Author: Editor-in-Chief

For years, some of the most dangerous hacking threats have come from adversarial nation-state hackers conducting espionage, Russian ransomware gangs targeting critical infrastructure, and governments targeting journalists with spyware that can punch through the security of almost any phone. But a new phenomenon of mostly English-speaking young adults and teenage hackers has risen to become a top pressing global threat of today, spanning cybercrime, child abuse, and extremism. By tearing through some of the biggest companies, tech giants, and governments, these young and financially motivated hackers have destroyed networks and extorted hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy corporate…

It sounds like Bluesky is getting serious about giving some users the boot, with the company saying it will be doing more to “enforce our moderation policies to better cultivate a space for healthy conversations.” This is part of a broader update to the social media company’s community guidelines, after Bluesky asked users in August to provide feedback on an earlier draft of these changes. In a new blog post, the company said it received comments from more than 14,000 community members and that it “especially heard from community members who shared concerns about how the guidelines could impact creative…

Few things generate as much data as simply observing Earth from above. But Ryan Abernathey and Joe Hamman very quickly realized that all that data still wasn’t enough for their startup to thrive. Their data-centric, climate tech startup, Earthmover, would need to pivot. The pivot isn’t entirely away from climate tech, though. Instead, the company is shrinking the time scale, focusing on how climate affects daily life — in other words, the weather. “What makes a compelling use case for our platform? Data that change frequently,” Abernathey, Earthmover’s co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch. “That’s where there’s a lot more urgency…

U.K.-based fintech Tide has entered the unicorn club with a fresh funding of $120 million led by TPG, as the startup now serves over 1.6 million micro and small enterprises globally — with more than half of them based in India, the company’s largest and fastest-growing market. The new round — a mix of primary and secondary investment, though the startup declined to confirm the exact split — values the eight-year-old startup at $1.5 billion. It includes share sales by employees, early angels, and a few minority investors. TPG backed the round through its multi-sector impact vehicle, The Rise Fund,…

The MBA-to-VC pipeline remains a very real thing. But that path is a little shakier than it once was, according to PitchBook reporting and new academic research. Harvard placed 50 of its 1,004 MBA graduates into VC roles in 2024, with a median starting salary of $177,500. Stanford placed around 30 from its smaller class. More than 10,000 Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton MBA alumni currently hold senior positions at U.S. VC firms, PitchBook data shows. The MBA’s grip on venture capital is loosening, however, according to Stanford professor Ilya Strebulaev, who found that 44% of mid-career venture professionals held MBAs…

Time’s ticking. Register by September 26 at 11:59 p.m. PT to lock in Regular-Bird pricing and save up to $668 on your pass to TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, happening in San Francisco’s Moscone West on October 27-29. Join 10,000+ startup and VC leaders in San Francisco for: Real talk with 250+ founders like Elad Gil, Aaron Levie, Jason Citron, Anton Osika, and Brynn Putham. Explore the speaker lineup. 200+ Sessions on building AI-native startups, vibe coding, funding strategy, and more across five industry stages, roundtables, and breakouts. Discover the growing agenda. IMAGE CREDITS:KIMBERLY WHITE / GETTY IMAGES Get an exclusive look…

Travelers at major European airports including Heathrow, Brussels, and Berlin faced significant delays this weekend following what Collins Aerospace described as a “cyber-related incident.” Collins Aerospace makes technology for airline check-in desks, so after the apparent cyberattack, airlines were forced to revert to manual check-ins, according to the Guardian. According to data from Flightradar24, more than 130 Heathrow flights had been delayed by 20 minutes or more as of 11am on Sunday morning, with 13 flights canceled on Saturday. A post on th Hsocial media account said, “Work continues to resolve and recover from Friday’s outage of a Collins…

For years, Big Tech CEOs have touted visions of AI agents that can autonomously use software applications to complete tasks for people. But take today’s consumer AI agents out for a spin, whether it’s OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent or Perplexity’s Comet, and you’ll quickly realize how limited the technology still is. Making AI agents more robust may take a new set of techniques that the industry is still discovering. One of those techniques is carefully simulating workspaces where agents can be trained on multi-step tasks — known as reinforcement learning (RL) environments. Similarly to how labeled datasets powered the last…

Calgary’s Energy Transition Centre (ETC) Foundation is significantly expanding its entrepreneurial resources and facilities thanks to an investment from economic development agencies at all levels of government. “This investment … marks a pivotal step in strengthening the local energy innovation ecosystem.” Nannette Ho-Covernton, ETC Foundation The expansion project is valued at over $10 million and supports a 17,000-square-foot workspace in downtown Calgary that is meant to facilitate collaboration between low-emission energy startups, ecosystem partners, and investors. Located at the Ampersand Building in Calgary, the ETC’s expanded programming will include structured educational courses, industry workshops, and hands-on training to bolster skills…

Canadian tech and business groups plan to weigh in on a forthcoming Competition Bureau consultation on the competitive landscape of debt financing options for small businesses, including startups. This week, Canada’s Competition Bureau launched consultations on how to best conduct a 12-month study on competition for small and medium-sized business loans. The agency said the research will explore how Canada can improve the lending landscape for small- to mid-size enterprises (SMEs), which is dominated by big banks. At the same time, it plans to look at how non-traditional financial lenders—such as FinTech companies—could benefit from increased competition. The Competition Bureau…