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Coast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch

If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas. Coast Runner, is a new entrant in the desktop CNC milling industry, promising to make the technology accessible to everyone, from professionals to hobbyists. Coast Runner is breaking down the barriers of traditional CNC milling with a focus on power, compact size and, most importantly, education.

TechCruch spoke with Tyler Hoeft, who wears multiple hats in the company, from marketing to inventory management, and believes that the lack of educational resources and community forums in the CNC space has significantly hindered potential users. To address this, Coast Runner is committed to providing comprehensive educational videos and establishing a discussion forum for users to share insights and collaborate on designs. Moreover, Coast Runner is developing a bounty board system where users can pay others to create designs or mill parts if they lack the necessary skills. I think it’s a great idea, not least because milling and turning is a bit of a different beast than 3D printing — as any old, grizzled machinist will tell you, tool paths, feeds and speeds are as much art as they are science. water jet cnc

The Coast Runner machine is aiming to be both affordable and powerful.

Coast Runner put one of the machines in a see-through casing for the purpose of CES, showing off its innards. The company manufactures many of the parts itself. Image Credits: TechCrunch / Haje Kamps

Coast Runner put one of the machines in a see-through casing for the purpose of CES, showing off its innards. The company manufactures many of the parts itself. Image Credits: TechCrunch / Haje Kamps

“We are making one of the most powerful desktop CNC machines you’ll find in the marketplace. You can cut everything up to titanium. Anything softer is possible: Plastics, brass, hard steel, aluminum, everything,” says Hoeft. “You need to change the tools manually — our main focus was to get the price point low enough that people who want to dip their toes or for people that want to manufacture and have four or five of these machines to manufacture small parts for their business.”

Despite its power, the machine is compact and lightweight, weighing only 42 pounds, and fits comfortably on a single desk, making it an interesting option for small businesses or hobbyists.

Perhaps the most exciting feature in the works is that the company is working on AI-powered modeling features. This advancement aims to make modeling a point-and-click process, significantly reducing the learning curve for new users and increasing the appeal of CNC milling to a broader audience.

Personally, I love the retro takeaway-cup-inspired 1990s design. Don’t let the retro design fool you, though — there’s a lot of 2024 tech in there. Image Credits: TechCrunch / Haje Kamps

Personally, I love the retro takeaway-cup-inspired 1990s design. Don’t let the retro design fool you, though — there’s a lot of 2024 tech in there. Image Credits: TechCrunch / Haje Kamps

In an industry dominated by several big players (Makera’s $6,000 Carvera and Bantam Tools’ $7,000 machine are probably its closest competitors), Coast Runner’s relentless focus on customer education and powerful, compact CNC machines makes it an interesting new entrant into the market.

“Most companies in this space are content to sell their machines and wish their customers good luck,” Hoeft shrugs. “We are committed to guiding its users from the initial idea to the final product.”

Coast Runner is a name to watch, as it launches its Kickstarter campaign with a $2,400 price tag next month. The final retail price will likely be around $3,000, the team tells me.

Razer is in trouble with the FTC<\/a> over masks it made and sold during the COVID pandemic. The matter is going to cost it around $1.1 million, and some bad press<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yeah, masks. Not what comes to mind when you think of the word “Razer,” right? You probably associate the brand with gaming keyboards and mice. Heck, I have a Razer mouse plugged into my work computer right now. It’s great. But the company’s masks were not, and that’s a problem.<\/p>\n Not getting its putatively N95 masks properly tested and vetted has landed Razer in trouble with authorities, but the entire saga got us thinking. In an era when we’re seeing buggy electric cars, AI handsets and pins that don’t quite live up to expectations<\/a>, and even masks that don’t quite mask as promised, are we living in an era of half-baked hardware?<\/p>\n Thinking about this, I wonder if an issue at play is that folks who are pushing the boundaries of what we can build, and how quickly, are applying software strategies — MVPs, quick iterations, etc — to hardware, and it’s not quite converting. The good news is that Razer\u00a0gaming<\/em> hardware is still pretty good, even if I suspect the company today regrets digging into the mask space. Hit play, let’s have some fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Razer is in trouble with the FTC over masks it made and sold during the COVID pandemic. The matter is going to cost it around $1.1 million, and some bad press. Yeah, masks. Not what comes to mind when you think of the word “Razer,” right? You probably associate the brand with gaming keyboards and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2699087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"30a3b266-916b-37bd-a09e-867105f817e1","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T16:01:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"5a58beb1-92dc-4209-8ee8-bf9a259b307e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T16:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AWli-sZLcQgmO6L-aJZswfg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[449223024,20429],"tags":[577221934,577221664,525935,577236407],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWatch: Razer\u2019s Zephyr mask lands them in regulatory hot water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Yeah, masks. Not what comes to mind when you think of the word “Razer,” right? You probably associate the brand with gaming keyboards and mice. Heck, I have a Razer mouse plugged into my work computer right now. It’s great. But the company’s masks were not, and that’s a problem.<\/p>\n

Not getting its putatively N95 masks properly tested and vetted has landed Razer in trouble with authorities, but the entire saga got us thinking. In an era when we’re seeing buggy electric cars, AI handsets and pins that don’t quite live up to expectations<\/a>, and even masks that don’t quite mask as promised, are we living in an era of half-baked hardware?<\/p>\n Thinking about this, I wonder if an issue at play is that folks who are pushing the boundaries of what we can build, and how quickly, are applying software strategies — MVPs, quick iterations, etc — to hardware, and it’s not quite converting. The good news is that Razer\u00a0gaming<\/em> hardware is still pretty good, even if I suspect the company today regrets digging into the mask space. Hit play, let’s have some fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Razer is in trouble with the FTC over masks it made and sold during the COVID pandemic. The matter is going to cost it around $1.1 million, and some bad press. Yeah, masks. Not what comes to mind when you think of the word “Razer,” right? You probably associate the brand with gaming keyboards and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2699087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"30a3b266-916b-37bd-a09e-867105f817e1","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T16:01:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"5a58beb1-92dc-4209-8ee8-bf9a259b307e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T16:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AWli-sZLcQgmO6L-aJZswfg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[449223024,20429],"tags":[577221934,577221664,525935,577236407],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWatch: Razer\u2019s Zephyr mask lands them in regulatory hot water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Thinking about this, I wonder if an issue at play is that folks who are pushing the boundaries of what we can build, and how quickly, are applying software strategies — MVPs, quick iterations, etc — to hardware, and it’s not quite converting. The good news is that Razer\u00a0gaming<\/em> hardware is still pretty good, even if I suspect the company today regrets digging into the mask space. Hit play, let’s have some fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Razer is in trouble with the FTC over masks it made and sold during the COVID pandemic. The matter is going to cost it around $1.1 million, and some bad press. Yeah, masks. Not what comes to mind when you think of the word “Razer,” right? You probably associate the brand with gaming keyboards and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2699087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"30a3b266-916b-37bd-a09e-867105f817e1","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T16:01:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"5a58beb1-92dc-4209-8ee8-bf9a259b307e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T16:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AWli-sZLcQgmO6L-aJZswfg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[449223024,20429],"tags":[577221934,577221664,525935,577236407],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWatch: Razer\u2019s Zephyr mask lands them in regulatory hot water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Razer is in trouble with the FTC over masks it made and sold during the COVID pandemic. The matter is going to cost it around $1.1 million, and some bad press. Yeah, masks. Not what comes to mind when you think of the word “Razer,” right? You probably associate the brand with gaming keyboards and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2699087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"30a3b266-916b-37bd-a09e-867105f817e1","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T16:01:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"5a58beb1-92dc-4209-8ee8-bf9a259b307e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T16:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AWli-sZLcQgmO6L-aJZswfg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[449223024,20429],"tags":[577221934,577221664,525935,577236407],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWatch: Razer\u2019s Zephyr mask lands them in regulatory hot water | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Alex Wilhelm is a senior reporter at TechCrunch and host of the TechCrunch podcast Equity. He was previously editor in chief of TC+, worked for Crunchbase News as Editor in Chief as well as The Next Web and Mattermark.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-12.12.07-PM.png","twitter":"alex"}],"author":[{"id":428363,"name":"Alex Wilhelm","url":"","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/alex-wilhelm\/","slug":"alex-wilhelm","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cc9b583e483d57b5eb30b6b09baefa63?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cc9b583e483d57b5eb30b6b09baefa63?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cc9b583e483d57b5eb30b6b09baefa63?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nAlex Wilhelm, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Alex Wilhelm is a senior reporter at TechCrunch and host of the TechCrunch podcast Equity. He was previously editor in chief of TC+, worked for Crunchbase News as Editor in Chief as well as The Next Web and Mattermark.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-12.12.07-PM.png","twitter":"alex","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/428363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2699087,"date":"2024-05-01T08:12:55","slug":"razerthumb","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/05\/01\/techcrunch-minute-razers-zephyr-mask-lands-them-in-regulatory-hot-water\/razerthumb\/","title":{"rendered":"razerthumb"},"author":133574517,"featured_media":0,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":"","authors":[133574517],"caption":{"rendered":""},"alt_text":"Two Ai deviced and a high-tech mask on a blue background with a play button indicating this is a 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news and hardware reviews, focusing on the latest hardware innovations from the latest startups to the biggest players like Apple, Samsung, Amazon Google, Microsoft and DJI, from smartphones, smartwatches and smart homes to drones, connected fitness, laptops, wearables and AR\/VR.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/hardware\/","name":"Hardware","slug":"hardware","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nHardware | Read the latest product reviews on TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n

Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022<\/a>, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s web traffic was up 10.6% year-over-year compared with a decline of 15.2% for X, according to traffic analytics data from digital intelligence platform SimilarWeb<\/a>.<\/p>\n Compared with November 2022 — or right after Musk took over Twitter — X’s web traffic has declined by 10%, while LinkedIn’s has grown 18%.<\/p>\n In March, Twitter\/X saw 727.6 million (deduplicated) unique visitors worldwide, a decline of 7.5% year-over-year. LinkedIn had a much smaller total — 269.2 million — but that figure was up 11.1% year-over-year, Similarweb said.<\/p>\n In addition, the firm found that worldwide Android app usage of LinkedIn was up 14% since November 2022 as of March, while X had dropped by 20%.<\/p>\n Another source for app data, Appfigures<\/a>, doesn’t see the same trend playing out across mobile, however. Its data indicates that LinkedIn’s monthly downloads were up 10% year-over-year, while X’s were down by 24% — but Appfigures attributes this decline to the rebranding of Twitter to X, not other consumer behavior. LinkedIn’s average downloads have stayed consistent before and after the Musk Twitter takeover, the firm said.<\/p>\n Still, given that people work at their desktops and laptops during the day, it makes sense that some business professionals could have shifted a portion of their web usage of X over to LinkedIn as a result of Twitter’s transition.<\/p>\n Now, with features like games (launched today) <\/a>and short-form videos coming<\/a> to LinkedIn, it’s clear that the social network’s owner, Microsoft, is hoping to capture the attention and interest of those users who used to network via Twitter — and particularly the younger Gen Z crowd.<\/p><\/div>\n The strategy appears to be working. As Appfigures also<\/a> points out, LinkedIn’s mobile app is earning more than X and Snapchat combined across both iOS and Android.<\/p>\n That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, given that LinkedIn’s subscriptions are higher priced, starting at $29.99\/month and going up to as much as $69.99\/month on the app stores. X’s monthly subscriptions instead range from $4 to $22, though users can opt to pay for higher-priced annual subscriptions, as well. Snapchat Plus, meanwhile, is only $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Appfigures<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In other words, LinkedIn doesn’t have to sell as many subscriptions to boost its revenue — and it hasn’t had trouble outcompeting X or Snapchat on mobile before.<\/p>\n However, Appfigures notes that LinkedIn’s mobile app revenue has been rapidly growing from $20 million in Q1 2021 to $91 million in Q1 2023. It has now hit its biggest quarter ever, at $119 million in app revenue as of Q1 2024.<\/p>\n By comparison, X and Snapchat saw $23 million and $67 million, respectively, in the first quarter, totaling $90 million combined — or lower than LinkedIn.<\/p>\n\n LinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Compared with November 2022 — or right after Musk took over Twitter — X’s web traffic has declined by 10%, while LinkedIn’s has grown 18%.<\/p>\n

In March, Twitter\/X saw 727.6 million (deduplicated) unique visitors worldwide, a decline of 7.5% year-over-year. LinkedIn had a much smaller total — 269.2 million — but that figure was up 11.1% year-over-year, Similarweb said.<\/p>\n

In addition, the firm found that worldwide Android app usage of LinkedIn was up 14% since November 2022 as of March, while X had dropped by 20%.<\/p>\n

Another source for app data, Appfigures<\/a>, doesn’t see the same trend playing out across mobile, however. Its data indicates that LinkedIn’s monthly downloads were up 10% year-over-year, while X’s were down by 24% — but Appfigures attributes this decline to the rebranding of Twitter to X, not other consumer behavior. LinkedIn’s average downloads have stayed consistent before and after the Musk Twitter takeover, the firm said.<\/p>\n Still, given that people work at their desktops and laptops during the day, it makes sense that some business professionals could have shifted a portion of their web usage of X over to LinkedIn as a result of Twitter’s transition.<\/p>\n Now, with features like games (launched today) <\/a>and short-form videos coming<\/a> to LinkedIn, it’s clear that the social network’s owner, Microsoft, is hoping to capture the attention and interest of those users who used to network via Twitter — and particularly the younger Gen Z crowd.<\/p><\/div>\n The strategy appears to be working. As Appfigures also<\/a> points out, LinkedIn’s mobile app is earning more than X and Snapchat combined across both iOS and Android.<\/p>\n That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, given that LinkedIn’s subscriptions are higher priced, starting at $29.99\/month and going up to as much as $69.99\/month on the app stores. X’s monthly subscriptions instead range from $4 to $22, though users can opt to pay for higher-priced annual subscriptions, as well. Snapchat Plus, meanwhile, is only $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Appfigures<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In other words, LinkedIn doesn’t have to sell as many subscriptions to boost its revenue — and it hasn’t had trouble outcompeting X or Snapchat on mobile before.<\/p>\n However, Appfigures notes that LinkedIn’s mobile app revenue has been rapidly growing from $20 million in Q1 2021 to $91 million in Q1 2023. It has now hit its biggest quarter ever, at $119 million in app revenue as of Q1 2024.<\/p>\n By comparison, X and Snapchat saw $23 million and $67 million, respectively, in the first quarter, totaling $90 million combined — or lower than LinkedIn.<\/p>\n\n LinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Still, given that people work at their desktops and laptops during the day, it makes sense that some business professionals could have shifted a portion of their web usage of X over to LinkedIn as a result of Twitter’s transition.<\/p>\n

Now, with features like games (launched today) <\/a>and short-form videos coming<\/a> to LinkedIn, it’s clear that the social network’s owner, Microsoft, is hoping to capture the attention and interest of those users who used to network via Twitter — and particularly the younger Gen Z crowd.<\/p><\/div>\n The strategy appears to be working. As Appfigures also<\/a> points out, LinkedIn’s mobile app is earning more than X and Snapchat combined across both iOS and Android.<\/p>\n That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, given that LinkedIn’s subscriptions are higher priced, starting at $29.99\/month and going up to as much as $69.99\/month on the app stores. X’s monthly subscriptions instead range from $4 to $22, though users can opt to pay for higher-priced annual subscriptions, as well. Snapchat Plus, meanwhile, is only $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Appfigures<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In other words, LinkedIn doesn’t have to sell as many subscriptions to boost its revenue — and it hasn’t had trouble outcompeting X or Snapchat on mobile before.<\/p>\n However, Appfigures notes that LinkedIn’s mobile app revenue has been rapidly growing from $20 million in Q1 2021 to $91 million in Q1 2023. It has now hit its biggest quarter ever, at $119 million in app revenue as of Q1 2024.<\/p>\n By comparison, X and Snapchat saw $23 million and $67 million, respectively, in the first quarter, totaling $90 million combined — or lower than LinkedIn.<\/p>\n\n LinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

The strategy appears to be working. As Appfigures also<\/a> points out, LinkedIn’s mobile app is earning more than X and Snapchat combined across both iOS and Android.<\/p>\n That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, given that LinkedIn’s subscriptions are higher priced, starting at $29.99\/month and going up to as much as $69.99\/month on the app stores. X’s monthly subscriptions instead range from $4 to $22, though users can opt to pay for higher-priced annual subscriptions, as well. Snapchat Plus, meanwhile, is only $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Appfigures<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In other words, LinkedIn doesn’t have to sell as many subscriptions to boost its revenue — and it hasn’t had trouble outcompeting X or Snapchat on mobile before.<\/p>\n However, Appfigures notes that LinkedIn’s mobile app revenue has been rapidly growing from $20 million in Q1 2021 to $91 million in Q1 2023. It has now hit its biggest quarter ever, at $119 million in app revenue as of Q1 2024.<\/p>\n By comparison, X and Snapchat saw $23 million and $67 million, respectively, in the first quarter, totaling $90 million combined — or lower than LinkedIn.<\/p>\n\n LinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, given that LinkedIn’s subscriptions are higher priced, starting at $29.99\/month and going up to as much as $69.99\/month on the app stores. X’s monthly subscriptions instead range from $4 to $22, though users can opt to pay for higher-priced annual subscriptions, as well. Snapchat Plus, meanwhile, is only $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year.<\/p>\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> Appfigures<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In other words, LinkedIn doesn’t have to sell as many subscriptions to boost its revenue — and it hasn’t had trouble outcompeting X or Snapchat on mobile before.<\/p>\n However, Appfigures notes that LinkedIn’s mobile app revenue has been rapidly growing from $20 million in Q1 2021 to $91 million in Q1 2023. It has now hit its biggest quarter ever, at $119 million in app revenue as of Q1 2024.<\/p>\n By comparison, X and Snapchat saw $23 million and $67 million, respectively, in the first quarter, totaling $90 million combined — or lower than LinkedIn.<\/p>\n\n LinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> Appfigures<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In other words, LinkedIn doesn’t have to sell as many subscriptions to boost its revenue — and it hasn’t had trouble outcompeting X or Snapchat on mobile before.<\/p>\n However, Appfigures notes that LinkedIn’s mobile app revenue has been rapidly growing from $20 million in Q1 2021 to $91 million in Q1 2023. It has now hit its biggest quarter ever, at $119 million in app revenue as of Q1 2024.<\/p>\n By comparison, X and Snapchat saw $23 million and $67 million, respectively, in the first quarter, totaling $90 million combined — or lower than LinkedIn.<\/p>\n\n LinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

