Best Tech News Site: August 2023

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Lawsuit alleges no due diligence in Amazon’s Project Kuiper launch contracts to Blue Origin, ULA

An institutional investor is suing Amazon and its board, including founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos, over hefty launch contracts they awarded to Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin. The suit, filed by Amazon shareholders the Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund, alleges that the board spent less than 40 minutes approving the launch agreements for […]

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Lawsuit alleges no due diligence in Amazon’s Project Kuiper launch contracts to Blue Origin, ULA

Fisker confirms Foxconn will build its $29,900 Pear EV, but questions remain

EV startup Fisker revealed more details about its $29,900 Pear electric urban lifestyle crossover vehicle Thursday at the company’s Product Vision Day. Included in that reveal was confirmation that Foxconn, the consumer electronics manufacturer most well-known for making Apple iPhones, would be producing the vehicle at its Lordstown, Ohio, manufacturing facility. In early August, Henrik […]

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Fisker confirms Foxconn will build its $29,900 Pear EV, but questions remain

Robotics sales decline for second straight quarter amid economic woes

Sooner or later, the numbers were going to contract. Broadly speaking, the pandemic has been a gamechanger for automation broadly and robotics specifically. But not even those categories are immune from macro trends. Per new numbers from the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) — whose job it is to track such things — North American […]

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Robotics sales decline for second straight quarter amid economic woes

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Teale, your mental health companion at work, raises $11 million

French startup Teale has secured a funding round of $11 million earlier this summer (€10 million). The company provides a mental health platform for employees and helps HR managers when it comes to preventing burnout or quiet quitting. Alter Equity and Bpifrance’s Digital Venture fund are leading the Series A funding round. Existing investors Isai […]

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/30/teale-your-mental-health-companion-at-work-raises-11-million/

Feds investigate Tesla’s use of funds for secret ‘glass house’ project

Manhattan federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are separately investigating the use of Tesla funds to bankroll a secret project that is described internally as a glass house for CEO Elon Musk, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal that cites people familiar with the matter. WSJ reported in July that […]

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Google’s AI-powered search expands outside U.S. to India and Japan

Google is bringing its generative AI search experience to the first countries outside the U.S., the company announced today, starting with expansions in India and Japan. The new AI-powered search feature, also known as SGE (Search Generative Experience), will become available through Google’s Search Labs in those markets, and will introduce a new feature aimed […]

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/30/googles-ai-powered-search-expands-outside-u-s-to-india-and-japan/

Google’s AI-powered search expands outside U.S. to India and Japan

TechCrunch interview: ‘Palo Alto’ author Malcolm Harris

"I feel like if we know Elon Musk’s name in a hundred years, that's a very, very bad sign."

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TechCrunch interview: ‘Palo Alto’ author Malcolm Harris

"I feel like if we know Elon Musk’s name in a hundred years, that's a very, very bad sign."

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/30/techcrunch-interview-palo-alto-author-malcolm-harris/

PhonePe dives into stock and mutual fund arena

India’s PhonePe is getting into stock and mutual fund investment, the latest in a series of expansion by Walmart-backed payments app as it looks to leverage its 450 million-plus user base to win in new categories. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which has raised $850 million in recent quarters, launched an app called Share.Market on Wednesday that […]

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/29/phonepe-dives-into-stock-and-mutual-fund-arena/

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

PhonePe dives into stock and mutual fund arena

India’s PhonePe is getting into stock and mutual fund investment, the latest in a series of expansion by Walmart-backed payments app as it looks to leverage its 450 million-plus user base to win new categories. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup launched Share.Market, an app that allows users to open their trading accounts and invest in stocks, mutual […]

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DeepMind partners with Google Cloud to watermark AI-generated images

In partnership with Google Cloud, Google Deepmind, Google’s AI research division, is launching a tool for watermarking and identifying AI-generated images. But only images created by Google’s own image-generating model. The tool, called SnythID and available in beta for select users of Vertex AI, Google’s platform for building AI apps and models, embeds a digital […]

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Monday, August 28, 2023

MFast get backing from Wavemaker Partners to increase financial services access in Vietnam

The majority of Vietnam’s population live in rural areas and often lack access to financial services because banks and other institutions open most of their physical locations in cities. MFast wants to change that with what it says is the leading financial services distribution network in Vietnam. The company announced today it has raised $6 […]

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/28/mfast/

Last call: Volunteer at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 and earn a free pass

In just about three weeks, more than 10,000 startup leaders from across the globe will gather at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, which takes place September 19–21 in San Francisco. It’s the mecca of the startup world, and we could use a few more volunteers to help us make it an event to remember. What’s in it […]

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Mercedes to open first charging hubs in Atlanta, China, Germany

Mercedes-Benz has shared plans to open its first electric vehicle DC fast-charging hubs in Atlanta, Georgia; Chengdu, China; and Mannheim, Germany, starting in the fourth quarter of 2023. The automaker plans to install 2,000 charging hubs worldwide by the end of 2024, with 10,000 chargers in North America, Europe, China and “other core markets” by […]

