Author: TechBrunch

After his venture capital fund Kleiner Perkins fell into disarray a few years ago, one of B2B's star investors, Ted Schlein, kind of quit to start his own company. Two years ago, he first launched his $300 million fund, Ballistic Ventures, focused on cybersecurity, his interesting business model, and a roster of investment partners. Now, Ballistic has already closed its second fund, which is even bigger than the first. “We started raising a second round of $300 million, but we stopped at $360 million,” Schlein told TechCrunch. Over the past few months, I've made numerous calls with potential limited partners…

When open source streaming service Apache Kafka was created at LinkedIn in 2011, it was a different world. Most companies were still on-premises. The concept of cloud computing was just beginning to emerge. WarpStream, an early-stage startup, recognized the value of streaming in a cloud-native context and built a new solution from the ground up based on the Apache Kafka protocol and designed for the cloud era. Today, the company announced a $20 million investment. WarpStream CEO Richard Artoul and co-founder CTO Ryan Worl said they realized in their previous jobs that moving data to Kafka was complex and expensive,…

Instagram is working on a “spin” feature for Reels, its short video TikTok clone, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. This feature was first discovered by Reverse Engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, allowing other users to exchange text or audio within the reels. Instagram says Spins is an internal prototype and has not been tested externally. This feature allows users to create templates to start trends that others can use to put their own creative spin on them. If you have a trending template created by someone, you can swap out the text or audio to change the meaning to suit different scenarios.…

The European Commission has sent a series of formal requests for information (RFIs) to Google, Meta, Microsoft, Snap, TikTok and X on how they are addressing risks associated with the use of generative AI. . The requests, which relate to Bing, Facebook, Google Search, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, and X, are being made under the block's relaunched e-commerce and online governance rules, the Digital Services Act (DSA) . Eight platforms are designated as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) under the regulations. This means that in addition to complying with the rest of the rulebook, systemic risk must be assessed and…

Satellite sensors collect an incredible amount of raw data, but due to on-orbit computational limitations, operators have little way to process this data in space. Aethero, a startup founded 13 months ago, wants to change that. The startup is developing radiation-hardened edge computers that enable data processing and even autonomous decision-making in orbit. “Right now, space data preprocessing is the bigger market, but as the year goes on and we have more assets in orbit, we expect enabling spacecraft autonomy to become a large-scale thing.” ,” said co-founder and CEO Edward Gee. In a recent interview. Ge co-founded Aethero with…

Even though NFT sales volume is still down 88% from its all-time high in 2022 (down 38% since the beginning of the year), Palette Exchange is building a new type of NFT marketplace focused on user retention. I am. And we're doing it on a blockchain that's not well known for NFT trading: sei. Co-founders Kelvin Wang and Davey Lee have convinced investors that there is still plenty of future for NFTs beyond silly social media profile pictures (PFPs), and Spartan Group, Symbolic Raised $2.5 million in a private funding round with participation from Capital and Cipher. Here's what capital…

There probably won't be a big jump for a startup from the incubation seed stage to a Series A round. Considering how large a Series A step-up landing can be, there are many guidelines. However, most of them seem a little outdated in today's market. For example, the time-honored rule that startups must have $1 million a year or its equivalent in recurring revenue seems an anachronism today. After all, some companies have raised less money in recent quarters, some are struggling to raise money, and others are raising more money. input Alex Kayyal of Lightspeed Venture PartnersHe will be…

Proton Mail, the end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) email service from Switzerland's Proton, is now officially available via a dedicated desktop app, nearly three months after its beta debut. However, despite previous claims that the client will be available to all Proton Mail users in early 2024, the company has decided to limit it to paid users. “Due to the very positive response during the beta phase, and given the significant infrastructure and maintenance demands, we have decided to keep the desktop app exclusive to premium subscribers to ensure the highest quality of service. ,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. Proton Mail Desktop…

A Paris-based startup that set out to develop a marketing tool has raised $22 million after successfully pivoting to billing. The field turns out to be even more divided among potential customers. Lago, an open source billing platform developer, has raised money in his two funding rounds, which he announced in conjunction with its official launch. It launches today, but has been operating in closed beta for some time, during which time it has welcomed a number of notable startups as early customers, including Mistral.ai, Together.ai, and Juni. CEO Anh-Tho Chuong said the company's focus on open source is very…

Youverify, a Nigerian provider of identity verification and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions for banks and start-ups, specializes in providing off-the-shelf and customized digital solutions to public and private institutions in Saudi Arabia. Secured a $2.5 million investment from Elm. Elm's pre-Series A investment also includes a strategic partnership that will help Youverify streamline enterprise AML compliance, enhance global risk intelligence, and expand the product into new markets. Starting in 2022, Youverify has expanded its real-time business verification reach to 145 jurisdictions in 48 countries. Additionally, the platform covers real-time identity verification, including credit history and national identification numbers, in 46…