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Spyware maker Paragon confirms U.S. government is a customer

Security /

Israeli spyware maker Paragon Solutions confirmed to TechCrunch that it sells its products to the U.S. government and other unspecified allied countries. Paragon’s executive chairman John Fleming said in a statement to TechCrunch on Tuesday that, “Paragon licenses its technology to a select group of global democracies — principally, the United States and its allies.” […]

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Cruise to slash workforce by nearly 50% after GM cuts funding to robotaxi operations

Transportation /

Autonomous vehicle company Cruise is laying off “nearly” 50% of its workforce — cuts that extend to the CEO and several other top executives — as it prepares to shut down operations. What remains of Cruise will move under parent company General Motors as the automaker directs its resources towards improving its hands-free driver assistance

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DSTLRY, the comic books marketplace, launches new customization features for artists

Media & Entertainment /

DSTLRY, a venture-backed digital comic books marketplace, on Tuesday added a pair of features designed to bring customization to the platform. The first feature, dubbed Commissioned Digital Remarques, allows creators to add personalized sketches and signatures to digital comics. The second, Unlimited Digital Covers, expands platform-wide access to alternative comic book covers. Commissioned Digital Remarques

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LogicStar is building AI agents for app maintenance

Startups /

Swiss startup LogicStar is bent on joining the AI agent game. The summer 2024-founded startup has bagged $3 million in pre-seed funding to bring tools to the developer market that can do autonomous maintenance of software applications, rather than the more typical AI agent use-case of code co-development. LogicStar CEO and co-founder Boris Paskalev (pictured

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Two space startups have merged to create the next generation of telescopes

Startups /

On a clear spring evening in Michigan, the stars aligned — just not in the way Upfront Ventures partner Nick Kim expected. He’d just led a $9.5 million seed round for OurSky, a software platform for space observational data, and was eager to see what its telescope partner PlaneWave Instruments could do.  But when they

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Sotira lands $2M to help brands offload and monetize their surplus inventory

Commerce /

An estimated 20% to 30% of all inventory in the U.S. is surplus, with much of it ending up in landfills. A startup called Sotira wants to help address this problem: It leverages AI to help companies offload and monetize their surplus inventory. Sotira partners with brands to offload millions of pounds of surplus grocery,

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Egypt’s Khazna banks $16M for its financial super app and expansion into Saudi

Fintech /

A large portion of Egypt’s population lacks access to traditional banking, forcing many to rely on cash transactions and informal lending. Khazna, a fintech startup founded in 2019, is tackling this issue by offering financial services tailored for low- and middle-income workers. The company provides solutions like salary advances, digital payments, and microloans to help

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Accel backs Indian AI startup building ‘ChatGPT for presentations’

AI /

Presentations.ai, an Indian startup that uses AI to help companies quickly generate presentation decks, has raised $3 million in a seed round led by Accel to scale its software that has emerged from beta after amassing millions of users. Presentations are ubiquitous throughout a business journey — whether a large corporation or a startup —

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is trying to duck a deposition in an OpenAI copyright lawsuit

AI /

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is trying to avoid being deposed in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, according to new court filings. In response, lawyers for the plaintiff — the Authors Guild — have filed a motion to compel testimony from Amodei and his Anthropic co-founder, Benjamin Mann. Authors Guild’s lawyers claim that Amodei and Mann,

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