Only Products and Other Stuff

Contrary to the picture prosecutors tried to paint, Bankman-Fried insisted that he was not involved in the day-to-day trading operations of Alameda or its “core operations.” © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

African mobile video network StarNews Mobile has secured $3 million in pre-Series A funding. StarNews offers African content creators a platform for monetizing their work through a subscription model. Currently, the service is available in six African countries, including Cameroon (where it started), Nigeria, Ghana, Congo, Benin and Ivory Coast. Founder and CEO Guy Kamgaing […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free.  Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

More South Korean investors are putting money into Southeast Korea startups, creating an “investment corridor” between the two regions. The latest one is KIPSEA. Short for Korean Investment Partners Southeast Asia, KIPSEA has a Singapore-based team and just announced its first fund close of $60 million. Limited partners come from South Korea, Hong Kong and […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Volkswagen’s software unit Cariad will delay the launch of its new software architecture yet again as it deals with a large round of layoffs. Just three years after VW created Cariad, and only six months after an executive shakeup, the unit has planned to cut 2,000 jobs, German publication Manager Magazin reported over the weekend. […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

X posts that are corrected by Community Notes, the platform’s crowd-sourced fact-checking system, will become “ineligible for revenue share,” Elon Musk said Sunday. “The idea is to maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism,” he wrote. The billionaire executive also noted that any attempts to “weaponize Community Notes to demonetize people will be immediately obvious, […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. If you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up! Last week, we chronicled one CEO’s big PR flub, one firm’s new infusion of capital for early-stage fintech startups and […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Hello, ghouls and goblins, and welcome to this Halloween Weekend edition of Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s weekly tech recap in newsletter form. For our U.S.-based readers (and this reporter), ’tis the time for mid-autumn merrymaking — time-tested traditions like jack-o’-lantern carving, costuming and apple picking. May we all make the most of it. In […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

With a massive $2 billion reported investment from Google, Anthropic joins OpenAI in reaping the benefits of leadership in the artificial intelligence space, receiving immense sums from the tech giants that couldn’t move fast enough themselves. A byword for the age: Those who can, build; those who can’t, invest. The funding deal, according to sources […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

X, formerly known as Twitter, is introducing two new tiers for its subscription offering in order to bring in additional revenue. The social media giant is adding a new Premium+ tier that costs $16 per month and offers the “largest reply boost” and removes ads from the For You and Following feeds. The tier also […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The maker of the popular optimization app CCleaner has confirmed hackers stole a trove of personal information about its paid customers following a data breach in May. In an email sent to customers, Gen Digital, the multinational software company that owns CCleaner, Avast, NortonLifeLock and Avira brands, said that the hackers exploited a vulnerability in […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

It seems that as long as rapid revenue growth is possible in the earliest stages of startup life, valuations are going to be strong. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

YouTrip, a Singapore-based fintech that offers multi-currency wallet for consumers and business accounts with corporate cards for SMEs, has its eyes on growth throughout Southeast Asia after landing a Series B led by Lightspeed. The round was $50 million, and brings YouTrip’s total raised to $100 million since it launched in 2018. The new funding […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon is rolling out a new AI image generation tool for advertisers to generate backgrounds based on product descriptions and themes. Amazon is currently beta testing the tool with select advertisers and will expand availability “over time,” the company says. To use the tool, advertisers upload a photo, type an image description describing a background […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Good morning, and happy Tuesday! Today we’re looking at Q3 venture data coming out of Europe. Overall, European venture capital data is down sharply. But as my colleagues Anna Heim and Alex Wilhelm write, European venture is “down, but not out.” Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to members. Use discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As if robocalling wasn’t already enough of a problem, the advent of easily accessible, realistic AI-powered writing and synthetic voice could supercharge the practice. The FCC aims to preempt this by looking into how generated robocalls might fit under existing consumer protections. A Notice of Inquiry has been proposed by Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to be […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

TikTok is testing the ability for users to upload 15 minute videos, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Monday. The social media giant said the new upload limit is being tested in select regions with a limited group of users, but declined to share specifics. The new option increases the video upload limit on the […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

