Author: TechCrunch News

The importance of KYC and identity verification in an increasing fintech landscape like Africa’s cannot be overemphasized. As thousands of financial institutions serve millions of Africans, stringent regulatory requirements are needed to keep hackers and fraudsters at bay, which is why investor interest in startups offering KYC and identity verification services is intensifying. Smile Identity,…

Oligo Security, a Tel Aviv-based startup that focuses on runtime application security and observability to detect and prevent open-source vulnerabilities, is coming out of stealth today and announcing that it has raised a total of $28 million in seed and Series A funding. The company’s investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Ballistic Ventures and TLV Partners,…

There are as many link-in-bio tools available for creators as the number of links they typically display on their pages. But there is one more addition to it. Sequoia-backed startup Bento is launching its tool to let users display their work in an elegant way across both desktop and mobile. Bento, which has been under…

Subaru has issued another recall for its battery electric Solterra crossover due to concerns that hub bolts on the wheels may loosen and cause it to detach. Subaru said the issue affects 1,182 model year 2023 Subaru Solterra vehicles. The 2023 Subaru Solterra EV and 2023 Toyota bZ4x — the products of a partnership between…

Twitter ruffled a lot of feathers earlier this month when it announced its plans to cut the free access to its API. The company initially set a February 9 deadline to enforce the rule but later delayed it to February 13. Now, the social network has delayed the shutdown of free API again — and this…

A year ago, Akamai acquired Linode for $900 million. At the time, Akamai said it wanted to combine Linode with its edge platform and security services. Unsurprisingly, that’s exactly what it is doing now, with the launch of its new Akamai Connected Cloud — a massively distributed edge and cloud platform that includes Linode’s existing…

Aspire, the Singapore-based neobank that wants to become the financial operating system for SMEs, has raised an oversubscribed $100 million Series C round. Investors included Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital SEA, along with Paypal, Tencent, LGT Capital Partners and returning investors.  TechCrunch last covered Aspire when it raised its Series B in 2021. Founded in 2018…

Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week.…

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year dropped for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to data.ai’s “State of…

Samsung is the best at big. Big, brash, bold, kitchen sink phones. The company that mainstreamed the phablet a dozen years ago has never given up on big dreams about big phones. Last year, the company took a risk — sunsetting the beloved Note line. While I stand by my initial assessment that the Samsung…