Amazon is taking its biggest shot at Nvidia yet; plus, Town nabbed unicorn valuation, and Tolan snags $30M for its AI companion

0:01This is TechCrunch.

0:30right. Prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. So I was new to this whole website building thing, but Framer helped me get set up and running incredibly fast. For instance, I wanted to add a blog to my website. It was super easy. Starting with a basic blog page template, I added some breakpoints and then jumped into customizing my layout, adding my own special touches with Framer's intuitive tools, and bam, I was ready to start letting my thoughts flow. See why thousands are trusting Framer to help build their websites. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at Framer.com slash tcstartups for 30 % off a Framer Pro Annual Plan.

1:13That's Framer.com slash tcstartups. Rules and restrictions may apply. On Monday, Amazon Web Services released a tool called Torch Neuron that lets AI startups easily move their AI apps onto Amazon's AI chip, Tranium. In doing so, Amazon is also taking a direct stab at the software advantage that has helped NVIDIA become the default hardware choice for AI apps and spurred its rise as AI hardware provider of choice. Torch Neuron works with PyTorch, a free open-source toolkit that developers use to build, train, and run AI models. It lets AI apps written with PyTorch run on Tranium by changing just one line of configuration.

2:01That's according to Amazon. No code rewrite required. Amazon says about 85 % of AI apps are written with PyTorch. Facebook originally developed it, but since 2022, it has been part of the Linux Foundation, which maintains open-source projects. NVIDIA has spent years ensuring that its CUDA software seamlessly supports AI apps written by PyTorch. As a result, NVIDIA's hardware is now deeply embedded in the toolkit, essentially by default. Torch Neuron is adapted from PyTorch, so developers who know PyTorch already know how to use it. Amazon is not the first company to attempt to easily bring their chips to the platform.

2:46PyTorch users can also port their apps to AMD GPUs or even Apple's chips with a simple configuration change. However, Amazon argues that porting to Tranium is not just easy. It also gives AI startups access to Amazon's entire cloud. Unsurprisingly, Finally, AWS claims that this is a better choice for startups than using NeoClouds, many of which are tied to NVIDIA and its hardware. Colin Brace, the VP of Technology Software at AWS Annapurna Labs, said, You're building on AWS. You're not betting on a single-purpose compute provider and scrambling to build everything else around it. The infrastructure to go from prototype to production is already there, allowing a founder to move fast and scale when they need to.

3:35AWS says that because the same chip both handles training, teaching the AI model, and inference, putting the finished model to work, as when it answers a user's question, and is tightly integrated with the cloud infrastructure that startups need, its cloud will save them money, even if AWS does not offer the cheapest per-token price. Trainium's value is price performance plus the fact that it's one platform for both training and inference, which, Brace says, improves the economics across a full workload. But Amazon is not just content to give PyTorch app developers an easy option to move to its cloud.

4:15Amazon also says it is pushing PyTorch to be less automatically centered on NVIDIA, and it will contribute the code to do that to the main PyTorch project. In the blog post announcing the new tool, the company wrote, Amazon's approach extends beyond its own hardware. The company is contributing changes upstream to PyTorch itself, working with the PyTorch community to remove code that ties the framework to specific chips. The goal is to make PyTorch more hardware-agnostic for the entire developer community, not just Tranium users. While such a tactic is undoubtedly good for those who are selling hardware and cloud services, that compete with NVIDIA.

4:57One of the points of PyTorch is to hide all the pesky difficulties of getting AI code to run on hardware. We'll have to wait and see if pushing NVIDIA out that far gives developers more choice and more affordable options, as Amazon promises, or just more configuration headaches. Either way, if Amazon succeeds in deeply uncoupling PyTorch from NVIDIA, this could have much bigger ramifications for the GPU giant than simply dealing with chip competitors. As Brace said, the real story is removing the lock-in that kept developers from having a real choice at all.

5:37Town is a two-year-old San Francisco-based startup developing AI assistance, and it just nabbed a unicorn valuation on Monday, announcing a$108 million Series B funding round co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Menlo Ventures. The company launched publicly just four months ago and said it reached millions of dollars in annual recurring revenue in a matter of weeks. It has raised at least$160 million to date, having previously announced a$55 million Series A round in June. Town, founded by former Plaid CTO Jean-Denis Grès, is one of many AI assistants flooding the market right now. Town targets businesses, giving each employee an AI assistant called a townie that helps with tasks by connecting to tools such as emails and calendars, as well as other core work systems.

6:32Employees' townies can talk to each other and share approved information. they can also now work with customers and others outside the company. Alongside the funding, Town announced a shared workflow that automatically updates employees' townies with new business information rather than requiring each worker to update their own townie. Andreessen Horowitz, Serena Ventures, and First Round Capital also participated in the round.

7:02tolan the ai companion designed to help people manage their daily lives navigate relationships and emotions and accomplish their goals has just expanded its runway with another 30 million dollars in capital the startup's investors in the latest round include union square ventures coastla ventures and homebrew doubling the total amount it has raised to date and pushing its valuation beyond the previous$120 million. That's according to a new report by Upstarts Media. The startup did not disclose its new valuation, but PitchBook estimates it at more than$268 million with medium confidence. Users engage with Toland's app through a cartoonish character that's meant to offer support and help them get through their to-dos.

7:51Toland generates revenue from its tiered memberships, which are required for full access to all features. The company told Upstarts Media its annual recurring revenue is now in the double-digit millions. The startup is one of the few AI companions that have found some traction, as it claims to have more than 250 ,000 active users who have had more than 70 million conversations over the past year. Toland's team told the news outlet that around 70 % of its users are women and 40 % are parents. Anecdotally, the app is said to appeal in particular to neurodivergent people who may benefit from additional support, whether that's emotional support or help with organizing tasks.

8:34Compared with other companies, Toland seems to have found a balance between being helpful without being perceived as too weird. Compared with other companions, Toland seems to have found a balance between being helpful without being perceived as too weird. Meanwhile, another former top contender in the space, Character.ai, recently filed for bankruptcy after its founders returned to Google. Its remaining staff is transitioning to Disney, which bought some of its assets. Tolan could end up facing increased competition, though, from the more recent crop of AI agents, which help users plan, organize, and accomplish their tasks and goals, not just talk their way through them.

9:17For instance, Meta gave its AI agent Muse a cute avatar for its users to talk to, which it also plans to release as a hardware product in the future. The startup also has to navigate the risks of offering AI-powered emotional support, given that multiple lawsuits have been filed against general-purpose AI app makers, alleging that chatbot interactions contributed to users' suicides. That's all for now. For the latest in startup tech news, go to TechCrunch.com.

9:54Is your home wish list just sitting in your cart? Well, get ready to hit checkout because Wayday at Wayfair is here. Save up to 80 % off everything home during the biggest sale of the year. Whether you're refreshing the living room, upgrading the bedroom, or finally tackling that home project you've been putting off, now's the time to save big. Shop Wayfair's Wayday sale and get up to 80 % off now till October 26th. These deals won't last. Go to Wayfair.com today.