 likes. The meme didn\u2019t go viral until sme11a__ posted a Reel referencing the meme a month later, <\/span>Know Your Meme reports<\/span><\/a>, which gained over 103,000 likes. Other meme accounts started posting similar content \u2014 in a post of a comically fluffy dog with the text \u201csandy clay loam,\u201d the meme account qooslag even credited sme11a__ for starting the trend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by Mulch gang (@sme11a__)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Mulchposting started with a post in May from Instagram meme account sme11a__, which featured the word \u201cmulch\u201d superimposed on a low-res image of a white dog. The post was captioned, \u201cmulch is here #mulchgang.\u201d The post itself wasn\u2019t particularly viral; in the last six months, it\u2019s gained about 10,000 likes. The meme didn\u2019t go viral until sme11a__ posted a Reel referencing the meme a month later, <\/span>Know Your Meme reports<\/span><\/a>, which gained over 103,000 likes. Other meme accounts started posting similar content \u2014 in a post of a comically fluffy dog with the text \u201csandy clay loam,\u201d the meme account qooslag even credited sme11a__ for starting the trend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by Mulch gang (@sme11a__)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
A post shared by Mulch gang (@sme11a__)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
A post shared by Mulch gang (@sme11a__)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Sme11a__, whose Instagram bio says they don\u2019t have a TikTok account, continued posting mulch Reels throughout the summer. The videos typically featured supercuts of fluffy white dogs over audio about mulch. In September, they posted a <\/span>Reel<\/span><\/a>using an AI-generated childish voice that said, \u201cI love mulch. Mulch is my favorite food.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Others started reposting sme11a__\u2019s Reel, which had over 195,000 likes on Instagram, to TikTok that month. The meme, which had been largely contained to Instagram, began taking off on the competing platform. On TikTok, the tag #mulchgang has over 49 million views, and tag #mulchmaxxing has over 20 million views. TikToks about the meme\u2019s apparent obscurity and bizarre premise further propelled its popularity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Under a <\/span>video<\/span><\/a>about struggling to explain the meme to those who aren\u2019t chronically online, TikTok user bisouchuu commented, \u201ci am mulchmaxxing on microplastic 24\/7 but i keep mentioning it to my non soilpilled friends.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis message makes me feel like a Victorian child when I read it,\u201d another user replied to bisouchuu.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @banjaxrose<\/a> <\/p>\n RIP to my fellow members of #mulchgang<\/a> lmao #mulch<\/a> #mulchgangforlife<\/a> #mulchfairy<\/a> #fyp<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c original sound – banjax<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Others started reposting sme11a__\u2019s Reel, which had over 195,000 likes on Instagram, to TikTok that month. The meme, which had been largely contained to Instagram, began taking off on the competing platform. On TikTok, the tag #mulchgang has over 49 million views, and tag #mulchmaxxing has over 20 million views. TikToks about the meme\u2019s apparent obscurity and bizarre premise further propelled its popularity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Under a <\/span>video<\/span><\/a>about struggling to explain the meme to those who aren\u2019t chronically online, TikTok user bisouchuu commented, \u201ci am mulchmaxxing on microplastic 24\/7 but i keep mentioning it to my non soilpilled friends.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis message makes me feel like a Victorian child when I read it,\u201d another user replied to bisouchuu.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @banjaxrose<\/a> <\/p>\n RIP to my fellow members of #mulchgang<\/a> lmao #mulch<\/a> #mulchgangforlife<\/a> #mulchfairy<\/a> #fyp<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c original sound – banjax<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Under a <\/span>video<\/span><\/a>about struggling to explain the meme to those who aren\u2019t chronically online, TikTok user bisouchuu commented, \u201ci am mulchmaxxing on microplastic 24\/7 but i keep mentioning it to my non soilpilled friends.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis message makes me feel like a Victorian child when I read it,\u201d another user replied to bisouchuu.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @banjaxrose<\/a> <\/p>\n RIP to my fellow members of #mulchgang<\/a> lmao #mulch<\/a> #mulchgangforlife<\/a> #mulchfairy<\/a> #fyp<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c original sound – banjax<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cThis message makes me feel like a Victorian child when I read it,\u201d another user replied to bisouchuu.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @banjaxrose<\/a> <\/p>\n RIP to my fellow members of #mulchgang<\/a> lmao #mulch<\/a> #mulchgangforlife<\/a> #mulchfairy<\/a> #fyp<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c original sound – banjax<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