In other words, LinkedIn doesn’t have to sell as many subscriptions to boost its revenue — and it hasn’t had trouble outcompeting X or Snapchat on mobile before.<\/p>\n

However, Appfigures notes that LinkedIn’s mobile app revenue has been rapidly growing from $20 million in Q1 2021 to $91 million in Q1 2023. It has now hit its biggest quarter ever, at $119 million in app revenue as of Q1 2024.<\/p>\n

By comparison, X and Snapchat saw $23 million and $67 million, respectively, in the first quarter, totaling $90 million combined — or lower than LinkedIn.<\/p>\n\n LinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

LinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

<\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in the fall of 2022, the market for Twitter alternatives has been saturated with would-be competitors ranging from smaller startups to open source apps to well-funded efforts like Threads from Instagram. But there’s one overlooked Twitter\/X alternative that’s been growing right under our collective noses: LinkedIn. As of March, LinkedIn’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414667,"featured_media":2692480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"97b9235e-2488-3ccd-b3f3-99ff7d1d22c8","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"e6f81330-a4ce-4893-ade6-230c57705119","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:03:52Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5vgTMKTOSJOt5iMMV3BRGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577051039,577055593],"tags":[449557101,80962,49818,599182,1700],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn is the Twitter\/X rival no one is talking about | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/lwzxxnshgj71bonwbik3.jpg.jpg","twitter":"sarahpereztc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/2414667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"author":[{"id":2414667,"name":"Sarah Perez","url":"","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/sarah-perez\/","slug":"sarah-perez","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5225bb627e112543aa03bf3b2958be3f?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5225bb627e112543aa03bf3b2958be3f?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5225bb627e112543aa03bf3b2958be3f?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nSarah Perez, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/lwzxxnshgj71bonwbik3.jpg.jpg","twitter":"sarahpereztc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/2414667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2692480,"date":"2024-04-16T14:28:40","slug":"linkedin-getty","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/04\/17\/linkedin-premium-company-page-visit-visibility-update\/linkedin-getty\/","title":{"rendered":"LinkedIn"},"author":133574564,"featured_media":0,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":{"source_key":"getty images","person":"Justin Sullivan"},"authors":[133574564],"caption":{"rendered":""},"alt_text":"LinkedIn","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1200,"height":832,"file":"2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg","filesize":1069397,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=150,104","width":150,"height":104,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=300,208","width":300,"height":208,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=768,532","width":768,"height":532,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=680,471","width":680,"height":471,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=680"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg?resize=50,35","width":50,"height":35,"filesize":1069397,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"linkedin-getty.jpg","width":1024,"height":710,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/linkedin-getty.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2692480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2692480"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574564"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577051039,"description":"The app economy continues to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores. Keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place, with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/apps\/","name":"Apps","slug":"apps","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nApps | Read the latest app news on TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n

UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Andrew Witty told senators on Wednesday that the company has now enabled multi-factor authentication on all the company\u2019s systems exposed to the internet in response to the recent cyberattack against its subsidiary Change Healthcare.<\/p>\n

The lack of multi-factor authentication was at the center of the ransomware attack that hit Change Healthcare earlier this year<\/a>, which impacted pharmacies, hospitals, and doctor\u2019s offices across the United States. Multi-factor authentication, or MFA, is a basic cybersecurity mechanism that prevents hackers from breaking into accounts or systems with a stolen password by requiring a second code to log in.<\/p>\n In a written statement<\/a> submitted on Tuesday ahead of two Congress hearings, Witty revealed that hackers used a set of stolen credentials to access a Change Healthcare server, which he said was not protected by multi-factor authentication<\/a>. After breaking into that server, the hackers were then able to move into other company\u2019s systems to exfiltrate data, and later encrypt it with ransomware, Witty said in the statement.<\/p>\n Today, during the first<\/a> of those two hearings, Witty faced questions about the cyberattack from senators on the Finance Committee. In response to questions by Sen. Ron Wyden, Witty said that \u201cas of today, across the whole of UHG, all of our external facing systems have got multifactor authentication enabled.”<\/p>\n \u201cWe have an enforced policy across the organization to have multi factor authentication on all of our external systems, which is in place,\u201d Witty said.<\/p>\n When asked to confirm Witty\u2019s statement, UnitedHealth Group\u2019s spokesperson Anthony \u200b\u200bMarusic told TechCrunch that Witty \u201cwas very clear with his statement.\u201d<\/p>\n Witty blamed the fact that Change Healthcare\u2019s systems had not yet been upgraded after UnitedHealth Group acquired the company in 2022.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cWe were in the process of upgrading the technology that we had acquired. But within there, there was a server, which I’m incredibly frustrated to tell you, was not protected by MFA,\u201d Witty said. \u201cThat was the server through which the cybercriminals were able to get into Change. And then they led off a ransomware attack, if you will, which encrypted and froze large parts of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n Witty also said that the company is still working on understanding exactly why that server did not have multi-factor authentication enabled.<\/p>\n Wyden criticized the company\u2019s failure to upgrade the server. \u201cWe heard from your people that you had a policy, but you all weren’t carrying it out. And that’s why we have the problem,\u201d Wyden said.<\/p>\n UnitedHealth has yet to notify people that were impacted by the cyberattack, Witty said during the hearing, arguing that the company still needs to determine the extent of the hack and the stolen information. As of now, the company has only said that hackers stole personal and health information data<\/a> of \u201ca substantial proportion of people in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, UnitedHealth said that it paid $22 million to the hackers who broke into the company\u2019s systems. Witty confirmed that payment during the Senate hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, Witty\u00a0will also appear<\/a> in a House Energy and Commerce committee, and we will update this story as more information becomes available.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Andrew Witty told senators on Wednesday that the company has now enabled multi-factor authentication on all the company\u2019s systems exposed to the internet in response to the recent cyberattack against its subsidiary Change Healthcare. The lack of multi-factor authentication was at the center of the ransomware attack that hit Change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574594,"featured_media":2699073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c23a5cdb-7609-3c2b-8ffe-9b4fb03b1c53","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:15:33Z","apple_news_api_id":"9d968885-2538-4d5f-bf81-80aa8ea14d1a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:16:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AnZaIhSU4TV-_gYCqjqFNGg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21587494],"tags":[577234437,965824,447167588,192933,576602433,577244168],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnitedHealth CEO tells Senate all systems now have multi-factor authentication after hack | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

