Author: TechBrunch

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is suing cryptocurrency startup NovaTech, alleging that it fraudulently raised more than $650 million from over 200,000 investors in the Haitian-American community. The SEC has accused Novatec, founded in 2019 by husband and wife duo Cynthia and Eddie Petion, of operating as a multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme that lured investors with promises of lucrative cryptocurrency and foreign exchange market investments. In reality, Novatec only used a small portion of investor funds for trading, while the majority was used to pay existing investors and provide commission to promoters, according to the SEC. The SEC…

FBI seizure notice for Radar/Dispossessor ransomware and extortion ring. Image courtesy of FBI The FBI announced on Monday that it had seized the servers of a ransomware and extortion ring called Radar (aka Dispossessor). At the time of writing, Radar's website still had a message from law enforcement stating, “This website has been seized.” This marks a rare victory for the FBI, which has been fighting alongside law enforcement agencies around the world to contain and curb the growing threat of ransomware. Federal investigators have seized the group's domains and servers in the United Kingdom and Germany, according to a…

We're halfway through 2024, but this year has already seen some of the largest and most damaging data breaches in recent history. And just when you thought these hacks couldn't get any worse, they do. From untold amounts of personal customer information being scraped, stolen and posted online to the mass theft of medical data for most people in the United States, the worst data breaches to date in 2024 have already seen at least a billion records stolen and counting. These breaches not only impact the individuals whose data has been irretrievably compromised, but they also embolden criminals who…

Balderton Capital, one of Europe's oldest and largest venture capital firms known for its investments in Revolt and Wayve, has raised a total of $1.3 billion in new funding across two funds: $615 million for its Early Stage Fund IX and $685 million for its Growth Fund II. VCs who spoke to TechCrunch reacted to the news with cautious optimism. It's also a further sign that European VC is recovering after several years of weakness following ZIRP and the COVID-19 bull market of 2021 and 2022. Indeed, London-based Balderton pointed to research, based on data from Invest Europe and Cambridge…

TikTok appears to be trying to take on popular messaging services like Meta's WhatsApp and Apple's Messages after the company announced on Monday that it's adding group chats to its platform, allowing up to 32 people to create group chats to chat together and share content. People often share TikTok videos with each other in group chats on messaging apps, but TikTok now lets users do this within its own platform: Users can now watch, comment, and react to videos together on TikTok. This latest addition shows that TikTok is interested in making its platform more social and a place…

Today, John Herman posted an interesting article on NYMag about one of the big uses of AI: content summarization. We all need summarization, right? We're all too busy and overloaded with information. At least, that's what all the tech companies working on AI seem to be settling on. The problem is that AI-generated summaries aren't always very useful. Digital hiking guide AllTrails' AI summary of an Everest climb was later removed because it became too gamified, but it has obvious humorous uses. Gmail's email summaries often omit important information like birthday party dates, and Apple Intelligence's summaries of text messages…

If you're looking to buy or sell a used Peloton bike, a startup called Trade My Spin might be your solution. In theory, you don't need an entirely separate marketplace to do this — and certainly, it's already possible to buy and sell bikes on Facebook and Craigslist — but Trade My Spin CEO Ari Kimmelfeld told TechCrunch that when he tried to buy a used Peloton bike himself, he found the process deeply inconvenient, since it meant paying a lot for a product he might not get to try. Plus, you might not have a vehicle that can accommodate…

Apple has threatened to remove crowdfunding app Patreon from the App Store if creators continue to use unsupported third-party billing options or disable transactions on iOS instead of using Apple's own in-app purchasing system. In a blog post and email to Patreon creators about the upcoming changes to its iOS app memberships, the company said it has begun a 16-month transition process to move all creators to Apple's subscription billing by November 2025. Patreon also notified creators that it will switch to subscription billing starting in November 2024, but creators can decide whether to set a higher membership fee to…

Increase your brand's presence at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco by hosting a custom side event during Disrupt Week, which runs from October 26th to November 1st. Engage directly with 10,000+ Disrupt 2024 attendees, network, and connect with the Bay Area's dynamic tech community. Host industry meetups, VC office hours, workshops, fun runs, cocktail parties, happy hours, or whatever activity resonates with your brand. The event possibilities are endless. Don't miss your chance to boost your brand awareness at one of the most iconic tech events of the year. Applications close on September 6th. How do you support side…

Meta and Universal Music Group (UMG) on Monday announced an expanded multi-year music licensing agreement that will allow users to share songs from UMG's music library across Meta's platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Horizon, Threads and WhatsApp) without infringing copyright. The most notable aspect of the new agreement is that the two companies specify that they are addressing “unlicensed AI-generated content,” which often refers to songs that have been scraped by AI systems without the consent of the original creators. Artists and songwriters have increasingly been plagued by AI fakes and works that AI companies are using to train their models. “We…