Image Credits: Bernd Weißbrod / dpa / Getty Images (Image has been modified)
Europe doesn’t have many large language model (LLM) makers but one of these rare AI beasts — Germany’s Aleph Alpha — appears to be preparing to rule itself out of the running, per Bloomberg, which has an interview with CEO Jonas Andrulis on its pivot to a broader generative AI-support play.
The idea with a product it unveiled last week, called PhariaAI, is to help other companies or the public sector use AI tools regardless of whether it made the underlying tech. “The world changed,” Andrulis told Bloomberg. “Just having an European LLM is not sufficient as a business model. It doesn’t justify the investment.”
Aleph Alpha raised a $500 million Series B round last November. But with category giants like OpenAI having far beefier war chests to fuel development — and, closer to home, France’s Mistral has also raked in more investor cash — the German startup had its work cut out to stay in the LLM fight.
A little-known spyware maker based in Minnesota has been hacked, TechCrunch has learned, revealing thousands of devices around the world under its stealthy remote surveillance.
A person with knowledge of the breach provided TechCrunch with a cache of files taken from the company’s servers containing detailed device activity logs from the phones, tablets, and computers that Spytech monitors, with some of the files dated as recently as early June.
TechCrunch verified the data as authentic in part by analyzing some of the exfiltrated device activity logs that pertain to the company’s chief executive, who installed the spyware on one of his own devices.
The data shows that Spytech’s spyware — Realtime-Spy and SpyAgent, among others — has been used to compromise more than 10,000 devices since the earliest-dated leaked records from 2013, including Android devices, Chromebooks, Macs, and Windows PCs worldwide.
Spytech is the latest spyware maker in recent years to have itself been compromised, and the fourth spyware maker known to have been hacked this year alone, according to TechCrunch’s running tally.
When reached for comment, Spytech chief executive Nathan Polencheck said TechCrunch’s email “was the first I have heard of the breach and have not seen the data you have seen so at this time all I can really say is that I am investigating everything and will take the appropriate actions.”
Spytech is a maker of remote access apps, often referred to as “stalkerware,” which are sold under the guise of allowing parents to monitor their children’s activities but are also marketed for spying on the devices of spouses and domestic partners. Spytech’s website openly advertises its products for spousal surveillance, promising to “keep tabs on your spouse’s suspicious behavior.”
While monitoring the activity of children or employees is not illegal, monitoring a device without the owner’s consent is unlawful, and spyware operators and spyware customers both have faced prosecution for selling and using spyware.
Stalkerware apps are typically planted by someone with physical access to a person’s device, often with knowledge of their passcode. By nature, these apps can stay hidden from view and are difficult to detect and remove. Once installed, the spyware sends keystrokes and screen taps, web browsing history, device activity usage, and, in the case of Android devices, granular location data to a dashboard controlled by whoever planted the app.
The breached data, seen by TechCrunch, contains logs of all the devices under Spytech’s control, including records of each device’s activity. Most of the devices compromised by the spyware are Windows PCs, and to a lesser degree Android devices, Macs and Chromebooks.
The device activity logs we have seen were not encrypted.
TechCrunch analyzed the location data derived from the hundreds of compromised Android phones, and plotted the coordinates in an offline mapping tool to preserve the privacy of the victims. The location data provides some idea, though not completely, where at least a proportion of Spytech’s victims are located.
Hundreds of Android devices compromised by Spytech’s spyware plotted on a world map.Image Credits: TechCrunch
Our analysis of the mobile-only data shows Spytech has significant clusters of devices monitored across Europe and the United States, as well as localized devices across Africa, Asia and Australia, and the Middle East.
One of the records associated with Polencheck’s administrator account includes the precise geolocation of his house in Red Wing, Minnesota.
While the data contains reams of sensitive data and personal information obtained from the devices of individuals — some of whom will have no idea their devices are being monitored — the data does not contain enough identifiable information about each compromised device for TechCrunch to notify victims of the breach.
