Kerry Washington is investing his money and his star power to support a Black-owned social media platform founded by a former Twitter worker.

She was an Emmy Award-winning actress announced As Spill’s newest investor, emerging Twitter alternative Alphonzo Terrell founded the corporate after being fired from the corporate two years ago, in keeping with a report. As an lively user of Spill, where she organized “Tea Parties” – a term used on the live video chat platform – to have interaction with users on topics akin to voter registration, Washington felt it was a natural fit to speculate in the startup tech company step.

“In a digital world where marginalized groups, especially Black, brown and LGBTQIA people, rarely feel prioritized, Spill stands out,” Washington said in a statement. “I am proud to be part of this community both as a user and an investor.”

Washington takes a careful approach to the businesses it selects for early-stage investment. The star was previously an angel investor in ventures akin to direct-to-consumer teeth-setting startup Byte, celebrity fundraising platform Omaze, now-shuttered women’s coworking space The Wing, and SMS-based marketing platform Community.

Terrell doesn’t just throw money on the brand and walk away, but he talks about how involved Washington is as an investor.

“She is extremely approachable and knowledgeable, especially on these topics, and is not afraid in any way, shape or form of direct contact with people,” Terrell said. “I think it really represents the kind of environment we want to cultivate on Spill… We’re all human here too. Let’s connect.”

Washington’s investment coincides with Spill’s second anniversary and its growing success, highlighted by the favored film Spades. Users now spend over half-hour on the app to finish a game, signaling continued improvement in user retention.

“It’s partnership-based, so it’s very social by nature,” Terrell said. “It was a community suggestion because it’s always played at Black barbecues and things like that and at family gatherings.”

Additional successes include a 400% increase in average ad spend per Spill campaign. Next 12 months, the platform’s annual sales will exceed $1 million.

“Multicultural advertising spending increased by 5-10% [per year] over the last seven years. This year it will be a $45 billion a year business in the United States alone,” Terrell said. “We had a few entertainment partners that ran a few test campaigns and since then… a lot of brands have come back in a lot of campaigns.”

Elsewhere, Spill goals to stay a voice for marginalized communities. Washington’s investment was announced shortly after users mourned the death of Marcellus Williams, a black man who spent greater than 20 years on death row for a murder he claimed he didn’t commit, with no DNA or forensic evidence against him. Despite dissent from three U.S. Supreme Court justices, their concerns were ultimately overruled, and the execution – described by the NAACP as a lynching – took place on September 24.

“Yesterday’s execution… really highlighted the need for that same community of people around you to support you so you’re not isolated,” Terrell said. – You don’t carry these items alone. I feel everyone needs this, wherever they will find it.”

Last 12 months, Sound venturesThe nine-year-old Beverly Hills, California-based enterprise capital firm, led by general partners Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary and Effie Epstein, announced a brand new $265 million artificial intelligence fund that might bet on large language model corporations. including OpenAI, Anthropic and Hugging Face.

In fact, the plan was to take a position in just six corporations – a dangerous but potentially lucrative assumption for the team’s vision for a future wherein – as a result of the technical talent required and the capital needed to cover computational costs – the most important winners in AI could be few and far between. mass.

Since then, Sound has raised more cash for a similar fund. It also appears to have stuck to its mission, judging by the few deals it has publicly disclosed in 2024, and we’re excited to be hosting all three of them at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 to discuss their strategy — together with the trends they’re tracking well Now.

Kutcher has arguably managed to transition between the worlds of acting and investing more easily than anyone else in Hollywood, launching his profession in 2010 with the discharge of the film Class A investments with talent manager and business partner Guy Oseary, whose early bets on Airbnb and Uber helped cement their reputations for striking the appropriate deal at the appropriate time.

The two, who founded Sound Ventures in 2014, brought Epstein on board a number of years later to round out their skills. Epstein previously led global strategy at Marsh & McLennan’s subsidiary, Marsh. She also served as vp of planning and head of investor relations at iHeartMedia and previously led business development at Clear.

Epstein also previously worked in investment banking within the energy sector, bringing quite a lot of experience and contacts to his firm.

You definitely don’t need to miss this bonfire on the Disrupt Stage, where you may be amongst 10,000 tech leaders, startups and VCs attending Disrupt 2024. Register today to secure your ticket price before it goes up.

This week once more brought us news regarding AI funding, in addition to some warnings: some categories and stages are showing signs of overheating. Luckily, we also spotted some cool startups – literally.

The most interesting startup stories of the week

It could also be hard to imagine, but OpenAI continues to be a startup, hence its repeated first place. There were other interesting stories this week, nevertheless.

A billion AI: OpenAI raised $6.6 billion at a post-money valuation of $157 billion, and likewise secured a $4 billion revolving credit facility and launched a brand new interface. Business apparently has asked investors to not back rivals corresponding to Anthropic and xAI, but OpenAI has not confirmed this. Meanwhile, Anthropic has hired OpenAI co-founder Durk Kingma for a distant position.

Attack of the Clones: Y Combinator faced criticism for supporting AI code editor PearAI, whose CEO apologized for cloning another YC-backed open source project without proper attribution and with a “garbled” license.

Shopping broadcast live: Live shopping app Whatnot says its annual gross merchandise volume (GMV) has surpassed $2 billion this 12 months, meaning there’s still hope for live commerce within the US

The most interesting collections this week

Some firms prefer to boost funds secretly; others even work underwater.

Deep end: Artificial intelligence coding startup Poolside raised a $500 million Series B funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from eBay and Nvidia. This enabled Poolside to bring 10,000 Nvidia GPUs online to coach future models, CEO Jason Warner said.

Cool water: Barcelona-based immersion cooling startup Submer raised $55.5 million to draw more customers to its solution already utilized by hyperscalers, telecommunications firms and other large corporations.

11x meets a16zTechCrunch has learned that 11x.ai, a startup that creates AI-powered sales bots, has secured a Series B funding round of roughly $50 million led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Hidden financing: Cloud backup startup Eon has come out of hiding to disclose that it has already achieved a post-money valuation of $750 million after raising three rounds of funding, including a $77 million Series B.

More hidden financing: Series, an AI-powered generative game development platform, has quietly raised a $28 million Series A funding round from Netflix, Dell, a16z and others.

The most interesting VC and funding news this week

Pruning season: Veteran enterprise capital firm CRV returned $275 million of its $500 million late-stage Select fund to investors, citing overvaluation of mature startups. It follows the same move by India’s Peak XV, which reduced its fund size and costs amid signs of overheating.

Launching: Former Y Combinator CEO and Twitter executive Ali Rowghani is launching Maxq, a brand new enterprise capital firm with a debut fund of $250 million.

NOT bullish: Index Ventures is looking for another New York investor and plans so as to add three or 4 latest people to its local team over the following 12 months, partner Shardul Shah told TechCrunch.

No less necessary

Speaking with TechCrunch Global Managing Editor Matt Rosoff ahead of this 12 months’s Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt, New York tech investor and serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan shared his thoughts on when and if founders should sell their company. His belief: there ought to be more of them.