Author: TechBrunch

Today is your last chance to save up to $800 on tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. The Disrupt Deal Days event ends tonight at 11:59 PM PST, so don't miss out on this opportunity to get big discounts at this year's tech conference. Book your last minute tickets here. Why attend TechCrunch Disrupt 2024? TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 will provide you with an unparalleled opportunity to learn, share and grow your network. Connect with 10,000 startup leaders through 1-on-1 or small group braindates. Get your questions answered in 300+ sessions, roundtables, and breakouts. Engage with Silicon Valley's best minds at one…

Welcome to a recap of Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is packed with deals, antitrust insights, AI, and more. First, Kirsten explained that Elon Musk recently expressed his intention to move the headquarters of SpaceX and X from California to Texas. It remains to be seen whether Musk will follow through on this plan, but of course, the staff at Equity had an idea. Then we talked about this week's deals. First, we talked about Sequoia Capital emailing LPs from funds it raised between 2009 and 2011 with offers to buy up to $861…

On Friday, businesses around the world reported IT outages, including Windows “Blue Screen of Death” errors on computers, in what is already one of the most widespread IT outages in recent years. The outage, which many security experts blame on a CrowdStike update, has affected companies across a range of sectors, including airlines, banks, food chains, brokerages, news organizations and rail networks. The travel industry appears to be the most affected. “We're aware of an issue impacting Windows devices caused by a third-party software platform update. We expect a resolution is available soon,” a Microsoft spokesperson told TechCrunch in a…

J. Michael Klein, who co-founded Fandango and numerous other startups over a decades-long career, has died after falling from a Manhattan hotel, New York's Deputy Director of Public Information told TechCrunch. The New York Police Department responded to a 911 call from the Kimberly Hotel, a 30-story hotel on 50th Street in Midtown Manhattan, on Tuesday morning. Upon arrival, “officers found an unconscious and unresponsive male with injuries consistent with a fall from a great height,” the deputy police commissioner said in an email to TechCrunch. According to the New York Times, Klein fell from the hotel's 20th floor. Emergency…

In late June, a security researcher discovered a vulnerability in a web app used by a16z, one of Silicon Valley's most powerful and influential venture capital firms, exposing some data about the firm's portfolio companies. The bug has since been fixed. On June 30th, a security researcher going by the name of xyzeva wrote to X, hoping to get in touch with someone at a16z, suggesting that he had discovered a security issue. “Contact me now. This is bad. Security related,” she wrote. When contacted by TechCrunch, Xyzeva said he found a “very simple bug” in the a16z portfolio portal…

When Tade Oyerinde first set out to raise funds for his startup, Campus, a fully accredited online community college, it was incredibly difficult. Venture capitalists have funded for-profit education companies before, like Coursera and Udacity, but funding a more traditional two-year college was different. Plus, he was looking for capital a few years ago at a time when higher education was starting to face challenges from declining enrollment and rising tuition prices. Oyelinde said in a recent episode of TechCrunch's Found podcast that despite the challenges, he believes it makes sense to raise money from venture capitalists for a few…

Canadian private equity firm PartnerOne has acquired mobile app testing startup HeadSpin, whose founder was convicted of fraud earlier this year, for $28.2 million, according to documents seen by TechCrunch. The fire sale was reported by TechCrunch last week. According to the filing, HeadSpin had revenue of $21 million in 2023 and $5 million in Q1 2024. That means PartnerOne valued HeadSpin at about 1.4x revenue. The median M&A deal multiple for deals announced or closed in Q1 2024 was 1.6x, according to an analysis of PitchBook data. PartnerOne declined to comment on the purchase price or HeadSpin's revenue. In…

Meta has suspended its AI assistant after Brazil's National Data Protection Agency (ANPD) banned the company from using Brazilians' personal data to train AI models, a move that deals a blow to Facebook's efforts to build AI products in the Brazilian market, which has a population of more than 200 million. As cited in official documents, Brazilian authorities said the precautionary measure was due to “an imminent risk of serious harm and irreparable or irreparable damage to the fundamental rights of the guardians.” In addition, the ANPD stipulated that non-compliance would be subject to a fine of 50,000 reais per…

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies. That growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming one of the most-hyped companies in recent memory. And its latest partnership with Apple for its upcoming generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, has given the company another significant bump in the AI race. 2024 also saw the release of GPT-4o, OpenAI’s new flagship omni…

After months of speculation, Apple Intelligence took center stage in June at WWDC 2024. The platform was announced following a flurry of news about generative AI from companies like Google and Open AI, raising concerns that the notoriously tight-lipped tech giant had missed out on the latest tech boom. But contrary to such speculation, Apple has assembled a team to work on a typically Apple approach to artificial intelligence, and while the demo was flashy (Apple always loves a splash), Apple Intelligence is ultimately a very pragmatic approach to the field. Apple Intelligence (yes, that's AI for short) is not…