Thursday, August 15, 2024

Good afternoon, and welcome to TechCrunch PM! Today we're looking at Lockheed Martin's take-private acquisition of Terran Orbital, Threads' new features, and CodeRabbit's new fundraise, and we announce an awesome speaker who's coming to TechCrunch Disrupt in October. Let's go!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Terran Orbital

🛰️ To the rescue: Lockheed Martin announced that it's buying — well, saving, really — Terran Orbital for $450 million in a take-private deal. Terran Orbital reported cash reserves of $14.6 million as of the end of July, down from $30.6 million at the end of June. Read more

☁️ Not quite there: Bluesky, an X and Threads rival, has seen a little bump in activity following Elon Musk's recent controversial statements over the U.K. riots. But it's still Threads, not Bluesky, that's better poised to challenge X. Read more

👾 Play for free: AltStore PAL is now available for free in Europe thanks to Epic Games, which gave the app maker a "MegaGrant" monetary award. Until now, users had to pay a €1.50 annual subscription fee to cover Apple's Core Technology Fee. Read more

A Message from Airtable

Create apps instantly with Airtable Cobuilder

Create apps that are intuitive, customizable, and impactful—in moments. Airtable Cobuilder enables every person, on every team, to build apps that automate work. No coding required. Just ideas. You imagine it. AI builds it. The magic is in making it yours.

TRY YOUR OWN PROMPT

Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: TechCrunch

🔐 Passkey support: X announced that it's enabling passkeys for Android users, making it harder for bad actors to get access to accounts. Passkeys use Face ID, a PIN or a physical security authentication key to validate logins. Read more

✅ Code checks: CodeRabbit, which analyzes code using AI models to provide feedback, has around 600 clients and announced today that it raised a $16 million Series A. But as AI reporter Kyle Wiggers notes, "unfortunately for CodeRabbit, anecdotal evidence suggests that AI-powered code reviews tend to be inferior compared to human-in-the-loop ones." Read more

🚨 And background checks: Ferretly uses AI to scan social media and publicly available online data to catch potential risks that traditional background checks may miss. The company has now launched an election personnel screening tool and secured a $2.5 million seed round. Read more

🧵 Threads updates: Meta's decentralized social network got a slew of new features, including the ability to store multiple drafts, a way to rearrange columns on desktop, and insights into your audience. Read more

🔭 Join us at Disrupt! We're excited to announce that Disney star turned space startup CEO Bridgit Mendler will be speaking about her startup, Northwood Space, at this year's Disrupt, which runs October 28-30. Read more

A Message from Daniel P McLaughlin & Co. Auctioneers

Public Auction on August 20

You're invited to join a public auction for the business assets of InvestFin, a former fintech startup based in Delaware. Assets include finserv software and various intellectual property. The auction takes place on Tuesday, August 20, in New York City at the offices of Feuerstein Kulick LLP. Bid in person or by teleconference.

Learn More

Around the web

💸 T-Mobile fines: CFIUS issued a penalty of $60 million — its biggest penalty yet — to T-Mobile to settle alleged national security violations, including not doing a good job preventing unauthorized access to sensitive data and being slow to report some of the incidents. Read more

👀 Windows to the soul: Not quite Chatroulette and definitely not a Zoom call, Neal Agarwal's latest creation is Eyechat, which matches your eyes with the eyes of strangers all over the world. "I hope it's just a little reminder that the internet can be fun and weird and collaborative," he told 404 Media. Read more