In cost-cutting move, Epic Games lays off approximately 870 workers

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Thursday, September 28, 2023

In today's top story, Fortnite maker Epic Games said it is laying off about 870 people, or 16% of its workforce. Learn more. Meanwhile, the company asks the Supreme Court to weigh in on its beef with Apple. Not to be outdone, Apple also asked the Supreme Court to reconsider one of its rulings in favor of Epic. The Raspberry Pi 5 is here, and it looks yummier than ever. Get your fork ready. And Reddit is making some changes, chiefly to remove the ability to opt out of ad personalization based on your activity on the platform. Find out what this means. Image Credits: Epic

More top reads Ads are safe for now: Amazon wins interim stay on delivering a public ads archive in early challenge to the EU's Digital Services Act. Read more. Meanwhile, the company launches its Bedrock generative AI service in general availability and gives CodeWhisperer an enterprise tier. Your photos, but better: Adobe launches Photoshop's web version with Firefly-powered AI tools. Go ahead, play around. AI boom: What products and services are poised to benefit from this generative AI boom we keep reading about? Well, for starters, Alex Wilhelm says it could make the OS cool again. (TC+) Speaking of AI: Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd shares how AI will "supercharge" love and relationships. The power of love . . . and technology. In the nick of time: Google rushes to patch a zero-day vulnerability exploited by some commercial spyware vendor. Read more. Not that much of a stretch: Fitbit brings Pixel Watch features to the Charge 6. Learn more. Time to get social: Artifact co-founder Mike Krieger says there's a "flavor" of Twitter in the app’s latest release. Here's why. For the founders: African VC firm Enza Capital launches founder partner program as it closes $58 million across funds. Read on. More for your Thursday: Worldcoin doubles down on emerging markets amid wider criticism (TC+) Blend uses generative AI to give you a personalized clothing guide Zapier launches Canvas, an AI-powered flowchart tool Mercury Fund closes largest fund to invest in SaaS startups between the coasts Google patches zero-day exploited by commercial spyware vendor Image Credits: Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket / Getty Images

Creating strategic defensibility as an early-stage startup In the first column of a four-part series, Startup Battlefield editor and director of community Neesha Tambe hosted a master class on strategic defensibility with Mike Ghaffary, general partner at Canvas Ventures. "In this session, Ghaffary outlined the important components of startup defensibility, the key strategic advantage buckets, and what startups can do to stay competitive as they build and scale," she writes. TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription. Read More

On the pods For this week's episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Tiago Sada, head of product for Tools for Humanity and core contributor to Worldcoin, at TechCrunch's Disrupt 2023 in San Francisco. Tools for Humanity, which is the team building Worldcoin, raised $115 million in a Series C round back in May with investors like Blockchain Capital, a16z, Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global. In March 2022, Worldcoin raised $100 million at a $3 billion valuation. We dive into why someone would scan their eyes, as well as alternate options and privacy concerns some skeptics have about the project. Listen here. Read More Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

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Russian zero-day purchase platform posts $20M bounty for iOS, Android hacking tools

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Wednesday, September 27, 2023

In today's top story, a Russian zero-day seller is now offering to pay researchers $20 million for hacking tools that would allow its customers to hack iPhones and Android devices. Get the scoop. Next, read about a former Tinder CEO's startup out to fight loneliness with an AI chatbot. Investors like it. Meanwhile, a Brazilian super app developer secured $30 million in new funding to add insurance and financing components. Read more. And Meta's annual Connect conference started today, and we reported on all the new hardware and software, including Meta Quest 3. Here are some highlights: Meta's $500 Quest 3 targets consumer mixed reality Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to Meta Quest 3 in December Qualcomm launches its next-gen chips for XR and AR platforms Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses livestream to Instagram and Facebook Meta Quest 3 convinced me to love VR by downplaying the metaverse Finally, as seen on TV: Senior reporter Kyle Wiggers will appear on CBS tomorrow at 12:35 p.m. ET to discuss the latest news about ChatGPT. Image Credits: Benoit Daoust / Shutterstock

More top reads What's that shaking?: Google launches earthquake alerts on Android in India. Read more. Smoothing out Africa's payment landscape: QED and Partech back South African payment orchestration platform Revio in a $5.2 million seed round. Here's how Revio plans to take on payment failures. The fabric of our developer lives: Meet Rayon, a collaborative design tool for architects and designers. Now draw. Businesses need payment love, too: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was one of the many backers of Slope's $30 million round. Learn how it digitizes B2B payments. Head in the Cloudfare: Cloudflare launches new AI tools to help customers deploy and run models. Read more. Speaking of OpenAI: Lots of reports on OpenAI. First, the company is reportedly in talks with Jony Ive about a hardware project. Get that scoop. This news follows yesterday's rumor that OpenAI plans to raise new funding at a valuation of $80 billion to $90 billion. Mercedes boy: You will have a ball navigating the freeways with Mercedes' hands-off, eyes-off automated driving system. See it in action. It's not you, it's me: Though less than a year in, Snap decides to shutter its enterprise services division. Find out why. Well, now what?: Some new research suggests that a vast majority of VC-backed U.K. startups do "nothing" on climate emissions. Read for yourself. More for your Wednesday: Industry Ventures, with stakes in more than 600 venture firms, just raised $1.7B to snap up more stakes — and companies Was tech's 'bull run' simply a temporary surge? (TC+) Walmart returns to Roblox after its first games were attacked by consumer advocacy groups Elon Musk's X removes general option to report misleading info about politics Image Credits: Brian Heater

TC Opinion: Fintech actually has a value system: Here's how we can reclaim it “Fintechs would do well to lean into the current economic moment and focus on applications that blunt the impact of inflation and financial uncertainty on workers and consumers,” writes Avliere CEO and co-founder Yuval Brisker in TechCrunch Opinion. “One of the big lessons of the social finance backlash is that empowerment without education can do more harm than good.” If you’d like to submit an opinion column to TechCrunch, please read our new editorial guidelines. Read More Image Credits: Halfdark / Getty Images

Bootstrapping is cool once again Several factors combined to dampen investor interest in early-stage startups over the last year and change, leading more founders to explore funding alternatives. Dominic Madori-Davis spoke to Hussein Yahfoufi (product lead at Arta Finance) and Healthie founder Erica Jain last week at Disrupt to get their advice for connecting with angels and conserving cash. “Bootstrapping isn't necessarily an all-or-nothing [endeavor]," said Jain. “It's about thinking through the long term and being in control about how you think about the capital journey of your business.” TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription. Read More Image Credits: M. Reinertson/The Photo Group for TechCrunch / Flickr

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