ZenML wants to be the glue that makes all the open-source AI tools stick together. This open-source framework lets you build pipelines that will be used by data scientists, machine-learning engineers and platform engineers to collaborate and build new AI models. The reason why ZenML is interesting is that it empowers companies so they can […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Motorsports and off-road competition isn’t the typical fodder over here at TechCrunch — unless, of course, there also happens to be a podium-winning team driving an all-electric 2023 Rivian R1T. The Rebelle Rally, the longest off-road map-and-compass rally in the United States, wrapped up Friday evening with a new EV milestone under its belt. This […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

When Monday.com faced the classic build vs. buy dilemma for a new database, it decided to build one, but with a decided twist. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The federal government's approach to hydrogen is strikingly similar to the way it promoted biofuels a decade ago. That's not a good thing. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. If you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up! Unfortunately we can’t make it to Money20/20 next week. But we have no doubt that we’re going to […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome, folks, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that highlights notable tech industry happenings over the past few days. Life moves pretty fast, as a young Matthew Broderick once said — we empathize. Fortunately, there’s WiR to get you caught up to speed. In this edition of WiR, we cover a hacker leaking […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Identity and access giant Okta said a hacker broke into its customer support ticket system and stole sensitive files that can be used to break into the networks of Okta’s customers. Okta chief security officer David Bradbury said in a blog post Friday that a hacker used a stolen credential to access the company’s support […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Good morning, and welcome to Friday! Atlassian’s purchase of Loom last week raised eyebrows, and not just because it missed unicorn status by a hair. But overall, it makes sense that Atlassian bought it. “Teaming and collaboration is moving to async video, and that was the one big piece missing for Atlassian,” Constellation Research’s Ray […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Pebble, the California-based EV startup founded by a veteran of Apple, Cruise and Zoox, unveiled Thursday a prototype of its flagship product: an all-electric travel trailer designed for an off-grid seeking digital nomad. The so-called Pebble Flow, which was revealed virtually, is supposed to bring electrification, automation and the usability of an iPhone to the […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Meta is bringing its Telegram-like “broadcast channels” feature to Facebook and Messenger after rolling it out to Instagram and WhatsApp earlier this year. The company announced today that the feature is coming to the two platforms in the coming weeks. The feature lets creators and public figures share one-to-many messages to directly engage with their […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Sam Bankman-Fried trial is 11 days in and witnesses continue to take the stand on behalf of the prosecution’s case. The defamed former co-founder of FTX and Alameda is on trial for seven criminal charges related to fraud and money laundering. On Wednesday, Peter Easton, an accounting professor at University of Notre Dame, testified […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Almost ten years ago, the online phenomenon “Twitch Plays Pokémon” convened over a million people to play Pokémon Red at the same time, with each player’s keystrokes registering as commands for the one pixelated avatar. Now, like a Magikarp growing into a Gyarados, the evolution of technology begs a new question: can AI play Pokémon? […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

When Atlassian announced it was buying Loom for $975 million last week, it turns out after close analysis that it was a good deal for all concerned. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

While some Latin American data, sourced from Sling Hub and Distrito, illustrates certain positive trends, other data from the region points the other direction. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Let’s take this occasion to raise a glass to a great idea that took only two decades to triumph, and examine the knock-on effects of that great idea. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In a move that will help cement the incursion of US-based VCs into the European ecosystem, General Catalyst and La Famiglia have announced they are, in their words, “joining forces”. Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, Founding Partner of La Famiglia, is slated to become a Managing Director within General Catalyst’s global partnership, driving a “long-term vision for […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

eSafety, the Australian regulator for online safety, issued a $386,000 fine against X (formerly Twitter) Monday for failing to answer “key questions” about the action the platform is taking against child abuse content. The watchdog issued legal notices to Google, TikTok, Twitch, Discord, and X (which was known as Twitter back then) under the country’s […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Walking through Token2049, it was hard to tell that the crypto industry was going through a “winter” phase. The crypto conference held in Singapore in September attracted an unprecedented crowd of 20,000 attendees, filling the island state with an even greater number of blockchain enthusiasts who hopped in and out of the hundreds of side […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Any conversation centered on the U.K. tech scene often has a strong center of gravity around the south of the country — to many, “the U.K.” and “London” may as well be the same thing. A recent House of Commons Committee report on venture capital allocation pointed to “uneven levels of VC investment” across the […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. If you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up! We covered lots of happenings in the world of fintech this past week — including raises, a startup closure, […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