RIP to my fellow members of #mulchgang<\/a> lmao #mulch<\/a> #mulchgangforlife<\/a> #mulchfairy<\/a> #fyp<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c original sound – banjax<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u266c original sound – banjax<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Some have questioned whether mulch posts could be dogwhistles for hate groups. It’s understandable that viewers would be suspicious of coded language in memes, given the history of white supremacy groups adopting seemingly innocuous imagery as symbols of their ideology. The white nationalist campaign to claim Pepe the Frog<\/a> as the face of racist extremism jaded us all against anything online that should be wholesome. An Instagram user asked sme11a__ to reassure them that mulch gang isn’t a “n@z1” or “NFT cult” in the comments of a recent Reel<\/a>.<\/p>\n “im not any of those things, mulch gang is just funny dogs eat dirt,” sme11a__ replied.<\/p>\n Mulchposting has all the markers of meme humor <\/span>mischaracterized as \u201cGen Z culture,\u201d<\/span><\/a> which is really just Very Online humor. It\u2019s absurd, and it\u2019s easy to replicate, and there\u2019s space for the joke to evolve. Internet absurdism is cyclical in nature, and mulch posts have been preceded by years of <\/span>shitposting<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n In 2017, The Washington Post tried to explain internet humor in a <\/span>column<\/span><\/a> titled, \u201cWhy is millennial humor so weird?\u201d The column cited the meme <\/span>\u201cHey Beter,\u201d<\/span><\/a>a four-panel image that starts with someone addressing the \u201cFamily Guy\u201d character Peter Griffin as \u201cBeter,\u201d and ends with a phrase completely unrelated to the first image. In the example cited by The Washington Post, a laser-eyed Elmo holds Peter at gunpoint and demands that he spell \u201cWhomst\u2019ve.\u201d The meme ends by asking viewers to \u201cfollow for a free iphone 5.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In its recent <\/span>explanation of Gen Z humor<\/span><\/a> for bewildered millennials, Insider cited the <\/span>Grimace shake trend<\/span><\/a>that went viral on TikTok earlier this year. In Grimace shake videos, TikTok users filmed themselves taking sips of McDonald\u2019s purple milkshake, before the video abruptly cut to a clip of the same user incapacitated on the ground, in abandoned buildings or in eerily empty playgrounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Neither \u201cHey Beter\u201d nor the Grimace shake trend have an explicit punchline. The non sequitur is the punchline. Absurdist philosophy pervades meme humor, and the futility of trying to explain jokes that are ultimately meaningless is what makes internet absurdism so funny. It\u2019s fitting that the <\/span>meme<\/span><\/a> \u201cOne Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy,\u201d which went viral on Instagram and TikTok this year when users paired the phrase with images and videos of impossible tasks, is pulled from an essay by philosopher and absurdist writer Albert Camus.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @d3luxeinalllcaps<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cone imagine sisyphus is happy\u201d #jpegmafia<\/a> #the_bitter_sweet_deluxe<\/a> #fart<\/a> #groundgeef<\/a> #kanyewest<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c femboys r hot – \ud83d\udcbf\ud83d\udcc0<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
“im not any of those things, mulch gang is just funny dogs eat dirt,” sme11a__ replied.<\/p>\n
Mulchposting has all the markers of meme humor <\/span>mischaracterized as \u201cGen Z culture,\u201d<\/span><\/a> which is really just Very Online humor. It\u2019s absurd, and it\u2019s easy to replicate, and there\u2019s space for the joke to evolve. Internet absurdism is cyclical in nature, and mulch posts have been preceded by years of <\/span>shitposting<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n In 2017, The Washington Post tried to explain internet humor in a <\/span>column<\/span><\/a> titled, \u201cWhy is millennial humor so weird?\u201d The column cited the meme <\/span>\u201cHey Beter,\u201d<\/span><\/a>a four-panel image that starts with someone addressing the \u201cFamily Guy\u201d character Peter Griffin as \u201cBeter,\u201d and ends with a phrase completely unrelated to the first image. In the example cited by The Washington Post, a laser-eyed Elmo holds Peter at gunpoint and demands that he spell \u201cWhomst\u2019ve.\u201d The meme ends by asking viewers to \u201cfollow for a free iphone 5.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In its recent <\/span>explanation of Gen Z humor<\/span><\/a> for bewildered millennials, Insider cited the <\/span>Grimace shake trend<\/span><\/a>that went viral on TikTok earlier this year. In Grimace shake videos, TikTok users filmed themselves taking sips of McDonald\u2019s purple milkshake, before the video abruptly cut to a clip of the same user incapacitated on the ground, in abandoned buildings or in eerily empty playgrounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Neither \u201cHey Beter\u201d nor the Grimace shake trend have an explicit punchline. The non sequitur is the punchline. Absurdist philosophy pervades meme humor, and the futility of trying to explain jokes that are ultimately meaningless is what makes internet absurdism so funny. It\u2019s fitting that the <\/span>meme<\/span><\/a> \u201cOne Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy,\u201d which went viral on Instagram and TikTok this year when users paired the phrase with images and videos of impossible tasks, is pulled from an essay by philosopher and absurdist writer Albert Camus.