In a written statement<\/a> submitted on Tuesday ahead of two Congress hearings, Witty revealed that hackers used a set of stolen credentials to access a Change Healthcare server, which he said was not protected by multi-factor authentication<\/a>. After breaking into that server, the hackers were then able to move into other company\u2019s systems to exfiltrate data, and later encrypt it with ransomware, Witty said in the statement.<\/p>\n Today, during the first<\/a> of those two hearings, Witty faced questions about the cyberattack from senators on the Finance Committee. In response to questions by Sen. Ron Wyden, Witty said that \u201cas of today, across the whole of UHG, all of our external facing systems have got multifactor authentication enabled.”<\/p>\n \u201cWe have an enforced policy across the organization to have multi factor authentication on all of our external systems, which is in place,\u201d Witty said.<\/p>\n When asked to confirm Witty\u2019s statement, UnitedHealth Group\u2019s spokesperson Anthony \u200b\u200bMarusic told TechCrunch that Witty \u201cwas very clear with his statement.\u201d<\/p>\n Witty blamed the fact that Change Healthcare\u2019s systems had not yet been upgraded after UnitedHealth Group acquired the company in 2022.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cWe were in the process of upgrading the technology that we had acquired. But within there, there was a server, which I’m incredibly frustrated to tell you, was not protected by MFA,\u201d Witty said. \u201cThat was the server through which the cybercriminals were able to get into Change. And then they led off a ransomware attack, if you will, which encrypted and froze large parts of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n Witty also said that the company is still working on understanding exactly why that server did not have multi-factor authentication enabled.<\/p>\n Wyden criticized the company\u2019s failure to upgrade the server. \u201cWe heard from your people that you had a policy, but you all weren’t carrying it out. And that’s why we have the problem,\u201d Wyden said.<\/p>\n UnitedHealth has yet to notify people that were impacted by the cyberattack, Witty said during the hearing, arguing that the company still needs to determine the extent of the hack and the stolen information. As of now, the company has only said that hackers stole personal and health information data<\/a> of \u201ca substantial proportion of people in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, UnitedHealth said that it paid $22 million to the hackers who broke into the company\u2019s systems. Witty confirmed that payment during the Senate hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, Witty\u00a0will also appear<\/a> in a House Energy and Commerce committee, and we will update this story as more information becomes available.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Andrew Witty told senators on Wednesday that the company has now enabled multi-factor authentication on all the company\u2019s systems exposed to the internet in response to the recent cyberattack against its subsidiary Change Healthcare. The lack of multi-factor authentication was at the center of the ransomware attack that hit Change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574594,"featured_media":2699073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c23a5cdb-7609-3c2b-8ffe-9b4fb03b1c53","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:15:33Z","apple_news_api_id":"9d968885-2538-4d5f-bf81-80aa8ea14d1a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:16:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AnZaIhSU4TV-_gYCqjqFNGg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21587494],"tags":[577234437,965824,447167588,192933,576602433,577244168],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnitedHealth CEO tells Senate all systems now have multi-factor authentication after hack | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Today, during the first<\/a> of those two hearings, Witty faced questions about the cyberattack from senators on the Finance Committee. In response to questions by Sen. Ron Wyden, Witty said that \u201cas of today, across the whole of UHG, all of our external facing systems have got multifactor authentication enabled.”<\/p>\n \u201cWe have an enforced policy across the organization to have multi factor authentication on all of our external systems, which is in place,\u201d Witty said.<\/p>\n When asked to confirm Witty\u2019s statement, UnitedHealth Group\u2019s spokesperson Anthony \u200b\u200bMarusic told TechCrunch that Witty \u201cwas very clear with his statement.\u201d<\/p>\n Witty blamed the fact that Change Healthcare\u2019s systems had not yet been upgraded after UnitedHealth Group acquired the company in 2022.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cWe were in the process of upgrading the technology that we had acquired. But within there, there was a server, which I’m incredibly frustrated to tell you, was not protected by MFA,\u201d Witty said. \u201cThat was the server through which the cybercriminals were able to get into Change. And then they led off a ransomware attack, if you will, which encrypted and froze large parts of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n Witty also said that the company is still working on understanding exactly why that server did not have multi-factor authentication enabled.<\/p>\n Wyden criticized the company\u2019s failure to upgrade the server. \u201cWe heard from your people that you had a policy, but you all weren’t carrying it out. And that’s why we have the problem,\u201d Wyden said.<\/p>\n UnitedHealth has yet to notify people that were impacted by the cyberattack, Witty said during the hearing, arguing that the company still needs to determine the extent of the hack and the stolen information. As of now, the company has only said that hackers stole personal and health information data<\/a> of \u201ca substantial proportion of people in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, UnitedHealth said that it paid $22 million to the hackers who broke into the company\u2019s systems. Witty confirmed that payment during the Senate hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, Witty\u00a0will also appear<\/a> in a House Energy and Commerce committee, and we will update this story as more information becomes available.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Andrew Witty told senators on Wednesday that the company has now enabled multi-factor authentication on all the company\u2019s systems exposed to the internet in response to the recent cyberattack against its subsidiary Change Healthcare. The lack of multi-factor authentication was at the center of the ransomware attack that hit Change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574594,"featured_media":2699073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c23a5cdb-7609-3c2b-8ffe-9b4fb03b1c53","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:15:33Z","apple_news_api_id":"9d968885-2538-4d5f-bf81-80aa8ea14d1a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:16:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AnZaIhSU4TV-_gYCqjqFNGg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21587494],"tags":[577234437,965824,447167588,192933,576602433,577244168],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnitedHealth CEO tells Senate all systems now have multi-factor authentication after hack | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

\u201cWe have an enforced policy across the organization to have multi factor authentication on all of our external systems, which is in place,\u201d Witty said.<\/p>\n

When asked to confirm Witty\u2019s statement, UnitedHealth Group\u2019s spokesperson Anthony \u200b\u200bMarusic told TechCrunch that Witty \u201cwas very clear with his statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witty blamed the fact that Change Healthcare\u2019s systems had not yet been upgraded after UnitedHealth Group acquired the company in 2022.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cWe were in the process of upgrading the technology that we had acquired. But within there, there was a server, which I’m incredibly frustrated to tell you, was not protected by MFA,\u201d Witty said. \u201cThat was the server through which the cybercriminals were able to get into Change. And then they led off a ransomware attack, if you will, which encrypted and froze large parts of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n Witty also said that the company is still working on understanding exactly why that server did not have multi-factor authentication enabled.<\/p>\n Wyden criticized the company\u2019s failure to upgrade the server. \u201cWe heard from your people that you had a policy, but you all weren’t carrying it out. And that’s why we have the problem,\u201d Wyden said.<\/p>\n UnitedHealth has yet to notify people that were impacted by the cyberattack, Witty said during the hearing, arguing that the company still needs to determine the extent of the hack and the stolen information. As of now, the company has only said that hackers stole personal and health information data<\/a> of \u201ca substantial proportion of people in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, UnitedHealth said that it paid $22 million to the hackers who broke into the company\u2019s systems. Witty confirmed that payment during the Senate hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, Witty\u00a0will also appear<\/a> in a House Energy and Commerce committee, and we will update this story as more information becomes available.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Andrew Witty told senators on Wednesday that the company has now enabled multi-factor authentication on all the company\u2019s systems exposed to the internet in response to the recent cyberattack against its subsidiary Change Healthcare. The lack of multi-factor authentication was at the center of the ransomware attack that hit Change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574594,"featured_media":2699073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c23a5cdb-7609-3c2b-8ffe-9b4fb03b1c53","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:15:33Z","apple_news_api_id":"9d968885-2538-4d5f-bf81-80aa8ea14d1a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:16:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AnZaIhSU4TV-_gYCqjqFNGg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21587494],"tags":[577234437,965824,447167588,192933,576602433,577244168],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnitedHealth CEO tells Senate all systems now have multi-factor authentication after hack | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

\u201cWe were in the process of upgrading the technology that we had acquired. But within there, there was a server, which I’m incredibly frustrated to tell you, was not protected by MFA,\u201d Witty said. \u201cThat was the server through which the cybercriminals were able to get into Change. And then they led off a ransomware attack, if you will, which encrypted and froze large parts of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witty also said that the company is still working on understanding exactly why that server did not have multi-factor authentication enabled.<\/p>\n

Wyden criticized the company\u2019s failure to upgrade the server. \u201cWe heard from your people that you had a policy, but you all weren’t carrying it out. And that’s why we have the problem,\u201d Wyden said.<\/p>\n

