Author: TechBrunch
Chainalysis co-founder and CEO Michael Gronagar has taken a personal leave of absence from the company. The blockchain analysis group did not specify the reason, but said the development was temporary. According to The Block, which first reported the news, Chainaloss president and COO Sari Granat, who joined the company in 2022, will serve as interim CEO. Ten-year-old, New York-based Chaina Analysis quickly developed a reputation as a “crypto detective” working on behalf of the U.S. government and corporate clients. A year ago, Chainalysis laid off more than 15% of its 900 employees and plans to focus more on government…
General Catalyst, one of Silicon Valley's largest capital firms, is preparing to launch a so-called “continuation fund” worth between $800 million and $1 billion, according to people familiar with the plans. Continuation funds consist of a portion of the equity that a VC firm holds in its portfolio companies. With approximately $25 billion in assets under management as of 2023, General Catalyst's exact continuation fund portfolio composition has not yet been determined. However, it is likely to include shares in Stripe, Gusto and Circle, the people said. The company recently hired Jefferies as its secondary investment advisor. Once the fund…
Venture capital firm NFX laid off four employees in September as it seeks to “rebalance” resources from its software and product teams to its investment team, general partner Pete Flint told TechCrunch. Flint said the layoffs included one product leader and three engineers. About a week ago, Amy Lin, who had been chief product officer since 2017, announced on LinkedIn that she was leaving the company. NFX builds and runs its own in-house software to find and evaluate companies, but Flint said the company recently used AI to achieve the same level of results with fewer people. It turns out…
As companies increasingly integrate artificial intelligence into their workflows and products, the demand for tools and platforms that make it easier to create, test, and deploy machine learning models is increasing. This category of platforms, commonly known as Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), is already a bit crowded with startups like InfuseAI, Comet, Arrikto, Arize, Galileo, Tecton, and Diveplane, as well as offerings from incumbents like Google Cloud. I'm doing it. Azure, AWS. Now, one Korean MLOps platform called VESSL AI is carving out a niche of its own by focusing on optimizing GPU costs using a hybrid infrastructure that combines…
US money transfer giant MoneyGram has admitted that hackers stole customers' personal information and transaction data in a cyberattack last month. The company said in a statement Monday that customer data was “accessed and obtained” by an unauthorized third party during the Sept. 20 cyberattack. Although the nature of the cyberattack is still unknown, the cyberattack caused a week-long outage that resulted in the closure of the company's website and app. Go offline. MoneyGram says it serves more than 50 million people in more than 200 countries and territories each year. MoneyGram said in a statement Monday that the investigation…
A federal judge has ordered Google to open up its app store to rivals and give Android users more options when downloading apps. Judge James Donato issued a final ruling in the Epic vs. Google case Monday, detailing how Google must change the way it operates Google Play. Google will be prohibited from paying developers to release apps exclusively on Google Play for the next three years, starting November 1, according to the filing. The company also cannot force developers to use Google Play's billing system and must allow developers to notify users of other payment methods. Google must also…
Last weekend, news broke that Chinese-backed hackers had penetrated the eavesdropping systems of several U.S. telecommunications and internet providers, presumably to collect information about Americans. Required by a 30-year-old U.S. federal law, wiretapping systems are among the most secretive systems within a telecommunications or Internet provider's network, typically allowing a select few employees to monitor Internet traffic. Allows nearly unlimited access to information about customers, including: and browsing history. But for technologists who have long been sounding the alarm about the security risks of backdoors, news of the breach is the “I told you so” moment they hoped would never…
In September, Apple released a new version of its computer operating system, macOS 15, also known as Sequoia. This broke the functionality of several cybersecurity products, including CrowdStrike and products from Microsoft. Three weeks later, on Friday, Apple released its first update to macOS 15, claiming to have fixed those issues. Apple says in its macOS 15.0.1 release notes that the update “improves compatibility with third-party security software.” Apple reported the update in an email to TechCrunch on Thursday, but a spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up request for further information. Patrick Wardle, founder of macOS and iOS security…
U.S. utility giant American Water announced last week that it discovered hackers had infiltrated its internal network and had disconnected some systems. American Water, which provides drinking water and wastewater services to more than 14 million people across the United States, acknowledged the security incident in an 8-K regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The New Jersey-based company said in a filing that its water and wastewater facilities are unaffected “at this time” and continue to operate without interruption, but that at this time “there is no immediate response to this incident.” It is not…
The future of space is ripe for reinvention, and TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 brings together two visionaries determined to reimagine how we reach and operate in orbit. Kelly Hennig, COO of Stoke Space, and Muhammad “Mo” Shahzad, President and CFO of Relativity Space, join us on the Space Stage to explore how emerging technologies, software, and automation are redefining the future of space access. Masu. See how these industry leaders are navigating the challenges of the growing space industry and turning ambitious visions into reality. Demand for launch capabilities continues to grow. While great advances have been made over the past…