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/28/mercedes-to-open-first-charging-hubs-in-atlanta-china-germany/

Cruise is bringing its robotaxis to Seattle and Washington, DC

Cruise, the self-driving subsidiary of General Motors, said Monday it has begun manual data collection in Seattle and Washington, DC, the first step toward launching commercial services in the cities. Data collection involves manually driving a robotaxi around to grab information on the local driving environment and climate. The next step will be mapping the […]

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Cruise is bringing its robotaxis to Seattle and Washington, DC

A new creator’s guild aims to protect online content creators

Content creation is work, but in such a rapidly shifting social media landscape, creators face an uphill battle fighting for fair pay and ownership of their content — typically without any institutional support. The Creators Guild of America (CGA) wants to change that. The CGA, which launched last week, describes itself as a “professional service […]

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A new creator’s guild aims to protect online content creators

Reliance’s 5G hotspot Jio AirFiber to hit stores next month in broadband push

Jio Platforms on Monday launched the AirFiber, a wireless plug-and-play 5G hotspot, as the top Indian top telecom operator races to make a dent to the broadband market.

With the Jio AirFiber, first showcased last year, Reliance plans to expand its 5G user base and replace wired broadband connections. The device will be available from September 19. Details on the pricing are yet to be announced.

“We can currently connect around 15,000 premises daily, but with Jio AirFiber, we can supercharge this expansion with up to 150,000 connections per day. This is a 10-fold increase, expanding our addressable market over the next three years to over 200 million high-paying homes and premises,” said Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani at the company’s annual general meeting Monday.

Earlier this month, Jio arch-rival Bharti Airtel launched the Xstream AirFiber to answer the Jio offering. The Xstream AirFiber comes with a 100 Mbps monthly plan that costs around $10 per month with a six-month commitment and a refundable security deposit of over $30.

Jio launched its 5G services in India last year, which have now reached over 50 million subscribers, covering more than 96% of the census towns in the country.

The operator aims to provide its advanced cellular network to “every town” in India by the end of 2023. Jio has more than 450 million subscribers in the country, with the average user consuming 25GB of data per month, the Indian conglomerate said at its annual meeting.

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/28/jio-airfiber-india-launch/

Reliance appoints Ambani’s children to board

Reliance Industries said Monday it has appointed the three children of billionaire Mukesh Ambani — Isha Ambani, Akash Ambani and Anant Ambani — to its board, the latest in the succession plan at the country’s largest company, which operates the nation’s largest telecom operator and retail chain.

Nita, Ambani’s wife, has resigned from the board, said the $202 billion oil-to-retail giant in a statement, published on the local stock exchange.

The early signs of the succession planning has been apparent in recent years with 66-year-old Ambani promoting his children to lead many of the empire’s businesses. Akash leads the digital business, Jio Platforms, whereas his twin sister Isha helms Reliance Retail. Anant leads the new energy business.

“Isha Ambani, Akash Ambani and Anant Ambani have been closely involved with and are leading and managing key businesses of RIL over the last few years including retail, digital services and energy and materials businesses,” the company said in a statement.

“They also serve on the boards of the key subsidiaries of RIL. Their appointment to the Board of RIL will enable RIL to gain from their insights and infuse new ideas, the Board opined.”

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/28/reliance-board-ambani/

Sunday, August 27, 2023

After Threads, Bluesky also adds a way to see your own likes

Bluesky introduced a bunch of updates on Friday to its mobile apps and website including a new tab to see your own likes, notification support for apps, and an emoji picker for the web composer.

Earlier this month, Bluesky’s rival Threads added a new tab in settings, called “Your Likes,” to let users look at their own liked posts. In contrast, Bluesky has added a “Likes” tab to users’ profiles. The placement of the tab is similar to X (formerly Twitter), but unlike the Elon Musk-owned social network, Bluesky doesn’t let you see liked posts of other people.

Bluesky has added a new likes tab

The platform specified in a post that the likes of a user can be accessed through the API as they are public. While the native client doesn’t show them, other apps can choose to include functionality to display the likes of other users.

Additionally, the social network has also added the ability to suggest people to mention when someone types an “@” in the composer. This update is available across platforms. In another composer-related enhancement, Bluesky has added an emoji picker on the web. In its latest update, Bluesky is also adding notifications to its mobile apps.

Earlier this week, Bluesky added rate limits to actions like resetting passwords or updating the user handle to stabilize network traffic. The social media company took this action, as last week after Musk announced that X would be removing the “block” feature, Bluesky briefly failed to handle the load of the new traffic on the site.

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Tesla’s China rival Xpeng buys ride hailing giant Didi’s smart EV assets for $744M

Chinese electric vehicle upstart Xpeng is acquiring the smart EV assets of ride hailing giant Didi for $744 million, marking another significant alliance that the Tesla challenger has struck in recent months.