When asked by TechCrunch, Spytech’s CEO would not say if the company plans to notify its customers, the people whose devices were monitored, or U.S. state authorities as required by data breach notification laws.
A spokesperson for Minnesota’s attorney general did not respond to a request for comment.
Troy Hunt, who runs data breach notification site Have I Been Pwned, said he notified more than 5,000 individuals whose email addresses were found in the dataset, and added the data set to his site’s catalog of past data breaches.
Spytech dates back to at least 1998. The company operated largely under the radar until 2009, when an Ohio man was convicted of using Spytech’s spyware to infect the computer systems of a nearby children’s hospital, targeting the email account of his ex-partner who worked there.
Local news media reported at the time, and TechCrunch verified from court records, that the spyware infected the children hospital’s systems as soon as his ex-partner opened the attached spyware, which prosecutors say collected sensitive health information. The person who sent the spyware pleaded guilty to the illegal interception of electronic communications.
Spytech is the second U.S.-based spyware maker in recent months to have experienced a data breach. In May, Michigan-based pcTattletale was hacked and its website defaced, and the company subsequently shut down and deleted his company’s banks of victim’s device data rather than notify affected individuals.
Data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned later obtained a copy of the breached data and listed 138,000 customers as having signed up for the service.
If you or someone you know needs help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) provides 24/7 free, confidential support to victims of domestic abuse and violence. If you are in an emergency situation, call 911. TheCoalition Against Stalkerware has resources if you think your phone has been compromised by spyware.
Updated with addition of data to Have I Been Pwned.
Image Credits: Millennium Space Systems (opens in a new window)
Boeing’s satellite maker Millennium Space Systems will soon have a new CEO. Jason Kim, the executive who held the position for nearly four years, has departed the company, TechCrunch has learned.
Boeing acquired Millennium Space Systems in 2018. Since that point, the company has scored mega-deals with the U.S. Department of Defense to build satellites to help warfighters track missiles and other threats. Millennium also successfully executed a “responsive space” mission for the U.S. Space Force; that mission, called Victus Nox, sought to establish a new record for the time it takes to put a defense payload into orbit.
Millennium and its partner for the mission, Firefly Space, accomplished just that: Last September, the two firms were able to integrate the Millennium-built satellite with Firefly’s launch vehicle after 58 hours. The satellite was operational just 37 hours after launch.
“We are grateful to Jason for his leadership, growing the portfolio and evolving the company to a workforce of nearly 1,000, and wish him the best in the next phase of his career,” a Millennium spokesperson said in a comment. “We anticipate announcing a CEO in the near term who can carry forward Millennium Space Systems’ spirit and culture of rapid delivery. Millennium Space Systems’ mission has not changed, and the team continues their unwavering focus on customer commitments.”
Kim did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. Kim was not a founder of Millennium Space Systems but was appointed around two years after Boeing acquired the company. Its founder and former CEO, Stan Dubyn, led the company for 17 years. Prior to Millennium, Kim held leadership positions at Raytheon’s space division and Northrop Grumman. He also served in the U.S. Air Force.
The move comes at a time of uncertainty for Boeing’s space businesses more broadly. The aerospace giant has come under the microscope for its bungled Starliner mission, which experienced technical problems shortly before docking with the International Space Station, leading NASA officials to decide that the spacecraft should return to Earth without astronauts onboard. However, the reason for Kim’s departure is unclear. There are other executive vacancies in the industry right now — including at Firefly, whose CEO departed just days after Payload Space published a report alleging he was under investigation at the company.
Image Credits: Terran Orbital (opens in a new window)
Lockheed Martin is sweeping in to save satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital from its dwindling cash reserves and mounting debt, in a $450 million take-private deal that’s expected to close before the end of the year.
