Author: TechBrunch
Insurance giant Globe Life, which provides life and health insurance to millions of Americans, has announced that insurance payments are being extorted by hackers who stole sensitive customer data. In a regulatory filing Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Texas-based conglomerate is seeking to extort money from companies in exchange for not disclosing data stolen from them. He said he had “recently received a communication” from an unknown attacker. system. The leaked data, which Globe Life traced back to subsidiary American Income Life Insurance Company, included personally identifiable information such as customer names, addresses, and phone numbers.…
TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is just one week away. The enhanced Startup Battlefield 200 is a big highlight. TechCrunch editorial staff has hand-picked 200 companies to grace Expo Hall, and 20 of them will be announcing themselves live for the first time on our stage. The Disrupt Stage features nail-biting pitches where hardware and software demos can be the difference between success and failure. It's where legends are made. Throughout, we are extremely grateful to have leveraged the expertise of world-class VCs to highlight the most important points. After an initial thorough evaluation, five companies will be selected to participate again…
Farewill, a UK-based end-of-life services provider that offers online tools for writing wills, organizing probate and arranging cremation, has been acquired by funeral services provider Dignity in an all-stock deal, leading to an emerging The company is valued at £12.9 million ($16.8 million). The deal is a classic case of an established incumbent chasing growth by acquiring a young digital startup, giving Dignity a larger slice of the dying care services market expected to reach $190 billion by the end of 2020. It is designed to help you earn. Founded in 2015, Farewill is one of several startups to emerge…
The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have shut down operations altogether. By tracking these layoffs, we’re able to understand the impact on innovation across companies large and small. We’re also able to see the potential impact of businesses…
Earlier this year, Abel founder Daniel Francis was traveling 135 miles per hour on a freeway in Oakland, California. The driver was a police officer and had a gun in his lap. Francis had made a habit of riding shotgun with police officers in the name of research for his company, which develops AI to fill out police reports. The ride is usually pretty uneventful. But on that day, officers had stopped the man and searched the vehicle. The man was surprised and stepped on the accelerator, almost hitting someone. Francis and the police set off in pursuit of him.…
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…