In an announcement on Monday, Didi said the duo is forming a strategic partnership to “promote the global application of smart electric vehicles and technologies.”

Notably, the Didi assets will become a new sub-brand called “Mona” under Xpeng, which is scheduled to launch in 2024. The partnership also extends to areas including marketing, financial insurance services, charging and international expansion.

The news followed on the heels of Volkswagen’s $700 million investment in Xpeng which would see the production of two new models under the Volkswagen brand utilizing XPeng’s key ADAS technologies.

More to come — this is a developing story…

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/27/teslas-china-rival-xpeng-buys-ride-hailing-giant-didis-smart-ev-assets-for-744m/

Never express your ‘use of funds’ slide as percentages

When investors look at a startup slide deck, they are looking for something very specific. Yes, they want to know if the team is great and the market is huge and the problem is worth solving and the solution makes sense. Of course. But another thing they are looking for is whether the founders understand the journey they are on.

If you step on the VC treadmill, you’re signing up for rapid, explosive growth. You have to: If you don’t, you don’t fit into the models of how VC works. And that’s OK — not every company is suitable for VC funding.

The other truth is that your funding amount includes a very literal deadline: If you run out of money, that’s the end of your company. So, before you run out of money, one of three things needs to happen:

You have an exit event, which usually means getting acquired or going public through an IPO. The latter is more predictable than the former, and early-stage companies usually don’t have that as an option.
You reach break-even and are able to operate the business from cash flow. In other words, you are making more money than you are spending.
You raise another round of funding.

For early-stage companies, the first two options are off the table, which means you need to paint a compelling picture for another round of funding. That’s where startups often fall down. Here’s how to fix that.

This slide has two Texas-sized red flags. Can you tell what they are? Also: Yeah, I “designed” this slide. This is why I’m getting some help for the how it should be done example below. Image Credits: Haje Kamps/TechCrunch+

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Never express your ‘use of funds’ slide as percentages

You have an exit event, which usually means getting acquired or going public through an IPO. The latter is more predictable than the former, and early-stage companies usually don’t have that as an option.
You reach break-even and are able to operate the business from cash flow. In other words, you are making more money than you are spending.
You raise another round of funding.

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/27/use-of-funds-are-not-percentages/

Looking for your next book? These 9 authors have reading recommendations for you

What’s the hardest part of reading? More often than not, it’s picking a good book. “L’embarras du choix,” as we say in French: Presented with infinite options, it becomes very hard to make a decision. That’s why recommendations are so helpful.

And who’s best placed to recommend books than people who, you know, write books? With this in mind, TechCrunch+ contacted a handful of authors whose work is closely tied to tech and startups. We asked them a simple question: “What book have you read this summer that you think others might enjoy?”

We heard back from:

Adam DuVander, author of “Technical Content Strategy Decoded”
Phil Rosen, author of “Life Between Moments: New York Stories”
Adi Polak, author of “Scaling Machine Learning with Spark: Distributed ML with MLlib, TensorFlow, and PyTorch”
Andrew Lee Miller, author of “The Startup Growth Book: 50+ Proven Ways to Scale Your Business Without a Marketing Budget”
David Kadavy, author of “Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters”
Sarah E. Brown, author of “Lead Upwards: How Startup Joiners Can Impact New Ventures, Build Amazing Careers, and Inspire Great Teams”
Zeke Faux, author of “Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall”
David Spinks, author of “The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community Your Competitive Advantage”
Purna Virji, author of “High-Impact Content Marketing: Strategies to Make Your Content Intentional, Engaging and Effective”

From fiction to practical guides, from very recent books to a century-old one, here are their picks.

The responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Adam DuVander

After a recent book explaining why generic marketing approaches don’t work on software developers, developer marketer Adam DuVander is now back with “Technical Content Strategy Decoded,” a more actionable follow-on explaining what companies should and shouldn’t do.

Book recommendation: “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles,” by Steven Pressfield

I re-read “The War of Art” this summer. Again. I return to this book because it describes the life of anyone creating anything — and that is most of us. Our greatest obstacle is not ourselves. Pressfield gives us a scapegoat in resistance and a game plan to transcend its grasp.

Phil Rosen

Phil Rosen is a journalist and the author of two books, “Everywhere But Home: Life Overseas as Told by a Travel Blogger” and “Life Between Moments: New York Stories,” a collection of 12 short stories about the Big Apple.

Book recommendation: “Forever: A Novel,” by Pete Hamill

This is a brilliant novel about an immigrant from Ireland who arrives to New York in the 1700s, and is quickly granted immortality under one condition: He can never leave Manhattan.

It’s a beautiful, tragic story that’s effectively a history of Manhattan through one man’s eyes, and it’s similar to “Forrest Gump” in that he’s always in the right place at the right time through historical events.