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @d3luxeinalllcaps<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cone imagine sisyphus is happy\u201d #jpegmafia<\/a> #the_bitter_sweet_deluxe<\/a> #fart<\/a> #groundgeef<\/a> #kanyewest<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c femboys r hot – \ud83d\udcbf\ud83d\udcc0<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In 2017, The Washington Post tried to explain internet humor in a <\/span>column<\/span><\/a> titled, \u201cWhy is millennial humor so weird?\u201d The column cited the meme <\/span>\u201cHey Beter,\u201d<\/span><\/a>a four-panel image that starts with someone addressing the \u201cFamily Guy\u201d character Peter Griffin as \u201cBeter,\u201d and ends with a phrase completely unrelated to the first image. In the example cited by The Washington Post, a laser-eyed Elmo holds Peter at gunpoint and demands that he spell \u201cWhomst\u2019ve.\u201d The meme ends by asking viewers to \u201cfollow for a free iphone 5.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In its recent <\/span>explanation of Gen Z humor<\/span><\/a> for bewildered millennials, Insider cited the <\/span>Grimace shake trend<\/span><\/a>that went viral on TikTok earlier this year. In Grimace shake videos, TikTok users filmed themselves taking sips of McDonald\u2019s purple milkshake, before the video abruptly cut to a clip of the same user incapacitated on the ground, in abandoned buildings or in eerily empty playgrounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Neither \u201cHey Beter\u201d nor the Grimace shake trend have an explicit punchline. The non sequitur is the punchline. Absurdist philosophy pervades meme humor, and the futility of trying to explain jokes that are ultimately meaningless is what makes internet absurdism so funny. It\u2019s fitting that the <\/span>meme<\/span><\/a> \u201cOne Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy,\u201d which went viral on Instagram and TikTok this year when users paired the phrase with images and videos of impossible tasks, is pulled from an essay by philosopher and absurdist writer Albert Camus.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @d3luxeinalllcaps<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cone imagine sisyphus is happy\u201d #jpegmafia<\/a> #the_bitter_sweet_deluxe<\/a> #fart<\/a> #groundgeef<\/a> #kanyewest<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c femboys r hot – \ud83d\udcbf\ud83d\udcc0<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In its recent <\/span>explanation of Gen Z humor<\/span><\/a> for bewildered millennials, Insider cited the <\/span>Grimace shake trend<\/span><\/a>that went viral on TikTok earlier this year. In Grimace shake videos, TikTok users filmed themselves taking sips of McDonald\u2019s purple milkshake, before the video abruptly cut to a clip of the same user incapacitated on the ground, in abandoned buildings or in eerily empty playgrounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Neither \u201cHey Beter\u201d nor the Grimace shake trend have an explicit punchline. The non sequitur is the punchline. Absurdist philosophy pervades meme humor, and the futility of trying to explain jokes that are ultimately meaningless is what makes internet absurdism so funny. It\u2019s fitting that the <\/span>meme<\/span><\/a> \u201cOne Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy,\u201d which went viral on Instagram and TikTok this year when users paired the phrase with images and videos of impossible tasks, is pulled from an essay by philosopher and absurdist writer Albert Camus.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @d3luxeinalllcaps<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cone imagine sisyphus is happy\u201d #jpegmafia<\/a> #the_bitter_sweet_deluxe<\/a> #fart<\/a> #groundgeef<\/a> #kanyewest<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c femboys r hot – \ud83d\udcbf\ud83d\udcc0<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Neither \u201cHey Beter\u201d nor the Grimace shake trend have an explicit punchline. The non sequitur is the punchline. Absurdist philosophy pervades meme humor, and the futility of trying to explain jokes that are ultimately meaningless is what makes internet absurdism so funny. It\u2019s fitting that the <\/span>meme<\/span><\/a> \u201cOne Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy,\u201d which went viral on Instagram and TikTok this year when users paired the phrase with images and videos of impossible tasks, is pulled from an essay by philosopher and absurdist writer Albert Camus.