[A version of this piece first appeared in TechCrunch’s robotics newsletter, Actuator. Subscribe here.] The topic of generative AI comes up frequently in my newsletter, Actuator. I admit that I was a bit hesitant to spend more time on the subject a few months back. Anyone who has been reporting on technology for as long […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Toyota’s EV progress remains nascent. And a recent announcement about a manufacturing partner suggests that the company is still feeling its way forward. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The European Union announced today it is opening an investigation into X for allegedly spreading illegal content and disinformation, including terrorist and violent content and hate speech. This comes a few days after the EU warned X for failing to take action on illegal content on its platform after Saturday’s deadly attacks on Israel by […]

Ford and its joint venture partner SK On, will increase wages at two planned EV battery factories in Kentucky and Tennessee in an effort to assuage striking autoworkers. That offer might not be enough. The joint venture, known as BlueOval SK, said it’s offering higher wages for maintenance technicians and associate maintenance technicians, ranging from […]

Your pitch may well be the first time a VC has even heard of a concept, so how can they possibly work out how to invest in your idea when it sounds like sci-fi?

To find out how the industry is reacting to this decision, TechCrunch+ spoke with one founder and four fund managers at venture firms that back women or founders of color.

Anysphere, a startup building what it describes as an “AI-native” software development environment, called Cursor, today announced that it raised $8 million in seed funding led by OpenAI’s Startup Fund with participation from former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi and other angel investors. The new cash, which brings Anysphere’s total raised to […]

There are a couple of parallels to be drawn between the Pixel 8 and Pixel Watch 2. One is obvious, the other a bit more subtle. The first is the addition of temperature sensors — though I would argue that the addition makes a lot more sense on a wearable than a handset. The second […]

Arrival just warned investors that it’s slashing its workforce yet again. The electric van maker said on Tuesday that it “took actions” on October 5 to “further reduce” costs. Those actions include letting go of “up to approximately 25%” of its workers, the company stated in a letter to investors. Arrival last announced layoffs in […]

Arctic Wolf, a cybersecurity company that’s raised hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and equity, today announced that it plans to acquire Revelstoke, a company developing a security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) platform, for an undisclosed amount. In a blog post, Arctic Wolf chief product officer Dan Schiappa said that the acquisition would […]

Before you start planning how you’ll demonstrate your product, you first need to consider whether you need a demo at all.

Startups must maintain acute awareness of often short-term corporate psychology, embracing adaptability and nurturing internal champions.

Fizz, the buzzy anonymous social app that’s now being used across over 80 college campuses, has filed suit against rival Sidechat, alleging unfair competition and a range of abuses, including attempts at disrupting Fizz’s launches, spreading rumors about Fizz having hackers, trademark infringements, sending false spam reports to Instagram, and using false pretenses to acquire […]

Alphabet subsidiary Waymo is expanding its service area in San Francisco despite protests against robotaxis, while rival Cruise grapples with crashes and other incidents. Waymo riders can now access the service across the vast majority of SF, Waymo announced on Monday on social media site X. The company had limited rides in many of the […]

There’s some good news and bad news for ChatGPT’s mobile efforts. On the positive side, the AI chatbot continues to see the number of app installs and its revenue grow, with September setting a new record on both fronts: 15.6 million downloads and nearly $4.6 million in gross revenue across its iOS and Android apps […]

The company aims to create whole-cut cultivated fish filets, starting with bluefin tuna, using muscle and fat cells.

