TechTaffy

tech:

taffy

WeddingWire Raises $25M

By TechTaffy Desk

[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

WeddingWire  has received a $25 million investment from Spectrum Equity. As part of the investment, Ben Spero, managing director at Spectrum Equity, and Pete Jensen, principal at Spectrum Equity, will join the WeddingWire board.

WeddingWire was founded five years ago as a resource for brides. The WeddingWire site offers a directory of wedding and event professionals, and includes user reviews. The company’s also has a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, that currently powers  some 125,000 local businesses across the U.S. and Canada. WeddingWire has also expanded to include other event-related sites such as BirthdayWire.com and MitzvahWire.com.

Existing institutional investors in WeddingWire include Catalyst Investors and Southern Capitol Ventures.

Just in

AI

Generative AI arrives in the gene editing world of CRISPR — NYT

New AI technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they can today, writes Cade Metz.
AI

Estée Lauder, Microsoft to build AI Innovation Lab

The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) and Microsoft Corp. announced the creation of an AI Innovation Lab to expand their global strategic relationship.
Around the web

Mark Zuckerberg says Meta will offer its virtual reality OS to hardware companies, creating iPhone versus Android dynamic — CNBC

Meta will partner with external hardware companies, including Lenovo, Microsoft and Asus, to build virtual reality headsets using the company’s Meta Horizon operating system, writes Kif Leswing. 
IT

Nvidia to acquire Run:ai

Nvidia announced an agreement to acquire Run:ai, a provider of Kubernetes-based workload management and orchestration software.
Around the web

Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone — The Verge

Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users, writes Tom Warren.