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n @d3luxeinalllcaps<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cone imagine sisyphus is happy\u201d #jpegmafia<\/a> #the_bitter_sweet_deluxe<\/a> #fart<\/a> #groundgeef<\/a> #kanyewest<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c femboys r hot – \ud83d\udcbf\ud83d\udcc0<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cone imagine sisyphus is happy\u201d #jpegmafia<\/a> #the_bitter_sweet_deluxe<\/a> #fart<\/a> #groundgeef<\/a> #kanyewest<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c femboys r hot – \ud83d\udcbf\ud83d\udcc0<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u266c femboys r hot – \ud83d\udcbf\ud83d\udcc0<\/a> <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Internet culture is constantly subverting itself, and the \u201cGen Z humor\u201d shaping memes today, like mulch posts, is an evolution of \u201cmillennial humor\u201d of the 2010s. With its <\/span>motivational undertones<\/span><\/a> and earnest nature, the version of internet humor that exists today is decidedly less bleak than its millennial predecessor, which the <\/span>Guardian<\/span><\/a> described as \u201cdisorientating, dark and strange\u201d in 2019. That millennial humor was shaped by online trends that existed long before social media. The 1998 \u201cHampster Dance,\u201d <\/span>credited as one of the first internet memes<\/span><\/a>, was infectious, nonsensical and at the time, inexplicably funny.<\/span><\/p>\n The trajectory of mulch posts, from Instagram to TikTok instead of the other way around, is uncommon, but given the enduring popularity of absurdist memes, it makes sense that shitpost-y content would be one of the first original Instagram trends to break through to mainstream social media in years. Screenshots of Instagram posts, most of which are from meme accounts, are constantly reposted as TikTok slideshows \u2014 though the recycled content consists of standalone memes, and haven\u2019t inspired a larger trend under a unifying theme. Reels may have had original trends, like viral songs or popular editing techniques, but few, if any, have been unique enough to spread to other platforms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Instagram\u2019s hold on internet culture slipped as TikTok usage became more ubiquitous in recent years, and TikTok users have derided Instagram users as millennials who are behind on meme trends. Instagram\u2019s short-form video feature, Reels, was built to rival TikTok, but the platform\u2019s early years have been dominated by recycled TikToks. Instagram has <\/span>tried to discourage users from reposting TikToks<\/span><\/a> by refusing to recommend posts that contain TikTok\u2019s watermark. An internal Meta document from August 2022 noted that nearly a third of Reels content was originally posted elsewhere, The <\/span>Wall Street Journal reported<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lacking original content and overrun with reposts, Reels has been perceived as a platform for out-of-touch millennials \u2014 a sentiment jokingly held by many on TikTok. More Gen Z adults use Instagram than TikTok, according to surveys conducted by the data analysis company Morning Consult for its <\/span>semiannual report on media and entertainment<\/span><\/a>, and more Gen Z adults use both platforms at least once a day than millennials. It isn\u2019t a generational divide that\u2019s fueling the negative perception of Reels, it\u2019s the lack of original content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n TikTok users often joke that Reels users are slow to adopt trends and behind on current events. One recent viral video about Reels users, posted in November, says, \u201cinstagram reels users just finding out that the submarine imploded,\u201d referencing OceanGate\u2019s Titan submersible that <\/span>went missing<\/span><\/a>and later found wrecked in June.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mulch is one of the first Reels trends that actually originated on Instagram, and it\u2019s one of the first to translate to other social media platforms\u2019 formats. The meme can exist as a static image of a crusty white dog asking, \u201cwho up mulching?\u201d or as a video narrated by an AI-generated voice extolling the virtues of munching on chemically enriched soil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2021, i-D <\/span>predicted<\/span><\/a> that incomprehensible shitposting accounts would prevail over the polished meme accounts that post content for universal appeal. Today, Instagram\u2019s meme culture has largely shifted toward <\/span>low-effort, text-heavy content<\/span><\/a> that blends confessional captions with seemingly unrelated imagery. A recent post from the Instagram account fembiotic, for example, superimposed the text \u201cmy life is over. (my birthday is coming up)\u201d over a vintage illustration of a cat holding a pink cupcake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by magical girl (@fembiotic)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The trajectory of mulch posts, from Instagram to TikTok instead of the other way around, is uncommon, but given the enduring popularity of absurdist memes, it makes sense that shitpost-y content would be one of the first original Instagram trends to break through to mainstream social media in years. Screenshots of Instagram posts, most of which are from meme accounts, are constantly reposted as TikTok slideshows \u2014 though the recycled content consists of standalone memes, and haven\u2019t inspired a larger trend under a unifying theme. Reels may have had original trends, like viral songs or popular editing techniques, but few, if any, have been unique enough to spread to other platforms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Instagram\u2019s hold on internet culture slipped as TikTok usage became more ubiquitous in recent years, and TikTok users have derided Instagram users as millennials who are behind on meme trends. Instagram\u2019s short-form video feature, Reels, was built to rival TikTok, but the platform\u2019s early years have been dominated by recycled TikToks. Instagram has <\/span>tried to discourage users from reposting