Technology
Instead of raising a new fund, Global Founders Capital will use Rocket Internet funds

Global founders’ capitala Berlin-based early-stage VC firm with close ties to German startup factory Rocket Internet will develop into the enterprise arm of Rocket Internet.
The VC had previously raised two $1 billion funds, and just a few years ago his name was featured in dozens of deals a yr. But then the situation calmed down. Now we all know why: in the longer term, the corporate will invest exclusively from Rocket Internet’s balance sheet.
Last yr Financial Times. announced that Global Founders Capital is within the midst of a major strategic change. A couple of weeks ago, the VC firm reached out to TechCrunch to verify the pivot and discuss the reasoning behind the change.
“To be transparent, there have been quite a few changes at Global Founders Capital in recent years – in terms of fund structure and team composition,” Global Founders Capital partner David Sainteff (pictured above) told us.
Sainteff said the corporate has decided it shouldn’t be the fitting time to lift one other fund since it shouldn’t be a good time to speculate since it doesn’t imagine there are numerous good opportunities that meet the corporate’s criteria and that it doesn’t need more capital to retain competing against other investors to shut a deal.
Global Founders Capital was originally structured as a traditional VC firm with several limited partners participating within the funds. With its first fund, it supported future unicorns comparable to Personio, Revolut and SumUp. With the second fund, the corporate invested in several TechCrunch-covered firms comparable to Pennylane, Ankorstore and Seyna.
Before joining Global Founders Capital seven years ago, Sainteff worked for Rocket Internet he was an investor in Global Founders Capital from the start. Therefore, there was a close bond between them from the very starting.
“After launching the second fund, we decided not to raise another one. Instead, we will use Rocket Internet’s capital,” he confirmed. “We have EUR 300 million on our balance sheet to use for venture investments. We are not planning any collections.”
Honestly, that is a little strange because the corporate’s performance to date seems pretty good. According to Sainteff, the primary fund will generate returns of 3x to 4x. “For the second fund, it is (to say) much too early,” he continued. “But we have some clear winners like Pennylane. We have entered the pre-seed stage and the company is worth over €1 billion.”
The new strategy signifies that Global Founders Capital is now much smaller than it was once, with only five partners left: Fabricio Pettena, Don Stalter, Cedric Asselman, Sainteff and, of course, Rocket Internet co-founder and CEO Oliver Samwer.
The new version of the corporate will also focus exclusively on early-stage investments, in addition to opportunities for further investments in later rounds (series A, B, C, etc.).
Has Global Founders Capital decided not to lift a third fund since it didn’t receive sufficient support from potential limited partners or because of the present technology downturn in comparison with 2021 (aside from the AI boom)? The decision probably relied on each aspects.
“It wasn’t the best time to raise funds with (limited partners),” Sainteff told us. “We believe it was difficult to introduce the need for capital.”
“It’s easy to make a decision when you have EUR 300 million in the bank,” he added. “If other VC firms were in the same boat, they would make the same decision. We do not rule out the possibility of obtaining a fund if the conditions are favorable.”
For now, the pivot is reversing much of the fund’s earlier expansion, because it expanded into more geographies, technology areas and financing stages and added the Global Founders Capital name to a number of deals.
Technology
PO clarous Director General Zoom also uses AI avatar during a quarterly connection

General directors at the moment are so immersed in artificial intelligence that they send their avatars to cope with quarterly connections from earnings as a substitute, a minimum of partly.
After AI Avatar CEO CEO appeared on the investor’s conversation firstly of this week, the final director of Zoom Eric Yuan also followed them, also Using his avatar for preliminary comments. Yuan implemented his non -standard avatar via Zoom Clips, an asynchronous company video tool.
“I am proud that I am one of the first general directors who used the avatar in a call for earnings,” he said – or fairly his avatar. “This is just one example of how Zoom shifts the limits of communication and cooperation. At the same time, we know that trust and security are necessary. We take seriously the content generated AI and build strong security to prevent improper use, protect the user’s identity and ensure that avatars are used responsibly.”
Yuan has long been in favor of using avatars at meetings and previously said that the corporate goals to create Digital user twins. He just isn’t alone on this vision; The CEO of transcript -powered AI, apparently, trains its own avatar Share the load.
Meanwhile, Zoom said he was doing it Avatar non -standard function available To all users this week.
(Tagstranslat) meetings AI
Technology
The next large Openai plant will not be worn: Report

Opeli pushed generative artificial intelligence into public consciousness. Now it might probably develop a very different variety of AI device.
According to WSJ reportThe general director of Opeli, Altman himself, told employees on Wednesday that one other large product of the corporate would not be worn. Instead, it will be compact, without the screen of the device, fully aware of the user’s environment. Small enough to sit down on the desk or slot in your pocket, Altman described it each as a “third device” next to MacBook Pro and iPhone, in addition to “Comrade AI” integrated with on a regular basis life.
The preview took place after the OpenAI announced that he was purchased by IO, a startup founded last 12 months by the previous Apple Joni Ive designer, in a capital agreement value $ 6.5 billion. I will take a key creative and design role at Openai.
Altman reportedly told employees that the acquisition can ultimately add 1 trillion USD to the corporate conveyorsWearing devices or glasses that got other outfits.
Altman reportedly also emphasized to the staff that the key would be crucial to stop the copying of competitors before starting. As it seems, the recording of his comments leaked to the journal, asking questions on how much he can trust his team and the way rather more he will be able to reveal.
(Tagstotransate) devices
Technology
The latest model AI Google Gemma can work on phones

It grows “open” AI Google, Gemma, grows.
While Google I/O 2025 On Tuesday, Google removed Gemma 3N compresses, a model designed for “liquid” on phones, laptops and tablets. According to Google, available in a preview starting on Tuesday, Gemma 3N can support sound, text, paintings and flicks.
Models efficient enough to operate in offline mode and without the necessity to calculate within the cloud have gained popularity within the AI community lately. They will not be only cheaper to make use of than large models, but they keep privacy, eliminating the necessity to send data to a distant data center.
During the speech to I/O product manager, Gemma Gus Martins said that GEMMA 3N can work on devices with lower than 2 GB of RAM. “Gemma 3N shares the same architecture as Gemini Nano, and is also designed for incredible performance,” he added.
In addition to Gemma 3N, Google releases Medgemma through the AI developer foundation program. According to Medgemma, it’s essentially the most talented model to research text and health -related images.
“Medgemma (IS) OUR (…) A collection of open models to understand the text and multimodal image (health),” said Martins. “Medgemma works great in various imaging and text applications, thanks to which developers (…) could adapt the models to their own health applications.”
Also on the horizon there may be SignGEMMA, an open model for signaling sign language right into a spoken language. Google claims that Signgemma will allow programmers to create recent applications and integration for users of deaf and hard.
“SIGNGEMMA is a new family of models trained to translate sign language into a spoken text, but preferably in the American sign and English,” said Martins. “This is the most talented model of understanding sign language in history and we are looking forward to you-programmers, deaf and hard communities-to take this base and build with it.”
It is value noting that Gemma has been criticized for non -standard, non -standard license conditions, which in accordance with some developers adopted models with a dangerous proposal. However, this didn’t discourage programmers from downloading Gemma models tens of tens of millions of times.
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(Tagstransate) gemma
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