The defense giant will buy Terran for $0.25 per share and retire its existing debt. Lockheed, which holds a 28.3% stake in Terran Orbital, strategically invested in Terran Orbital through its Lockheed Martin Ventures investing arm in 2017, 2020 and 2022. This will be the first LMV portfolio company that Lockheed Martin will acquire since the fund was founded in 2007. Satellite bus contracts for Lockheed represent around 70% of the company’s revenue and 91% of the company’s backlog.
Terran Orbital got a major boost at the beginning of 2023, when it announced a $2.4 billion, 300-satellite deal for Rivada Space Networks, a company that wants to build a satellite communications constellation. However, Rivada delayed its incremental payments toward the order, and in its recent earnings report Terran Orbital said it was removing the Rivada deal from its backlog.
Lockheed first proposed acquiring the company for more than $500 million in March. Terran Orbital responded by introducing a limited-duration stockholder rights plan, or a “poison pill,” to prevent the buy-out. Lockheed dropped its bid in May.
Terran Orbital reported cash reserves of $14.6 million as of July 31, down from $30.6 million as of the end of June. It told regulators on August 12 that it was pursuing “a range of strategic options” to address its need for cash. As of market close on Wednesday, Terran Orbital stock was trading at $0.40 per share.
Terran Orbital is now the second space company to leave the public markets after entering them at billion-dollar-plus valuations. Terran Orbital made its public debut at a $1.8 billion valuation; Astra Space, the other space company that finalized its take-private deal over the summer, went public at a valuation of $2.1 billion. At the time of their private deals, both companies were worth just a fraction of those amounts.
A little-known spyware maker based in Minnesota has been hacked, TechCrunch has learned, revealing thousands of devices around the world under its stealthy remote surveillance.
A person with knowledge of the breach provided TechCrunch with a cache of files taken from the company’s servers containing detailed device activity logs from the phones, tablets, and computers that Spytech monitors, with some of the files dated as recently as early June.
TechCrunch verified the data as authentic in part by analyzing some of the exfiltrated device activity logs that pertain to the company’s chief executive, who installed the spyware on one of his own devices.
The data shows that Spytech’s spyware — Realtime-Spy and SpyAgent, among others — has been used to compromise more than 10,000 devices since the earliest-dated leaked records from 2013, including Android devices, Chromebooks, Macs, and Windows PCs worldwide.
Spytech is the latest spyware maker in recent years to have itself been compromised, and the fourth spyware maker known to have been hacked this year alone, according to TechCrunch’s running tally.
When reached for comment, Spytech chief executive Nathan Polencheck said TechCrunch’s email “was the first I have heard of the breach and have not seen the data you have seen so at this time all I can really say is that I am investigating everything and will take the appropriate actions.”
Spytech is a maker of remote access apps, often referred to as “stalkerware,” which are sold under the guise of allowing parents to monitor their children’s activities but are also marketed for spying on the devices of spouses and domestic partners. Spytech’s website openly advertises its products for spousal surveillance, promising to “keep tabs on your spouse’s suspicious behavior.”
While monitoring the activity of children or employees is not illegal, monitoring a device without the owner’s consent is unlawful, and spyware operators and spyware customers both have faced prosecution for selling and using spyware.
Stalkerware apps are typically planted by someone with physical access to a person’s device, often with knowledge of their passcode. By nature, these apps can stay hidden from view and are difficult to detect and remove. Once installed, the spyware sends keystrokes and screen taps, web browsing history, device activity usage, and, in the case of Android devices, granular location data to a dashboard controlled by whoever planted the app.
The breached data, seen by TechCrunch, contains logs of all the devices under Spytech’s control, including records of each device’s activity. Most of the devices compromised by the spyware are Windows PCs, and to a lesser degree Android devices, Macs and Chromebooks.
The device activity logs we have seen were not encrypted.
TechCrunch analyzed the location data derived from the hundreds of compromised Android phones, and plotted the coordinates in an offline mapping tool to preserve the privacy of the victims. The location data provides some idea, though not completely, where at least a proportion of Spytech’s victims are located.