TikToks<\/span><\/a> by refusing to recommend posts that contain TikTok\u2019s watermark. An internal Meta document from August 2022 noted that nearly a third of Reels content was originally posted elsewhere, The <\/span>Wall Street Journal reported<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lacking original content and overrun with reposts, Reels has been perceived as a platform for out-of-touch millennials \u2014 a sentiment jokingly held by many on TikTok. More Gen Z adults use Instagram than TikTok, according to surveys conducted by the data analysis company Morning Consult for its <\/span>semiannual report on media and entertainment<\/span><\/a>, and more Gen Z adults use both platforms at least once a day than millennials. It isn\u2019t a generational divide that\u2019s fueling the negative perception of Reels, it\u2019s the lack of original content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n TikTok users often joke that Reels users are slow to adopt trends and behind on current events. One recent viral video about Reels users, posted in November, says, \u201cinstagram reels users just finding out that the submarine imploded,\u201d referencing OceanGate\u2019s Titan submersible that <\/span>went missing<\/span><\/a>and later found wrecked in June.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mulch is one of the first Reels trends that actually originated on Instagram, and it\u2019s one of the first to translate to other social media platforms\u2019 formats. The meme can exist as a static image of a crusty white dog asking, \u201cwho up mulching?\u201d or as a video narrated by an AI-generated voice extolling the virtues of munching on chemically enriched soil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2021, i-D <\/span>predicted<\/span><\/a> that incomprehensible shitposting accounts would prevail over the polished meme accounts that post content for universal appeal. Today, Instagram\u2019s meme culture has largely shifted toward <\/span>low-effort, text-heavy content<\/span><\/a> that blends confessional captions with seemingly unrelated imagery. A recent post from the Instagram account fembiotic, for example, superimposed the text \u201cmy life is over. (my birthday is coming up)\u201d over a vintage illustration of a cat holding a pink cupcake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by magical girl (@fembiotic)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Instagram\u2019s hold on internet culture slipped as TikTok usage became more ubiquitous in recent years, and TikTok users have derided Instagram users as millennials who are behind on meme trends. Instagram\u2019s short-form video feature, Reels, was built to rival TikTok, but the platform\u2019s early years have been dominated by recycled TikToks. Instagram has <\/span>tried to discourage users from reposting TikToks<\/span><\/a> by refusing to recommend posts that contain TikTok\u2019s watermark. An internal Meta document from August 2022 noted that nearly a third of Reels content was originally posted elsewhere, The <\/span>Wall Street Journal reported<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lacking original content and overrun with reposts, Reels has been perceived as a platform for out-of-touch millennials \u2014 a sentiment jokingly held by many on TikTok. More Gen Z adults use Instagram than TikTok, according to surveys conducted by the data analysis company Morning Consult for its <\/span>semiannual report on media and entertainment<\/span><\/a>, and more Gen Z adults use both platforms at least once a day than millennials. It isn\u2019t a generational divide that\u2019s fueling the negative perception of Reels, it\u2019s the lack of original content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n TikTok users often joke that Reels users are slow to adopt trends and behind on current events. One recent viral video about Reels users, posted in November, says, \u201cinstagram reels users just finding out that the submarine imploded,\u201d referencing OceanGate\u2019s Titan submersible that <\/span>went missing<\/span><\/a>and later found wrecked in June.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mulch is one of the first Reels trends that actually originated on Instagram, and it\u2019s one of the first to translate to other social media platforms\u2019 formats. The meme can exist as a static image of a crusty white dog asking, \u201cwho up mulching?\u201d or as a video narrated by an AI-generated voice extolling the virtues of munching on chemically enriched soil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2021, i-D <\/span>predicted<\/span><\/a> that incomprehensible shitposting accounts would prevail over the polished meme accounts that post content for universal appeal. Today, Instagram\u2019s meme culture has largely shifted toward <\/span>low-effort, text-heavy content<\/span><\/a> that blends confessional captions with seemingly unrelated imagery. A recent post from the Instagram account fembiotic, for example, superimposed the text \u201cmy life is over. (my birthday is coming up)\u201d over a vintage illustration of a cat holding a pink cupcake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by magical girl (@fembiotic)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Lacking original content and overrun with reposts, Reels has been perceived as a platform for out-of-touch millennials \u2014 a sentiment jokingly held by many on TikTok. More Gen Z adults use Instagram than TikTok, according to surveys conducted by the data analysis company Morning Consult for its <\/span>semiannual report on media and entertainment<\/span><\/a>, and more Gen Z adults use both platforms at least once a day than millennials. It isn\u2019t a generational divide that\u2019s fueling the negative perception of Reels, it\u2019s the lack of original content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n TikTok users often joke that Reels users are slow to adopt trends and behind on current events. One recent viral video about Reels users, posted in November, says, \u201cinstagram reels users just finding out that the submarine imploded,\u201d referencing OceanGate\u2019s Titan submersible that <\/span>went missing<\/span><\/a>and later found wrecked in June.