Author: TechBrunch
Invoicing may not be something most people think about on a daily basis. But for businesses, especially those in the software sales industry, invoicing is extremely important. Invoicing systems help ensure customers pay on time and offer a variety of payment methods. The problem is that configuring these systems can consume valuable engineering time. Alvaro Morales and Kshiitj Grover know this from experience: Both programmers by trade, they worked together at Asana and frequently made changes to product packaging and pricing. “Unlike all the tools available to us as developers, the billing system was rigid and inflexible,” says Morales. “We…
Instagram is introducing Teen Accounts, automatically enrolling young users in an app experience with built-in protections. The company announced that starting Tuesday, it will place all current and future accounts held by teens under Teen Accounts. Instagram is also rolling out a new update to its Parental Supervisor feature that lets parents monitor their children's activity on the social network. The changes come nine months after Instagram, along with other popular social networks, came under scrutiny from lawmakers for not doing enough to protect young users on the platform. Teens on Instagram already have some protections by default, but they…
EasyDMARC, an Armenian B2B SaaS startup that aims to simplify email security and authentication, announced it has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by New York-based Radian Capital. DMARC is a technical standard designed to protect email senders and recipients from spam, spoofing, and phishing. This “Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance” was an important but little-known standard until October 2023, when Google and Yahoo! announced they would be making it mandatory for bulk email senders starting this year. Since DMARC's creation in 2012, many major email providers have worked to implement the protocol for bulk email…
MacPaw, a Ukraine-based Mac and iOS app developer, today announced that it is releasing an alternative mobile app store, Setapp, in accordance with the EU's new Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations. The company has been testing the app store in closed beta with a select group of users for several months. MacPaw is now making Setapp Mobile available to all users to try out in open beta. The store has over 50 productivity, finance, video, photo, and creativity apps from MacPaw's own products and other developers, including CleanMyPhone, ClearVPN, Riveo video editor, Awesome Habits tracker, Time Master, BusyCal, Free your…
Flink, the Berlin-based quick-commerce startup that has been an acquisition target for Gorillas, Getir, Amazon, and Gopuff, has revealed plans to go it alone: TechCrunch has exclusively learned that the company plans to raise $150 million and double its operations in Germany and the Netherlands by partnering with Just Eat Takeaway.com. The funding, which consists of $115 million in equity and $35 million in debt, comes from a mix of new and existing investors. BOND, Mubadala, Northzone and supermarket giant REWE are backing Flink along with two unnamed investors. The company did not disclose whether Just Eat Takeaway was one…
Social network Blue Sky said on Monday that its platform now has more than 10 million users, driven mainly by the network's rapid growth in the weeks after Elon Musk-owned X was shut down in Brazil. “If you're reading this, you're one of Bluesky's first 10 million users!,” the company said in a post. There's also a fun Easter egg on Bluesky's homepage: when you click on the celebratory emoji, your participation number will appear on the platform, ready to be shared with friends. Image credit: Bluesky Last month, the Supreme Court banned X in Brazil and imposed fines on…
Slack president Denise Dresser told TechCrunch that the company is transitioning its business chat platform into an “operating system for work,” specifically, making Slack a hub for AI applications from Salesforce, Adobe, and Anthropic. The company's CEO sees Slack as more than a place to chat with colleagues, but do users want that? And if they do, will they pay a premium for it? Slack on Monday announced several new features for Slack AI, the messaging platform's higher-priced tier. The updates include AI-generated Huddle summaries, similar to the channel summaries already available to subscribers. Users can also now chat with…
Beleaguered chip maker Intel has announced plans to acquire key customers and make changes to its foundry business in an effort to turn things around. Intel is taking steps to transition its chip-making unit, Intel Foundry, into an independent subsidiary, Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger said in a blog post. Leadership of Intel Foundry will remain unchanged and the subsidiary will remain within Intel, but Intel Foundry will have an operating committee that includes independent directors. Gelsinger also said the company would suspend chip-making projects in Poland and Germany for two years and consider scaling back chip packaging and testing operations…
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is leaving an internal committee that OpenAI created in May to oversee “significant” safety decisions related to the company's projects and operations. OpenAI said in a blog post today that the safety and security committee will be an “independent” board oversight group and will be chaired by Carnegie Mellon University professor Zeico Colter, Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, retired U.S. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, and former Sony vice president Nicole Seligman, all of whom are current members of OpenAI's board of directors. OpenAI said in a post that the committee conducted a safety review of OpenAI's most…
Copilot is Microsoft’s take on productivity-boosting generative AI, and it continues to grow and expand with Microsoft’s AI ambitions. Today, there are around a dozen Copilot-branded products powering various capabilities in Microsoft software and services, like summarizations in Microsoft Outlook and transcriptions in Microsoft Teams. That’s in addition to Microsoft-owned GitHub’s Copilot tool for generating code, and the Copilot that lives on Windows and the web, which serves as a general-purpose assistant. In this post, we explain the many Microsoft Copilots available and what they do, and the differences between the premium and free editions. What is Microsoft Copilot? Microsoft…