Hundreds of Android devices compromised by Spytech’s spyware plotted on a world map.Image Credits: TechCrunch
Our analysis of the mobile-only data shows Spytech has significant clusters of devices monitored across Europe and the United States, as well as localized devices across Africa, Asia and Australia, and the Middle East.
One of the records associated with Polencheck’s administrator account includes the precise geolocation of his house in Red Wing, Minnesota.
While the data contains reams of sensitive data and personal information obtained from the devices of individuals — some of whom will have no idea their devices are being monitored — the data does not contain enough identifiable information about each compromised device for TechCrunch to notify victims of the breach.
When asked by TechCrunch, Spytech’s CEO would not say if the company plans to notify its customers, the people whose devices were monitored, or U.S. state authorities as required by data breach notification laws.
A spokesperson for Minnesota’s attorney general did not respond to a request for comment.
Spytech dates back to at least 1998. The company operated largely under the radar until 2009, when an Ohio man was convicted of using Spytech’s spyware to infect the computer systems of a nearby children’s hospital, targeting the email account of his ex-partner who worked there.
Local news media reported at the time, and TechCrunch verified from court records, that the spyware infected the children hospital’s systems as soon as his ex-partner opened the attached spyware, which prosecutors say collected sensitive health information. The person who sent the spyware pleaded guilty to the illegal interception of electronic communications.
Spytech is the second U.S.-based spyware maker in recent months to have experienced a data breach. In May, Michigan-based pcTattletale was hacked and its website defaced, and the company subsequently shut down and deleted his company’s banks of victim’s device data rather than notify affected individuals.
Data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned later obtained a copy of the breached data and listed 138,000 customers as having signed up for the service.
If you or someone you know needs help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) provides 24/7 free, confidential support to victims of domestic abuse and violence. If you are in an emergency situation, call 911. TheCoalition Against Stalkerware has resources if you think your phone has been compromised by spyware.
VinFast, Vietnam’s electric vehicle manufacturer, plans to initially invest $500 million to set up an integrated facility in India and break into the world’s third-largest automobile market.
The memorandum of understanding with the state government of Tamil Nadu, unveiled on Saturday, earmarks an investment of up to $2 billion, the company said without giving a concrete timeframe.
Construction of the facility in Thoothukudi — which will have an annual capacity of 150,000 units — is targeted to start this year. It’s projected to generate 3,000–3,500 employment opportunities.
The Indian southern state is a major center for automobile manufacturing with production facilities of prominent companies such as BMW, Hyundai, and Renault-Nissan, alongside electric vehicle manufacturers, including BYD from China and India-based Ather Energy and Ola Electric that specialize in making electric two-wheelers. (Ola Electric is looking to list in Mumbai this year.)
“We are delighted that VinFast has chosen to invest in Tamil Nadu to establish its integrated EV facility. Possessing robust capabilities and unwavering commitment to a sustainable future, I believe that VinFast will emerge as a reliable economic partner and substantial contributor to Tamil Nadu’s long-term development,” said Dr. Thallikotai Raju Balu Rajaa, Minister of Industries of the government of Tamil Nadu, in the statement.
In addition to the manufacturing facility, the carmaker is also looking to develop a Pan-India dealership network to cater to consumers in the world’s third-largest four-wheeler market.
“The MoU demonstrates VinFast’s strong commitment to the sustainable development and vision of a zero-emission transportation future. We believe that investing in Tamil Nadu will not only bring considerable economic benefits to both parties but will also help accelerate the green energy transition in India and the region,” said Tran Mai Hoa, Deputy CEO of Sales and Marketing at VinFast Global.
Founded in 2017, VinFast has been making EVs since 2021 and is in markets in the U.S. and Canada, in addition to its domestic market in Vietnam. The lossmaking firm, often compared to Tesla, listed on the Nasdaq through a SPAC deal with Black Spade in August and announced its plan to enter India in October.
