Author: TechBrunch

Coast, a startup that describes itself as a “financial services platform for the future of transportation,” has raised $40 million in Series B funding, just four months after announcing $25 million in venture funding and $67 million in debt funding, the startup told TechCrunch exclusively. Back-to-back fundraising rounds were common during and before the investment boom of 2021, but have become much rarer since the VC market downturn in 2022, which makes Coast's latest round notable. New York-based Coast rivals the likes of Ramp and Brex in that it develops expense management software for fleet operators and their employees. To…

A fusion experiment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has set a record for the strongest, most stable magnetic field to confine plasma, raising new hope that upcoming demonstration reactors will fulfill the promise of producing more electricity than they consume. The new magnets were provided by Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a pioneering nuclear fusion industry startup that delivered the equipment to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's WHAM experiment earlier this month. When the WHAM team cooled the magnets to operating temperature and passed powerful electric currents through them, the high-temperature superconductors generated a magnetic field of 17 Tesla, more than twice…

Italy's competition and consumer watchdog said it was investigating how Google obtains user consent to link user activity across different services for advertising profiling, accusing the ad tech giant of “unfair commercial practices.” At issue is how Google, with consent from European Union users, will link user activity across its apps and services, including Google Search, YouTube, Chrome and Maps, allowing the company to profile users for ad targeting, which is its main source of revenue. In response to the Italian AGCM's investigation, a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company “will analyze the details of this incident and work…

Privacy app maker Proton has launched a new AI-enabled writing assistant that can help users compose emails with simple prompts, rewrite them and proofread them before sending. With this release, Proton continues its trajectory of mimicking many of Google's products and features in the productivity tool space. Last month, Google introduced its own Gemini AI to Gmail to help users write and summarize emails, and now Proton is following suit with its own flavor. In the case of Proton, a Swiss company known for its privacy-focused suite of apps including email, VPN, password manager, calendar, cloud storage, and documents, as…

Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX confirmed it had suffered a security breach on Thursday after approximately $230 million in assets were stolen from the platform in “suspicious transfers” early that morning. The Mumbai-based company announced that it was temporarily suspending withdrawals from its platform following a security breach of one of its multi-sig wallets, which require two or more private keys for authentication. Lookchain, a third-party blockchain explorer, reported that 5.43 billion SHIB tokens, over 15,200 Ethereum tokens, 20.5 million Matic tokens, 640 billion Pepe tokens, 5.79 million USDT, and 135 million Gala tokens were “stolen” from the platform. The identity…

Samsung has been hard at work pursuing its AI ambitions for consumer devices. Earlier this year, the electronics giant announced that its products, including its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy 24, would feature Galaxy AI and Google's AI model Gemini, and last week, it unveiled its latest bi-fold smartphones, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. Both phones prominently feature Galaxy AI and Google Gemini. Now Samsung is adding a knowledge graph to power its AI offerings: The South Korean tech giant said Thursday it is acquiring Oxford Semantic Technologies, a U.K.-based knowledge graph startup that has developed…

A group of ex-Google DeepMind researchers have developed an AI behavior engine that aims to turn traditional video games into a more dynamic experience by improving non-player character (NPC) behavior and interactions with gamers. There are plenty of companies using AI to generate more realistic NPCs, but Canada-based Artificial Agency, which just emerged from stealth after raising $16 million in funding, is confident that its behavioral engine will help it differentiate itself from the pack. Traditionally, NPCs are guided by decision trees and pre-written scripts, which often limit the number of outcomes the player can experience. For example, most NPCs…

When war broke out between Israel and Hamas last October, we explored its potential impact on the Israeli-Palestinian tech ecosystem. Now, nine months later, in Israel, conversations with founders and investors alike suggest the conflict has made the startup and VC ecosystem more resilient, particularly in the cyber and AI sectors. The technology sector is a key pillar of the Israeli economy: as of 2022, the sector employs more than 14% of the workforce, accounts for more than 18% of GDP, and accounts for half of the country's exports, according to the Israel Innovation Authority's 2023 annual report. So far…

Fast-growing payroll services provider Deal is making its third major acquisition this year. Deal announced on Thursday that it had acquired Hofy, a London-based company that helps deliver and manage office equipment for remote employees. Financial terms were not disclosed, but a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the deal was worth more than $100 million. Alex Bouaziz, co-founder and CEO of Deel, said the acquisition will allow Deel, which already has a partnership with Hofy, to achieve “tighter integration” with Hofy's services. In the long term, it will lay the foundation for Deel's new IT-focused product, “Deel…

It's not everyday that OpenAI founder Sam Altman teaches a class at Stanford University, but Lawrence Lynn Murata, co-founder and CEO of Slope, displayed just that entrepreneurial spirit when founding the B2B payments company with Alice Deng. “We met in 2016 when he was teaching a class called 'How to Start a Startup,'” Lynn Murata told TechCrunch. “He was doing some talks and we started to keep in touch.” After Lynn Murata and Deng launched Slope in 2021, that relationship blossomed and eventually turned into a vote of confidence from the famous startup investor: After raising a seed round in…