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mulch is one of the first Reels trends that actually originated on Instagram, and it\u2019s one of the first to translate to other social media platforms\u2019 formats. The meme can exist as a static image of a crusty white dog asking, \u201cwho up mulching?\u201d or as a video narrated by an AI-generated voice extolling the virtues of munching on chemically enriched soil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2021, i-D <\/span>predicted<\/span><\/a> that incomprehensible shitposting accounts would prevail over the polished meme accounts that post content for universal appeal. Today, Instagram\u2019s meme culture has largely shifted toward <\/span>low-effort, text-heavy content<\/span><\/a> that blends confessional captions with seemingly unrelated imagery. A recent post from the Instagram account fembiotic, for example, superimposed the text \u201cmy life is over. (my birthday is coming up)\u201d over a vintage illustration of a cat holding a pink cupcake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by magical girl (@fembiotic)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
TikTok users often joke that Reels users are slow to adopt trends and behind on current events. One recent viral video about Reels users, posted in November, says, \u201cinstagram reels users just finding out that the submarine imploded,\u201d referencing OceanGate\u2019s Titan submersible that <\/span>went missing<\/span><\/a>and later found wrecked in June.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mulch is one of the first Reels trends that actually originated on Instagram, and it\u2019s one of the first to translate to other social media platforms\u2019 formats. The meme can exist as a static image of a crusty white dog asking, \u201cwho up mulching?\u201d or as a video narrated by an AI-generated voice extolling the virtues of munching on chemically enriched soil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2021, i-D <\/span>predicted<\/span><\/a> that incomprehensible shitposting accounts would prevail over the polished meme accounts that post content for universal appeal. Today, Instagram\u2019s meme culture has largely shifted toward <\/span>low-effort, text-heavy content<\/span><\/a> that blends confessional captions with seemingly unrelated imagery. A recent post from the Instagram account fembiotic, for example, superimposed the text \u201cmy life is over. (my birthday is coming up)\u201d over a vintage illustration of a cat holding a pink cupcake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by magical girl (@fembiotic)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Mulch is one of the first Reels trends that actually originated on Instagram, and it\u2019s one of the first to translate to other social media platforms\u2019 formats. The meme can exist as a static image of a crusty white dog asking, \u201cwho up mulching?\u201d or as a video narrated by an AI-generated voice extolling the virtues of munching on chemically enriched soil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2021, i-D <\/span>predicted<\/span><\/a> that incomprehensible shitposting accounts would prevail over the polished meme accounts that post content for universal appeal. Today, Instagram\u2019s meme culture has largely shifted toward <\/span>low-effort, text-heavy content<\/span><\/a> that blends confessional captions with seemingly unrelated imagery. A recent post from the Instagram account fembiotic, for example, superimposed the text \u201cmy life is over. (my birthday is coming up)\u201d over a vintage illustration of a cat holding a pink cupcake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by magical girl (@fembiotic)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In 2021, i-D <\/span>predicted<\/span><\/a> that incomprehensible shitposting accounts would prevail over the polished meme accounts that post content for universal appeal. Today, Instagram\u2019s meme culture has largely shifted toward <\/span>low-effort, text-heavy content<\/span><\/a> that blends confessional captions with seemingly unrelated imagery. A recent post from the Instagram account fembiotic, for example, superimposed the text \u201cmy life is over. (my birthday is coming up)\u201d over a vintage illustration of a cat holding a pink cupcake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by magical girl (@fembiotic)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
