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Carv raises $10M Series A to help gamers monetize their data | TechCrunch

April 25, 2024 7:50 PM0


Carv, a data layer platform that lets web3 gaming and AI companies, as well as gamers, control and monetize their data, has raised a $10 million Series A round led by Tribe Capital and IOSG Ventures. 

Carv’s new round comes approximately five months after it received a strategic investment led by HashKey Capital. The startup did not disclose its valuation and the total funding it has raised so far. In 2022, Carv was valued at roughly $40 million when it raised a seed round led by Temasek’s VC arm, Vertex Ventures. 

Carv’s initial focus is on two key industries, gaming and AI, where it sees the biggest opportunity to help users control their data and monetize it. Users can choose to provide their data to Carv’s corporate customers in a way that preserves their privacy and is compliant with regulations, so that companies can use it for training AI models, market research and more.

“While user data has powered tremendous economic growth, individuals don’t share the value created when their information is leveraged to build billion-dollar businesses,” Victor Yu, co-founder and COO of Carv, told TechCrunch. 

Carv offers three solutions: CARV Protocol, a modular data layer with cross-chain connectivity that connects web2 identities to web3 tokens; CARV Play, a cross-platform credentialing system and game distribution platform; and CARV’s AI Agent, CARA, a personalized gaming assistant that integrates with web3 wallets and can recommend games, activities and projects. 

“Carv differentiates itself by putting data ownership and monetization rights in the hands of users. Any revenue generated from leveraging users’ data gets shared back with the data creators and themselves,” Yu said. “Additionally, we’ve created a unified user ID standard (ERC-7231) that bridges web2 and web3, enabling seamless data portability versus today’s siloed solutions.” 

Carv has been profitable since December 2023, and generates monthly recurring revenue of more than $1 million, Yu said, adding that the company is also seeing significant month-over-month growth. 

The company now has 2.5 million registered users and over 350 integrated gaming and AI company partners. 

With the new capital, Carv plans to enhance the design of its CARV Protol to ensure it is scalable and can support a broader range of use cases. It will also launch CARV Link to improve on-chain identity and data authentication, and CARV Database to manage various types of user data. 

Arweave, Consensys (developer of MetaMask and Linea), Draper Dragon, Fenbushi Capital, LiquidX, MARBLEX, (the web3 arm of Korean gaming company Netmarble), No Limit Holdings, and OKX Ventures also participated in the Series A round. 

Carv valued at $40M as investors race to back web3 identity builders


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Google looks to monetize AI with two new $10 Workspace add-ons | TechCrunch

April 18, 2024 12:43 AM0


The jury is still out on how much AI increases individual productivity, but companies are now trying to monetize it as they build more advanced AI features into their software. Last year, Microsoft made waves when it announced Copilot would add $30 per user per month to the price of an Office 365 subscription. But these features are costly to create and run, and customers will have to absorb some of that cost.

At Google Cloud Next, Google followed Microsoft’s monetization lead, announcing a pair of $10/month/user add-on packages for the Google Workspace productivity suite.

Image Credits: Frederic Lardinois/TechCrunch

For starters, the new AI meetings and messaging add-on takes notes for you, provides meeting summaries and translates content into 69 languages. “We’re adding 52 new languages — including Filipino, Korean, you name it — to translate for Meet. Now this brings the total number of languages we support to 69,” Aparna Pappu, VP & GM at Google Workspace said.

The company also introduced an AI security package, which helps admins keep Google Workspace content more secure, including the ability to classify and protect files with certain sensitive characteristics. The add-on can also help protect information that is supposed to be kept private and apply data loss prevention controls that can be tuned to the specific requirements of individual organizations.

Image Credits: Frederic Lardinois/TechCrunch

While $10 per user might feel a bit steep, especially given the price of Workspace without these additional features, they do appear to be in line with the cost of similar features from third-party services. For customers who may not want these add-ons for every user, Google says that they can mix and match license types and apply the advanced features where they would be most useful.

It’s also worth noting that Google is planning additional enhancements for the meeting add-on, including generative AI custom backgrounds, which lets users describe a background and the AI creates it for you, as well as studio quality lighting, video quality and sound, which uses AI to provide professional quality meetings, among other new features in the works. These features will be coming in the next couple of months, according to the company.

The two add-ons are now available to Workspace subscribers.

How and when to charge for adding AI to your enterprise software


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

YouTube says over 25% of its creator partners now monetize via Shorts | TechCrunch

April 12, 2024 5:09 PM0


With TikTok potentially poised for a U.S. ban, YouTube is touting how well its own TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, is paying off for creators. The company on Thursday said its short-form video platform now averages over 70 billion daily views and over 25% of channels in YouTube’s Partner Program monetize their videos through revenue-sharing on Shorts.

The news swiftly follows TikTok’s announcement earlier this month where the ByteDance-owned short video app said that its revamped creator fund had increased total revenue by over 250% in the last six months. TikTok’s year-old fund, which replaced TikTok’s $1 billion Creator Fund, is now exiting beta.

YouTube introduced monetization options for Shorts creators in September 2022, with its plans for expanding the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). Before, YouTubers producing long-form video content had to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours to qualify for revenue-sharing. But starting in early 2023, Shorts creators could meet a new threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views over 90 days. These creators would earn 45% of the ad revenue from their short videos.

That program is now one year old, the company says. What’s more, YouTube notes that creators participating in the partner program for Shorts often monetize in other ways, as well. Over 80% of YPP creators generating money through Shorts also earn from long-form advertising, fan funding, YouTube Premium, BrandConnects, Shopping and other means. That indicates that creating for Shorts is not necessarily a standalone endeavor for many, but rather serves as one aspect of creators’ larger businesses.

In total, YouTube says its 16-year-old YPP now includes more than 3 million creators around the world and has paid out $70 billion to creators, artists and media companies in just the last three years. That’s larger than “any other creator monetization platform,” YouTube notes, in a swipe clearly aimed at TikTok.


Software Development in Sri Lanka

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