UnitedHealth has yet to notify people that were impacted by the cyberattack, Witty said during the hearing, arguing that the company still needs to determine the extent of the hack and the stolen information. As of now, the company has only said that hackers stole personal and health information data<\/a> of \u201ca substantial proportion of people in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, UnitedHealth said that it paid $22 million to the hackers who broke into the company\u2019s systems. Witty confirmed that payment during the Senate hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, Witty\u00a0will also appear<\/a> in a House Energy and Commerce committee, and we will update this story as more information becomes available.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Andrew Witty told senators on Wednesday that the company has now enabled multi-factor authentication on all the company\u2019s systems exposed to the internet in response to the recent cyberattack against its subsidiary Change Healthcare. The lack of multi-factor authentication was at the center of the ransomware attack that hit Change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574594,"featured_media":2699073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c23a5cdb-7609-3c2b-8ffe-9b4fb03b1c53","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:15:33Z","apple_news_api_id":"9d968885-2538-4d5f-bf81-80aa8ea14d1a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:16:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AnZaIhSU4TV-_gYCqjqFNGg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21587494],"tags":[577234437,965824,447167588,192933,576602433,577244168],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnitedHealth CEO tells Senate all systems now have multi-factor authentication after hack | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Last month, UnitedHealth said that it paid $22 million to the hackers who broke into the company\u2019s systems. Witty confirmed that payment during the Senate hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, Witty\u00a0will also appear<\/a> in a House Energy and Commerce committee, and we will update this story as more information becomes available.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Andrew Witty told senators on Wednesday that the company has now enabled multi-factor authentication on all the company\u2019s systems exposed to the internet in response to the recent cyberattack against its subsidiary Change Healthcare. The lack of multi-factor authentication was at the center of the ransomware attack that hit Change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574594,"featured_media":2699073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c23a5cdb-7609-3c2b-8ffe-9b4fb03b1c53","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:15:33Z","apple_news_api_id":"9d968885-2538-4d5f-bf81-80aa8ea14d1a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:16:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AnZaIhSU4TV-_gYCqjqFNGg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21587494],"tags":[577234437,965824,447167588,192933,576602433,577244168],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnitedHealth CEO tells Senate all systems now have multi-factor authentication after hack | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Andrew Witty told senators on Wednesday that the company has now enabled multi-factor authentication on all the company\u2019s systems exposed to the internet in response to the recent cyberattack against its subsidiary Change Healthcare. The lack of multi-factor authentication was at the center of the ransomware attack that hit Change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574594,"featured_media":2699073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c23a5cdb-7609-3c2b-8ffe-9b4fb03b1c53","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T15:15:33Z","apple_news_api_id":"9d968885-2538-4d5f-bf81-80aa8ea14d1a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T15:16:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AnZaIhSU4TV-_gYCqjqFNGg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21587494],"tags":[577234437,965824,447167588,192933,576602433,577244168],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnitedHealth CEO tells Senate all systems now have multi-factor authentication after hack | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill on May 1, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kent Nishimura\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill on May 1, 2024 in Washington, DC.","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":6000,"height":4000,"file":"2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg","filesize":3149310,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=150,100","width":150,"height":100,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=300,200","width":300,"height":200,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=768,512","width":768,"height":512,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=680,453","width":680,"height":453,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=1536,1024","width":1536,"height":1024,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=1536"},"2048x2048":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=2048,1365","width":2048,"height":1365,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=2048"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=1200,800","width":1200,"height":800,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?resize=50,33","width":50,"height":33,"filesize":3149310,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"ILCE-9M2","caption":"WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 1: UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill on May 1, 2024 in Washington, DC. In February hackers stole health and personal data of what UnitedHealth says is \"potentially a substantial proportion\" of patient information from its systems. (Photo by Kent Nishimura\/Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1714553789","copyright":"2024 Getty Images","focal_length":"49","iso":"640","shutter_speed":"0.004","title":"UnitedHealth's CEO Andrew Witty Testifies To Senate Finance Committee","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-senate-hearing.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2699073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2699073"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574594"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":21587494,"description":"Security news coverage encompasses investigative cybersecurity reporting and analysis on the latest security breaches, hacks and cyberattacks around the globe.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/security\/","name":"Security","slug":"security","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nSecurity News | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n

Back in March, TechCrunch broke the news that LinkedIn was quietly testing the waters<\/a> for games on its platform \u2014 word and logic puzzles similar to Wordle. Now, in an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, the platform is launching three of those games officially.<\/p>\n Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint \u2014 respectively testing your abilities in logic, trivia and word association \u2014 will be available globally starting today, both via a direct link to the games<\/a> and by way of LinkedIn News, the division that developed them.<\/p>\n Similar to Wordle, each of these games can be played just once a day. For now, you can invite your first-degree connections to play a game together, and your status \u2014 whether or not you’ve played a game, and how well you fared \u2014 can be shared with those connections if you opt in.<\/p>\n Those social levers, as well as the number of games, are still up for discussion, so things might change over time. For now, LinkedIn plans to continue developing the games itself, independent of its owner, Microsoft, and its substantial gaming operation.<\/p>\n LinkedIn says that it sees the games as a more casual way to knit existing LinkedIn connections closer together.<\/p>\n “It is hard for people to stay in touch with each other, and games provide a way to build these network ties,” said Dan Roth, the VP and editor in chief of LinkedIn News, in an interview.<\/p>\n There is more to it than that, though. The fact that these were conceived of and built by the LinkedIn News team is significant. LinkedIn’s games borrow heavily from the portfolios that newspapers like The New York Times have built with their own word and logic games over the years, starting with crosswords and more recently expanding into a wider range of puzzles. Most of these were built in-house, but some were acquired (NYT acquired<\/a> the viral hit Wordle in 2022).<\/p><\/div>\n And, games have proven to be somewhat of a secret weapon for driving engagement, especially at a time when news publishers are scrambling to figure out what the future of their businesses look like, and TikTok and Instagram appear to be cornering the market for younger users.<\/p>\n Puzzles published by news titles and magazines attract millions of users, who in turn become part of those titles’ wider audiences, and potentially can turn into readers of the rest of their content.<\/p>\n Similarly, LinkedIn, with more than 1 billion users, has been developing its news and content operation to expand engagement on its platform. Like newspapers, it also has a substantial advertising business as well as paywalls for those who want to use it a bit more. Games sweeten the deal for extending that engagement to beef up its advertising audience, and to potentially give more value to users.<\/p>\n A little about the three games:<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Queens is a riff on Sudoku, and you have to figure out how to arrange crowns in patterns that do not overlap with each other within a time limit. As you can see from the screenshot, you can share scores with individuals, but your company affiliation appears on a leaderboard.<\/p>\n I asked if this could become problematic or distracting, given the restrictions some organizations put on using social media at work. Laura Lorenzetti, executive editor for LinkedIn in North America, said the one-game-per-day limitation, and the fact that the games are short, should help with those issues.<\/p>\n “They are contained and they’re intended to be contained, because we don’t want people wasting their time,” she said. “That is not what we’re here for!”<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Crossclimb is described as a trivia game. The player is given clues for words, which in turn have to fit on a grid where the words change by one letter with each subsequent clue to eventually form a different word.<\/p>\n I found this one to be harder than it looks if you don’t guess the first word for a start. (Another player countered that it was her favorite.) As with Queens, you see a company leaderboard here, too.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint \u2014 respectively testing your abilities in logic, trivia and word association \u2014 will be available globally starting today, both via a direct link to the games<\/a> and by way of LinkedIn News, the division that developed them.<\/p>\n Similar to Wordle, each of these games can be played just once a day. For now, you can invite your first-degree connections to play a game together, and your status \u2014 whether or not you’ve played a game, and how well you fared \u2014 can be shared with those connections if you opt in.<\/p>\n Those social levers, as well as the number of games, are still up for discussion, so things might change over time. For now, LinkedIn plans to continue developing the games itself, independent of its owner, Microsoft, and its substantial gaming operation.<\/p>\n LinkedIn says that it sees the games as a more casual way to knit existing LinkedIn connections closer together.<\/p>\n “It is hard for people to stay in touch with each other, and games provide a way to build these network ties,” said Dan Roth, the VP and editor in chief of LinkedIn News, in an interview.<\/p>\n There is more to it than that, though. The fact that these were conceived of and built by the LinkedIn News team is significant. LinkedIn’s games borrow heavily from the portfolios that newspapers like The New York Times have built with their own word and logic games over the years, starting with crosswords and more recently expanding into a wider range of puzzles. Most of these were built in-house, but some were acquired (NYT acquired<\/a> the viral hit Wordle in 2022).<\/p><\/div>\n And, games have proven to be somewhat of a secret weapon for driving engagement, especially at a time when news publishers are scrambling to figure out what the future of their businesses look like, and TikTok and Instagram appear to be cornering the market for younger users.<\/p>\n Puzzles published by news titles and magazines attract millions of users, who in turn become part of those titles’ wider audiences, and potentially can turn into readers of the rest of their content.<\/p>\n Similarly, LinkedIn, with more than 1 billion users, has been developing its news and content operation to expand engagement on its platform. Like newspapers, it also has a substantial advertising business as well as paywalls for those who want to use it a bit more. Games sweeten the deal for extending that engagement to beef up its advertising audience, and to potentially give more value to users.<\/p>\n A little about the three games:<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Queens is a riff on Sudoku, and you have to figure out how to arrange crowns in patterns that do not overlap with each other within a time limit. As you can see from the screenshot, you can share scores with individuals, but your company affiliation appears on a leaderboard.<\/p>\n I asked if this could become problematic or distracting, given the restrictions some organizations put on using social media at work. Laura Lorenzetti, executive editor for LinkedIn in North America, said the one-game-per-day limitation, and the fact that the games are short, should help with those issues.<\/p>\n “They are contained and they’re intended to be contained, because we don’t want people wasting their time,” she said. “That is not what we’re here for!”<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Crossclimb is described as a trivia game. The player is given clues for words, which in turn have to fit on a grid where the words change by one letter with each subsequent clue to eventually form a different word.<\/p>\n I found this one to be harder than it looks if you don’t guess the first word for a start. (Another player countered that it was her favorite.) As with Queens, you see a company leaderboard here, too.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Similar to Wordle, each of these games can be played just once a day. For now, you can invite your first-degree connections to play a game together, and your status \u2014 whether or not you’ve played a game, and how well you fared \u2014 can be shared with those connections if you opt in.<\/p>\n