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Looking for your next book? These 9 authors have reading recommendations for you

We heard back from:

Adam DuVander, author of “Technical Content Strategy Decoded”
Phil Rosen, author of “Life Between Moments: New York Stories”
Adi Polak, author of “Scaling Machine Learning with Spark: Distributed ML with MLlib, TensorFlow, and PyTorch”
Andrew Lee Miller, author of “The Startup Growth Book: 50+ Proven Ways to Scale Your Business Without a Marketing Budget”
David Kadavy, author of “Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters”
Sarah E. Brown, author of “Lead Upwards: How Startup Joiners Can Impact New Ventures, Build Amazing Careers, and Inspire Great Teams”
Zeke Faux, author of “Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall”
David Spinks, author of “The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community Your Competitive Advantage”
Purna Virji, author of “High-Impact Content Marketing: Strategies to Make Your Content Intentional, Engaging and Effective”

From fiction to practical guides, from very recent books to a century-old one, here are their picks.

The responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Adam DuVander

Book recommendation: “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles,” by Steven Pressfield

I re-read “The War of Art” this summer. Again. I return to this book because it describes the life of anyone creating anything — and that is most of us. Our greatest obstacle is not ourselves. Pressfield gives us a scapegoat in resistance and a game plan to transcend its grasp.

Phil Rosen

Book recommendation: “Forever: A Novel,” by Pete Hamill

This is a brilliant novel about an immigrant from Ireland who arrives to New York in the 1700s, and is quickly granted immortality under one condition: He can never leave Manhattan.

It’s a beautiful, tragic story that’s effectively a history of Manhattan through one man’s eyes, and it’s similar to “Forrest Gump” in that he’s always in the right place at the right time through historical events.

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/27/tech-startups-recommendations/

Better.com’s public market debut was Miserable.com

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. Better.com finally went public last week, and the stock’s performance was worse than expected. Affirm, on the other hand, saw its shares get a boost on the back of a better-than-expected earnings report. There was also a mega-raise, and an acquisition too. On another note, if you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up!

Better.com finally went public

The biggest fintech news of the week centered around Better.com’s no good, very bad public market debut. Or as my friend and colleague Alex Wilhelm described it, Better.com had a Miserable.com week.

To sum it up, digital mortgage lender Better.com made its public debut on August 24. To no one’s surprise, the stock wasn’t exactly a hit with public investors. In fact, it was a resounding bomb. As of Friday, August 25, the stock had closed a mere $1.19. Shares of SPAC partner, Aurora, were trading at $17.45 on Wednesday, before Better.com officially went public. This is a company that two years ago had planned to go public at a $7.7 billion valuation.

Now, we knew Better.com’s stock wouldn’t exactly perform well. But I’m not sure anyone expected it to be hovering at a share price that gave Better.com a market cap of just $19.14 million.

I had the opportunity to interview Vishal Garg, Better.com CEO and co-founder, a couple weeks ago in anticipation of the company’s going public via a SPAC merger with Aurora Acquisition Corp. I will tell you that after nearly two years of writing about the company’s multiple (and mostly botched) layoffs, all the various ways that Garg has managed to piss off former employees and execs alike, and the company’s swing from a big profit in 2020 to heavy losses in 2022 and beyond, I expected the interview to be a little awkward. The last time I had interviewed Garg was in 2020, when everyone and their brother was refinancing their homes and Better.com was raking in the cash. In the end, Garg was on his best behavior — exhibiting the charm and charisma that no doubt managed to help win over investors such as SoftBank, Activant Capital, Ping An Global Voyager Fund, Ally Financial and Citi, and others who collectively invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the company.

Some highlights of the interview included the following:

Garg admitted he “had jitters” about the IPO.
The executive also said he “had a lot of leadership training” and realized that he needed to treat his employees with the same kindness he was treating customers.
Going public despite all of the company’s challenges was all about getting $550 million from SoftBank.
Garg continued to tout the company’s technology (which even company naysayers will acknowledge is pretty darn good) and the hope that a housing market turnaround and mortgage rate decrease could work in its favor in 2024 should they both materialize.

On that note, on the same day that Better.com went public, the average 30-year mortgage rate jumped to 7.23%, marking a 22-year high, according to Yahoo Finance. With rates this high, Better.com’s attempt to turn its business around will be even more challenging.

Phil Haslett, co-founder and chief strategy officer of EquityZen, had this to say about the company’s choosing to move forward with its delayed SPAC despite all the negative headlines over the past 20 months. Via email, he wrote: “Senior leadership at Better.com (and its investors) are not surprised the stock is ‘down’ 90%. The de-SPAC was a way to raise $565M. Nobody else was going to give them $500 million. Vishal Garg saw that there was one last wedding dress for sale, and he took it. He knew it wouldn’t fit right, but he didn’t care. He got it done.”

To hear the Equity podcast team riff more about the company and its bomb of a public debut, check out the below link. — Mary Ann

Image Credits: Better.com

Affirm’s very good week

Better.com may have had a rough week, but at least one other publicly traded fintech company’s stock fared far better.