While VinFast looks to expand its market by investing dollars in India, the company faces financial challenges in its existing markets. Last year, it cut jobs in the U.S. and Canada and faced criticism for the VF8 EV over quality and safety issues. VinFast’s share price fell by more than 81% since its initial public offering to $7.02.
Nonetheless, India has been an attractive market for global EV players as the country aims to have 30% electrification by 2030. Homegrown carmaker Tata Motors has so far been the dominating EV car manufacturer in the country, while Chinese players BYD and MG Motor are looking to expand their presence in the country with their EV models. Similarly, South Korea’s Hyundai Motor has started bringing its EVs to the Indian market to cater to the growing demand. Tesla is also actively working to enter the market by establishing a factory in the western state of Gujarat.
The current penetration of electric cars in India’s market is only 0.25% of the total car sales of over 51 million, per the data available on the government’s Vahan portal. However, the government has offered incentives and subsidies to grow the EV car market.
Its India deal announcement follows VinFast naming its founder and biggest backer, Pham Nhat Vuong, as CEO earlier on Saturday.
Indian wearable startup Ultrahuman is getting into the smart home game. It has announced the upcoming launch of connected hardware that’s designed to monitor the “health” of your home, as its marketing puts it. The device, which it’s calling the Ultrahuman Home, is being shown off at CES this week — with a shipping date that’s slated to start in July. RRP is US$349.
Looks-wise, the Ultrahuman Home resembles a sleek (metallic) Wi-Fi router or Apple TV — basically it’s a low, squarish box — but functionality is quite different: Sensors in the device will allow the user to monitor levels of natural and artificial light, air pollution, noise, humidity and smoke in the room where it’s installed, according to the company, sending data, in the form of space “scores” and actionable insights, to a new “home” tab in the Ultrahuman app.
Ultrahuman’s existing wearables are squarely targeted at the quantified self trend, linking sensing hardware to an app that crunches the user’s data to deliver personalized lifestyle advice — with the goal of helping users improve fitness and wellness.
The new incoming (static) hardware is intended to supplement the ability of Ultrahuman’s smart ring to deliver personalized lifestyle nudges as it can factor in data on the indoor environment the user is exposed to too. But it can also work as a standalone in-home tracker to provide an assessment of the healthiness of a home environment — and offer advice on how to improve a sleep space, for example.
Down the line, the idea is the Ultrahuman Home will be able to plug into home automation, per CEO and founder Mohit Kumar. So while it’s just an environmental tracking device on its own, installed in a smart home it could be used to power automated decisions to, for example, dynamically adjust devices like the air conditioning to promote deeper and more restorative sleep. Temperature in a bedroom can be an important factor to quality of sleep, he suggests. So the vision here is that home automation will be looped into the overarching mission of boosting users’ wellness.
“In the future, you will see us integrating with protocols like IFTTT to actually get into home automation,” he says. “We’ll be able to do things like, for this individual, lowering the air conditioner by two degrees when they are in deep sleep mode. It is more beneficial because that helps them get into a slow wave or deep sleep zone. [Also for] personalised humidity levels in the room. The third is even lighting suggestions in the room.”
As with diet and activity level, environments where we spend a good deal of our time can influence our health for the better or worse — depending on what we’re being exposed to. Air pollution bad, natural light good type thing. So on that level it’s not too surprising to see a wearable maker taking an interest in what’s going on in the homes of its users. Ambient factors like temperature, humidity and air quality may be impacting things like the quality of sleep a person is getting or even productivity in a workplace.
But it’s fair to say Ultrahuman is blazing a bit of trail here compared to wearable competitors by expanding into environmental monitoring. The likes of Oura and Whoop — the two rivals it’s most closely tracking — have stayed in the wearable lane so far.
