Silicon Valley VCs for Kamala Harris

Plus, how to get Apple Intelligence on your iPhone

View this email online in your browser By Christine Hall Wednesday, July 31, 2024 Welcome to TechCrunch PM! This afternoon, we bring you news about another group of venture capitalists who are making public which presidential candidate they support, a few funding rounds to advance AI tools, layoffs, and a robot that will move boxes for you. Happy Wednesday! TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Drew Hallowell / Getty Images, Maggie Stamets / Cody Corrall / TechCrunch 💰 Now we see which VCs stump for Kamala Harris: Just as we saw investors Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and David Sacks throw their support for Donald Trump, investors including Reid Hoffman and Vinod Khosla are doing the same for Kamala Harris. Read more 🤝 Bending Spoons acquires WeTransfer: Bending Spoons already owns apps, including Evernote and Meetup, and is now adding the file transfer service. Not much is known yet about the fate of WeTransfer in the hands of Bending Spoon. We do know that it typically transforms the business models of companies it acquires. It also lays off staff from those companies. Stay tuned. Read more 🎧 AI for sales: Sybill, now with $11 million in new funding, built an AI assistant specifically for sales representatives. The company claims its ability to track and analyze many call transcripts and emails is what sets it apart. It does that by providing context-driven insights and summaries instead of only providing meeting notes and transcripts of one or two calls. Read more   A Message from Airtable Build an app in moments with Airtable Cobuilder Imagine a team of developers working on your behalf. Just tell Cobuilder what you want to build, for who, and the AI will do it for you. The possibilities are endless – use Cobuilder to create your next product roadmap, content calendar or OKR tracker. No coding required. Just ideas. You imagine it. AI builds it. The magic is in making it yours. Learn More   Afternoon must-reads Image Credits: fatido / Getty Images 🍎 How to enable Apple Intelligence on your iPhone: Apple is finally releasing some of the Apple Intelligence features. However, if you don't want to deal with early-stage buggy software, wait for the stable release later this year. Read more 🔎 A helping hiring hand: AI agents are everywhere, so why not as a hiring manager. Tezi, which raised $9 million, is building an AI agent for hiring managers to automate the recruitment process. Read more 🤖 A robot that irons: Neura is one of a baker's dozen of firms that were given early access to Nvidia's humanoid development and deployment tools. This week, the German robotics manufacturer released a video of its humanoid robot, called 4NE-1, performing a variety of activities, like ironing and moving boxes. Read more 📱 Layoffs: You might be able to blame this one on generative AI. Match Group discontinued livestreaming services in its dating apps, resulting in a 6% reduction in its workforce. Match is shutting down the Hakuna app, acquired through its purchase of social networking company Hyperconnect in 2021. Read more   A Message from EQUALS TRUE You may Want to ditch your IT Service Partner Nearshore agile team augmentation and acceleration by EQUALS TRUE. The impact of an IT Service without the hassles or absurd costs. Learn More   Around the web 🚂 The seed train has slowed: New figures from Crunchbase News show the number of seed-round deals in the first half of 2024 slowed down. It's also taking longer for a seed-stage company to get to Series A, as it often does; however, now VCs say seed rounds are larger to accommodate. Read more ✈️ Meet Boeing's new CEO: Robert "Kelly" Ortberg, a former CEO at aerospace manufacturer Rockwell Collins, will succeed David Calhoun as CEO and president beginning August 8, ABC News reports. Read more 🧳 Delta says CrowdStrike outage will cost it $500M: The airline says it had to cancel over 5,000 flights as a result of the outage. Delta CEO Ed Bastian also said the company had no choice but to seek damages against CrowdStrike. CNBC has more   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

How stalkers used Bumble and Hinge to pinpoint victims’ locations

Stalkers can pinpoint their victims' location to two meters using dating apps...