Those social levers, as well as the number of games, are still up for discussion, so things might change over time. For now, LinkedIn plans to continue developing the games itself, independent of its owner, Microsoft, and its substantial gaming operation.<\/p>\n

LinkedIn says that it sees the games as a more casual way to knit existing LinkedIn connections closer together.<\/p>\n

“It is hard for people to stay in touch with each other, and games provide a way to build these network ties,” said Dan Roth, the VP and editor in chief of LinkedIn News, in an interview.<\/p>\n

There is more to it than that, though. The fact that these were conceived of and built by the LinkedIn News team is significant. LinkedIn’s games borrow heavily from the portfolios that newspapers like The New York Times have built with their own word and logic games over the years, starting with crosswords and more recently expanding into a wider range of puzzles. Most of these were built in-house, but some were acquired (NYT acquired<\/a> the viral hit Wordle in 2022).<\/p><\/div>\n And, games have proven to be somewhat of a secret weapon for driving engagement, especially at a time when news publishers are scrambling to figure out what the future of their businesses look like, and TikTok and Instagram appear to be cornering the market for younger users.<\/p>\n Puzzles published by news titles and magazines attract millions of users, who in turn become part of those titles’ wider audiences, and potentially can turn into readers of the rest of their content.<\/p>\n Similarly, LinkedIn, with more than 1 billion users, has been developing its news and content operation to expand engagement on its platform. Like newspapers, it also has a substantial advertising business as well as paywalls for those who want to use it a bit more. Games sweeten the deal for extending that engagement to beef up its advertising audience, and to potentially give more value to users.<\/p>\n A little about the three games:<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Queens is a riff on Sudoku, and you have to figure out how to arrange crowns in patterns that do not overlap with each other within a time limit. As you can see from the screenshot, you can share scores with individuals, but your company affiliation appears on a leaderboard.<\/p>\n I asked if this could become problematic or distracting, given the restrictions some organizations put on using social media at work. Laura Lorenzetti, executive editor for LinkedIn in North America, said the one-game-per-day limitation, and the fact that the games are short, should help with those issues.<\/p>\n “They are contained and they’re intended to be contained, because we don’t want people wasting their time,” she said. “That is not what we’re here for!”<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Crossclimb is described as a trivia game. The player is given clues for words, which in turn have to fit on a grid where the words change by one letter with each subsequent clue to eventually form a different word.<\/p>\n I found this one to be harder than it looks if you don’t guess the first word for a start. (Another player countered that it was her favorite.) As with Queens, you see a company leaderboard here, too.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

And, games have proven to be somewhat of a secret weapon for driving engagement, especially at a time when news publishers are scrambling to figure out what the future of their businesses look like, and TikTok and Instagram appear to be cornering the market for younger users.<\/p>\n

Puzzles published by news titles and magazines attract millions of users, who in turn become part of those titles’ wider audiences, and potentially can turn into readers of the rest of their content.<\/p>\n

Similarly, LinkedIn, with more than 1 billion users, has been developing its news and content operation to expand engagement on its platform. Like newspapers, it also has a substantial advertising business as well as paywalls for those who want to use it a bit more. Games sweeten the deal for extending that engagement to beef up its advertising audience, and to potentially give more value to users.<\/p>\n

A little about the three games:<\/p>\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Queens is a riff on Sudoku, and you have to figure out how to arrange crowns in patterns that do not overlap with each other within a time limit. As you can see from the screenshot, you can share scores with individuals, but your company affiliation appears on a leaderboard.<\/p>\n I asked if this could become problematic or distracting, given the restrictions some organizations put on using social media at work. Laura Lorenzetti, executive editor for LinkedIn in North America, said the one-game-per-day limitation, and the fact that the games are short, should help with those issues.<\/p>\n “They are contained and they’re intended to be contained, because we don’t want people wasting their time,” she said. “That is not what we’re here for!”<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Crossclimb is described as a trivia game. The player is given clues for words, which in turn have to fit on a grid where the words change by one letter with each subsequent clue to eventually form a different word.<\/p>\n I found this one to be harder than it looks if you don’t guess the first word for a start. (Another player countered that it was her favorite.) As with Queens, you see a company leaderboard here, too.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Queens is a riff on Sudoku, and you have to figure out how to arrange crowns in patterns that do not overlap with each other within a time limit. As you can see from the screenshot, you can share scores with individuals, but your company affiliation appears on a leaderboard.<\/p>\n I asked if this could become problematic or distracting, given the restrictions some organizations put on using social media at work. Laura Lorenzetti, executive editor for LinkedIn in North America, said the one-game-per-day limitation, and the fact that the games are short, should help with those issues.<\/p>\n “They are contained and they’re intended to be contained, because we don’t want people wasting their time,” she said. “That is not what we’re here for!”<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Crossclimb is described as a trivia game. The player is given clues for words, which in turn have to fit on a grid where the words change by one letter with each subsequent clue to eventually form a different word.<\/p>\n I found this one to be harder than it looks if you don’t guess the first word for a start. (Another player countered that it was her favorite.) As with Queens, you see a company leaderboard here, too.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Queens is a riff on Sudoku, and you have to figure out how to arrange crowns in patterns that do not overlap with each other within a time limit. As you can see from the screenshot, you can share scores with individuals, but your company affiliation appears on a leaderboard.<\/p>\n

I asked if this could become problematic or distracting, given the restrictions some organizations put on using social media at work. Laura Lorenzetti, executive editor for LinkedIn in North America, said the one-game-per-day limitation, and the fact that the games are short, should help with those issues.<\/p>\n

“They are contained and they’re intended to be contained, because we don’t want people wasting their time,” she said. “That is not what we’re here for!”<\/p>\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Crossclimb is described as a trivia game. The player is given clues for words, which in turn have to fit on a grid where the words change by one letter with each subsequent clue to eventually form a different word.<\/p>\n I found this one to be harder than it looks if you don’t guess the first word for a start. (Another player countered that it was her favorite.) As with Queens, you see a company leaderboard here, too.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Crossclimb is described as a trivia game. The player is given clues for words, which in turn have to fit on a grid where the words change by one letter with each subsequent clue to eventually form a different word.<\/p>\n I found this one to be harder than it looks if you don’t guess the first word for a start. (Another player countered that it was her favorite.) As with Queens, you see a company leaderboard here, too.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Crossclimb is described as a trivia game. The player is given clues for words, which in turn have to fit on a grid where the words change by one letter with each subsequent clue to eventually form a different word.<\/p>\n

I found this one to be harder than it looks if you don’t guess the first word for a start. (Another player countered that it was her favorite.) As with Queens, you see a company leaderboard here, too.<\/p>\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> LinkedIn.com (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> under a license.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Lastly we have Pinpoint, which seemed so similar to Connections \u2014 the New York Times game \u2014 that I kept slipping up and calling it “Connections” during my interview. The game involves finding a connection between words that you’re given, although the words are not immediately revealed, and you are asked to try to find the connection in as few reveals as possible. I found this also quite difficult in my early attempts.<\/p>\n

As we’ve noted previously, LinkedIn is far from being the first social network to bake gaming into the platform to increase how much time its users spend using it. But even the biggest and most expensive efforts have seen mixed results. Facebook, the world\u2019s biggest social network, has been a major driver of social gaming over the years, but in 2022, it shut down its standalone gaming app<\/a> amid a decline in usage. It\u2019s putting significantly more focus<\/a> these days on mixed reality experiences and its Meta Quest business.<\/p>\n LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

LinkedIn \u2014 designed for professional networking and specifically for job hunting and recruitment \u2014 has long been trying to find ways to get people to engage on its platform in more natural and less transactional ways. Games are transactional by nature, but the transactions are based on gameplay: If LinkedIn can get users hooked on these, the hope is that they may stay for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an effort to attract more users and increase engagement, LinkedIn is launching three games: Queens, Crossclimb and Pinpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119829,"featured_media":2699002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"e942f837-ed1e-3b93-8dca-41203557b462","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T13:33:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c4cb819-93c9-42c3-b665-898a8dcbbcfe","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T14:05:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXEy4GZPJQsO2ZYmKjcu8_g","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052804,577055593],"tags":[80962,577237954,7759021],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLinkedIn launches gaming: 3 logic puzzles aimed at extending time spent on its networking platform | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Ingrid is a writer and editor for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Before TechCrunch, Ingrid worked at paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

When it comes to work, she feels most comfortable speaking in English but can also speak Russian, Spanish and French (in descending order of competence).<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/tbebbexwnizrc5qurxt4.jpg.jpg","twitter":"ingridlunden","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/13119829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"author":[{"id":13119829,"name":"Ingrid Lunden","url":"","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/ingrid-lunden\/","slug":"ingrid-lunden","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6648ec93043f0f368091adece63c6d52?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6648ec93043f0f368091adece63c6d52?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6648ec93043f0f368091adece63c6d52?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nIngrid Lunden, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Ingrid is a writer and editor for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Before TechCrunch, Ingrid worked at paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

