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Samsung announced today that it’s holding the next Galaxy Unpacked event on February 1 at 10.30 AM PT/1.30 PM ET. The company will expectedly announce the S23 series of phones at its first in-person event in three years. The South Korean tech giant is hosting this event in San Fransico with a “Get ready to share the epic” tagline.

While Samsung’s press announcement just had a GIF indicating multiple camera arrays, it posted teasers on Weibo hinting towards high-megapixel sensors and improved low-light photography. The first teaser said “Wow-worthy resolution is coming soon” while the second teaser said, “Stunning night photos are coming soon”.

Samsung used a 108-megapixel sensor in S22 Ultra last year. The teasers posted by the company indicated that it could use Samsung’s own 200-megapixel sensor — which was launched last October — in S23 Ultra.

The company’s latest phone is likely to be powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. While there might be small design changes and spec bumps across the lineup, it won’t be as drastic as deciding to dedicate a slot for S-Pen in S22 Ultra and effectively retiring its Galaxy Note lineup.

Just like the last year, Samsung is letting customers reserve the new flagship device without hearing about it in exchange for $50 of Samsung Store credit. Thankfully, buyers will have a choice to not buy the device at all.

Samsung is strategically placing this event right between the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, which just concluded, and the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, which is scheduled for February-end.

Last week, the Korean tech company posted its results for the quarter ending December, registering record low profits in the last eight years. The company blamed the economic downturn and lower demand for smartphones as core reasons for these numbers.

Samsung is holding its next Galaxy Unpacked event on February 1, teases camera improvements by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

In 2011, Jordi Torras, a former Oracle VP, had a realization: companies weren’t optimizing their search technologies as well as they could be. He founded Inbenta to solve this, providing professional consulting services while simultaneously developing an internal AI toolkit for search optimization.

Over the years, Inbenta transitioned from consulting to providing conversational AI as a service — inclusive of AI-powered chatbots, knowledge management and search engine tools. This proved to be a wise move — Inbenta’s customer base has grown to over 250 brands across industries including financial services, travel, ecommerce, insurance, auto and telecom.

In a sign that investors approve, Inbenta today closed a $40 million funding round led by Tritium Partners, bringing the startup’s total raised to over $60 million. Torras says that the new cash will be put toward people, processes and platform R&D to — in his words — “position Inbenta for the anticipated explosive growth in the conversational AI space.”

“Inbenta is developing a comprehensive platform that tailors AI-driven solutions across industries and use cases for the needs of all enterprises,” Torras continued. “We’ve spent over a decade fine-tuning our proprietary and patented AI toolkit globally, in 35 languages, perpetually advancing it through billions of customer interactions.”

Inbenta offers four main products: Chatbot and Messenger, Knowledge and Search.

Chatbot and Messenger — both chatbots — can be built into existing websites and apps (e.g. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Slack) to provide answers to customer questions. They retain conversation histories, automatically escalating complex queries to human agents or a ticketing system, and leverage automation to handle tasks like securing bookings, scheduling meetings and modifying orders.

Knowledge similarly supplies answers to common questions. But it’s not a chatbot — rather, it’s a sort of proactive knowledge base that can suggest contents for forms, auto-complete requests and predictively search for information. As for Search, it indexes data from different sources such as product catalogs and uses algorithms to tackle search queries, auto-correcting typos and spelling mistakes.

Like Chatbot and Messenger, Knowledge and Search can be embedded in most apps and webpages.

“From an enterprise perspective, Inbenta helps firms automate customer interactions, reduce the need and cost associated with human intervention and create an always-on channel for sales, marketing and HR,” Torras said.

One might wonder how Inbenta’s AI was developed given that some chatbot vendors have a history of training their algorithms on user data without those users’ knowledge or consent. Torras says that Inbenta’s AI — which is “curated by a team of experienced analysts and computational linguists,” he claims — is “fully anonymized,” with controls to let users delete their data from the platform if they wish.

With its portfolio, Inbenta is competing for market share on a number of fronts. In the chatbot space, the company has rivals in Quiq and Ada, which deliver customizable, AI-powered chatbot services to brands. Inbenta’s Knowledge product competes with offerings from startups like Sana, while Search squares off against Hebbia’s document indexing tool.

