🔥 Explore this trending post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: Apps,Startups,TC,cluely,due diligence đź’ˇ **What You’ll Learn**: Lee admitted Thursday on X that the $7 million in annual recurring revenue that Cluely co-founder and CEO Roy Lee shared with TechCrunch last summer was a lie. However, his post on X also misrepresents the backstory of how and why he told TechCrunch ARR in the first place. In the same post, Lee says he "got a random call from a woman asking for numbers and I told her a few things I wasn't expecting an article about." But that call happened because…
✨ Check out this insightful post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: AI,Startups,due diligence,M&A,Private Equity đź’ˇ **What You’ll Learn**: The typical M&A process is time-consuming and expensive, even for the largest private equity firms with large headcounts. In addition to spending countless hours meeting with senior executives to examine potential targets and model financial results, these groups spend millions of dollars on outside consultants: accountants, lawyers, and management consultants. Since the expenses of outside consultants are not reimbursed if the deal fails, private equity firms wait until they are sure of their interest before hiring expensive specialists such as consultants from…
🚀 Check out this trending post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: AI,Biotech & Health,Enterprise,TC,AI agents,Anthropic,artificial intelligence,AWS,healthcare,OpenAI đź’ˇ **What You’ll Learn**: Amazon Web Services on Thursday announced the launch of Amazon Connect Health. This AI-powered platform aims to help healthcare organizations automate repetitive administrative tasks, including appointment scheduling, documentation, and patient validation, among other things. Amazon Connect Health is HIPAA eligible and connects to your electronic health record (EHR) software. The platform is currently partnering with electronic health record software providers, data integrators and patient engagement companies, the company said. The move is not the first of its kind for the…
🔥 Explore this trending post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: Security,cybersecurity,data breach,FBI,hackers,hacking đź’ˇ **What You’ll Learn**: Hackers are said to have broken into FBI networks. CNN reported Thursday, citing an anonymous source, that the hack affected a system used to manage wiretaps and foreign intelligence surveillance orders. "The FBI identified and responded to suspicious activity on FBI networks, and we leveraged all technical capabilities to respond," the bureau told CNN. The FBI did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's request for comment. This would be the latest major hack of US government agencies and US companies in recent times. Last year,…
✨ Read this insightful post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: Security,Apple,iPhone,Italy,paragon,Paragon Solutions,privacy,Spyware,surveillance,WhatsApp âś… **What You’ll Learn**: A journalist who was alerted by WhatsApp last year to a suspected spyware attack on his phone had indeed been hacked, Italian authorities have confirmed. In a press release sent to journalists on Thursday, the prosecutors' offices in Rome and Naples, which are investigating the country's spyware scandal, said that a technical report concluded that the phones of journalist Francesco Cancellato, as well as Giuseppe Caccia and Luca Casarini, two immigration activists, all showed traces of spyware infection in the "early hours" of December…
✨ Discover this must-read post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: Startups,TC,defensetech,Founders Fund,Trae Stephens âś… **What You’ll Learn**: Nominal on Thursday announced a new $80 million Series B extension round at a $1 billion valuation, led by Founders Fund. This follows the company's $75 million second round led by Sequoia in September. Nominal offers software that helps hardware engineers test their designs and started out as a pick-and-roll startup in the defense industry. The three-and-a-half-year-old company, based in Los Angeles, says that in the past 10 months it has secured four of the five largest defense contractors as clients. CEO and…
✨ Check out this trending post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: AI,Startups,AI agents,ai video,Exclusive,Luma,luma agents 📌 **What You’ll Learn**: AI video production startup Luma on Thursday launched Luma Agents, designed to handle end-to-end creative work across text, images, video and audio. Luma Agents is powered by the startup's Unified Intelligence model family, with an architecture trained on a single multi-modal reasoning system. Luma Agents is being introduced as a new way of doing work for ad agencies, marketing teams, design studios, and enterprises. Luma says its agents are able to plan and create text, images, video and audio while coordinating…
🔥 Explore this must-read post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: AI,agentic coding,cursor,Exclusive 📌 **What You’ll Learn**: With the spread of proxy encryption, the working life of a software engineer has become astonishingly complex. A single engineer may supervise dozens of cryptographic agents simultaneously, launching and directing different processes as necessary. There is a lot to keep track of, and human engineers' attention quickly becomes a limited resource. The index launched a new tool on Thursday aimed at getting this chaos under control. The new system is called Automations, and it gives users a way to automatically launch agents within their…
🚀 Check out this insightful post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: AI,Media & Entertainment,ben affleck,Netflix đź’ˇ **What You’ll Learn**: Netflix said Thursday morning that it has acquired InterPositive, the filmmaking technology company founded by actor Ben Affleck, in 2022. The acquisition is in line with Netflix's approach to using generative AI in filmmaking: the company has already used generative AI for special effects in some original content, and has assured investors that it is "very well positioned to effectively benefit from continued advances in AI." Affleck wrote in a statement that he began thinking about how artificial intelligence might impact…
✨ Discover this trending post from TechCrunch đź“– đź“‚ **Category**: Climate,Fundraising,Transportation,Congruent Ventures,electric vehicles,ev battery swapping,Lowercarbon Ventures,motorcycles,Zeno âś… **What You’ll Learn**: The shift to electric vehicles may have hit a snag in the United States, but it's not slowing down in East Africa, where several startups are vying for a piece of the booming electric motorcycle market. Zeno is one of those companies, and this week announced a $25 million Series A to expand its app-controlled battery swap network and produce more of its Emara motorcycles. About $20.5 million of the total was equity fundraising, Michael Spencer, co-founder and CEO of…
