Author: TechBrunch
Almost a decade later, industrial-focused VC Eclipse has expanded out of Silicon Valley. The company plans to make further investments on the East Coast, opening a second office in New York's Soho district. Eclipse supports startups in sectors such as manufacturing, supply chain, healthcare, and infrastructure through early-stage and early growth-focused funds. The company was founded in 2015 and has been based exclusively in Silicon Valley to date. Caitlin Glancy, a New York-based partner who joined Eclipse in 2023 after eight years at Flexport, told TechCrunch that the timing is right for the company to officially expand to New York.…
Amy Wu, founder of AI-based mental health app Manifest, is making bold predictions about the next wave of technology. “Aside from the AI trend, I think so many people are seeing an epidemic of loneliness happening to Gen Z,” she says. “There is no doubt in my mind that unicorns will emerge from these categories to address the loneliness epidemic.” Manifest isn't quite a unicorn yet. We just raised $3.4 million from a16z Speedrun and a number of other investors, so we're only in the seed stage. But Wu sees his company as part of a new wave of products…
Japanese consumer electronics giant Casio has admitted that many of its systems remain unusable nearly two weeks after being hit by a ransomware attack. Casio spokeswoman Ayuko Hara told TechCrunch on Thursday that the company is struggling to recover from the cyberattack and that “there is still no outlook for recovery.” “Since October 5th, our servers have experienced a system failure, rendering some of them unusable,” Hara told TechCrunch, adding that the company has since taken steps to disconnect its servers to prevent further damage. he added. Hara said, “This measure is having an impact on orders with suppliers and…
Instagram is introducing a series of new safety features to protect users from sextortion scammers, the company announced Thursday. Most notably, the company will no longer allow screenshots or screen recordings of temporary images or videos sent in private messages. Previously, it was possible to take a screenshot of temporary content in an Instagram DM (direct message), but the other person would be notified that you had saved it. With this change, if you send a photo or video in a DM using the “See Once” or “Allow to Play” features, the other person will no longer be able to…
Cyera is a cybersecurity unicorn company founded in Israel and headquartered in the United States. We use artificial intelligence to build what we call data security posture management: a complete assessment and picture of where a customer's data is created, where it's stored, and what state it is in. used — Growth slowed and business recovered last year as breaches continue to occur in a growing number of enterprises and other large organizations. Now, Cyera is taking the next step in its expansion with its first acquisition and major financing on the horizon. The startup will acquire Trail Security, a…
Zepto is in advanced stages of talks to raise $100 million in new investment, the third time in the past six months as India's leading quick commerce startup looks to attract more domestic investors. , a source familiar with the negotiations told TechCrunch. The Mumbai-headquartered startup, which delivers groceries and office supplies to customers' doorsteps within 10 minutes across multiple Indian cities, is attracting new investment from Indian family offices and wealthy individuals. . Asset management giant Motilal Oswal, who previously invested $40 million in Zept, is in charge of deliberating the new funding, the sources said, asking not to…
Global venture firm Accel is in talks to lead a $30 million to $40 million funding round for Indian online pharmacy TrueMeds, six sources said. It is focused on providing customers with more affordable generic alternatives to brand-name drugs. . Discussions are currently centered on a proposal to value the six-year-old Mumbai-headquartered startup at about $330 million, the person said, but the discussions are ongoing and private. Therefore, he requested anonymity. The deal has not yet been finalized and may not yet materialize or its terms may change, the people cautioned. Axel and TrueMeds did not respond to requests for…
Can today's AI models really remember, think, plan, and reason like the human brain? Some AI institutes may believe so, but Meta According to Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at , the answer is no. But he thinks they could get there in about 10 years by pursuing a new approach called the “world model.” Earlier this year, OpenAI released a new feature called “Memory” that allows ChatGPT to “remember” conversations. The startup's latest generation model, o1, displays the word “think” while generating output, and OpenAI says the same model is capable of “complex inference.” This alone makes it seem…
In 2011, the world held its breath when Japan was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, and Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered a cooling system failure. That worry was not unfounded. The resulting meltdown spread highly concentrated radioactive material in many directions, making it one of the worst nuclear-related disasters in history. More than 10 years later, cleanup efforts are still continuing. Last month, the Japanese government began test procedures to remove radioactive material in and around the nuclear power plant, an important step in the plant's decommissioning process, which is expected to be completed by…
CapWay, a Y Combinator-backed fintech that sought to bring financial services to people in so-called “banking deserts,” has shut down, according to founder Sheena Allen. Allen wrote about it on LinkedIn and confirmed it to TechCrunch. “I am proud of the work we were able to accomplish, but I am honestly disappointed that we were not able to complete the mission,” she wrote. “I feel strongly that there is still much work to be done in the area of financial inclusion, so this will not be the last you hear about me in the fight for economic equality.” Allen told…