Torras declined to reveal Inbenta’s revenue when asked, making it tough to gauge the company’s traction. Matt Bowman, the managing partner at Tritium Partners, didn’t express concerns — not that he would, given that he’s an investor. But in an emailed statement, Bowman stressed what he sees as Inbenta’s differentiator: “multilingual capability that requires zero data training and is perpetually improving with each interaction.”

“Being highly configurable across use cases and industries, Inbenta allows customers to get an immediate return on investment while having a platform that can meet future needs as usage expands,” Bowman added.

Dallas, Texas-based Inbenta has over 160 employees currently. It plans to grow that number to more than 200 by 2024.

Inbenta, a provider of AI-powered chatbots and more, lands $40M by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

Last year was when we all got the wake-up call about longevity. From major reports published on the impact of longevity by the National Academy of Medicine and McKinsey to every leading newspaper, public discourse highlighted how our global healthcare, financial and housing infrastructure was failing to serve a rapidly growing older adult population.

While this demographic data is not new, from kitchen table talk to Congress, there was a heightened call for urgency and immediate action.

At Primetime, we observed this wake-up call beyond the research and media attention. First, our deal flow of early-stage businesses in the sector increased from 70 in Q4 2021 to 120 in Q4 2022. And, we were one of only three dedicated funds investing in aging and longevity when we launched in 2020, but we are now aware of at least six more agetech funds in formation, in addition to many other existing funds keen to expand their team to cover the sector.

We are very optimistic for 2023 as we see incredible founder momentum, untapped areas to build new businesses and a window to an increasingly tech-accessible, rapidly growing consumer market.

Here are our top predictions for the longevity industry in 2023.

Health span is the new life span

The COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic impact on older adult behavior with regard to technology usage, penetration of telemedicine and remote health monitoring, early retirement and financial insecurity. Sadly, one of the harshest implications of the pandemic was that life expectancy in the U.S. declined to 77 from 79.

This year will shift the conversation from “life span” to “health span” — how we live healthier for longer.

While telemedicine usage has declined from its peak during the pandemic, the new average is much higher than before the pandemic. We are particularly excited about companies that will accelerate the growth of 100+ primary and specialty-care telemedicine startups by managing their technology, patient payments and reimbursement, as well as provider acquisition and certification.

In an effort to prevent costly hospital visits, the past few years have seen a proliferation of startups offering supplemental health plan benefits for older adults — from transportation to home modification.

Predictions for the longevity industry in 2023 by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch

Flights across the U.S. – including potentially all that fly through any domestic U.S. airspace – are delayed this morning as a major system outage means the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) can’t send out key hazard notices to commercial pilots. The FAA says it’s working to resolve the issue, but the widespread impact continues as of early Wednesday morning.

The agency said at just before 6:30 AM ET on Wednesday that it was “working to restore its Notice to Air Mission Systems” via Twitter – an alert that came after many passengers were already reporting delays to their flights at airports across the country. The Notice to Air Missions System provides key real-time updates about potential flight hazards, as well as any airspace restrictions in place.

Flights across the country appear to be grounded as they wait for the system to come back online. United has confirmed that it has “temporarily delayed all domestic flights” pending further updates from the FAA. International flights going into the country are also impacted according to user reports via social media. The agency said via its own account that it has ordered airlines to pause all their flights domestically until 9 AM ET, as it works “to validate the integrity of flight and safety information” after earlier noting that it has started to bring elements of the system back online.

The FAA issued a failure notice for the system early on Wednesday, though no cause has currently been given.

This story is developing…

All U.S. domestic flights grounded as key FAA system goes down by Darrell Etherington originally published on TechCrunch

Pennsylvania-based nonprofit health provider Maternal & Family Health Services has confirmed cybercriminals accessed the sensitive data of close to half a million people.

MFHS revealed last week that it had been hit by ransomware that exposed the personal data of current and former patients, employees and vendors. The healthcare giant said it was made aware of the incident on April 4, 2022 but admitted that may have been initially compromised as far back as August 21, 2021.

When asked by TechCrunch at the time, MFHS declined to confirm how many individuals were affected. However, a notification from the Maine attorney general’s office this week reported that a total of 461,070 people, including 68 Maine residents, are affected by the breach.

