After graduating from Cornell University, Christophe Gerlach spent nearly two years investing exclusively in HR tech startups for General Atlantic. Investing was exciting, but Gerlach was yearning to get back into entrepreneurship.

While at Cornell, Gerlach (pictured above, right) built and sold a food delivery startup alongside classmate Pedro Bobrow (pictured above, left), a Brazilian native. Then in late 2022, Gerlach and Bobrow (previously a product manager at Lyft) teamed up again, merging their sector expertise and cultural roots to launch Comp, an HR tech startup focused on Brazil.

Comp is building AI-powered HR software that can assist with tasks like recruiting, setting compensation policies, and designing performance review systems. The startup also provides “forward-deployed” experts — former HR executives — who work with customers to design strategies for compensation, performance, and recruiting.

While companies in Brazil often hire compensation consultants, Gerlach says its forward-deployed HR executives shouldn’t be viewed as consultants, but rather as extensions of existing HR teams.

These executives also play a critical role in refining Comp’s technology. “Our forward-deployed HR execs do all the work manually at first, and then they use that work to train the AI how to think in best practices,” Gerlach said.

The idea, of course, is that over time, Comp’s AI agents will become fully autonomous and capable of performing traditional HR functions.

While Comp currently offers AI-supported HR services augmented by professionals, its goal is to displace both traditional consultancies and HR software. As Gerlach puts it: “Rippling sells software to junior HR teams to make them more productive. We become the HR team.”

To that end, Comp this week raised a $17.25 million Series A round led by Khosla Ventures, marking the VC firm’s first-ever investment in a Brazilian company. Khosla general partner Keith Rabois has joined Comp’s board of directors as part of the deal.

Comp is positioning itself as an AI alternative to traditional compensation consultancies like Mercer, Korn Ferry, and Willis Towers Watson. It also competes with global HR platforms such as Rippling and Workday.

Gerlach says Comp launched in Brazil because many companies in the country lack traditional HR software, which has allowed the startup to introduce a new, automated model rather than competing with established platforms.

The business model seems to have already gained traction in Brazil: Its clients include Nubank, QuintoAndar, Creditas, and “pretty much every unicorn in Brazil,” Gerlach said. The startup is now eyeing an expansion into the U.S. and other countries.

Other investors in Comp’s Series A included existing backers Kaszek and Canary, as well as new investors Abstract Ventures and Endeavor Catalyst.

The video editor in Adobe Firefly is getting a new feature called Quick Cut that uses AI to edit footage and B-roll to create a first draft of the final video based on user instructions.

Typically, you have to upload your footage and B-roll into a video editor, and manually arrange transitions. With Quick Cut, users can describe what they want the video to be in natural language, and the tool will automatically edit out irrelevant parts of the footage, and put together the different takes while using appropriate footage to make transitions between cuts.

Users can also pick frames from the B-roll and use one of the video models available within Firefly to create short transitions.

You can use the prompt box within the Firefly video editor to specify settings like aspect ratio and pacing between transitions, or add optional B-roll footage. Users can apply Quick Cut to the entire project, a particular timeline, or selected clips.

Adobe stressed that the aim of Quick Cut is to deliver a first draft, so editors will still need to adjust elements, paste takes together, and work on transitions to put together the video.

“As we talk to our users, who are creators and marketers, the biggest problem they actually communicate is the need for fast turnaround, the need for time-saving techniques that just let them get to their creative vision as fast as possible,” Mike Folgner, product lead for AI and next-generation video tools, told TechCrunch.

“One thing we do know is that some of the mundane parts that come with video [editing], like just getting the selects in order, that’s not really where they find joy and difference. They find joy in putting their spin on it. So Quick Cut is meant to help creators who have a set of media find the story very quickly and just get to a story cut as fast as possible,” he added.

Adobe has been pushing regular updates to its video-related tools. In December, it rolled out a new timeline-based video editor that brought layers and prompt-based editing — the editor treats different objects as layers and allows you to edit them using prompts, or use tools like resize and rotate.

The company has also added prompt-based editing capabilities to Firefly, letting users tell the video model how to edit video elements, colors, and camera angles, as well as a timeline view that lets you adjust frames, sounds, and other characteristics easily.

Electric trucking startup Harbinger has acquired autonomous driving software company Phantom AI, in an effort to vertically integrate more technology and create new revenue streams for the young company.

The acquisition, which is Harbinger’s first, is part of the startup’s plan to steadily expand its portfolio beyond the electric truck chassis it’s been building and selling for the last year. Just last month, Harbinger announced it would start selling its battery packs for energy storage and auxiliary power, with Airstream as the first customer.

Harbinger announced Wednesday it has already lined up a customer for Phantom’s advanced driver assistance tech that it just acquired. German automotive technology giant ZF Group has agreed to license that tech from Harbinger, and plans to sell it to automakers for use in their passenger cars. (Terms of the two deals were not disclosed.)

Harbinger co-founder and CEO John Harris told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview that he expects this new software services business line to generate “millions” of dollars in revenue this year, which he said is mostly “not material” compared to the amount the company will make from selling its truck chassis. The startup recently raised $160 million in a funding round co-led by FedEx and THOR Industries, both of which are customers.

Harris instead expects the ZF Group deal will bring in more significant revenue in 2027 or 2028.

“The passenger car market is slower, but the volumes are very, very large,” he said.

Harbinger was already using Phantom AI’s driver assistance tech, Harris said, and the acquisition will see the companies deepen that integration. Harris expects that to be a big win for Harbinger’s own customers.

“Medium-duty [trucking] has a complete lack of safety features,” he said. “The majority of medium-duty vehicles on the road that have no backup cameras, no air conditioning, no lane keeping, no automatic emergency braking. It’s just not a thing that exists in the market yet, which is crazy.”

Harbinger already promises a lower total cost of ownership for commercial customers, better emissions compliance, and an easier truck to drive thanks to the simpler, quieter electric powertrain. But Harris thinks the safety features enabled by Phantom’s tech will make Harbinger’s chassis that much better — especially because of how and where they tend to be used.

“These vehicles, many of them are spending their time navigating around truck ports and pulling in and out of neighborhoods to deliver packages. They’re all in places where there’s a very high safety risk of backing into vehicles, hitting pedestrians, hitting bicyclists, hitting children,” he said. “We need to have, maybe not the cutting-edge 2026 safety features, but we should at least have the safety features that were commodity in 2020 or 2015.”

While Harbinger’s headquarters are in Los Angeles, California, Phantom AI’s 30 employees — including its leadership team — will remain in Mountain View.