By capturing more data-points it can link to its smart ring users, Ultrahuman may be able to improve the accuracy of its algorithms — to give its personalized advice an edge over rivals. Having another device in its portfolio to cross-sell to existing users won’t hurt either, especially as the strategy it’s taken with its smart ring also contrasts with rivals because Ultrahuman does not require users to shell out for a subscription; they just have to purchase the hardware to get ongoing access to its tracking software.
The same is true with the Ultrahuman Home: There’s no subscription required for the service; just a one-off hardware purchase.
Kumar says Ultrahuman’s no subscription approach has allowed it to drive sales through gifting as existing users aren’t put off from giving its products to friends or family members as a present since there’s no requirement they then have to dip into their own pocket just to use the gift. He also credits expanding offline sales of the smart ring — via retailer partners — with helping grow the user-base, given it’s the sort of device people may want to see and touch before they hand over money.
Since the launch of the Ultrahuman Ring Air, its sleeker second gen smart ring which we reviewed last summer, momentum has been growing, with sales exceeding 10,000 units last month, per Kumar. “I think a lot of momentum has been built up primarily because of repeat usage — or gifting,” he tells TechCrunch. “People actually don’t like gifting subscriptions because it’s like sending a gift and expecting the other person to pay money. So that’s why I believe that we have this advantage in this category from a domestic perspective.”
Returning to the Ultrahuman Home, Kumar confirms it’s designed to monitor and track changes in the environment of a particular room — so it’s intended as a static device.
A large household would clearly need a couple (or more) of these devices if they want to cover the entire home. But at $349 a pop it’s likely most users will stick to monitoring just one room. And the obvious choice will be the room where they spend most of their time (bedroom, home office etc).
Privacy considerations are being addressed by restricting processing of data captured by the on-board mic to the device itself, with no sound data uploaded to its servers, according to Kumar. There is also a hardware button on the device that will let users switch off the mic when they wish. The on-board wi-fi and Bluetooth can also be switched off via an airplane-mode style hardware toggle for those who want to manually limit their exposure to radio frequencies.
VinFast, Vietnam’s electric vehicle manufacturer, plans to initially invest $500 million to set up an integrated facility in India and break into the world’s third-largest automobile market.
The memorandum of understanding with the state government of Tamil Nadu, unveiled on Saturday, earmarks an investment of up to $2 billion, the company said without giving a concrete timeframe.
Construction of the facility in Thoothukudi — which will have an annual capacity of 150,000 units — is targeted to start this year. It’s projected to generate 3,000–3,500 employment opportunities.
The Indian southern state is a major center for automobile manufacturing with production facilities of prominent companies such as BMW, Hyundai, and Renault-Nissan, alongside electric vehicle manufacturers, including BYD from China and India-based Ather Energy and Ola Electric that specialize in making electric two-wheelers. (Ola Electric is looking to list in Mumbai this year.)
“We are delighted that VinFast has chosen to invest in Tamil Nadu to establish its integrated EV facility. Possessing robust capabilities and unwavering commitment to a sustainable future, I believe that VinFast will emerge as a reliable economic partner and substantial contributor to Tamil Nadu’s long-term development,” said Dr. Thallikotai Raju Balu Rajaa, Minister of Industries of the government of Tamil Nadu, in the statement.
In addition to the manufacturing facility, the carmaker is also looking to develop a Pan-India dealership network to cater to consumers in the world’s third-largest four-wheeler market.
“The MoU demonstrates VinFast’s strong commitment to the sustainable development and vision of a zero-emission transportation future. We believe that investing in Tamil Nadu will not only bring considerable economic benefits to both parties but will also help accelerate the green energy transition in India and the region,” said Tran Mai Hoa, Deputy CEO of Sales and Marketing at VinFast Global.
Founded in 2017, VinFast has been making EVs since 2021 and is in markets in the U.S. and Canada, in addition to its domestic market in Vietnam. The lossmaking firm, often compared to Tesla, listed on the Nasdaq through a SPAC deal with Black Spade in August and announced its plan to enter India in October.