Shares of Affirm’s stock were trading up nearly 30% to just under $18 on Friday afternoon after the company released its fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings. The company said it was exiting the year with achieving profitability on an adjusted operating income (AOI) basis and that its revenue was up 22% year-over-year to $446 million. And, as reported by CNBC, Affirm “also gave strong guidance for the fiscal first quarter, projecting $430 million to $455 million in revenue, versus analyst expectations of $430 million.”

Third Bridge analyst Kevin Kennedy had a few thoughts on the results after interviewing a number of execs in the fintech space, telling TechCrunch that “even with generally positive results, it is hard to ignore Affirm’s continued operating losses and loss margins expanded more than 11 percentage points over the past year, resulting in a $2.6 billion accumulated deficit.” On the plus side, Kennedy also noted that the Debit+ card product was “a step in the right direction, and will likely play a key role in the path to profitability by driving better monetization of existing users without the drag of marginal customer acquisition costs.” He said he was also particularly interested to see Affirm’s increased adoption in travel, equipment and auto industries. Lastly, he said: “Our experts believe Affirm’s future as a standalone business will be contingent on the company’s ability to develop and effectively cross-sell a wider spectrum of financial services products, as the BNPL offerings of major diversified tech players like PayPal, Apple and Cash App (Block) are becoming increasingly competitive.”

For context, Affirm’s stock is still trading lower than its 52-week-high of $27.26, but it’s more than double its 52-week-low of $8.62.

Check out our previous interview with the company’s CTO here. — Mary Ann

Weekly news

Sarah Perez reports on a new way for Starbucks lovers to pay for their favorite beverages, sans phone. The contactless checkout method comes as the coffee giant works to move people through the drive-through quicker. Find out how it works.

From Manish Singh are two stories on India retail giant Reliance Retail. First up, the company’s spinoff unit, Jio Financial Services, made its public debut. Second, Reliance is testing a sound box payment system that instantly validates and announces when a payment was successful. Learn more.

And this week on Equity, Mary Ann dug into Latin America’s fintech and AI scene with Mercedes Bent, partner on the early-stage team at Lightspeed Ventures and co-lead of Lightspeed’s LatAm region and angel fund. They spoke on a number of topics, including how and why Mercedes started investing in Latin America, and why she thinks the region is more resilient than others; why we’re early in the hype cycle when it comes to the intersection of AI and fintech; and why generative AI and fintech aren’t always the best combination.

Other items we are reading:

Klarna boasts expansion and growth across Europe as smaller firms ‘dial back’ commitments. Speaking of Klarna, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski posted an engaging thread on X, detailing the challenges of “trying to hire and manage somebody that does something that you have no clue how to do.”

How fintech company Marqeta is using AI to help consumers

Hadley launches mobile app to increase access to savings plans

Look who’s partnering now:

OZ Câmbio partners with Nium to improve Brazilian SME market and encourage international expansion

Treasury Prime partners with Liberty Bank

Cross River Bank and Current launch credit-building product

Engagement banking fintech Backbase partners with SavvyMoney

Fundings and M&A

As seen on TechCrunch

Fintech startup Ramp raises $300M at a 28% lower valuation of $5.8B

Moniepoint cleared to acquire Kenyan fintech Kopo Kopo

This venture-backed startup has quietly bought more than 80 mom-and-pop shops

And elsewhere

Yahoo acquires social investing platform Commonstock (Disclosure: Yahoo is TechCrunch’s parent company)

LemFi raises $33M Series A to ease remittance for immigrants

Koverly raises $7.6M for B2B BNPL

Why Ventura Capital and Peter Thiel are backing this Silicon Valley RIA

Discover the Fintech Stage at Disrupt 2023

Check out the Fintech Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, taking place in San Francisco on September 19–21, where we cover web3, banking, and more. Last-minute passes are still available. Save 15% with code INTERCHANGE. Register now!

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

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Better.com’s public market debut was Miserable.com

Better.com finally went public

Now, we knew Better.com’s stock wouldn’t exactly perform well. But I’m not sure anyone expected it to be hovering at a share price that gave Better.com a market cap of just $19.14 million.

Some highlights of the interview included the following:

Garg admitted he “had jitters” about the IPO.
The executive also said he “had a lot of leadership training” and realized that he needed to treat his employees with the same kindness he was treating customers.
Going public despite all of the company’s challenges was all about getting $550 million from SoftBank.
Garg continued to tout the company’s technology (which even company naysayers will acknowledge is pretty darn good) and the hope that a housing market turnaround and mortgage rate decrease could work in its favor in 2024 should they both materialize.

To hear the Equity podcast team riff more about the company and its bomb of a public debut, check out the below link. — Mary Ann

Image Credits: Better.com

Affirm’s very good week

Better.com may have had a rough week, but at least one other publicly traded fintech company’s stock fared far better.

