Author: GT

Instagram has grown to 3 billion monthly active users, according to announcements by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram Head Adam Mosseri. This is a notable milestone for the Meta-owned platform, which hit 1 billion users back in 2018. “If you look at the last few years, almost all of our growth has been driven by DMs, Reels, and recommendations,” Mosseri said in an Instagram video. “Because of that, we’re going to continue to focus on those products and reorient the app more around DMs, Reels, and recommendations over the next couple of months.” While the emphasis on short-form video…

A couple of months ago, the founders behind YC-backed social app Candle were in “pivot hell,” cycling through more than a dozen ideas after joining Y Combinator’s Fall 2024 batch, while the clock on their seed money ticked down. Alex Ruber, previously an engineer at Apple, and Parth Chopra, formerly an engineer at Asana and Twitter, had built multiple projects together, including Encore, a conversational AI shopping tool that got them into YC and with which they raised $2 million. However, while the tech worked, the unit economics didn’t, according to Ruber. “The secondhand shopping space is a tough market…

Go-to-market is often where great startups stumble — but it doesn’t have to be. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in San Francisco this October 27-29, GTM pros Max Altschuler, Alison Wagonfeld, and Marc Manara take the Builders Stage to show founders how to build a go-to-market engine that doesn’t just support the product, but also scales with it. Register now to secure up to $668 on your Disrupt 2025 pass, and get a front-row seat on how to create a winning GTM strategy. Lessons from leaders who’ve done it at scale Max Altschuler, Alison Wagonfeld, and Marc Manara bring a rare…

On Wednesday, Enterprise AI model maker Cohere said it raised an additional $100 million — bumping its valuation to $7 billion — in an extension to a round announced in August. The August round was an oversubscribed $500 million round at a $6.8 billion valuation, the company said at the time. Cohere also announced an interesting twist on a partnership. While competitor OpenAI just nabbed an up-to $100 billion investment from the biggest GPU player, Nvidia, Cohere has signed a deal with AMD, which is one of its investors. The company’s full suite of Command-family AI models, including the Command…

YouTube will finally allow you to hide the pop-up recommendations that appear at the end of videos, the company announced on Wednesday. Now, when you see an end screen, you can tap a new “Hide” button in the top-right corner of the video player to hide the pop-ups from the current video you’re watching. Selecting this button will only hide end screens for the current video you’re watching, not for all videos on the platform, the company notes. If you want to bring the end screen back, you can tap the “Show” button. The decision to let users hide end…

A ransomware attack against Collins Aerospace, a company that provides check-in systems to several airports in Europe, is still causing disruptions across the continent for the fourth day in a row.   As of this writing, according to FlightRadar24, a website that monitors air traffic live, London’s Heathrow airport has 90% of flights delayed, with an average delay of 29 minutes; Brussels airport has 88% of flights delayed, with an average delay of 43 minutes; Berlin Brandenburg airport has 94% of flights delayed, with an average delay of one hour; and Dublin airport has 91% of flights delayed, with an…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers and activists across the political spectrum called on American tech firms to stop selling surveillance equipment to Chinese police and for Congress to examine the issue after The Associated Press reported that U.S. technology had played a far greater role than previously known in enabling human rights abuses by Beijing.Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told AP he wanted to summon tech companies before Congress to address how their technology exports were used. Hawley, a longtime critic of U.S. technology companies, bemoaned Silicon Valley’s general lack of cooperation with Congress on that and similar inquiries.“I think…

OpenAI and Nvidia have signed a letter of intent for a $100B partnership that could reshape how AI systems are trained and deployed. The plan calls for at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia hardware to support OpenAI’s next-generation AI infrastructure, which will train and run future models aimed at superintelligence.To support the rollout, Nvidia intends to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as the systems are deployed. The first phase is scheduled to go live in the second half of 2026, powered by Nvidia’s upcoming Vera Rubin platform.A deal with wide implicationsThe agreement shows how closely tied the largest…

Instagram has installed a new privacy setting which will default all new and existing underage accounts to an automatic private mode.Brandon Bell | Getty ImagesInstagram now has 3 billion monthly active users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday.”What an incredible community we’ve built here,” Zuckerberg posted on his Instagram channel.The figure is a major milestone for the photo-sharing app, which the social media company acquired in 2012 for $1 billion.Meta last disclosed Instagram’s user figures in October 2022 when Zuckerberg said during an earnings call that the app had crossed 2 billion monthly users.Meta said in April 2024 that it…

StrictlyVC is back at TechCrunch Disrupt in October, bringing together the insiders who shape the venture capital landscape, this time with a sharper focus on the market’s biggest challenge: liquidity. In an era of extended exit timelines, slowed distributions, and increasingly selective LPs, the conversations behind closed doors matter more than ever. Working with Cendana Capital, which has backed 80+ funds in its 15-year history, we are launching a new off-the-record LP track that offers an unfiltered look at where capital is flowing, how LP priorities are changing, and what GPs need to know to survive and thrive in this…