While VinFast looks to expand its market by investing dollars in India, the company faces financial challenges in its existing markets. Last year, it cut jobs in the U.S. and Canada and faced criticism for the VF8 EV over quality and safety issues. VinFast’s share price fell by more than 81% since its initial public offering to $7.02.
Nonetheless, India has been an attractive market for global EV players as the country aims to have 30% electrification by 2030. Homegrown carmaker Tata Motors has so far been the dominating EV car manufacturer in the country, while Chinese players BYD and MG Motor are looking to expand their presence in the country with their EV models. Similarly, South Korea’s Hyundai Motor has started bringing its EVs to the Indian market to cater to the growing demand. Tesla is also actively working to enter the market by establishing a factory in the western state of Gujarat.
The current penetration of electric cars in India’s market is only 0.25% of the total car sales of over 51 million, per the data available on the government’s Vahan portal. However, the government has offered incentives and subsidies to grow the EV car market.
Its India deal announcement follows VinFast naming its founder and biggest backer, Pham Nhat Vuong, as CEO earlier on Saturday.
Indian wearable startup Ultrahuman is getting into the smart home game. It has announced the upcoming launch of connected hardware that’s designed to monitor the “health” of your home, as its marketing puts it. The device, which it’s calling the Ultrahuman Home, is being shown off at CES this week — with a shipping date that’s slated to start in July. RRP is US$349.
Looks-wise, the Ultrahuman Home resembles a sleek (metallic) Wi-Fi router or Apple TV — basically it’s a low, squarish box — but functionality is quite different: Sensors in the device will allow the user to monitor levels of natural and artificial light, air pollution, noise, humidity and smoke in the room where it’s installed, according to the company, sending data, in the form of space “scores” and actionable insights, to a new “home” tab in the Ultrahuman app.
Ultrahuman’s existing wearables are squarely targeted at the quantified self trend, linking sensing hardware to an app that crunches the user’s data to deliver personalized lifestyle advice — with the goal of helping users improve fitness and wellness.
The new incoming (static) hardware is intended to supplement the ability of Ultrahuman’s smart ring to deliver personalized lifestyle nudges as it can factor in data on the indoor environment the user is exposed to too. But it can also work as a standalone in-home tracker to provide an assessment of the healthiness of a home environment — and offer advice on how to improve a sleep space, for example.
Down the line, the idea is the Ultrahuman Home will be able to plug into home automation, per CEO and founder Mohit Kumar. So while it’s just an environmental tracking device on its own, installed in a smart home it could be used to power automated decisions to, for example, dynamically adjust devices like the air conditioning to promote deeper and more restorative sleep. Temperature in a bedroom can be an important factor to quality of sleep, he suggests. So the vision here is that home automation will be looped into the overarching mission of boosting users’ wellness.
“In the future, you will see us integrating with protocols like IFTTT to actually get into home automation,” he says. “We’ll be able to do things like, for this individual, lowering the air conditioner by two degrees when they are in deep sleep mode. It is more beneficial because that helps them get into a slow wave or deep sleep zone. [Also for] personalised humidity levels in the room. The third is even lighting suggestions in the room.”
As with diet and activity level, environments where we spend a good deal of our time can influence our health for the better or worse — depending on what we’re being exposed to. Air pollution bad, natural light good type thing. So on that level it’s not too surprising to see a wearable maker taking an interest in what’s going on in the homes of its users. Ambient factors like temperature, humidity and air quality may be impacting things like the quality of sleep a person is getting or even productivity in a workplace.
But it’s fair to say Ultrahuman is blazing a bit of trail here compared to wearable competitors by expanding into environmental monitoring. The likes of Oura and Whoop — the two rivals it’s most closely tracking — have stayed in the wearable lane so far.