In a letter sent to affected residents on January 10 — more than nine months after the organization was first alerted to the ransomware incident — MFHS said that attackers accessed sensitive data including names, addresses, date of birth, driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, usernames and passwords, health insurance and medical information, and financial information. The attackers also took credit and debit card numbers, the notification said.

It remains unclear who was behind the ransomware attack, if MFHS paid a ransom demand, and why the non-profit didn’t disclose the incident sooner. MFHS didn’t immediately respond to TechCrunch’s questions on Wednesday, and it doesn’t appear that any major ransomware group has yet claimed responsibility for the incident.

Hackers stole data of 460,000 individuals in MFHS ransomware attack by Carly Page originally published on TechCrunch

Bad news for Google in Germany — where the antitrust watchdog has issued a preliminary statement of objections over its data processing terms and said it’s currently planning to require the tech giant to provide users with more choice over what it does with their information.

The Bundeskartellamt, or Federal Cartel Office (FCO), has been investigating Google’s T&Cs for processing user data since May 2021.

At issue is how Google collects and connects user data across multiple services — and whether it offers users sufficient choice over its profiling of them for ad targeting. This has landed on the radar of the antitrust regulator since a lack of choice for consumers can negatively affect competition.

“The Bundeskartellamt has reached the preliminary conclusion that, based on the current terms, users are not given sufficient choice as to whether and to what extent they agree to this far-reaching processing of their data across services. The choices offered so far, if any, are, in particular, not sufficiently transparent and too general,” the FCO writes in a press release. “According to the Bundeskartellamt’s current assessment, sufficient choice particularly requires that users are able to limit the processing of data to the specific service used. In addition, they also have to be able to differentiate between the purposes for which the data are processed.

“Moreover, the choices offered must not be devised in a way that makes it easier for users to consent to the processing of data across services than not to consent to this. General and indiscriminate data retention and processing across services without a specific cause as a preventive measure, including for security purposes, is not permissible either without giving users any choice. Therefore, the Bundeskartellamt is currently planning to oblige the company to change the choices offered.”

A year ago the German regulator confirmed the adtech giant falls under a special abuse control regime that was passed as an update to domestic competition law at the start of 2021 — aimed at digital giants with so called “paramount significance across markets” — allowing the FCO to take proactive measures to correct anti-competitive practices it identifies. That means the German competition regulator is already empowered to order corrections on Google more efficiently than would be possible under traditional ‘ex-post’ antitrust laws.

In a statement, the watchdog’s president, Andreas Mundt, added: “Google’s business model relies heavily on the processing of user data. Due to its established access to relevant data gathered from a large number of different services, Google enjoys a strategic advantage over other companies. Google’s practices must be measured against the requirements under the new competition rules for large digital companies. The company has to give users sufficient choice as to how their data are processed.”

Google will now have an opportunity to comment on the FCO’s objections, as its administrative proceeding continues — and the tech giant could either try to justify its practices to the regulator or offer suggested remedies to alleviate its concerns (as it did to seek to settle an FCO probe of its News Showcase product last year).

A final decision on the matter expected this year, per the Bundeskartellamt.

Google was contacted for comment on the statement of objections. Update: A Google spokesperson said:

People expect us to operate our business responsibly — by both maintaining product experiences that put users first and updating our services continuously to meet the expectations of regulators. We’ll continue to engage constructively with the FCO to try and resolve their concerns.

If the FCO presses ahead, and requires that Google offer its users a meaningful choice to refuse cross-service tracking, it could have broad significance — given the future of ad targeting looks set to be tied to processing of so-called first party data (aka, data collected by a company from its own users).

(Reminder: Three years ago, Google announced a plan to deprecate support for third party tracking technologies in its Chrome browser and switch to (it claims) more privacy-preserving alternatives for ad targeting (aka its “Privacy Sandbox” proposal). That project is ongoing — under close regulatory supervision by the UK’s competition watchdog.)

Google’s planned deprecation of support for tracking cookies has triggered competition complaints from regional publishers and marketing industry players — who are concerned the shift will further entrench its dominance of online advertising, given how much first party data its business gathers by tracking and triangulating usage of popular web services like search, YouTube, Google Maps and on mobile via Google’s Android platform.

This suggests that any regulatory mandate that makes it harder for Google to join-up first party data — and beat against its ability to build superprofiles of its own users by tracking them across multiple mainstream services it owns — could be highly significant in shrinking its competitive advantage in a post-tracking cookie world.

