Author: TechBrunch
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.…
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…
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…
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.…
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…