When it comes to work, she feels most comfortable speaking in English but can also speak Russian, Spanish and French (in descending order of competence).<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/tbebbexwnizrc5qurxt4.jpg.jpg","twitter":"ingridlunden","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/13119829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2699002,"date":"2024-05-01T06:09:27","slug":"combined-game-play-1920x1080","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/05\/01\/linkedin-launches-gaming-three-logic-puzzles-aiming-to-extend-time-spent-on-its-networking-platform\/combined-game-play-1920x1080\/","title":{"rendered":"Combined Game Play-1920×1080"},"author":13119829,"featured_media":0,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":{"source_key":"other","source":"LinkedIn.com","source_url":"linkedin.com\/games","license_key":"other"},"authors":[13119829],"caption":{"rendered":""},"alt_text":"","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/png","media_details":{"width":1920,"height":1080,"file":"2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png","filesize":562808,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=150,84","width":150,"height":84,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=300,169","width":300,"height":169,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=768,432","width":768,"height":432,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=680,383","width":680,"height":383,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=1536,864","width":1536,"height":864,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=1536"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=1200,675","width":1200,"height":675,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?resize=50,28","width":50,"height":28,"filesize":562808,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png?w=50"},"full":{"file":"Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png","width":1024,"height":576,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2699002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2699002"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/13119829"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577052804,"description":"Mobile gaming is a behemoth in terms of annual revenue, and our gaming news coverage includes iOS, Android, mobile web and more, including companies like Netflix trying to get a foot in the door. We also report on the AAA gaming studios, which are increasingly a target for acquisitive giants like Microsoft and Sony.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/gaming\/","name":"Gaming","slug":"gaming","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nGaming News | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n

In 2017, Jyoti Bansal co-founded San Francisco-based security company Traceable alongside Sanjay Nagaraj, a former investor. With Traceable<\/a>, Bansal — who previously co-launched app performance management startup AppDynamics<\/a>, acquired by Cisco in 2017 — sought to build a platform to protect customers’ APIs from cyberattacks.<\/p>\n Attacks on APIs — the sets of protocols that establish how platforms, apps and services communicate — are on the rise. API attacks affected nearly one quarter of organizations every week in the first month of 2024, a 20% increase from the same period a year ago, according<\/a> to cybersecurity firm Check Point.<\/p>\n API attacks take many forms, including attempting to make an API unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic, bypassing authentication methods, and exposing sensitive data transferred via a vendor’s APIs.<\/p>\n “There’s a lack of recognition of the criticality of API security,” Bansal told TechCrunch in an interview, “as well as ignorance of the ever-growing attack surface in APIs and a resistance to embrace API security due to entrenched investments in security solutions that don’t address the API security problem directly.”<\/p>\n To Bansal’s point, more and more businesses are tapping APIs in part thanks to the generative AI boom, but in the process unwittingly exposing themselves to attacks. Per one recent study<\/a>, the number of APIs used by companies increased by over 200% between July 2022 and July 2023. Gartner, meanwhile, predicts<\/a> that more than 80% of enterprises will have used generative AI APIs or deployed generative AI-enabled apps by 2026.<\/p>\n What Traceable does to try to shield these APIs is applies AI to analyze usage data to learn normal API behavior and spot activity that deviates from the baseline. Traceable’s software, which runs on-premises or in a fully managed cloud, can discover and catalog existing and new APIs including undocumented and “orphaned” (i.e. deprecated) APIs in real time, according to Bansal.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Traceable<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>\n “In order to detect modern threat scenarios, Traceable trained in-house models by fine-tuning open source large language base models with labeled attack data,” Bansal explained. “Our platform provides tools for API discovery, testing, protection and threat hunting workflows for IT teams.”<\/p>\n The API security solutions market is quickly becoming crowded, with vendors such as Noname Security<\/a>, 42Crunch<\/a>, Vorlon<\/a>, Salt Security, Cequence, Ghost Security<\/a>, Pynt<\/a>, Akamai, Escape<\/a> and F5 all vying for customers. According<\/a> to Research and Markets, the segment could grow at a compound annual growth rate of 31.5% from 2023 to 2030, buoyed by the increasing threats in cybersecurity and the demand for more secure APIs.<\/p>\n But Bansal claims that Traceable is holding its own, analyzing around 500 billion API calls a month for ~50 customers and projecting revenue to double this year. Most of Traceable’s clients are in the enterprise, but Bansal says the company’s investigating piloting with governments.<\/p>\n “Traceable is building a long-term sustainable company, which from a financial perspective means that we have a very healthy margin profile that continues to improve as our revenue grows,” he said. “We’re not profitable today by choice, as we\u2019re investing into the business responsibly … Our focus is on strategic investments maximizing return, not simply spending.”<\/p>\n To that end, Traceable today announced that it raised $30 million in a strategic investment from a group of backers that included Citi Ventures (Citigroup’s corporate venture arm) IVP, Geodesic Capital, Sorenson Capital and Unusual Ventures. Valuing Traceable at $500 million post-money and bringing Traceable’s total raised to $110 million, the new cash will be put toward product development, scaling up Traceable’s platform and customer engineering teams and building out the company’s partnership program, Bansal said.<\/p>\n Traceable has ~180 staffers currently. Bansal expects headcount to reach 230 by year-end 2024, as the the bulk of the new investment goes to hiring.<\/p>\n “Traceable wasn’t fundraising, as we still had substantial cash runway prior to this investment,” Bansal said, adding that Traceable secured a “sizeable” line of credit in addition to the new funds, “but we received significant inbound demand from investors. With the combination of the strategic alignment with Citi Ventures and the attractive terms of the investment, we decided to take a smaller investment now to accelerate our product and go-to-market initiatives before thinking about a more substantial fundraise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2017, Jyoti Bansal co-founded San Francisco-based security company Traceable alongside Sanjay Nagaraj, a former investor. With Traceable, Bansal — who previously co-launched app performance management startup AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco in 2017 — sought to build a platform to protect customers’ APIs from cyberattacks. Attacks on APIs — the sets of protocols that establish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2247288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"21e92303-d27c-3dcf-9cab-3525359b4b08","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_id":"f9267b18-b4bb-4195-b440-ee65b8063315","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A-SZ7GLS7QZW0QO5luAYzFQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577047203,449557044,20429],"tags":[4276,965824,801,576785662],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCitigroup's VC arm invests in API security startup Traceable | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Attacks on APIs — the sets of protocols that establish how platforms, apps and services communicate — are on the rise. API attacks affected nearly one quarter of organizations every week in the first month of 2024, a 20% increase from the same period a year ago, according<\/a> to cybersecurity firm Check Point.<\/p>\n API attacks take many forms, including attempting to make an API unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic, bypassing authentication methods, and exposing sensitive data transferred via a vendor’s APIs.<\/p>\n “There’s a lack of recognition of the criticality of API security,” Bansal told TechCrunch in an interview, “as well as ignorance of the ever-growing attack surface in APIs and a resistance to embrace API security due to entrenched investments in security solutions that don’t address the API security problem directly.”<\/p>\n To Bansal’s point, more and more businesses are tapping APIs in part thanks to the generative AI boom, but in the process unwittingly exposing themselves to attacks. Per one recent study<\/a>, the number of APIs used by companies increased by over 200% between July 2022 and July 2023. Gartner, meanwhile, predicts<\/a> that more than 80% of enterprises will have used generative AI APIs or deployed generative AI-enabled apps by 2026.<\/p>\n What Traceable does to try to shield these APIs is applies AI to analyze usage data to learn normal API behavior and spot activity that deviates from the baseline. Traceable’s software, which runs on-premises or in a fully managed cloud, can discover and catalog existing and new APIs including undocumented and “orphaned” (i.e. deprecated) APIs in real time, according to Bansal.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Traceable<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>\n “In order to detect modern threat scenarios, Traceable trained in-house models by fine-tuning open source large language base models with labeled attack data,” Bansal explained. “Our platform provides tools for API discovery, testing, protection and threat hunting workflows for IT teams.”<\/p>\n The API security solutions market is quickly becoming crowded, with vendors such as Noname Security<\/a>, 42Crunch<\/a>, Vorlon<\/a>, Salt Security, Cequence, Ghost Security<\/a>, Pynt<\/a>, Akamai, Escape<\/a> and F5 all vying for customers. According<\/a> to Research and Markets, the segment could grow at a compound annual growth rate of 31.5% from 2023 to 2030, buoyed by the increasing threats in cybersecurity and the demand for more secure APIs.<\/p>\n But Bansal claims that Traceable is holding its own, analyzing around 500 billion API calls a month for ~50 customers and projecting revenue to double this year. Most of Traceable’s clients are in the enterprise, but Bansal says the company’s investigating piloting with governments.<\/p>\n “Traceable is building a long-term sustainable company, which from a financial perspective means that we have a very healthy margin profile that continues to improve as our revenue grows,” he said. “We’re not profitable today by choice, as we\u2019re investing into the business responsibly … Our focus is on strategic investments maximizing return, not simply spending.”<\/p>\n To that end, Traceable today announced that it raised $30 million in a strategic investment from a group of backers that included Citi Ventures (Citigroup’s corporate venture arm) IVP, Geodesic Capital, Sorenson Capital and Unusual Ventures. Valuing Traceable at $500 million post-money and bringing Traceable’s total raised to $110 million, the new cash will be put toward product development, scaling up Traceable’s platform and customer engineering teams and building out the company’s partnership program, Bansal said.<\/p>\n Traceable has ~180 staffers currently. Bansal expects headcount to reach 230 by year-end 2024, as the the bulk of the new investment goes to hiring.<\/p>\n “Traceable wasn’t fundraising, as we still had substantial cash runway prior to this investment,” Bansal said, adding that Traceable secured a “sizeable” line of credit in addition to the new funds, “but we received significant inbound demand from investors. With the combination of the strategic alignment with Citi Ventures and the attractive terms of the investment, we decided to take a smaller investment now to accelerate our product and go-to-market initiatives before thinking about a more substantial fundraise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2017, Jyoti Bansal co-founded San Francisco-based security company Traceable alongside Sanjay Nagaraj, a former investor. With Traceable, Bansal — who previously co-launched app performance management startup AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco in 2017 — sought to build a platform to protect customers’ APIs from cyberattacks. Attacks on APIs — the sets of protocols that establish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2247288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"21e92303-d27c-3dcf-9cab-3525359b4b08","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_id":"f9267b18-b4bb-4195-b440-ee65b8063315","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A-SZ7GLS7QZW0QO5luAYzFQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577047203,449557044,20429],"tags":[4276,965824,801,576785662],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCitigroup's VC arm invests in API security startup Traceable | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