And while any FCO order to Google that reduced its ability to join up usage across different services would only apply to its business in Germany, the European Union now has a similar ex ante update to competition regulation — in the form of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) — which could end up applying (broader) obligations and/or restrictions on how Google processes data right across the bloc.

The DMA, which came into force last November and will start to be applied this year, applies a set of up-front rules to the core platform services of tech giants that are designated as Internet gatekeepers once the European Commission makes those designations.

That work will take place in the coming months — and Google is widely expected to be subject to the pan-EU special abuse regime — although it remains to be seen which of its services may be designated as core platform services under the DMA.

It’s worth emphasizing there is some difference of approach between the German special abuse regime and the DMA. So the FCO’s action here likely won’t be exactly replicated by the Commission’s application of the DMA. But while the latter — a pan-EU regulation — will have primary application once it’s fully up and running, national regimes (such as the one the FCO is applying here against Google) can continue to be applied in parallel provided that specific rules on conflicts are observed (so, basically, use will need to be complementary).

That suggests Google is unlikely to be able to rely on the DMA to wiggle out of any more fulsome restrictions applied to its business in Germany — which is also the largest consumer market in the EU. So the FCO’s intervention remains a significant one.

The regulator’s press release notes that its proceeding against Google is based on its assessment of German competition law — but it also suggests the DMA is “likely to apply to certain Google services in the future”.

“While the DMA also includes a provision which addresses the processing of data across services, this applies only if so-called core platform services, which still have to be designated by the European Commission, are involved,” it adds. “The present proceeding based on the national provision under Section 19a GWB partially exceeds the future requirements of the DMA. In this regard, the Bundeskartellamt is in close contact with the European Commission.”

Google users not given sufficient choice over its data processing, says German antitrust watchdog by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

India will spend nearly $320 million to promote cards on RuPay and for low-value UPI transactions, the latest in a series of moves by New Delhi to fuel the growth of its homegrown payments network.

New Delhi approved a plan Wednesday to spend $318.4 million for the promotion of RuPay debit cards and low-value person-to-merchant transactions on UPI during the period of FY 2022-23.

“Under the said scheme, acquiring banks will be provided financial incentive, for promoting Point-of-Sale (PoS) and e-commerce transactions using RuPay Debit Cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions (P2M) for the current financial year FY 2022-23,” it said in a statement.

The Narendra Modi-led government’s move is an attempt to assuage the concerns of banks that have questioned the financial viability of the UPI network. UPI, a six-year-old payments network built by a coalition of banks, has become the most popular way Indians transact online today. The payments service fetches money directly from banks, removing the reliance on any intermediary. But it operates on zero merchant discount rate, tiny fees on transactions that is one of the main sources of income for banks and card companies.

“Various stakeholder in the digital payments systems and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) expressed concerns regarding potential adverse impact of the zero MDR regime on the growth of the digital payments ecosystem. Further, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) requested, among other things, for incentivisation of BHIM-UPI and RuPay Debit Card transactions to create a cost- effective value proposition for ecosystem stakeholders, increase merchant acceptance footprints and faster migration from cash payments to digital payments,” New Delhi said.

RuPay is India’s homegrown card network, which is promoted by the National Payments Corporation of India, a special body of RBI that also oversees UPI payments. The central bank, which has pushed international giants Visa, Mastercard and American Express to store Indian data locally in the country, has made a series of attempts to expand the reach of RuPay in the South Asian market.

RuPay is the only payments network whose credit cards today support linking to UPI. But even as RuPay has made significant progress in making inroads with debit cards, credit cards on its network are struggling. Several banks, including HDFC, has shown little interest in issuing RuPay credit cards because it is eroding their profit-making ability, according to two people familiar with the matter. Tata Neu’s RuPay credit card, issued by HDFC, doesn’t support linking to UPI, for instance.

India to spend $320 million to promote homegrown payments network by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Inflow, a company developing a platform to manage ADHD using cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques, has raised $11 million in a Series A round of funding.

ADHD, or “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,” is a condition impacting as much as 10% of the global population. Symptoms vary, but typically involve inattention, hyperactivity, anxiety, and impulsivity.

