~techmeme | Bookmarks (1014)

Financial Times: Secondhand fashion site Vinted raised €340M led by TPG at a €5B valuation, as the profitable startup plans to expand beyond clothes into electronics and more  —  Latest TPG-backed funding round values profitable Lithuanian start-up at €5bn  —  Second-hand fashion site Vinted plans …

Bloomberg: Crypto super PAC Fairshake, a rare bipartisan PAC, plans to deploy $40M+ in the final weeks of the 2024 US elections, after already deploying $140M  —  Fairshake is the rare political action committee that is backing both Democrats and Republicans — as long as they take crypto seriously.

Reuters: Document: Guangzhou, China-based self-driving startup WeRide files for a Nasdaq IPO, planning to raise up to $119.4M  —  Chinese self-driving startup WeRide has filed for a $119.4 million initial public offering on Nasdaq and a private placement of $320.5 million, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: Fortinet discloses a critical FortiManager API flaw being exploited in 0-day attacks to steal sensitive files, after warning customers privately over a week ago  —  Fortinet publicly disclosed today a critical FortiManager API vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-47575, that was exploited …

Stephen Nellis / Reuters: Hugging Face announces an open source software offering aimed at lowering costs for building chatbots and AI tools, in partnership with AWS, Google, and others  —  Hugging Face on Wednesday said it is releasing a new open-source software offering with Amazon.com (AMZN.O), Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Fixify, which combines AI and human analysts to identify and fix IT problems, raised a $25M Series A co-led by Costanoa, Decibel, and Paladin Capital  —  Matt Peters has spent more than a decade working for cybersecurity vendors.  He was a team lead at Check Point, climbed the corporate ladder …

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: SK Hynix reports Q3 revenue up 94% YoY to a record ~$12.7B, vs. ~$13.2B expected, and operating profit of ~$5.1B, vs. ~$5B expected, on continued AI chip demand  —  - Revenue climbed 94% while operating profit hit a new high  — SK Hynix's shares have gained more than 35% this year

Margaux MacColl / TechCrunch: Police surveillance company Flock Safety buys drone startup Aerodome, sources say for $300M+; both are a16z-backed and have raised $680M+ and $28M respectively  —  Last week, police surveillance startup Flock Safety announced that it had bought drone startup Aerodome.

Catherine Belton / Washington Post: Documents show direct ties between Russia's government and a former Florida deputy sheriff behind a network of fake news sites using AI and targeting US voters  —  Russian documents reviewed by The Post expose the workings of a Moscow network that has become a potent source of fake news targeting American voters.

Bloomberg: Roblox plans child-safety reforms, including a new type of account to let parents monitor their child's online activity and friends, starting in November  —  How Uber and Lyft Used a Loophole to Deny NYC Drivers Millions in Pay … Hello World

Eugene Kim / Business Insider: Sources and documents detail headwinds slowing Amazon's data center buildout: electricity and water supply issues, zoning problems, labor shortages, and more  —  - Electricity and labor headwinds slow Amazon's data center buildout.  — The company's predicament highlights challenges faced by the broader cloud industry.

Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg: UK-based Wayve, which develops AI software for vehicles, starts testing its driver-assistance system in San Francisco and opens a new office in California  —  - London-based startup opens new office in Sunnyvale, California  — Company will conduct first road trials outside UK in Bay area

Jordan Novet / CNBC: IBM reports Q3 revenue up 1% YoY to $14.97B, vs. $15.07B est., and says bookings for AI consulting and software have exceeded $3B, up more than $1B QoQ  —  IBM shares moved 3% lower in extended trading on Wednesday after the hardware, software and services provider fell short of Wall Street's revenue expectations for the third quarter.

Dimpal Gulwani / Reuters: Paytm reports Q2 net profit of ~$111M, its first-ever profit, helped by the sale of its ticketing business in August; sales were down 34% YoY to ~$197.4M  —  India's Paytm (PAYT.NS) reported a narrower sequential quarterly loss before exceptional items on Tuesday, as its digital payments business recovers …

Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog: A look at some use cases of Anthropic's Claude Artifacts, which lets users create interactive single-page apps via prompts  —  I'm a huge fan of Claude's Artifacts feature, which lets you prompt Claude to create an interactive Single Page App (using HTML, CSS and JavaScript) …

Zoya Hasan / Forbes: Austin-based SchooLinks, whose SaaS offers college and career readiness resources for K-12 students, raised a $80M Series B led by Susquehanna Growth Equity  —  Forbes Under 30 alum Katie Fang gets an A+ when it comes to investor appeal: Her company, which helps students make decisions …

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Mumbai-based Neysa, a provider of AI infrastructure to enterprise customers, raised a $30M Series A co-led by NTTVC, Z47, and Nexus Venture Partners  —  Even though India isn't at the forefront of the global AI innovation battle, demand for AI in the country is growing as businesses seek efficiencies …

Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal: The US DOD plans an initiative to recruit CTOs and other senior tech professionals as uniformed, paid reservists to help in cybersecurity, data analytics, more  —  New Defense Department initiative would recruit Silicon Valley's top technical minds to join the reserves as officers

Juli Clover / MacRumors: Disney no longer lets new and returning customers sign up for and buy subscriptions to Hulu or Disney+ through Apple's App Store, avoiding Apple's cut  —  Disney is no longer allowing its customers to sign up for and purchase subscriptions to Hulu or Disney+ through Apple's App Store …

Jason Koebler / 404 Media: A civil rights org claims in a lawsuit that a VA town violated 4A protections by installing Flock cameras, making it “impossible” for citizens to move untracked  —  “It is functionally impossible for people to drive anywhere without having their movements tracked, photographed …

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: Meta is testing the use of facial recognition to combat celebrity scam ads and to enable faster recovery of compromised accounts on Facebook and Instagram  —  Meta is expanding tests of facial recognition as an anti-scam measure to combat celebrity scam ads and more broadly, the Facebook owner announced Monday.

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: Ireland adopts an Online Safety Code for video-sharing platforms headquartered in the country, including TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, effective next month  —  Ireland's media and internet watchdog, Coimisiún na Meán, has adopted and published an Online Safety Code that will apply …

Suzanne Smalley / The Record: The Biden admin unveils proposed rules for restricting the transfer of US citizens' sensitive data, including biometric and genomic info, to adversarial nations  —  The Biden administration announced on Monday new proposed rules for regulating the transfer of certain data to adversarial countries …

David Heaney / UploadVR: EssilorLuxottica CFO says Ray-Ban Meta glasses are a “success” in the US and the bestseller “in 60%” of Ray-Ban stores in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa  —  Ray-Ban Meta glasses are the top selling product in 60% of Ray-Ban stores in EMEA.