By capturing more data-points it can link to its smart ring users, Ultrahuman may be able to improve the accuracy of its algorithms — to give its personalized advice an edge over rivals. Having another device in its portfolio to cross-sell to existing users won’t hurt either, especially as the strategy it’s taken with its smart ring also contrasts with rivals because Ultrahuman does not require users to shell out for a subscription; they just have to purchase the hardware to get ongoing access to its tracking software.
The same is true with the Ultrahuman Home: There’s no subscription required for the service; just a one-off hardware purchase.
Kumar says Ultrahuman’s no subscription approach has allowed it to drive sales through gifting as existing users aren’t put off from giving its products to friends or family members as a present since there’s no requirement they then have to dip into their own pocket just to use the gift. He also credits expanding offline sales of the smart ring — via retailer partners — with helping grow the user-base, given it’s the sort of device people may want to see and touch before they hand over money.
Since the launch of the Ultrahuman Ring Air, its sleeker second gen smart ring which we reviewed last summer, momentum has been growing, with sales exceeding 10,000 units last month, per Kumar. “I think a lot of momentum has been built up primarily because of repeat usage — or gifting,” he tells TechCrunch. “People actually don’t like gifting subscriptions because it’s like sending a gift and expecting the other person to pay money. So that’s why I believe that we have this advantage in this category from a domestic perspective.”
Returning to the Ultrahuman Home, Kumar confirms it’s designed to monitor and track changes in the environment of a particular room — so it’s intended as a static device.
A large household would clearly need a couple (or more) of these devices if they want to cover the entire home. But at $349 a pop it’s likely most users will stick to monitoring just one room. And the obvious choice will be the room where they spend most of their time (bedroom, home office etc).
Privacy considerations are being addressed by restricting processing of data captured by the on-board mic to the device itself, with no sound data uploaded to its servers, according to Kumar. There is also a hardware button on the device that will let users switch off the mic when they wish. The on-board wi-fi and Bluetooth can also be switched off via an airplane-mode style hardware toggle for those who want to manually limit their exposure to radio frequencies.
Yet another AI-powered fraud detection software provider is laying off staff. Inscribe, whose platform works to detect fraud in areas like business underwriting, tenant screening and onboarding, has cut just under 40% of its staff, which equates to dozens of employees. The news follows that of another small round of layoffs at AI-powered plagiarism detector Turnitin, whose CEO had last year touted how AI would enable the company to reduce its headcount.
According to sources, Inscribe’s board recommended the cuts as the current market caused the startup to miss its revenue goals for over a year.
San Francisco-based Inscribe.ai confirmed the headcount reduction to TechCrunch, noting that the AI advances in the financial services industry necessitated a pivot to a new product and direction for the company.
“2023 was a year of change for our customers and Inscribe,” explained Inscribe CEO and co-founder, Ronan Burke. “Many of our customers in the fintech industry had to contend with higher interest rates and an unpredictable future for consumers and businesses. Additionally, the advances in AI in 2023 present one of the largest opportunities for the financial services ecosystem — enabling improved customer experiences, more efficient processes and fairer decisions,” he continued.
“In Q4 of last year, we set out on a new product strategy to align with these two industry shifts, and we have a large product launch planned for later this year related to this, which we are very excited about. As part of the change in strategy, in January of this year, we made the difficult decision to reduce the size of the team by just under 40%, mostly in go-to-market and operational roles,” Burke said.
The company was already a relatively small operation, with 60 (or more) employees, according to LinkedIn and PitchBook, a mix of engineering, product design, AI expertise, marketing, sales and more.
In January 2023, Inscribe raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Threshold Ventures with participation from Crosslink Capital, Foundry, Uncork Capital, Box co-founder Dillon Smith and Intercom co-founder Des Traynor. The round brought Inscribe’s total raise to date to $38 million. At the time, the company forecast it would double its then 50-person workforce over the coming 12 to 18 months.
Sarah Perez is reachable at [email protected] or @sarahperez.01 / 415.234.3994 on Signal.
Inscribe bags $25M to fight financial fraud with AI