For context, Affirm’s stock is still trading lower than its 52-week-high of $27.26, but it’s more than double its 52-week-low of $8.62.

Check out our previous interview with the company’s CTO here. — Mary Ann

Weekly news

Other items we are reading:

How fintech company Marqeta is using AI to help consumers

Hadley launches mobile app to increase access to savings plans

Look who’s partnering now:

OZ Câmbio partners with Nium to improve Brazilian SME market and encourage international expansion

Treasury Prime partners with Liberty Bank

Cross River Bank and Current launch credit-building product

Engagement banking fintech Backbase partners with SavvyMoney

Fundings and M&A

As seen on TechCrunch

Fintech startup Ramp raises $300M at a 28% lower valuation of $5.8B

Moniepoint cleared to acquire Kenyan fintech Kopo Kopo

This venture-backed startup has quietly bought more than 80 mom-and-pop shops

And elsewhere

Yahoo acquires social investing platform Commonstock (Disclosure: Yahoo is TechCrunch’s parent company)

LemFi raises $33M Series A to ease remittance for immigrants

Koverly raises $7.6M for B2B BNPL

Why Ventura Capital and Peter Thiel are backing this Silicon Valley RIA

Discover the Fintech Stage at Disrupt 2023

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/27/better-com-had-a-miserable-com-public-debut/

Saturday, August 26, 2023

Microsoft brings Python to Excel, Cruise reduces fleet following crash, and MrBeast creates controversy

Hello, folks, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that covers the biggest happenings in tech over the past few days. Haven’t been able to follow the news closely? Don’t sweat it. WiR will get you up to speed.

In this edition of WiR, we cover Microsoft bringing Python to Excel, Cruise being forced to reduce its robotaxi fleet following a crash, and Amazon launching its new Fire TV Channels app. We also recap Twitter competitor Bluesky buckling under load, influencer MrBeast’s poorly timed Olympics video, IBM building a code translator for COBOL, and Snapchat expanding further into generative AI.

If you haven’t already, sign up here to get WiR in your inbox every Saturday. Now, without further ado, here’s the week’s news!

Microsoft brings Python to Excel: Microsoft this week announced the public preview of Python in Excel, which will allow advanced spreadsheet users to combine scripts in the popular Python language and their usual Excel formulas in the same workbook. The feature will first roll out to Microsoft 365 Insiders as part of the Excel for Windows beta channel, Frederic reports.

Cruise told to reduce fleet following crash: Cruise, the self-driving car subsidiary of GM, has been asked by the California Department of Motor Vehicles to reduce its robotaxi fleet by 50% in San Francisco following a crash Thursday night with a fire truck.

MrBeast’s geopolitical nightmare: Billionaire creator MrBeast inadvertently stoked generations of geopolitical tension in his latest YouTube video, in which participants from “every country on Earth” competed in “Squid Game”-like elimination challenges for a chance to win $250,000. It was the countries that weren’t included in the competition, as well as the map featured in the video, that made the stunt ripe for discourse.

IBM taps AI to translate COBOL code: IBM this week unveiled Code Assistant for IBM Z, which uses a code-generating AI model to translate COBOL (one of the older programming languages in use) into Java syntax. It’s potentially quite handy, considering there’s over 800 billion lines of COBOL in use on production systems and a strong desire among many of the companies using it to migrate to more modern languages.

Amazon launches Fire TV Channels app: Amazon announced Monday the launch of its new Fire TV Channels app, giving Fire TV customers access to over 400 free ad-supported TV channels, including ABC News, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, MLB, Martha Stewart and more.

Bluesky struggles with growing popularity: X (formerly Twitter) competitor Bluesky buckled following Elon Musk’s announcement that X will no longer support blocking users in favor of mutes only. The company has often had to deal with an influx of users when Twitter announces particularly unwelcome changes, Sarah writes.

Snapchat adds new generative AI features: Snapchat is preparing to further expand into generative AI features, after earlier launching its AI-powered chatbot My AI, which can now respond with a Snap back, not just text. With the company’s forthcoming generative AI feature called “Dreams,” Snap will again experiment with AI images — but soon, those images may contain you and your friends in imaginative backgrounds.

Phone hacking company tries to keep tech secret: For years, cops and other government authorities all over the world have been using phone hacking technology provided by Cellebrite to unlock phones and obtain the data within. And the company has been keen on keeping the use of its technology “hush hush,” Lorenzo reports.

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Have a hankering for new podcast content? You’re in luck. TechCrunch has plenty on deck for your listening enjoyment.

On Equity, the crew discussed Nvidia’s earnings report, raises from Ramp and AI-powered writing platform Lex, Northvolt’s move to North America, the story behind Better.com’s IPO and startups that are literally full of crap (it’ll make sense once you listen — trust me).