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Bellan Wednesday, July 31, 2024 Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we're contemplating why it's possible for anyone determined enough to pinpoint people's locations using dating apps. We also have a good story on BitClout's founder getting slammed with fraud charges, as well as notes on OpenAI's endorsement of AI bills, Meta's AI hallucinating at the worst time, a VC shakeup, a dating app for gamers, and tension at X. Let's dive in! — Rebecca TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg / Getty Images 1. Deleting all dating apps now! A group of researchers said they found vulnerabilities in the design of Bumble, Hinge, Badoo, Grindr, happn and Hily that allowed stalkers to pinpoint the location of their victims down to two meters. It's enough to make you swear off dating apps forever, or at least go try one of those run clubs I keep hearing so much about. Read More 2. SBF, Part 2? The SEC has charged BitClout founder Nader Al-Naji with fraud and unregistered offering of securities, claiming he used a fake identity to avoid regulatory scrutiny while raising over $257 million in cryptocurrency. The SEC also alleges Al-Naji AKA "DiamondHands" spent over $7 million on personal expenses like a Beverly Hills mansion and gifts for his family. It's giving Sam Bankman-Fried vibes. Read More 3. OpenAI wants a seat at the AI regulation table: The ChatGPT maker endorsed three Senate bills this week that could help shape the government's stance on AI. Why? The company probably wants to influence how AI is regulated, and based on Sam Altman's recent op-ed in The Washington Post, wants to steer the conversation towards AI dominance over China rather than AI safety in general. Read More Morning Must-Reads Image Credits: MirageC / Getty Images 🛡️ Protecting the weak links: Software supply chains are surprisingly fragile, and attacks that target them can wreak havoc as they can go undetected for a long time. Lineaje wants to help companies avoid that, and it has just raised a $20 million Series A to do that. Read More 🐅 Alex Cook leaves Tiger Global: TechCrunch got the scoop that Alex Cook, who oversaw some of Tiger Global's largest fintech investments and deals in India, is leaving the firm. This is the latest high-profile shift at Tiger after Scott Shleifer left, and has surprised some founders with close ties to Cook. Read More 🧵 Threads gets trendy: Threads is finally making it easier for people to explore trending topics. Users in the U.S. will now see a label that highlights related trending topics above posts, so you can see more posts related to that topic. Read More 🤝 Developers helping developers: Tel Aviv-based Lightrun has launched its first AI-based tool in private beta to help developers fix issues with their production code within minutes instead of hours. The launch of Runtime Autonomous AI Debugger comes as Lightrun also announced an $18 million SAFE round that it raised last year from GTM Capital. Read More 🌱 Turning plant waste into carbon capture: Applied Carbon had an idea: What if it could transform waste biomass into biochar that can store carbon for decades, even centuries? That could lock away up to 2 billion metric tons of carbon from industrial systems every year, while boosting crop yields on farms. The idea works, but now they have to scale it. Read More Around the Web 😵‍💫 Meta's AI is hallucinating at the worst possible time: The Verge reports that Meta's AI assistant thinks the recent attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump didn't happen. Yikes! Meta is blaming hallucinations in AI, which is really not an excuse. If AI companies can't solve hallucinations, their chatbots shouldn't let people ask questions about such sensitive topics. Read More 🚸 Think of the children! The Senate has passed a pair of bills to expand online privacy and safety protections for kids, reports The Washington Post. The bills force digital platforms to take "reasonable" steps to prevent harms to children, such as bullying, drug addiction and sexual exploitation. Now the bills just need to make it past the House. Read More ⚖️ A CEO in name only? Usually, the CEO gets the final say in a company's dealings. Not so at X, where owner Elon Musk has stymied some of CEO Linda Yaccarino's initiatives, like a deal with Visa that would have seen the card issuer commit more advertising dollars while partnering with X to build a payments product, The Wall Street Journal reports. Read More Before You Go Image Credits: Cavan Images / Getty Images 🎮 Goblin Mode and chill: Date Like Goblins is a new online dating platform that's geared towards gamers, particularly those who are neurodivergent or introverted. When it launches this fall, it'll let people connect via voice chat while playing video games, giving them the opportunity to meet a potential romantic partner in a comfortable environment — their favorite game! Read More   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