Founded out of London in 2020 by Levi Epstein, Seb Isaacs, and Dr. George Sachs, Y Combinator (YC) alum Inflow has developed a self-help app designed to help people manage their ADHD through daily exercises and challenges around habit development, ADHD-focused mindfulness techniques, community support, and more.

In terms of costs, Inflow offers an initial free 7-day trial which runs into a monthly or annual subscription, the latter costing around $200 per year.

Trials

Inflow was developed “by people with ADHD for people with ADHD,” according to the company, and its founding team includes Dr. George Sachs, a clinical psychologist with more than a decade’s experience treating ADHD in children and adults. Sachs and Co. published a peer-reviewed feasibility and usability study of the app back in August, and plans are currently in place for a broader randomized control trial (RCT) to determine the efficacy of Inflow in terms of outcomes.

“To ensure the usability and feasibility of the Inflow app, since launching, we have preliminary results through open study testing that members have experienced a decrease in ADHD symptoms and impairment by following Inflow’s approach,” Sachs said in a statement. “It’s encouraging and edifying to see how providing these techniques to those with ADHD, directly and easily through our app, is making a difference to their lives.”

Inflow fits into a broader trend that has seen self-therapy startups flourish, and there are a number of companies out there already focused on addressing different facets of ADHD spanning diagnosis, coaching, and telehealth — including Done,Cerebral, Brili, Tiimo, and Elemy. But Inflow cofounder Seb Isaacs is adamant that Inflow stands out from the crowd due to a more all-encompassing approach. Indeed, the company recently expanded into telehealth with the acquisition of Lina Health back in November.

“We’re building a holistic approach for people with ADHD that encompasses all aspects of their care journey, and we are the only company doing this,” he said.

Inflow announced a $2.3 million seed round of funding last January, and with another $11 million in the bank the company said that it plans to double down on product development and bolster its headcount.

“Diagnosing and treating ADHD can be a long and costly process, and living with the symptoms can be extremely challenging,” Isaacs continued. “We want to help our members make significant improvements to their quality of life by giving them the tools to better understand themselves, and implement coping strategies that actually work.”

Inflow’s Series A round was led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from Hoxton Ventures and Route66 Ventures.

Inflow, a platform for managing ADHD through cognitive behavioral therapy, raises $11M by Paul Sawers originally published on TechCrunch

OpenAI this week signaled it’ll soon begin charging for ChatGPT, its viral AI-powered chatbot that can write essays, emails, poems and even computer code. In an announcement on the company’s official Discord server, OpenAI said that it’s “starting to think about how to monetize ChatGPT” as one of the ways to “ensure [the tool’s] long-term viability.”

The monetized version of ChatGPT will be called ChatGPT Professional, apparently. That’s according to a waitlist link OpenAI posted in the Discord server, which asks a range of questions about payment preferences including “At what price (per month) would you consider ChatGPT to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it?”

The waitlist also outlines ChatGPT Professional’s benefits, which include no “blackout” (i.e. unavailability) windows, no throttling and an unlimited number of message with ChatGPT — “at least 2x the regular daily limit.” OpenAI says that those who fill out the waitlist form may be selected to pilot ChatGPT Professional, but that the program is in the experimental stages and won’t be made widely available “at this time.”

Despite controversy and several bans, ChatGPT has proven to be a publicity win for OpenAI, attracting major media attention and spawning countless memes on social media. Some investors are implementing ChatGPT in their workflows. Ryan Reynolds enlisted ChatGPT to write an ad for Mint Mobile, the mobile carrier he part-owns. And Microsoft will reportedly incorporate the AI behind ChatGPT into its Office suite and Bing.

ChatGPT had over a million users as of early December — an enviable user base by any measure. But it’s a pricey service to run. According to OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, ChatGPT’s operating expenses are “eye-watering,” amounting to a few cents per chat in total compute costs. (ChatGPT is hosted in Microsoft’s Azure cloud.)

OpenAI is under pressure to turn a profit on products like ChatGPT ahead of a rumored $10 billion investment from Microsoft. OpenAI expects to make $200 million in 2023, a pittance compared to the over $1 billion that’s been invested in the startup so far.

Semafor reported this week that Microsoft is looking to net a 49% stake in OpenAI, valuing the company at around $29 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft would receive three-quarters of OpenAI’s profits until it recovers its investment with additional investors taking 49% and OpenAI retaining the remaining 2% in equity.

