Author: TechBrunch
Byju's says its recently launched $200 million stock issue is fully booked, but amid a rift between the edtech group and some of its major shareholders, the company's founders He said he encouraged some of the major investors to participate. The Bangalore-headquartered startup was valued at $22 billion in its last funding round in early 2022, and announced last month that it would seek to raise about $200 million through a rights issue. Byju's has lowered its pre-valuation on the rights issue from about $20 million to $25 million, he said, TechCrunch previously reported. A group of investors including Prosus…
As Speaker Mike Johnson said, the House will create a special committee on artificial intelligence to “ensure America continues to lead in this strategic area.” But this announcement feels more like a fiasco after years of indecision with no end in sight. In some ways, the task force, chaired by California Reps. Ted Lieu and Jay Obanorte, is a welcome sign of Congressional action on an important topic that has become the darling of tech investing. That's a good sign. But another, more important point is that this comes across as lip service at a time when many people feel…
Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week Becca and Dom are joined by Shan-Lyn Ma, the co-founder and CEO of Zola, an online platform for wedding planning and gift registries. Ma talked about why she decided to launch the business after trying to buy a gift for a friend and realizing that wedding registries were still living in the past. Ma also spoke about: How the company has listened to its customers and evolved to offer new features its clients are requesting. How Zola navigated through the pandemic, which completely disrupted the wedding…
Signal is launching usernames, the company announced today. Previously, you had to provide your phone number to chat on Signal. Here you can create a unique username that you can use instead. Username is currently in beta and will be rolled out to all users in the coming weeks. Sign still requires a phone number when registering the app. As end-to-end encrypted messaging apps go, Signal stands out as one with the strongest security and privacy features. By allowing users to keep their phone numbers private, Signal closes one of the few loopholes that allows access to victims' messages. This…
The potential sale of MariaDB to K1 Investment Management for $37 million would be the culmination of an era of failed SPAC mergers that briefly rose to prominence in venture circles during the last startup boom. Remember SPAC? Special purpose acquisition companies, also known as blank check companies, were heavily used to take many venture-backed startups public in 2021 and 2022. A myriad of combinations resulted in lawsuits and bankruptcies that wiped out large sums of shareholder wealth. And while some companies that took advantage of this shortcut to public markets were speculative, others were more serious businesses. MariaDB was…
YouTube announced today that it's changing the look of Creator Channels on the big screen. Changes include more accessible action buttons like “Subscribe,” a more modern design, and other tweaks first introduced to artist pages last fall. At the time, YouTube announced that the artist page was part of a major makeover of YouTube that included integrating voice search into the search bar, redesigning the menu for easier navigation, adding a new vertical video information menu, larger thumbnails, and more. He said it was part of it. Others. In a short video announcing changes to Creator Pages today, YouTube said…
There is a new generative AI startup based in Paris. But what's interesting about Bioptimus is that with a narrow focus on biology, he plans to apply everything he's collectively learned about AI models over the past few years. The reason why it makes sense to create a biology-focused startup is because access to training data is not as easy in this field. While OpenAI is gradually moving away from web crawling in favor of content licensing agreements with publishers, Bioptimus has to deal with confidential clinical data that is not made public at all, making it difficult for a…
The spam attacks that affected open source Over the past few days, attackers have targeted the small Mastodon server by leveraging open registration to automate the creation of spam accounts. Mastodon founder and CEO Eugen Roszko acknowledged the attack in a post over the weekend, and to address the issue, Mastodon's server administrators switched registrations to approval mode and discarded email providers. It added that it is necessary to block. Rochko points out that this is not the first spam attack to affect Fediverse, but previously only large servers like Mastodon.social were targeted. Because that server is run by Mastodon's…
As much of the world continues to be enveloped in winter, there are some hot news for entrepreneurs to keep the cold weather at bay. TechCrunch Disrupt will be back in San Francisco from October 28th until the 30th. What's even better is that tickets can now be purchased at his special 2-for-1 price, providing a bright financial light during this cold season. Plan ahead and save big for Disrupt in 2024 Early risers, enjoy! Secure your 2-for-1 pass today and save over $1,000 on select passes. Act fast, because this offer expires on Friday, February 23rd at 11:59 PM…
The US government has sanctioned two key members of the Russian-speaking hacking and extortion group Rockbit, who are accused of launching ransomware attacks against victims across the US and abroad. The U.S. Treasury Department confirmed in a post on Tuesday that it is sanctioning two Russians, Artur Sungatov and Ivan Gennadyevich Kondratyev. Mr. Sungatov and Mr. Kondratyev were separately indicted by U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday for their alleged involvement in Rockbit. Mr. Kondratyev is also accused of involvement in the REvil, RansomEXX, and Avaddon ransomware gangs. “The United States will not tolerate attempts to rob and steal from our people…