Technology

SoftBank in talks to invest as much as $25B in OpenAI, report says

SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI as part of a broader partnership that could see the Japanese conglomerate spend more than $40 billion on AI initiatives with the Microsoft-backed startup, according to the Financial Times.

The potential investment would make SoftBank OpenAI’s largest single backer, the report said, surpassing Microsoft, which first invested in the ChatGPT maker in 2019. The deal comes after both companies announced last week they would jointly invest $100 billion in Stargate, a U.S. data center project for OpenAI that could expand to $500 billion over four years.

SoftBank plans to invest $15 billion to $25 billion directly into OpenAI in addition to its $15 billion Stargate commitment, the report said. OpenAI will invest around $15 billion in Stargate, with SoftBank’s equity investment potentially covering OpenAI’s infrastructure commitment.

The talks come at a time when Chinese firm DeepSeek’s release of its R1 “reasoning” model, which was built on a relatively modest budget, rattled public markets this week.

The chip giant Nvidia lost as much as $589 billion in a day before making a slight recovery, as investors worried that big investments in expensive AI hardware might not be necessary if companies could achieve similar results with fewer resources.

OpenAI claimed earlier this week that it had found evidence that DeepSeek used OpenAI’s proprietary models to train R1 and other models through a technique called “distillation,” which allows developers to achieve similar performance with smaller models at a much lower cost. The company says this would violate its terms of service, which prohibit using outputs to develop competing models.

OpenAI’s deal with SoftBank, which Financial Times says hasn’t finalized, represents SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son’s biggest bet since injecting $16 billion into WeWork. It would also reduce OpenAI’s dependence on Microsoft for computing resources, with Microsoft recently agreeing to give up its position as OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider.

Around 20% of Stargate’s funding is expected to be equity, with the remainder financed through debt secured against assets and cash flow, the report said. OpenAI, which reached a $157 billion valuation last year, is also negotiating to become a for-profit company to facilitate additional fundraising.

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Technology

Trump says he’s found a buyer for TikTok

A group of “very wealthy people” is set to buy short-form video app TikTok, according to President Donald Trump.

“We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way,” Trump said in a Fox News interview on Sunday morning. “I think I’ll need probably China’s approval. I think President Xi [Jinping] will probably do it.”

Trump declined to share more details about the buyers, saying only that he would reveal their identities in two weeks (apparently his favorite unit of time).

Trump has repeatedly delayed a bill forcing owner ByteDance to sell the app or see it banned in the United States. In January, he said his “initial thought” was to create “a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership.”

He’s also said he was open to allies Larry Ellison or Elon Musk buying the app, although Musk seems like a less likely candidate now.

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Technology

Meta reportedly hires four more researchers from OpenAI

Looks like Meta isn’t done poaching talent from OpenAI.

Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported that Meta had hired influential OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal, and according to The Wall Street Journal, it also hired three other researchers from the company.

Now The Information is reporting four more Meta hires from OpenAI: Researchers Shengjia Zhao, Jiahui Yu, Shuchao Bi, and Hongyu Ren.

This hiring spree comes after the April launch of Meta’s Llama 4 AI models, which reportedly did not perform as well as CEO Mark Zuckerberg had hoped. (The company was also criticized over the version of Llama that it used for a popular benchmark.)

There’s been some back-and-forth between the two companies, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman suggesting that Meta was offering “$100 million signing bonuses” while adding that “so far, none of our best people” have left. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth then told employees that while senior leaders may have been offered that kind of money, “the actual terms of the offer” were more complex than a simple one-time signing bonus.

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Technology

YouTube’s mobile video editor is coming to iOS

Google is preparing to bring YouTube Create to iOS devices nearly two years after the video editing app launched exclusively on Android. Job listings reviewed by TechCrunch reveal the company is actively hiring engineers in India for the iOS development project.

The job postings show Google is recruiting software engineers in Bengaluru specifically to build the iOS version. The original Android app debuted in the U.S. and seven other markets in September 2023, then expanded to 13 more markets by February 2024.

YouTube Create provides free mobile video editing tools designed for content creators, offering features like stickers, GIFs, and effects for both YouTube Shorts and longer-form videos. Google developed the app after consulting with 3,000 creators to ensure it met their needs.

The app is Google’s attempt to compete with ByteDance’s popular CapCut editor. But exclusive Sensor Tower data shared with TechCrunch shows YouTube Create is quite far behind CapCut and another established competitor, InShot.

The competition isn’t even close. In the second quarter of this year, CapCut and InShot have been downloaded 66 million and 21 million times, respectively, on Android devices. In contrast, YouTube Create has seen fewer than 500,000 downloads this quarter and just 4 million downloads since its launch.

The user engagement gap is even more pronounced. CapCut boasts more than 442 million monthly active users on the Android app in Q2, while InShot claims 92 million. YouTube Create lags far behind with fewer than 1 million monthly active users.

youtube create maus — **Image Credits:**Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch

On iOS — the platform YouTube Create is now targeting — the competition is just as fierce. CapCut leads with 194 million monthly active users in Q2, followed by InShot with 25 million. Meanwhile, CapCut and Instagram’s Edit have dominated iOS downloads this quarter, with 28 million and 7 million downloads, respectively.

Despite lagging in the numbers, YouTube Create shows some momentum, with a 28% year-over-year increase in monthly active users in Q2, outpacing a 9% rise for CapCut and a 7% decline for InShot, per the Sensor Tower data.

“While boasting solid user growth on a year-over-year basis, YouTube Create has struggled to keep up with some of its larger, more established peers such as CapCut, with the latter having more than 10x the number of monthly active users,” said Abe Yousef, a senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower.

YouTube Create may be building a more loyal user base, Yousef suggested. Rising active user numbers alongside declining downloads could indicate that people who previously tried the app are returning to use it regularly.

“CapCut coming out many years ago, coupled with the fact that it’s seamlessly integrated with its sister app, TikTok, likely plays into this material size difference with YouTube Create,” said Yousef.

Still, YouTube Create is facing some retention issues. Its 90-day retention rate — the percentage of users who downloaded the app and still use it 90 days later — was roughly 1% in Q1, far below CapCut’s 7% and InShot’s 4%.

Engagement metrics highlight the gap, too. Users spend an average of 38 minutes per month on YouTube Create, compared to 62 minutes for CapCut users. CapCut users also open the app more often, averaging 23 sessions monthly versus 11 for YouTube Create.

Geographically, YouTube Create’s user base is diversifying. India represented 67% of total monthly active users on YouTube Create in the second quarter of last year, but that share has dropped to 51% this quarter as the app gains traction elsewhere. Still, YouTube Create appears to be gaining stickiness in India, with daily-to-monthly active user ratios improving from 9% last year to, so far, 12% this year.

In addition to India, Indonesia has emerged as YouTube Create’s second-largest market, representing 21% of its global monthly active users. Germany (5%), Brazil (4%), and the U.K. (3%) round out the top markets.

The app is showing particularly strong growth in several other markets, too, with year-over-year monthly active user increases of 119% in Spain, 91% in South Korea, 89% in France, and 71% in Singapore.

“An iOS release of YouTube Create could absolutely help the platform grow its market share, though fierce competition in the space both from other social media-backed video editing platforms and native video editors will persist,” Yousef said.

Google did not respond to requests for comment.