Author: TechBrunch

Conduent, a U.S. government contractor that provides technology for support services such as child support and food assistance, acknowledged that the recent outage was caused by a cybersecurity incident. Conduent acknowledged to TechCrunch on Tuesday the disruption that left some U.S. residents unable to receive support payments, but declined to say whether the outage was related to a breach of its systems. In an updated statement sent to TechCrunch on Wednesday, Conduent spokesperson Sean Collins acknowledged that the disruption was “due to a cybersecurity incident,” but its nature was not confirmed. . “This incident has been resolved and all systems…

Driven by demand for generative AI, consumer spending on apps will reach $150 billion globally in 2024, an increase of 13% year over year. Interest in AI apps has skyrocketed over the past year, according to the annual “State of Mobile” report published by app intelligence provider Sensor Tower (which acquired original report author Data.ai last March). It is said that he did. This led to more than 200% year-over-year growth in consumer spending on AI apps such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and ByteDance's Doubao, pushing total spending in this category to nearly $1.1 billion in 2024. If this growth rate…

President Donald Trump has said Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison are open to acquiring TikTok as part of a joint venture with the U.S. government. At a press conference on Tuesday, President Trump was asked if he was open to “Elon buying TikTok.” He replied that he would, and added, “I'd like Larry to buy one, too.” President Trump on Monday signed an executive order delaying TikTok's ban by 75 days and directing the Justice Department not to enforce the ban's penalties. The app is back online, but you can't find it in the app store…

It's only January, but the recent hack of US edtech giant PowerSchool could be one of the biggest breaches of the year. PowerSchool, which provides K-12 software to more than 18,000 schools to support approximately 60 million students in the United States, confirmed the breach in early January. The California-based company, which Bain Capital acquired for $5.6 billion in 2024, said at the time that hackers used compromised credentials to break into its customer support portal, which schools use to manage The company announced that it has enabled further access to the school information system “PowerSchool SIS.” Student grades, grades,…

Over the years, Ramp has built a reputation in the corporate card and expense management space. The company has expanded its business to include travel and bill payments, and has raised more than $1.2 billion in venture funding. Today, the six-year-old fintech startup announced a different kind of expansion: a move into more digital banking territory with a new product called Ramp Treasury. In a nutshell, Ramp's purpose is to give customers a way to not only save cash, but also make money, CEO and co-founder Eric Glyman explained in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. “When we looked at the…

When George Avetisov was the founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup HYPR, he spent a lot of time in the field with the company's sales team. He quickly realized that no matter how good his sales team was, they were always pulling other departments to answer customer questions or fill out technical surveys. “They don't know the answers to most of the questions that are asked,” Avetisov told TechCrunch. “You have to ask product people, you have to hire sales engineers, etc. It’s a daunting task, and like I’ve worked with great salespeople over the years. They're great, but the…

Search is an obvious use case as companies look for ways to make the most of AI to improve employee productivity. After all, in most enterprises, data resides in multiple disconnected silos, and a combination of large-scale language models, search augmented generation (RAG), and enterprise-grade integration services make search possible. as well as answer more complex questions about all this data. It's no wonder, then, that a significant number of startups and established companies (such as Atlassian's Rovo) are vying for this market. One of the latest entrants is Doti AI, a Tel Aviv-based startup that today announced a $7…

Hindustan Unilever has agreed to acquire beauty startup Minimalist for approximately $342 million, as the consumer goods giant seeks to expand in India's fast-growing luxury skin care market. Hindustan Unilever will initially acquire a 90.5% stake in the direct-to-consumer brand through secondary acquisitions and primary investments, and plans to buy the remaining 9.5% from the founders within two years, according to stock exchange filings. That's what it means. The transaction is expected to close in the June quarter, subject to regulatory approvals. The announcement confirms a TechCrunch report from earlier this month. The deal will give Unilever's India arm a…

Popular caller ID app Truecaller has long put iPhone users at a disadvantage because it doesn't provide real-time caller information. This feature is something Android users have been enjoying for a while. Today, that changes as the company is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to iOS subscribers. The company was able to implement this feature because Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, which allows third-party caller ID apps to securely call servers to retrieve information about callers. Notably, this is also the first major release from the Swedish company after co-founders Alan…

On Monday, while tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sat on the dais at President Donald Trump's inauguration, dozens of company founders attended parties across Washington, D.C. , was attempting to have an audience with the new president's aides. Listening to them, it wasn't that difficult. Valar Atomics founder Isaiah Taylor spent the weekend party-hopping, rubbing shoulders with Sean Spicer and conservative podcaster Jordan Peterson. Taylor's company wants to use nuclear power to produce synthetic hydrocarbon fuels. He sent a two-page letter to acquaintances with ties to Washington calling for changes to nuclear regulations, and won three invitations…