Meanwhile, Found focused on Feyi Ayodele, the co-founder and CEO of CancerIQ, a precision health company designed for physicians to help their patients with monitoring cancer risk and prevention. Ayodele recounted how she came up with the startup idea while hiking Mount Kilimanjaro with her mother.

And on Chain Reaction, Erik Svenson talked about Blockstream, a bitcoin and blockchain-focused infrastructure firm that he helped co-found in 2014. Blockstream has its own sidechain technology, Liquid Network, as well as bitcoin mining operations and hardware wallets for Bitcoin and other assets.

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TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:

OnlyFans proves the creator economy boom was real: Venture capital investment into the creator economy category slowed down significantly starting in the second half of 2022. But Ron and Anna write about how OnlyFans’ profitability suggests that there’s juice in the sector yet.

Nvidia rides the AI wave — but for how long?: When Nvidia announced eye-popping earnings on Wednesday with three-digit year-over-year growth, it was easy to get caught up in the excitement. But the lingering question is, can it keep it up?

The late-stage venture market is crumbling: New data from CB Insights details that there have been sharp valuation declines across nearly every startup stage around the world. But is that a reason for panic? Alex and Anna don’t think so — at least not now.

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A Brazilian phone spyware was hacked and victims’ devices ‘deleted’ from server

A Portuguese-language spyware called WebDetetive has been used to compromise more than 76,000 Android phones in recent years across South America, largely in Brazil. WebDetetive is also the latest phone spyware company in recent months to have been hacked.

In an undated note seen by TechCrunch, the unnamed hackers described how they found and exploited several security vulnerabilities that allowed them to compromise WebDetetive’s servers and access to its user databases. By exploiting other flaws in the spyware maker’s web dashboard — used by abusers to access the stolen phone data of their victims — the hackers said they enumerated and downloaded every dashboard record, including every customer’s email address.

The hackers said that dashboard access also allowed them to delete victim devices from the spyware network altogether, effectively severing the connection at the server level to prevent the device from uploading new data. “Which we definitely did. Because we could. Because #fuckstalkerware,” the hackers wrote in the note.

The note was included in a cache containing more than 1.5 gigabytes of data scraped from the spyware’s web dashboard. That data included information about each customer, such as the IP address they logged in from, and purchase history. The data also listed every device that each customer had compromised, which version of the spyware the phone was running, and the types of data that the spyware was collecting from the victim’s phone.

The cache did not include the stolen contents from victims’ phones.

DDoSecrets, a nonprofit transparency collective that indexes leaked and exposed datasets in the public interest, received the WebDetetive data and shared it with TechCrunch for analysis.

In total, the data showed that WebDetetive had compromised 76,794 devices to date at the time of the breach. The data also contained 74,336 unique customer email addresses, though WebDetetive does not verify a customer’s email addresses when signing up, preventing any meaningful analysis of the spyware’s customers.

It’s not known who is behind the WebDetetive breach and the hackers did not provide contact information. TechCrunch could not independently confirm the hackers’ claim that it deleted victims’ devices from the network, though TechCrunch did verify the authenticity of the stolen data by matching a selection of device identifiers in the cache against a publicly accessible endpoint on WebDetetive’s server.

WebDetetive is a type of phone monitoring app that is planted on a person’s phone without their consent, often by someone with knowledge of the phone’s passcode.

Once planted, the app changes its icon on the phone’s home screen, making the spyware difficult to detect and remove. WebDetetive then immediately begins stealthily uploading the contents of a person’s phone to its servers, including their messages, call logs, phone call recordings, photos, ambient recordings from the phone’s microphone, social media apps, and real-time precise location data.

Despite the broad access that these so-called “stalkerware” (or spouseware) apps have to a victim’s personal and sensitive phone data, spyware is notoriously buggy and known for their shoddy coding, which puts victims’ already-stolen data at risk of further compromise.

WebDetetive, meet OwnSpy

Little is known about WebDetetive beyond its surveillance capabilities. It’s not uncommon for spyware makers to conceal or obfuscate their real-world identities, given the reputational and legal risks that come with producing spyware and facilitating the illegal surveillance of others. WebDetetive is no different. Its website does not list who owns or operates WebDetetive.

But while the breached data itself reveals few clues about WebDetetive’s administrators, much of its roots can be traced back to OwnSpy, another widely used phone spying app.

TechCrunch downloaded the WebDetetive Android app from its website (since both Apple and Google ban stalkerware apps from their app stores), and planted the app onto a virtual device, allowing us to analyze the app in an isolated sandbox without giving it any real data, such as our location. We ran a network traffic analysis to understand what data was flowing in and out of the WebDetetive app, which found it was a largely repackaged copy of OwnSpy’s spyware. WebDetetive’s user agent, which it sends to the server to identify itself, was still referring to itself as OwnSpy, even though it was uploading our virtual device’s dummy data to WebDetetive’s servers.