The U.K. care home sector was pegged as £7.7 billion market in 2021, according to most recent estimates, yet capacity is shrinking at a time when the average age of the general population continues to grow. Throw into the mix a lack of transparency over pricing and service availability, and it’s clear that families looking […]

Circular, backed by Y Combinator, is a service that offers consumers in Singapore and Australia subscriptions to high-end electronics, like iPhones, Samsung Galaxy, iPad Pros and MacBook Pros. Not only does it want help people get devices at lower prices, but also keep them in circulation for as long as possible and out of the […]

Getsafe, a German-based digital insurtech startup, has acquired the German portfolio of Luko, a French insurtech startup that recently neared insolvency before agreeing to be acquired by British insurer Admiral Group in a transaction that didn’t include its German or Spanish operations. Getsafe is now present in four countries since its expansion into France. Luko’s own […]

After some recent turbulence, it would be easy to think that Zendesk's overall financial performance suffered as a result, but that really wasn’t the case.

Fast-fashion startup Virgio, founded by former Myntra chief, is shutting down its operations less than a year after raising funds at a valuation of over $160 million, according to two investor sources familiar with the situation. “The fast fashion brand that you have come to love is no longer available,” Virgio says on its website. […]

Rainforest raises $8.5M and PayPal gets hit with a lawsuit. We take a look at this and other hot fintech news from the previous week.

You will only have one shot to impress your future financial backers — make sure you are confident and ready.

Hiya, folks, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s digest of the past week in tech news. It’s TC’s column that highlights the major stories over the past few days, and — we humbly submit — it’s a darn useful resource for folks on the go. This week, we cover Sam Altman backing a […]

While many startups are looking to be the next Twitter, those targeting specific communities may find a better outcome.

[A version of this post appeared in TechCrunch’s robotics newsletter, Actuator. Subscribe here.] The last time I’d spoken with the NVIDIA at any length about robotics was also the last time we featured Claire Delaunay on stage at our Sessions event. That was a while ago. She left the company last July to work with […]

Brave Software, the maker of Brave Browser and Search, confirmed that it has laid off 9% of its staff across departments. The company didn’t specify how many people were affected, but it corroborated the development and said the decision was driven by the tough economic climate. “Brave eliminated some positions as part of our cost […]

As creative industries grapple with AI’s explosion into every artistic medium at once, separate calls from artists warning the world to take action before it’s too late are starting to converge. From fake Drake songs to stylized Instagram profile pictures, art conjured with newly sophisticated AI tools is suddenly ubiquitous — and so are conversations […]

Banking-as-a-service startup Synapse confirmed today that it has laid off 86 people, or about 40% of the company. The San Francisco-based company, which operates a platform enabling banks and fintech companies to easily develop financial services, has been open about past layoffs. In June, CEO Sankaet Pathak wrote in a blog post that the company […]

Starting in January, the IRS will make the $7,500 federal EV tax credit available immediately via dealers. The Treasury Department announced the update on Friday, noting that dealers will have the option to “reduce the purchase price of the vehicle or provide cash to the buyer.” The update also applies to buyers taking advantage of […]

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. As I sat down to write this week’s Startups Weekly, I do what I do every week: Read every story on TechCrunch. This week, that meant reading 212 stories on the site, and you know what I’m left with? An […]

Stoke Space is flying high. Fresh on the heels of a successful test of its reusable second stage, the four-year-old startup announced today that it closed $100 million in new funding led by Industrious Ventures. This newest round of funding included participation from the University of Michigan, Sparta Group, Long Journey, and other investors. Existing […]

As founder and CEO of healthy grocery delivery service Hungryroot, Ben McKean has been investigating the power of AI technologies to improve his business. But with the launch of his new side project — an app called Every — McKean wants to explore the use of AI to help people establish deeper relationships with themselves […]

PayPal has been hit with a class-action lawsuit by consumers represented by law firm Hagens Berman alleging that the fintech giant’s anti-steering rules stifle competition against lower-cost payment platforms such as Stripe and Shopify. Specifically, according to an investigation conducted by the firm’s consumer rights attorneys, PayPal has subjected consumers to excess charges when purchasing […]

In September, Elon Musk said X users were generating a lot of content — creating 100 to 200 million posts every day, excluding retweets — or reposts as they’re now known on X. But speaking at an event this morning, X CEO Linda Yaccarino offered a contradictory figure. She claimed X was seeing 500 million […]

Keep Labs built a lockable storage container for medicine, and it doesn’t matter if the meds come in bottles, boxes, or dime bags. The Keep is designed to hold them safely and track their use. The company launched in 2019, won – and lost– an innovation award at CES 2020, and this week started shipping its […]

U.K.-based mobile virtual network provider giant Lyca Mobile has confirmed a cyberattack that caused service disruption for millions of its customers. Lyca Mobile claims to be the world’s largest international mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, which piggybacks off network operator EE’s infrastructure. Lyca confirmed in a statement this week that the security incident prevented […]

Venture deal volume has fallen every quarter since Q2 2022 across the world, and the trend shows no signs of reversing.

