Author: TechBrunch
When the open source database Supabase was founded in 2020, New Zealand-based CEO Paul Copplestone couldn't imagine sitting in the sweet spot of 2025, the biggest trend of 2025. But the fruit was revealed when it unveiled a $200 million Series D with an Accel-led $2 billion money valuation. This fresh $200 million comes just seven months after Supabase announced it had raised $80 million, led by Peak XV (Sequoia Spinoff) and David Sacks' Craft Ventures. Supabase did not comment on its rating at the time, but Pitchbook said it was about $900 million. All in all, the startup is…
Character.ai, the leading platform for AI to chat and role-play with generated characters, announced on Tuesday its upcoming video generation model, Avatarfx. Available in a closed beta version, this model animates platform characters in a variety of styles and voices, from human-like characters to 2D animal cartoons. Avatarfx is not just a Text-to-Video generator, which distinguishes it from competitors like Openai's Sora. Users can also generate videos from existing images, allowing users to animate photos of real people. It will soon become clear how this type of technology will be used for abuse. Users can upload photos of celebrities and…
On Tuesday, Meta announced it would officially launch Edit, a video creation app like CapCut. Once released globally, creators can track video ideas, get inspiration for new content, create videos with effects and AI tools, and more. This app is available on iOS and Android. All the features of the app are free to access at launch. However, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said earlier this month that the edit version could potentially include paid features. The company first shared that it was working on editing in January after the refund-owned capcut was removed from the US app store when the…
Retail Giant Marks & Spencer has confirmed cybersecurity incidents as customers report on continued disruption and outages. The British retailer on Tuesday informed customers in a notification seen by TechCrunch that the company has been “managing cyber incidents” over the last few days. A notice signed by CEO Stuart Machine said “we need to make operational changes to protect it.” [customers] And business. ” The company said stores remain open and the website and app are operating normally. It is not immediately clear what the nature of the cyberattack is, or whether customer data has been affected. A spokesman for…
Chatbots and other types of AI agents may feel like a dozen these days. But the truth is that for both businesses and consumers, some are infinitely more useful (and perhaps fewer dystopians) than others. Today, startups that have built successful businesses around that concept are unveiling a major growth round to expand their business. Manychat, which provides tools to automate conversation and engagement across multiple messaging channels, has won $140 million in the Series B round led by Summit Partners. Funding continues to be strong growth in startups. Today, Manychat has around 1.5 million customers in 170 countries, with…
Andreessen Horowitz's employment continues. On Monday, Eric Trenberg announced that the huge VC company has acquired his Turpentine Podcast and that he has joined as a general partner. Torenberg's podcast focuses primarily on interviewing VCs at various companies about their approach to investing. Recent guests include Andrew Braccia from Accel, Alexis Ohanian from Seven Seven Six, and Sarah Tavel and Eric Vishria from Benchmark. Torenberg said he plans to continue his podcast, but we'll see if the direction changes. A16Z creates a lot of corporate content, including its own podcasts. However, the focus tends to be on the founders rather…
Bluesky announced Monday it is rolling out blue check verification after confirming previous rumors that the feature is heading towards the platform. Like the original Blue Check (RIP) on Twitter, Bluesky's Blue Check makes sure that notable accounts are legal, making it easier for users to trust that their account posts are authentic. In its earliest stages, Bluesky works with several selected “trustworthy verification” which are independent organizations that can verify accounts as members of a team. For example, companies can see members of their public relations team in Blue Checks, making it easier for users to trust these people…
Popular social network and forum site Reddit reported a major outage Monday morning. According to the website down detector, the connection error began around 11:20am on ET. During its peak, over 90,000 users recorded outage reports on the downtime tracking website. ET at 11:52am, Reddit status, the company's website tracks its own outages and has confirmed it is investigating “risking in errors” across its website and app. A few minutes later, the company identified the issue and said the company had made the corrections by 12:10pm, and was “surveillance results.” At 12:21pm ET, Reddit status indicated that all systems were…
Meta is using AI technology to search for children lying about their age on Instagram to bypass safeguards, the company announced Monday. If Meta finds an account that is suspected of belonging to a teenager, the platform will register for a restricted teen account, even if the account lists adult birthdays. Launched on Instagram last year, the Teen account signs up younger users for an app experience with built-in protection. Safeguard automatically applies to teens, restricting who can contact teens via the app and limit the types of content that account holders can view. Teens under the age of 16…
One of the main complaints of Airbnb users over the years is that they are unable to immediately tell them how much they will pay for their stay, including fees such as cleaning fees. Airbnb is currently revising it by automatically displaying the total cost of a particular property, including all charges. Users around the world search for real estate will see prices before tax by default. When you search for properties on the web, Airbnb will see a small label that says “Price includes all prices.” New label indicating that Airbnb displays the total price before tax that includes…