Author: TechBrunch

Just before today's Supreme Court ruling upholding the Jan. 19 law banning TikTok in the United States, Donald Trump said he had a “very good” phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Posted on Truth Social. It also included a discussion about TikTok. The president-elect also said he would make a decision regarding TikTok in the “not too distant” future, but did not say what he would do. President Trump had previously indicated he would no longer support the ban after asking the Supreme Court to block a law requiring apps to be shut down or sold by January 19th,…

TikTok's time may be running out over the weekend after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the ban. So what's next for the video-sharing app's 170 million U.S. users? On today's episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl, and Anthony Ha dive into the week's biggest stories, including where all the “TikTok refugees” are headed. Many people are flocking to Chinese apps like RedNote and Lemon8, and some are turning to Duolingo to find a new digital home and brush up on their Chinese. Listen to the full episode to hear: Stocks will be back next…

The Supreme Court on Sunday, January 19, upheld a law that effectively bans TikTok. The ruling ends TikTok's months-long legal battle against a law that would effectively force the ByteDance-owned app to shut down unless it sells its U.S. operations. For national security reasons. As of Sunday, it will be illegal for app stores and internet hosting services to distribute social networks. TikTok warned that the app would simply “go dark” on Sunday, but it's unclear what exactly will happen once the ban goes into effect. In an opinion released early Friday morning, the Supreme Court said it requested the…

surprise! There is a technological dimension to Donald Trump's big, bold ambition to buy Greenland from Denmark. Ken Howley, nominated by President-elect Trump to be the next ambassador to Japan (and thus the chief facilitator of all deals), is another member of the wealthy corps of tech talent who will serve in the incoming Trump administration. Howery, who was part of the original “PayPal Mafia” (he was the CFO who helped put it together and sell it to eBay), went on to co-found the storied VC firm Founders Fund with Peter Thiel and others. I did. He is also a…

A new AI orchestration startup from the founders of Lithuanian unicorn Nord Security will initially focus on improving the visibility, security, and adaptability of large-scale language models (LLMs) to help enterprises bring AI projects to production. We are currently working on supporting the implementation of this technology. The startup, called Nexos.ai, is the brainchild of Tomas Okmanas (pictured above) and Eimantas Savariauskas, who have built one of the most recognizable brands not only in Lithuania but throughout Europe. Best known for its flagship VPN product, NordVPN, Nord Security enjoyed a successful first decade of business, taking on a massive $100…

Apple on Friday launched a dedicated Apple Store app in India, deepening its retail presence in the world's most populous country as the iPhone maker looks to capitalize on growing consumer demand. The app is available for download on the App Store in India and allows customers to receive personalized shopping recommendations while purchasing Apple products directly, the company said in a statement. Through the app, users can customize their Mac with a more powerful chip, more memory, or more storage (features that Indian customers have been asking for for years), or arrange for the delivery or pickup of their…

After two years of relatively quiet investment activity, VCs appear to be pouring money into startups again at pandemic-era levels. But a closer look reveals that this is not actually the case. Investors poured $74.6 billion into U.S. startups in the fourth quarter of last year, up from an average of $42 billion invested in each of the past nine quarters, according to PitchBook data released Tuesday. . While such funding levels were previously only seen during the peak of the ZIRP era (end of 2020 to 2021), the reality is that this recent increase in venture capital funding has…

Jeff Holling's Insight Partners is to New York venture capitalists what Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia are to Silicon Valley. And this position was solidified with Insight's recent financial results. As expected, Insight Partners announced on Thursday that it had closed another large flagship fund known as Fund XIII and a second opportunity fund, totaling $12.5 billion in new capital. Opportunity funds are typically funds set aside to be reinvested when existing portfolio companies raise new rounds. In September, it was rumored that he was setting up a fund worth more than $10 billion. Insight clearly achieved that goal, and then…

Bench, the accounting startup that went bankrupt during the holidays, filed for bankruptcy in Canada on January 7, disclosing huge debts, according to documents obtained by TechCrunch. The filings (one with Bench and one with 10Sheet, Bench's original name) show that Bench had $2.8 million in cash on hand by the end of its lifespan, but $65.4 million in cash. This indicates that they were in debt. (TechCrunch converted bankruptcy filing data from Canadian dollars to US dollars at a rate of 1 US dollar to 1.44 Canadian dollars.) Founded in 2012, Bench has raised $113 million from investors including…

Apple is suspending AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps after facing backlash for generating inaccurate news alerts. Additionally, the company is making changes to the entire notification summary to increase transparency. In the latest developer preview for iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3, Apple has completely disabled notification summaries for all news and entertainment apps, and plans to re-enable them in a future update with improvements. The changes come weeks after the BBC complained to Apple after one of its articles incorrectly said Luigi Mangione, who was charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson,…