A post shared by magical girl (@fembiotic)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Meme accounts are keeping Instagram relevant in the face of competitors, and naturally, a meme account drove one of the first original Reels trends.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Whether the meme lasts is questionable \u2014 nothing kills a meme faster than going mainstream enough to be co-opted by brands, or worse, being covered by a news outlet \u2014 but the internet absurdism that shapes mulch posts will continue evolving into something weirder and more unexplainable long after mulch loses relevance. By then, it won\u2019t be \u201cGen Alpha humor\u201d or whatever generation comes after. It\u2019ll still be internet absurdism. Until then, Reels can shake its profoundly uncool reputation by leaning into the shitposting. The sisters of the loam are all for it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n Something’s up with Spotify Wrapped and Burlington, VT<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n For $200, George Santos will gossip with you on Cameo<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am haunted by mulch posts.\u00a0 The most recent mulch video came to me in the middle of the night, when I was hours into scrolling through a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. The video was an edit of a tiny dog surrounded by a frame of glittering hearts, with an AI-generated voice narrating, \u201cToday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574602,"featured_media":2639495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e7c1f81b-a4c1-3626-a2c7-6872137fd528","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-08T19:14:15Z","apple_news_api_id":"0a9227c5-6706-40a4-9d59-9d1e4e3fed2a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-08T21:56:44Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ACpInxWcGQKSdWZ0eTj_tKg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577055593],"tags":[449560994,576713419,76373,366,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037509],"yoast_head":"\nMulch and the enduring appeal of internet absurdism | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Whether the meme lasts is questionable \u2014 nothing kills a meme faster than going mainstream enough to be co-opted by brands, or worse, being covered by a news outlet \u2014 but the internet absurdism that shapes mulch posts will continue evolving into something weirder and more unexplainable long after mulch loses relevance. By then, it won\u2019t be \u201cGen Alpha humor\u201d or whatever generation comes after. It\u2019ll still be internet absurdism. Until then, Reels can shake its profoundly uncool reputation by leaning into the shitposting. The sisters of the loam are all for it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n Something’s up with Spotify Wrapped and Burlington, VT<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n For $200, George Santos will gossip with you on Cameo<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am haunted by mulch posts.\u00a0 The most recent mulch video came to me in the middle of the night, when I was hours into scrolling through a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. The video was an edit of a tiny dog surrounded by a frame of glittering hearts, with an AI-generated voice narrating, \u201cToday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574602,"featured_media":2639495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e7c1f81b-a4c1-3626-a2c7-6872137fd528","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-08T19:14:15Z","apple_news_api_id":"0a9227c5-6706-40a4-9d59-9d1e4e3fed2a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-08T21:56:44Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ACpInxWcGQKSdWZ0eTj_tKg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577055593],"tags":[449560994,576713419,76373,366,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037509],"yoast_head":"\nMulch and the enduring appeal of internet absurdism | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Something’s up with Spotify Wrapped and Burlington, VT<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n\n For $200, George Santos will gossip with you on Cameo<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am haunted by mulch posts.\u00a0 The most recent mulch video came to me in the middle of the night, when I was hours into scrolling through a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. The video was an edit of a tiny dog surrounded by a frame of glittering hearts, with an AI-generated voice narrating, \u201cToday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574602,"featured_media":2639495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e7c1f81b-a4c1-3626-a2c7-6872137fd528","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-08T19:14:15Z","apple_news_api_id":"0a9227c5-6706-40a4-9d59-9d1e4e3fed2a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-08T21:56:44Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ACpInxWcGQKSdWZ0eTj_tKg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577055593],"tags":[449560994,576713419,76373,366,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037509],"yoast_head":"\nMulch and the enduring appeal of internet absurdism | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n\n For $200, George Santos will gossip with you on Cameo<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am haunted by mulch posts.\u00a0 The most recent mulch video came to me in the middle of the night, when I was hours into scrolling through a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. The video was an edit of a tiny dog surrounded by a frame of glittering hearts, with an AI-generated voice narrating, \u201cToday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574602,"featured_media":2639495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e7c1f81b-a4c1-3626-a2c7-6872137fd528","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-08T19:14:15Z","apple_news_api_id":"0a9227c5-6706-40a4-9d59-9d1e4e3fed2a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-08T21:56:44Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ACpInxWcGQKSdWZ0eTj_tKg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577055593],"tags":[449560994,576713419,76373,366,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037509],"yoast_head":"\nMulch and the enduring appeal of internet absurdism | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