A side-by-side photo comparison of WebDetetive (left) and OwnSpy (right) running on Android. Image Credits: TechCrunch

OwnSpy is developed in Spain by Mobile Innovations, a Madrid-based company run by Antonio Calatrava. OwnSpy has operated since at least 2010, according to its website, and claims to have 50,000 customers, though it’s not known how many devices OwnSpy has compromised to date.

OwnSpy also operates an affiliate model, allowing others to make a commission by promoting the app or offering “a new product to your clients” in return for OwnSpy taking a cut of the profits, according to an archived copy of its affiliates website. It’s not clear what other operational links, if any, exist between OwnSpy and WebDetetive. Calatrava did not return a request for comment or provide contact information for WebDetetive’s administrators.

A short time after we emailed Calatrava, portions of OwnSpy’s known infrastructure dropped offline. A separate network traffic analysis of OwnSpy’s app by TechCrunch found that OwnSpy’s spyware app was no longer functioning. WebDetetive’s app continues to function.

Destructive attack?

WebDetetive is the second spyware maker to be targeted by a data-destructive hack in recent months. LetMeSpy, a spyware app developed by Polish developer Rafal Lidwin, shut down following a hack that exposed and deleted victims’ stolen phone data from LetMeSpy’s servers. Lidwin declined to answer questions about the incident.

By TechCrunch’s count, at least a dozen spyware companies in recent years have exposed, spilled, or otherwise put victims’ stolen phone data at risk of further compromise because of shoddy coding and easily exploitable security vulnerabilities.

TechCrunch was unable to reach the WebDetetive administrators for comment. An email sent to WebDetetive’s support email address about the data breach — including whether the spyware maker has backups — went unreturned. It’s not clear if the spyware maker will notify customers or victims of the data breach, or if it still has the data or records to do so.

Destructive attacks, although infrequent, could have unintended and dangerous consequences for victims of spyware. Spyware typically alerts the abuser if the spyware app stops working or is removed from a victim’s phone, and severing a connection without a safety plan in place could put spyware victims in an unsafe situation. The Coalition Against Stalkerware, which works to support victims and survivors of stalkerware, has resources on its website for those who suspect their phone is compromised.

How to find and remove WebDetetive

Unlike most phone monitoring apps, WebDetetive and OwnSpy do not hide their app on an Android home screen, but instead disguise themselves as an Android system-presenting Wi-Fi app.

WebDetetive is relatively easy to detect. The app appears named as “WiFi” and features a white wireless icon in a blue circle on a white background.

A screenshot showing the "WiFi" app, which presents as a system Wi-Fi app. However, this app is spyware in disguise. The app icon has a blue wireless icon.

A screenshot showing the “WiFi” app, which presents as a system Wi-Fi app. However, this app is spyware in disguise. Image Credits: TechCrunch

When tapped and held, and the app info is viewed, the app is actually called “Sistema.”

This “WiFi” app icon, when tapped, will actually show as an app called “Sistema,” designed to look like an Android system app, but is actually WebDetetive spyware. Image Credits: TechCrunch

We have a general guide that can help you remove Android spyware from your phone, if it is safe to do so. You should ensure that Google Play Protect is switched on as this on-device security feature can defend against malicious Android apps. You can check its status from the settings menu in Google Play.

If you or someone you know needs help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) provides 24/7 free, confidential support to victims of domestic abuse and violence. If you are in an emergency situation, call 911. The Coalition Against Stalkerware also has resources if you think your phone has been compromised by spyware.

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A Brazilian phone spyware was hacked and victims’ devices ‘deleted’ from server

The cache did not include the stolen contents from victims’ phones.

DDoSecrets, a nonprofit transparency collective that indexes leaked and exposed datasets in the public interest, received the WebDetetive data and shared it with TechCrunch for analysis.

WebDetetive is a type of phone monitoring app that is planted on a person’s phone without their consent, often by someone with knowledge of the phone’s passcode.

WebDetetive, meet OwnSpy

But while the breached data itself reveals few clues about WebDetetive’s administrators, much of its roots can be traced back to OwnSpy, another widely used phone spying app.

A side-by-side photo comparison of WebDetetive (left) and OwnSpy (right) running on Android. Image Credits: TechCrunch

Destructive attack?

How to find and remove WebDetetive

Unlike most phone monitoring apps, WebDetetive and OwnSpy do not hide their app on an Android home screen, but instead disguise themselves as an Android system-presenting Wi-Fi app.

WebDetetive is relatively easy to detect. The app appears named as “WiFi” and features a white wireless icon in a blue circle on a white background.

A screenshot showing the “WiFi” app, which presents as a system Wi-Fi app. However, this app is spyware in disguise. Image Credits: TechCrunch

When tapped and held, and the app info is viewed, the app is actually called “Sistema.”

source https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/26/brazil-webdetetive-spyware-deleted/

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WebDetetive, meet OwnSpy

Destructive attack?

How to find and remove WebDetetive

WebDetetive, meet OwnSpy

Destructive attack?

How to find and remove WebDetetive