Author: GT

There’s a generally accepted script in Silicon Valley: Identify a startup idea. Sell a chunk of your company to raise venture capital. Make sales. Raise more venture capital, and make more sales. Repeat until the company goes public, or gets acquired, hopefully for billions either way. But what if you didn’t get on a fundraising treadmill after taking a first round? What if you structured your company to sprint to profitability through slower, sustainable growth, rather than the reverse — unprofitable growth — as so many VC-backed companies do?  That’s the question that Pukar Hamal, founder and CEO of SecurityPal…

TOPSHOT – Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) and India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar enter a hall for their talks at Zinaida Morozova’s Mansion in Moscow on August 21, 2025. Alexander Zemlianichenko | Afp | Getty Images India and Russia agreed Thursday to expand bilateral trade ties, signaling that U.S. tariff pressure on New Delhi over Russian oil purchases is unlikely to derail their partnership.India currently faces additional tariffs of up to 50% on goods shipped to the U.S., after the Trump administration escalated tariff threats in response to its substantial imports of Russian energy.The India-Russia relations had been among…

YouTube is celebrating 10 years of its YouTube Music app on Thursday with the launch of new features that bring it closer to rival Spotify and others. The app will now include “Taste Match” playlists, which are playlists that combine multiple users’ overlapping interests, similar to Spotify Blend. The app will also start notifying users of upcoming releases, merch, and concerts, and is partnering with Bandsintown to help fans discover concerts when watching videos and Shorts on YouTube itself. The additions will help YouTube catch up with Spotify in some areas, while others, like the addition of badges and support…

A federal website that informs the public about what information agencies are collecting and allows for public comment went down last weekend, and it has only been partially restored. The outage has raised concerns among advocates who already were troubled by the disappearance of data sets from government websites after President Donald Trump began his second term.The https://www.reginfo.gov/public/ website went offline at the end of last week and was partially restored this week. Data was missing after Aug. 1, according to dataindex,us, a collective of data scientists and advocates who monitor changes in federal data sets. As of Thursday, the…

Instagram has begun allowing creators to connect multiple reels in a series, the Meta-owned social network told TechCrunch exclusively. The new capability, which is already available on TikTok, makes it easier for viewers to follow and discover related content. Now if a creator is telling a story in a series of videos and follow-ups, they can link them all together so that viewers don’t have to scroll or search for different parts. For instance, creators often tell followers to “come back for part 2” or to check back for updates. With this new feature, creators can organize related reels so…

Apple is raising the monthly price of its Apple TV+ streaming service to $12.99, marking a 30% increase from the previous $9.99 subscription price. The updated price takes effect for new customers starting Thursday and will impact current subscribers 30 days after their next renewal date. It’s worth noting that the yearly subscription rate remains unchanged at $99.99. Apple also isn’t changing the price for the Apple One bundle of services, which starts at $19.95 per month. Apple TV+, like other streaming services, has been steadily increasing its subscription prices. In 2023, Apple raised the price of the Apple TV+…

AI models can respond to text, audio, and video in ways that sometimes fool people into thinking a human is behind the keyboard, but that doesn’t exactly make them conscious. It’s not like ChatGPT experiences sadness doing my tax return … right? Well, a growing number of AI researchers at labs like Anthropic are asking when — if ever — AI models might develop subjective experiences similar to living beings, and if they do, what rights they should have. The debate over whether AI models could one day be conscious — and merit legal safeguards — is dividing tech leaders.…

Apple usually announces its new hardware in the fall, and this year is likely no different. The event is reported to be on September 9, and Apple is expected to release its iPhone 17 lineup, along with updates for the Apple Watch and AirPods.  As always, there are many rumors circulating, including bigger screens and improved cameras for the iPhone 17 models and the introduction of an ultra-thin iPhone Air that could replace the Plus model. iPhone 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max The iPhone 17 is expected to get a significant makeover to align more closely with the…

General Fusion, a Canadian nuclear fusion energy startup, announced today that it had been thrown a lifeline in the form of $22 million in fresh funding. The company had laid off at least 25% of its employees in May in a bid to shore up its stretched finances. At the same time, CEO Greg Twinney wrote an open letter pleading for funding. The additional cash will give General Fusion some breathing room, though not much. A subset of General Fusion’s existing investors ultimately ponied up for what The Globe and Mail reports was a “pay to play” round — a…

StrictlyVC is back at TechCrunch Disrupt in October, bringing together the insiders who shape the venture capital landscape. This time there will be 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 shifting, and what GPs need to know to survive and thrive…