Author: TechBrunch
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Law Enforcement Department Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) has signed a $3 million worth of contract with Magnet Forensics, a company that creates phone hacks and unlock devices called Graykey. The contract, which appeared on Tuesday in the federal procurement database, said it was for software licensing of HSI's phone hacking technology to “recover digital evidence, process multiple devices, and generate forensic reports essential to protecting national security and public disclosure.” The contract doesn't mention the product's name, but it could be referring to Graykey, a forensic system for unlocking smartphones and extracting data…
Numeral co-founder and CEO Sam Ross worked as a product manager at Airbnb before traveling the world and came up with the idea of a sales tax compliance startup. “This was early 2018 and I wasn't working remotely like I do today,” he told TechCrunch in an interview. At the time, consumer businesses were a huge trend, so he supported his travel dreams and ran several self-funded e-commerce brands from the road. He runs an online jewelry store and still maintains the Vitamin DTC site. While he loved the freedom his business provided, Ross (pictured above, left) was forever irritated…
TechCrunch's 2025 will be held at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 27th to 29th, bringing together over 10,000 startups and VC leaders to shape the future of Tech. Few people embody the meaning of building discipline in a tough market than Chime co-founder and CEO Chris Britt. What began as a crude fintech challenger has grown into one of the rare companies that will be exposed in today's challenging environment. In his session, Britt shares the lessons behind the rise of Chime. This shares from headwinds in Weathering Market to leaps from private to public, from private to…
AI is moving rapidly, but who decides how it is built, shared and scaled? TechCrunch, which takes place in Moscon West, San Francisco, from October 27th to 29th, is taking place in 2025. We're diving in with Thomas Wolf, co-founder and chief science officer of Face. He catches him on the AI stage along with thousands of other like-minded tech leaders and innovators. Why you can't miss this session The future of AI is not defined by closed labs and large technology budgets alone. It is written in open source repositories, global research collaborations, and Moonshot experiments that anyone can…
Dawn Capital's newest partner, Samillah Bankiya, made a fair stop this week to talk about the biggest misconceptions Americans have about the European landscape and the world of European startups. Dawn Capital is a British marquee company with over $2 billion with AUM, 34 exits and 11 unicorns. The portfolio names consist of names such as AI Companies Collibra and Dataiku. It focuses on early stage companies, supporting from seed to Series C. Currently, we are investing from Fund V of $620 million. Bankiya, meanwhile, is one of the few black female venture partners in Europe. Her investments in the…
AI chip startup Groq confirmed on Wednesday it raised $750 million in fresh funding with a $6.9 billion money valuation. This broke the rumored numbers when the word leaked in July when Groq was rising. At the time, reports suggest that pay increases would be around $600 million at an valuation of about $600 million. Groq, which also sells data center computing power, previously raised $640 million in August 2024 at a $2.8 billion valuation, which was more than doubled in about a year. Pitchbook estimates that Groq has now raised more than $3 billion so far. GROQ was a…
On Wednesday, the AI security company announced $80 million in new funding in the round led by Sequoia Capital and Redpoint Ventures, with participation from Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport. A source close to the contract said the round was irregular and $450 million. “In our view, a lot of economic activity comes soon from human dialogue and AI-on-ai interaction,” co-founder Danrahab told TechCrunch. Previously known as Pattern Lab, Irregularity is already a key player in AI assessment. The company's work is cited in the Claude 3.7 Sonnet security rating and Openai's O3 and O4-Mini models. More generally, the company's framework…
For decades, Fortune 500 companies have had to hire market research companies to gain meaningful insights into customer satisfaction. These services come with a large price tag and often take weeks to complete. Market research startup Keplar uses Voice AI to conduct customer interviews to provide clients with faster analysis and at the cost of a part of traditional research consulting firms. On Wednesday, the 2-year-old announced a $3.4 million seed funding led by Kleiner Perkins, citing participation from SV Angel, Common Metal and South Park Commons. Keplar's idea was conceived in 2023 when Google engineer Dhruv Guliani (right above)…
The European startup scene has seen an increase in European unicorns, with American VCs setting up shops across the pond. But what does this mean for European founders, as European funding dominates the early stages, while late stage capital flows primarily from the US? Also, will the continent carve its own identity in an increasingly AI-driven world? Today, to be fair, we were Shamira Bankuya, the newly appointed partner of Dawn Capital, discussing it all. She and Dominique Madri Davis discuss the impact of AI on European startups, regulatory landscapes, and the journey from Uganda to venture capital. Listen and…
In a StrictlyVC download this week, TechCrunch Eic Connie Loizos will sit with former Vice President Al Gore and Lila Preston, a sustainability-focused investment company, Generation Investment Management, to explore the 9th Annual Sustainability Trends Report and how the global climate transition is accelerating despite political reversals. While traditional media focuses on the Trump administration's rollback, the three discussed why renewable energy economics has fundamentally changed, with 65% of energy investment currently flowing to renewables, but only 35% on fossil fuels, a complete reversal from a decade ago. They delve into how China became the world's first “electrostate,” with EVs…