Russian zero-day purchase platform posts $20M bounty for iOS, Android hacking tools

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

In today’s top story, a Russian zero-day seller is now offering to pay researchers $20 million for hacking tools that would allow its customers to hack iPhones and Android devices. Get the scoop.

Next, read about a former Tinder CEO’s startup out to fight loneliness with an AI chatbot. Investors like it.

Meanwhile, a Brazilian super app developer secured $30 million in new funding to add insurance and financing components. Read more.

And Meta’s annual Connect conference started today, and we reported on all the new hardware and software, including Meta Quest 3. Here are some highlights:

Finally, as seen on TV: Senior reporter Kyle Wiggers will appear on CBS tomorrow at 12:35 p.m. ET to discuss the latest news about ChatGPT.

Image Credits: Benoit Daoust / Shutterstock

More top reads

What’s that shaking?: Google launches earthquake alerts on Android in India. Read more.

Smoothing out Africa’s payment landscape: QED and Partech back South African payment orchestration platform Revio in a $5.2 million seed round. Here’s how Revio plans to take on payment failures.

The fabric of our developer lives: Meet Rayon, a collaborative design tool for architects and designers. Now draw.

Businesses need payment love, too: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was one of the many backers of Slope’s $30 million round. Learn how it digitizes B2B payments.

Head in the Cloudfare: Cloudflare launches new AI tools to help customers deploy and run models. Read more.

Speaking of OpenAI: Lots of reports on OpenAI. First, the company is reportedly in talks with Jony Ive about a hardware project. Get that scoop. This news follows yesterday’s rumor that OpenAI plans to raise new funding at a valuation of $80 billion to $90 billion.

Mercedes boy: You will have a ball navigating the freeways with Mercedes’ hands-off, eyes-off automated driving system. See it in action.

It’s not you, it’s me: Though less than a year in, Snap decides to shutter its enterprise services division. Find out why.

Well, now what?: Some new research suggests that a vast majority of VC-backed U.K. startups do “nothing” on climate emissions. Read for yourself.

More for your Wednesday:

Industry Ventures, with stakes in more than 600 venture firms, just raised $1.7B to snap up more stakes — and companies

Was tech’s ‘bull run’ simply a temporary surge? (TC+)

Walmart returns to Roblox after its first games were attacked by consumer advocacy groups

Elon Musk’s X removes general option to report misleading info about politics

Image Credits: Brian Heater

TC Opinion: Fintech actually has a value system: Here’s how we can reclaim it

“Fintechs would do well to lean into the current economic moment and focus on applications that blunt the impact of inflation and financial uncertainty on workers and consumers,” writes Avliere CEO and co-founder Yuval Brisker in TechCrunch Opinion.

“One of the big lessons of the social finance backlash is that empowerment without education can do more harm than good.”

If you’d like to submit an opinion column to TechCrunch, please read our new editorial guidelines.

Bootstrapping is cool once again

Several factors combined to dampen investor interest in early-stage startups over the last year and change, leading more founders to explore funding alternatives.

Dominic Madori-Davis spoke to Hussein Yahfoufi (product lead at Arta Finance) and Healthie founder Erica Jain last week at Disrupt to get their advice for connecting with angels and conserving cash.

“Bootstrapping isn’t necessarily an all-or-nothing [endeavor],” said Jain. “It’s about thinking through the long term and being in control about how you think about the capital journey of your business.”

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