Author: TechBrunch
In the bustling city of New York, where the subway is as iconic as the skyline, one artist has found a unique way to pay homage to the city’s transit system. Everett McMahan (IG @everettttttttttttttttttt), a creative mind with a penchant for recycling, has crafted a remarkable map of the New York subway system using nothing but discarded Metro cards. McMahan’s journey began with a simple email to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), seeking permission to use their Metro cards for his art project. When the MTA turned him away, he took matters into his own hands. Venturing into subway…
Meta's newest app, Threads, a potential rival to Twitter/X, may not want politics to be part of its platform, but it's here anyway — or maybe Threads' search trends are… It shows that. The app started testing Twitter-like trending features with a small group of users in the US last month, but users report that Threads now has a broader user base on both the desktop web and mobile. It is said to be available for use. (But Instagram says it's still testing). And as it expands, it appears that the topics that Threads users are talking about the most…
Astek Diagnostics has completed $2 million in funding for its urine diagnostic system, despite the fact that funding for medical technology is not for the faint of heart. The company's documentation contains great content and can be a deep source of information for us to learn from. We're looking for more unique proposal decks, so if you'd like to submit your own, you can do so in the following ways: This deck slide Astek Diagnostics has a fairly thick document with 22 slides, with many instructions split across multiple slides. In some aspects, this deck is comprehensive and impressive, but…
Reddit today announced that it is releasing a suite of tools called Reddit Pro to help businesses grow their organic presence on the platform. The announcement comes as Reddit prepares for an initial public offering (IPO). With this new suite of free tools, Reddit is likely looking to add more brands to the platform and possibly turn them into paid advertisers. The launch marks the first time Reddit has offered free tools to help businesses with their social strategies. Reddit Pro is currently in beta testing and will give businesses access to an interface with several different tools. The suite…
Turo, the venture-backed peer-to-peer car rental service, reported fourth-quarter and full-year financial results in its latest IPO filing this week. The company initially filed an S-1 to go public in early 2022 and has since updated the document quarterly in preparation for an eventual public offering. TechCrunch covers regular financial disclosures and when a well-funded startup with a historic $1 billion valuation finally decides to pull the trigger and go public. provides insight into. According to Pitchbook, Turo raised $250 million in Series E led by IAC in 2019, giving it a post-money valuation of $1.25 billion. Crunchbase counts Turo's…
Throne, which allows fans to gift items to creators from their wishlist, is launching a new gifting portal for family and friends called Happy Wishlist. But what's more interesting about this story is that the company returned the money it raised from investors last year, choosing to go the in-house route. starting throne The startup was founded in 2021 by Patrice Becker and Leonhard Soenke. The duo previously launched calendar management app Meeter, which was acquired by workflow automation startup Bardeen. In February, the company raised $830,000 in SAFE notes with a valuation cap of $30 million from investors including…
Earlier this week, the US government announced sanctions against Tal Dillian, the founder of a controversial government spyware maker, and his business associate Sara Alexandra Faisal Hamou. U.S. Treasury officials said in announcing the sanctions that Mr. Dillian and Mr. Hamou developed and sold spyware that was later used to target Americans, including government officials, policy experts, and journalists. It criticized the act as enabling human rights violations. This move was a first. Until now, the U.S. government has targeted spyware companies, rather than the individuals who run them, by placing them on blocklists and imposing sanctions that prohibit U.S.…
Yet another AI-powered fraud detection software provider is laying off staff. Inscribe, which provides a platform that detects fraud in areas such as business underwriting, tenant screening and onboarding, has cut just under 40% of its workforce, which equates to dozens of employees. The news followed another small round of layoffs at Turnitin, an AI-based plagiarism detection company. Last year, the company's CEO touted how AI could help reduce headcount. Sources said Inscribe's board of directors recommended the layoffs because the current market has prevented the company from meeting its revenue goals for more than a year. San Francisco-based Inscribe.ai…
Microsoft announced Friday that Russian government hackers continue to infiltrate its systems using information obtained in last year's hack. This time, Russian hackers known as “Midnight Blizzard” targeted Microsoft's source code and other internal systems, the company announced. “In recent weeks, we have seen evidence that Midnight Blizzard is gaining or attempting to gain unauthorized access using information originally leaked from our corporate email systems. This includes access to source code repositories and some internal systems,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post. Microsoft also disclosed these new findings in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.…
Artemis Fund, which invests in undervalued founders, has closed its second fund with $36 million in capital commitments. Stephanie Campbell, Diana Murakhovskaya, and Leslie Goldman Tepper founded Artemis in 2019, naming the company after the Greek goddess of the hunt, the wild, and the defender of women. With offices in Houston and New York, Artemis leads seed rounds for diverse founders in fintech, commerce, and care, with a portfolio of over 20 companies led by female founders. More than 60% of them are black or Latino. Or immigrant leadership. The second fund will be created by a group that includes…