Investors have historically been skeptical of green hydrogen. High production costs, expensive infrastructure builds, competition with batteries and minimal government support have made the green hydrogen sector a risky bet. But at least one company, Electric Hydrogen, seems to have found a way to convince investors that its tech is a bet they should take. […]

The San Francisco Police Department is investigating an October 2 incident that left a woman stuck underneath a Cruise robotaxi after being hit by a human-driven vehicle. Video captured by Cruise and viewed by TechCrunch shows a robotaxi braking and then running over a pedestrian who is laying in the street after being struck by […]

Spotify today unveiled what’s next for the future of its audiobooks service. At an event hosted in its New York offices on Tuesday afternoon, the company announced a new business model where it will now provide Spotify Premium subscribers with access to a subset of its audiobooks catalog — a total of 150,000 titles — […]

AI deepfakes are getting so good that a fraudulent MrBeast ad slipped past TikTok’s ad moderation technology to end up on the platform. In the ad, the massively influential creator appeared to be offering 10,000 viewers an iPhone 15 Pro for just $2. In most cases, this would be a clear indication of a scam, […]

Umbra, Capella Space and GHGSat are among the seven companies that will provide NASA with commercial satellite imagery, part of an acquisition program that has a maximum potential value of $476 million across all providers. The contract duration is five years, with an option to extend it by six months. Maxar’s intelligence division, PlanetiQ, Spire, […]

U.S. lawmakers have written a letter to TikTok questioning its independence from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, in the wake of a recent report from The Wall St. Journal that noted that several high-level executives had been transferred from ByteDance to TikTok, where they took on top roles across the organization. The report noted the […]

Sam Altman, Peak XV, and Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman’s AI grant are among backers of an AI startup, founded by two teenagers, that’s aiming to assist businesses in automating numerous workflows in previously unexplored ways. Induced AI, founded this year, enables businesses to input their workflows in plain English, subsequently converting the instructions into […]

Progress Software, the company behind the recently hacked MOVEit file-transfer software, has released fixes for two more critical-rated vulnerabilities that are being exploited by attackers. In an advisory published last week, Progress warned of multiple vulnerabilities affecting its of its enterprise-facing WS_FTP file-transfer software, which the company claims is used by thousands of IT teams […]

The multi-stage venture capital firm uses a research-driven approach and invests at the intersection of the physical and digital worlds.

India’s state-owned logistics portal has fixed misconfigurations and vulnerabilities that exposed sensitive personal data and various state and private trade records. Called the National Logistics Portal-Marine, the website made the sensitive and private data public due to misconfigured Amazon S3 buckets. It also carried a JavaScript file that included login credentials into the web source […]

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free.  Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. […]

Earlier this year, a big French tech company started requiring an email to the CEO for every purchase above €1,000. That’s because they didn’t have the right tool to manage procurement. Meet Pivot, a new French startup that wants to overhaul spend management solutions. Pivot wants to work with young companies that are growing fast […]

Three investors shared their perspectives on what’s changed, what’s working today, and what advice they’re giving founders at this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt.

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. If you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up! It was a relatively quiet week in fintech startup land, so we took the time to scrutinize where we’re seeing […]

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's trial begins Tuesday. Here's what you need to know.

If you’re lucky, once a year you get to put together a panel built on pure kismet. Pairing Gill Pratt with Marc Raibert was exactly that for me. The two go back several decades, to the salad days of MIT’s Leg Lab. [A version of this story original appeared in TechCrunch’s robotics newsletter, Actuator. Subscribe […]