DOJ charges three in hacking campaign

Plus: Smarter subtitles

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Szkutak Friday, September 27, 2024 Welcome to TC PM! Today we're looking at the criminal charges being brought by the U.S. Department of Justice against three Iranian hackers; the latest regulatory news regarding Amazon's investment into Anthropic; and that large OpenAI funding round. Happy Friday! TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto / Getty Images ⚖️ Criminal charges: The U.S. Department of Justice criminally charged three individuals from Iran for their role in a four-year-long hacking campaign that involved a hack on Donald Trump's presidential campaign earlier this year. Read more 😮‍ Dodging a bullet: The U.K.'s antitrust authority concluded that Amazon's partnership, and investment, into AI company Anthropic can't be investigated as a merger. This is likely welcome news to both companies. Read more ⏳ Almost time: Talk of OpenAI's $6.5 billion funding round, which values the company at $150 billion, has been going on for a while. Now there's good reason to believe that the round could close as early as next week. Read more Afternoon must-reads Image Credits: Wordy 🗣️ Smarter subtitles: Now, this is a good use case for AI. Wordy is a new app that uses AI to automatically translate and define English words from a television show or movie to help non-native English speakers understand and learn them. Read more 🎙️ Equity: On today's Equity, the team dives into Reflect Orbital, a fun satellite and mirror company with a very well-known VC backer. They also dig into Y Combinator's Demo Days and chat about defense tech. Listen here 😟 Drata trims down: Security compliance automation platform Drata laid off 9% of its employees, or 40 people. The company was founded in 2020 and has since raised more than $300 million in venture capital. Read more 🚘 Canoo takes on more water: The troubles at EV startup Canoo continue. Just weeks after the company kicked off a major reorganization, it has now been hit with two fresh lawsuits from its suppliers. Read more   A Message from TechCrunch Savings of up to $600 on Disrupt 2024 tickets end tonight! Last call for ticket savings to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT! Save up to $600 on individual ticket types. Network with 10,000+ startup and VC leaders, gain insights from 250+ experts, and engage in over 200 sessions. Don't miss out on these unbeatable ticket savings before we start our countdown to Disrupt 2024! Register Now   Around the web 💵 What's an IPO? While rumors have been swirling for a while regarding which startup will go public next, now we have something more concrete. Bloomberg reports that neobank Chime has hired bankers for a 2025 IPO, meaning it could be one of the first out the gate next year. Read more 🤖 Too much AI: Today, 404 Media reported that some companies are using AI agents to conduct job interviews. I'm sorry, but this is too dystopian for me; if a company did this to me, I would question whether I wanted to work for someone who was hiring in this way. Read more Featured jobs from Crunchboard Senior Data Scientist, IEEE (Piscataway, NJ) IT Director, the Quaker School at Horsham (Horsham, PA) General Manager, airSlate (Brookline, MA) Data Manager, Murmuration (Remote) Director of Marketing and Communications, AidKit (Remote) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.   Check out some of our other newsletters: Startups Weekly TechCrunch Events TechCrunch AI TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy

TC's favorite startups from YC Demo Day 2

Also: Meta handed another fine in Europe

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Bellan Friday, September 27, 2024 Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we have a list of the most impressive startups at YC's Demo Day 2, details on the latest fine imposed on Meta, and notes on a new emotionally intelligent AI companion. We also have a look at how GPT is changing the lending landscape; the beginnings of an AI film ecosystem; Starlink's subscriber wins; a fresh Indian IPO, and more. Let's go! — Rebecca TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch 1. Top picks from YC Demo Day 2: Y Combinator held its second Demo Day on Thursday, and surprise, surprise, AI is the cohort's main focus once again. But that doesn't mean the startups who aren't focusing on AI don't pack a punch. Here are our favorites of the lot. Read More 2. Meta gets another slap on the wrist: Ireland's DPC has hit Meta with a $101.5 million fine because millions of Facebook account passwords were leaked in a 2019 data breach. That may sound like a big penalty, but it's a drop in the bucket for a company that recorded a $13.5 billion profit in the second quarter of 2024 alone. Read More 3. Who needs friends when you have AI? A small bootstrapped startup, Nomi AI, has built a chatbot that can compete with OpenAI's o1. Only, Nomi's chatbot focuses more on memory and EQ to deliver more nuanced responses. Read More   A Message from Roku Introducing Roku Ads Manager: CTV Ads Made Simple With the launch of Roku Ads Manager, marketers now have direct access to Roku's engaged streaming audiences in the U.S. Built for CTV performance, our self-service platform offers easy setup, interactive ad options, and real-time campaign tracking—making CTV advertising more accessible than ever before. Start your campaign today for as little as $500. Learn More   Morning Must-Reads Image Credits: Figure 🔍 Where GPT shines: Michael Tannenbaum, the former COO of Brex and current CEO of lending startup Figure, feels GPT has already changed the mortgage lending landscape. How? He says it takes the drudgery out of manually checking lending documents for errors. Read More 🤥 No, AI can't police AI: OpenAI's VP of global affairs says the company's o1 model can self-identify biases in its answers. While there's some credence to this, the data doesn't quite back up those claims. Read More 📽️ Taking the reins: Instead of waiting for the film industry to adopt AI, Runway is starting a new AI-friendly film ecosystem with a $5 million fund. The firm says it will back 100 original films made using its generative video model. Read More 🛰️ 4 million subs and counting: SpaceX's Starlink has hit 4 million subscribers, which means more paper for SpaceX to continue its space efforts. It also means Starlink has gained a million new customers since the end of May. Read More 🎮 Loco for gaming: Redwood, a UAE-based investment firm, slapped $65 million on the table to buy a majority stake in Indian gaming platform Loco. The deal will help the latter expand into international markets. Read More   A Message from VMware Ensure data privacy & security in GenAI w/ VMware Private AI GenAI can significantly enhance productivity and revenue, but deploying it requires addressing privacy, security, control, cost and performance. This IDC whitepaper details how VMware Private AI handles these challenges. See How   Around the Web ❌ Free speech for me, not for thee: X is preventing users from posting links to a newsletter with a leaked document allegedly from the Trump campaign's research into JD Vance, reports The Verge. It's ironic, considering Musk had a lot to say when Twitter blocked a New York Post story with leaked content about Hunter Biden. Read More 🌪️ OpenAI is eating its own tail: Given its for-profit shift and new products, it feels like OpenAI is suffering from Icarus Syndrome. The Wall Street Journal cited current and former OpenAI employees as saying that the company apparently blitzed through safety tests, and that Sam Altman is sort of detached from the company's day-to-day functions. Read More 🍔 Swiggy goes public: The Indian IPO market is alive and well, and Swiggy is the latest example of that. The SoftBank-backed food delivery firm is aiming for a $1.25 billion public offering at a $15 billion valuation, reports Reuters. Read More Before You Go Image Credits: Napkin.one ✍️ Back-of-the-napkin mindfulness: Napkin is a note-taking app that isn't about making you more productive. "We are helping people capture ideas that change their state of mind," founder David Felsmann said. Read More Featured jobs from Crunchboard Senior Data Scientist, IEEE (Piscataway, NJ) IT Director, the Quaker School at Horsham (Horsham, PA) General Manager, airSlate (Brookline, MA) Data Manager, Murmuration (Remote) Director of Marketing and Communications, AidKit (Remote) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.   Check out some of our other newsletters: Startups Weekly TechCrunch AI TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy