Palo Alto Networks urged companies this week to patch against a newly discovered zero-day vulnerability in one of its widely used security products, after malicious hackers began exploiting the bug to break into corporate networks.
Because the vulnerability allows hackers to gain complete control of an affected firewall over the internet without authentication, Palo Alto gave the bug a maximum severity rating.
The ease with which hackers can remotely exploit the bug puts thousands of companies that rely on the firewalls at risk from intrusions.
Adding another complication, Palo Alto initially suggested disabling telemetry to mitigate the vulnerability, but said this week that disabling telemetry does not prevent exploitation.
Security firm Volexity, which first discovered and reported the vulnerability to Palo Alto, said it found evidence of malicious exploitation going back to March 26, some two weeks before Palo Alto released fixes.
Cendana, Kline Hill have a fresh $105M to buy stakes in seed VC funds from LPs looking to sellIf you ask investors to name the biggest challenge for venture capital today, you’ll likely get a near-unanimous answer: lack of liquidity.
Cash-hungry venture investors, whether VCs themselves or their limited partners are increasingly looking to sell their illiquid positions to secondary buyers.
“We simply passed the hat around to our existing LPS at Kline Hill and Cendana,” said Kim.
It then passes these opportunities to Kline Hill, which values, underwrites and negotiates the transaction price.
Traditional secondary investors, such as Lexington Partners and Blackstone, recently raised their largest secondary funds ever.
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov said on his channel today that the company secured $330 million in investment through bond sales last week.
“This bond offering was oversubscribed, and we were delighted to have global funds of the highest caliber with impeccable reputations as participants.
The maturity for the bonds is either 2026 or when Telegram goes public, whichever is earlier.
The chat app, which has more than 900 million users, issued bonds worth $210 million last year.
Earlier this month, the company announced that personal users can convert their accounts to business accounts by paying a subscription fee.
The Artemis Fund, which invests in underrepresented founders, closed on its second fund with $36 million in capital commitments.
“We really wanted to make sure that our LPs aligned with our long-term goal of backing diverse founders,” Murakhovskaya told TechCrunch.
VC investment itself continues to be fairly stagnant in these areas, according to my colleague Dominic-Madori Davis, who crunched the numbers on venture capital funding to these demographics earlier this month.
Female founders and co-founders secured more capital overall in 2023 than they did in 2020, according to new Pitchbook research.
For Fund II, Artemis intends to continue leading and co-leading investments and will target around 20 new companies.
Danish startup Whistleblower Software is rebranding as Formalize as it expands into the broader compliance software sphere — and it has raised a fresh €15 million ($16 million) to fund the expansion.
The announcement comes as the compliance software market has exploded, due in large part to growing regulatory pressure — and investors have taken note.
Private equity giant Thoma Bravo took German compliance and investor relations software company EQS Group private in a $435 million deal last month, while startups Cypago, Hyperproof, Certa, and Anecdotes have all raised sizeable venture rounds for various flavors of compliance software these past few months.
“The compliance software market is booming, driven by the EU’s robust regulatory agenda,” Formalize co-founder and CEO Jakob Lilholm told TechCrunch over email.
“They [data compliance and whistleblowing] are primarily connected by the intention of the [GDPR] regulation,” Formalize co-founder and CTO Kristoffer Abell told TechCrunch.
As we’ve reported before Meta’s self-serving ‘consent or cough up’ offer is already facing a number of other GDPR complaints.
Today’s complaints are not the first filed against Meta’s consent or pay tactic by consumer protection groups — some of which argue it’s breaching the bloc’s rules on consumer protection, too.
However its blog post defending the controversial tactic does not make any mention of how it complies with EU consumer protection law.
So another very pertinent question, vis-a-vis Meta’s consent or pay offer in the EU, is what the Commission will do?
*The BEUC members filing GDPR complaints against Meta are: CECU, dTest, EKPIZO, Forbrugerrådet Tænk, Forbrukerrådet, Poprad, Spoločnosť ochrany spotrebiteľov (S.O.S.
Hot on the heels of the successful completion of its grid-connected geothermal power plant in Nevada, Fervo Energy is raising $221 million per SEC documents, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
Previous geothermal plants have only scratched the surface by accessing hot springs or shallower rock formations.
Fervo uses directional drilling techniques pioneered by the oil and gas industry to extend its wells far beyond their surface footprints.
Once those wells are drilled, Fervo then strings them with fiber optic cables connected to a range of sensors.
Previous investors include BHP Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Congruent Ventures, DCVC, and Prelude Ventures.
Frost Giant, a venture-backed startup building a real-time strategy (RTS) game called Stormgate, is turning to its community to top up its coffers ahead of the game’s launch this year.
The venture capital market for gaming companies has retreated sharply since Frost Giant last raised money (a $25 million Series A back in 2022).
Thus far, Frost Giant has picked up $611,421 in reservations for its community fundraise on its Start Engine page.
Reg CF offerings are limited to $5 million, so Frost Giant has a hard cap on how much it can raise.
We got a similar peek into Substack’s financials when it raised capital from its community last year, and we’ll get a similar influx of data from Frost Giant.
Captain Fresh, a business-to-business harvest-to-retail marketplace for animal protein, is engaging with investors to raise up to $50 million in fresh funding, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Captain Fresh declined to comment.
The startup specifically focuses on seafood, helping fishermen and farmers sell their catch and livestock to businesses.
Captain Fresh has raised over $100 million prior to the new funding and was valued at $500 million in the previous round, whose first tranche it closed in March 2022.
It has since extended that round to raise another $15 million or so.
There are a ton of tools out there that help you keep eye contact when talking with people online – some (Plexicam, CenterCam) place the camera in front of your screen.
Others use AI to edit the video stream to make it look as if you’re looking at the camera (it’s creepy AF when done poorly).
EyeQ is taking a different approach, and we took a closer look at CES 2024 in Las Vegas.
The lack of personal connection and the inability to maintain eye contact during video calls are major contributing factors to this issue.
“Our primary focus is on the online healthcare and consultancy markets, where making authentic eye contact is crucial.
