February 6, 2025

What a return to supersonic flight could mean for climate change

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. As I’ve admitted in this newsletter before, I love few things more than getting on an airplane. I know, it’s a bold statement from a climate reporter because of all the associated…

December 2023

Guardz collects $18M to expand its AI-based security platform for SMBs

December 13, 2023

Thanks to advances in AI, small and medium businesses have become a significant target in the world of cybercrime, accounting for roughly half of all breaches worldwide by some estimates. Now, one of the companies building security tools for SMBs has raised a round of funding to expand its business, underscoring the demand in the […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Kakao names Shina Chung, previously its VC lead, as its new CEO amid ongoing crisis 

December 13, 2023

South Korean internet giant Kakao — in the middle of multiple investigations over antitrust and securities violations — has appointed a new CEO as it tries to turn the ship around. Shina Chung, who had been running the company’s venture arm, is moving to the top role at the company.   Chung will officially step […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Yahoo’s decades-long China controversy and the responsibility of tech companies

December 13, 2023
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. It’s a perennial debate: whether American tech companies are contributing to government control of the internet in China. But long before Apple ceded control of local user data to the state or…

China’s autonomous vehicle regulation requires safety operators, in-car recordings

December 13, 2023

When it comes to spurring the development of cutting-edge technologies, the Chinese government is rather pragmatic in its policymaking process. In the field of autonomous driving, the country has made some big strides in defining the parameters and limitations for service providers, removing regulatory ambiguity and granting industry players the freedom to test the nascent […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Ex-Metaswitch CEO John Lazar joins Copia’s board as the Kenyan e-commerce outfit rakes in $20M to push toward profitability 

December 13, 2023

Kenyan e-commerce and fintech platform for mass market consumers Copia Global has appointed John Lazar, the ex-CEO of Metaswitch, a Microsoft subsidiary, to its board off the back of $20 million in new funding. Enza Capital, the Pan-African VC firm that Lazar co-founded in 2019, was among the large participants in the Series C extension […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

South African e-commerce startup TUNL gets funding to accelerate growth of its exports platform

December 13, 2023

TUNL, a South African parcel shipping platform, has secured $1 million in pre-seed funding from investors, including Founders Factory Africa, Digital Africa Ventures, E4E Africa, and Jozi Angels. The platform, which claims to help e-commerce merchants save between 50% and 80% on international shipping costs, said the funding will fuel its expansion in its primary […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Hyperplane wants to bring AI to banks

December 13, 2023

Hyperplane, a San Francisco-based startup that is building foundation models to help banks predict customer behavior, is coming out of stealth today by announcing a $6 million funding round led by former Stripe exec Lachy Groom, who was joined by SV Angel, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital, Latitud, Atman Capital, Crestone VC and […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.