For $200, George Santos will gossip with you on Cameo<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am haunted by mulch posts.\u00a0 The most recent mulch video came to me in the middle of the night, when I was hours into scrolling through a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. The video was an edit of a tiny dog surrounded by a frame of glittering hearts, with an AI-generated voice narrating, \u201cToday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574602,"featured_media":2639495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e7c1f81b-a4c1-3626-a2c7-6872137fd528","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-08T19:14:15Z","apple_news_api_id":"0a9227c5-6706-40a4-9d59-9d1e4e3fed2a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-08T21:56:44Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ACpInxWcGQKSdWZ0eTj_tKg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577055593],"tags":[449560994,576713419,76373,366,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037509],"yoast_head":"\nMulch and the enduring appeal of internet absurdism | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am haunted by mulch posts.\u00a0 The most recent mulch video came to me in the middle of the night, when I was hours into scrolling through a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. The video was an edit of a tiny dog surrounded by a frame of glittering hearts, with an AI-generated voice narrating, \u201cToday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574602,"featured_media":2639495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e7c1f81b-a4c1-3626-a2c7-6872137fd528","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-08T19:14:15Z","apple_news_api_id":"0a9227c5-6706-40a4-9d59-9d1e4e3fed2a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-08T21:56:44Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ACpInxWcGQKSdWZ0eTj_tKg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577055593],"tags":[449560994,576713419,76373,366,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037509],"yoast_head":"\nMulch and the enduring appeal of internet absurdism | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
I am haunted by mulch posts.\u00a0 The most recent mulch video came to me in the middle of the night, when I was hours into scrolling through a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. The video was an edit of a tiny dog surrounded by a frame of glittering hearts, with an AI-generated voice narrating, \u201cToday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574602,"featured_media":2639495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e7c1f81b-a4c1-3626-a2c7-6872137fd528","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-08T19:14:15Z","apple_news_api_id":"0a9227c5-6706-40a4-9d59-9d1e4e3fed2a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-08T21:56:44Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ACpInxWcGQKSdWZ0eTj_tKg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577055593],"tags":[449560994,576713419,76373,366,5938293],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[577037509],"yoast_head":"\nMulch and the enduring appeal of internet absurdism | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Car Error Code Reader Image Credits: Austin Wilcox \/ Unsplash (modified by TechCrunch)<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"puppy surrounded by glowing hearts","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1724,"height":970,"file":"2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg","filesize":204725,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=150,84","width":150,"height":84,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=300,169","width":300,"height":169,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=768,432","width":768,"height":432,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=680,383","width":680,"height":383,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=1536,864","width":1536,"height":864,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=1536"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=1200,675","width":1200,"height":675,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?resize=50,28","width":50,"height":28,"filesize":204725,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg","width":1024,"height":576,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mulch-puppy-austin-wilcox-unsplash.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2639495"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2639495"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/24893112"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577055593,"description":"Social networking shapes society and our news coverage reflects and directs that. 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