OpenAI has an unusual corporate structure, operating under a “capped-profit” model that limits backers’ returns to 100 times their investment — or possibly less in the future.

OpenAI begins piloting ChatGPT Professional, a premium version of its viral chatbot by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

There’s long existed a divide in the world of computer hacking between those who are taking a malicious approach to crack a system, and those who are using the same techniques to understand the system’s vulnerabilities, help fix them, and at the same time to fight against the malicious actors. Today, Hack the Box, one of the startups that’s built a platform to help cultivate more of the latter group with a gamified approach, is announcing $55 million in funding to expand its business after racking up 1.7 million users.

The funding is being led by Carlyle, with Paladin Capital Group, Osage University Partners, Marathon Venture Capital, Brighteye Ventures, and Endeavor Catalyst Fund also participating. The UK startup is not disclosing valuation at the moment. But for some context, according to PitchBook, the startup, based out of England but with offices in New York and with founding roots out of Greece — where it also has an office — had raised just over $24 million since being founded in 2017 (with about $15 million of that in equity: the company says it’s now raised about $70 million). Its last valuation, previously updated in 2021 after it raised $10.6 million, was a very modest $52 million.

“Modest” because the scale of what the company has achieved is pretty impressive. The 1.7 million community members that use the platform cover both individuals who have joined HTB on their own steam to learn skills and get certifications, as well as some 1,500 enterprises, universities, governments and other organizations that have sent their teams to HTB to be put through their paces.

The company says it currently runs some 450 “hacking labs” across more than 300 machines. Similar to companies like Kahoot (which works in a very different environment to be clear, K-12 education and corporate training) the idea with HTB is that it’s learning environment is built around gamification, simulations with avatars and narrative scenarios that are designed to throw users into what are are built to mimic classic cyber hacks of varying and increasing sophistication. It also has a “pro lab” tier that takes on typical network configurations, such as Active Directory or fully-patched environments, to test and train people on different attacks and approaches around common enterprise tools and scenarios. Penetration testing, misconfigurations, and evading endpoint protections are among the situations that are thrown at users.

On top of this, in addition to its training platform for individuals and teams, it offers a careers platform, where those looking to hire ethical hackers, or ethical hackers looking for work, can connect.

HTB is not the first nor only company to build cyber training around a gamified environment. US Cyber Games, built in conjunction with U.S. government organizations, is built out as a mass-player environment that is used to identify and train would be white-hat hackers. (It also has a careers service.) HTB is actually one of the US Cyber Games’ sponsors and supporters. Others like SafeTitan, Phished and Immersive Labs offer a range of approaches both for technical teams as well as employees to help raise awareness. The latter is not a category currently addressed by HTB, although it’s an obvious area into which it might grow.

“Our mission is to create and connect cyber-ready humans and organizations through highly engaging hacking experiences that cultivate out-of-the-box thinking,” said Haris Pylarinos, the CEO and co-founder, in a statement. “The game in cyber has changed with defensive, reactive and recovery postures not being fit-for-purpose in the face of an ever-increasing and ever-evolving wave of sophisticated attacks. A new proactive offensive & defensive approach is needed to take the fight to cybercriminals rather than waiting to be hit. From individual security professionals to companies, this means adopting a ‘hacker mindset’, learning to think and act like an attacker. This is the kind of mindset that we cultivate through Hack The Box.”

Something we have been regularly returning to on TC at the moment is the fact that funding has become a lot harder to come by in certain segments of tech. HTB is in one of the categories that is continuing to see attention, not least because security breaches certainly have not slowed down with the rest of the economy. That’s one reason why investors would back those in the field that are scaling and have so far done so with relatively little outside capital.

“The demands on security and IT professionals have never been greater. An industry-wide talent shortage and an exponentially growing number of cyber threats place great importance on professionals and organizations to maintain best-in-class security practices,” Constantin Boye, a director at Carlyle, in a statement. “Hack The Box is a pioneer in constantly providing fresh and curated training and upskilling content, in a fully gamified and intuitive environment, enabling individuals and organizations to tackle real-world hacking problems. We are excited for the next stage of Hack The Box’s evolution and are proud to be part of this journey.”

Hack the Box, a gamified cybersecurity training platform with 1.7M users, raises $55M by Ingrid Lunden originally published on TechCrunch