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Upwork is buying its way into corporate staffing beyond freelancers

Enterprise /

Upwork, a platform that connects companies with freelancers, announced two acquisitions to help build out a new stand-alone enterprise-focused business that could expand its market reach. The San Francisco-based company announced it has acquired Bubty, a workforce management platform, and has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Ascen, a global compliance and EOR (employer of […]

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A rival Tea app for men is leaking its users’ personal data and driver’s licenses

Security /

TeaOnHer, an app designed for men to share photos and information about women they have supposedly dated, has exposed users’ personal information, including government IDs and selfies, TechCrunch can confirm. The app, which launched on the Apple App Store earlier this week, is a response to another viral app Tea that allows women to post

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OpenMind wants to be the Android operating system of humanoid robots

Startups /

Many companies are focused on building robots, or the hardware components to help them move, grip objects, or interact with the world around them, Silicon Valley-based OpenMind is focused under the hood. OpenMind is building a software layer, OM1, for humanoid robots that acts as an operating system. The company compares itself to being the

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Inside OpenAI’s quest to make AI do anything for you

AI /

Shortly after Hunter Lightman joined OpenAI as a researcher in 2022, he watched his colleagues launch ChatGPT, one of the fastest-growing products ever. Meanwhile, Lightman quietly worked on a team teaching OpenAI’s models to solve high school math competitions.  Today that team, known as MathGen, is considered instrumental to OpenAI’s industry-leading effort to create AI

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Why Dispo’s co-founder made the leap from social media to steelmaking

Startups /

Daniel Liss, co-founder of the social network Dispo and the dating app Teaser AI, is convinced he’s onto the next big thing: steelmaking.  It all started, incongruously, with a few op-eds he wrote for TechCrunch about anti-trust enforcement in social media. The commentaries apparently caught the attention of some folks in Washington D.C., Liss told

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Allianz Life says ‘majority’ of customers’ personal data stolen in cyberattack

Security /

U.S. insurance giant Allianz Life has confirmed to TechCrunch that hackers stole the personal information of the “majority” of its customers, financial professionals, and employees during a mid-July data breach. When reached by TechCrunch, Allianz Life spokesperson Brett Weinberg confirmed the breach. “On July 16, 2025, a malicious threat actor gained access to a third-party,

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Google took a month to shut down Catwatchful, a phone spyware operation hosted on its servers

Security /

Google has suspended the account of phone surveillance operator Catwatchful, which was using the tech giant’s servers to host and operate the monitoring software. Google’s move to shut down the spyware operation comes a month after TechCrunch alerted the technology giant the operator was hosting the operation on Firebase, one of Google’s developer platforms. Catwatchful

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Cybercrime forum Leak Zone publicly exposed its users’ IP addresses

Security /

A self-styled “leaking and cracking forum” where users advertise and share breached databases, stolen credentials, and pirated software was leaking the IP addresses of its logged-in users to the open web, security researchers have found. Leak Zone left an Elasticsearch database exposed to the internet without a password, according to researchers at UpGuard. In a

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Nevoya raises $9.3M as its EV truck fleet reaches cost parity with diesel

Transportation /

Los Angeles-based Nevoya came out of stealth last year with the ambitious goal of breaking the EV truck adoption logjam. Nevoya made enough progress on its goal to attract investors — and a $9.3 million seed round — to help it move even faster. The young company, which buys electric trucks and offers them to

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Three things veteran planetary health investors look for in a startup

Climate /

Ask any founder or investor: fundraising is never easy. And in a market with this level of uncertainty, the difficulties are compounded. “Everyone has to go through fundraising, and it’s a relatively challenging market right now,” Kyle Teamey, managing partner at RA Capital Planetary Health, told TechCrunch. “That’s good for a bit of empathy.” Teamey

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