API attacks take many forms, including attempting to make an API unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic, bypassing authentication methods, and exposing sensitive data transferred via a vendor’s APIs.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lack of recognition of the criticality of API security,” Bansal told TechCrunch in an interview, “as well as ignorance of the ever-growing attack surface in APIs and a resistance to embrace API security due to entrenched investments in security solutions that don’t address the API security problem directly.”<\/p>\n

To Bansal’s point, more and more businesses are tapping APIs in part thanks to the generative AI boom, but in the process unwittingly exposing themselves to attacks. Per one recent study<\/a>, the number of APIs used by companies increased by over 200% between July 2022 and July 2023. Gartner, meanwhile, predicts<\/a> that more than 80% of enterprises will have used generative AI APIs or deployed generative AI-enabled apps by 2026.<\/p>\n What Traceable does to try to shield these APIs is applies AI to analyze usage data to learn normal API behavior and spot activity that deviates from the baseline. Traceable’s software, which runs on-premises or in a fully managed cloud, can discover and catalog existing and new APIs including undocumented and “orphaned” (i.e. deprecated) APIs in real time, according to Bansal.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Traceable<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>\n “In order to detect modern threat scenarios, Traceable trained in-house models by fine-tuning open source large language base models with labeled attack data,” Bansal explained. “Our platform provides tools for API discovery, testing, protection and threat hunting workflows for IT teams.”<\/p>\n The API security solutions market is quickly becoming crowded, with vendors such as Noname Security<\/a>, 42Crunch<\/a>, Vorlon<\/a>, Salt Security, Cequence, Ghost Security<\/a>, Pynt<\/a>, Akamai, Escape<\/a> and F5 all vying for customers. According<\/a> to Research and Markets, the segment could grow at a compound annual growth rate of 31.5% from 2023 to 2030, buoyed by the increasing threats in cybersecurity and the demand for more secure APIs.<\/p>\n But Bansal claims that Traceable is holding its own, analyzing around 500 billion API calls a month for ~50 customers and projecting revenue to double this year. Most of Traceable’s clients are in the enterprise, but Bansal says the company’s investigating piloting with governments.<\/p>\n “Traceable is building a long-term sustainable company, which from a financial perspective means that we have a very healthy margin profile that continues to improve as our revenue grows,” he said. “We’re not profitable today by choice, as we\u2019re investing into the business responsibly … Our focus is on strategic investments maximizing return, not simply spending.”<\/p>\n To that end, Traceable today announced that it raised $30 million in a strategic investment from a group of backers that included Citi Ventures (Citigroup’s corporate venture arm) IVP, Geodesic Capital, Sorenson Capital and Unusual Ventures. Valuing Traceable at $500 million post-money and bringing Traceable’s total raised to $110 million, the new cash will be put toward product development, scaling up Traceable’s platform and customer engineering teams and building out the company’s partnership program, Bansal said.<\/p>\n Traceable has ~180 staffers currently. Bansal expects headcount to reach 230 by year-end 2024, as the the bulk of the new investment goes to hiring.<\/p>\n “Traceable wasn’t fundraising, as we still had substantial cash runway prior to this investment,” Bansal said, adding that Traceable secured a “sizeable” line of credit in addition to the new funds, “but we received significant inbound demand from investors. With the combination of the strategic alignment with Citi Ventures and the attractive terms of the investment, we decided to take a smaller investment now to accelerate our product and go-to-market initiatives before thinking about a more substantial fundraise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2017, Jyoti Bansal co-founded San Francisco-based security company Traceable alongside Sanjay Nagaraj, a former investor. With Traceable, Bansal — who previously co-launched app performance management startup AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco in 2017 — sought to build a platform to protect customers’ APIs from cyberattacks. Attacks on APIs — the sets of protocols that establish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2247288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"21e92303-d27c-3dcf-9cab-3525359b4b08","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_id":"f9267b18-b4bb-4195-b440-ee65b8063315","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A-SZ7GLS7QZW0QO5luAYzFQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577047203,449557044,20429],"tags":[4276,965824,801,576785662],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCitigroup's VC arm invests in API security startup Traceable | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

What Traceable does to try to shield these APIs is applies AI to analyze usage data to learn normal API behavior and spot activity that deviates from the baseline. Traceable’s software, which runs on-premises or in a fully managed cloud, can discover and catalog existing and new APIs including undocumented and “orphaned” (i.e. deprecated) APIs in real time, according to Bansal.<\/p>\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> Traceable<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>\n “In order to detect modern threat scenarios, Traceable trained in-house models by fine-tuning open source large language base models with labeled attack data,” Bansal explained. “Our platform provides tools for API discovery, testing, protection and threat hunting workflows for IT teams.”<\/p>\n The API security solutions market is quickly becoming crowded, with vendors such as Noname Security<\/a>, 42Crunch<\/a>, Vorlon<\/a>, Salt Security, Cequence, Ghost Security<\/a>, Pynt<\/a>, Akamai, Escape<\/a> and F5 all vying for customers. According<\/a> to Research and Markets, the segment could grow at a compound annual growth rate of 31.5% from 2023 to 2030, buoyed by the increasing threats in cybersecurity and the demand for more secure APIs.<\/p>\n But Bansal claims that Traceable is holding its own, analyzing around 500 billion API calls a month for ~50 customers and projecting revenue to double this year. Most of Traceable’s clients are in the enterprise, but Bansal says the company’s investigating piloting with governments.<\/p>\n “Traceable is building a long-term sustainable company, which from a financial perspective means that we have a very healthy margin profile that continues to improve as our revenue grows,” he said. “We’re not profitable today by choice, as we\u2019re investing into the business responsibly … Our focus is on strategic investments maximizing return, not simply spending.”<\/p>\n To that end, Traceable today announced that it raised $30 million in a strategic investment from a group of backers that included Citi Ventures (Citigroup’s corporate venture arm) IVP, Geodesic Capital, Sorenson Capital and Unusual Ventures. Valuing Traceable at $500 million post-money and bringing Traceable’s total raised to $110 million, the new cash will be put toward product development, scaling up Traceable’s platform and customer engineering teams and building out the company’s partnership program, Bansal said.<\/p>\n Traceable has ~180 staffers currently. Bansal expects headcount to reach 230 by year-end 2024, as the the bulk of the new investment goes to hiring.<\/p>\n “Traceable wasn’t fundraising, as we still had substantial cash runway prior to this investment,” Bansal said, adding that Traceable secured a “sizeable” line of credit in addition to the new funds, “but we received significant inbound demand from investors. With the combination of the strategic alignment with Citi Ventures and the attractive terms of the investment, we decided to take a smaller investment now to accelerate our product and go-to-market initiatives before thinking about a more substantial fundraise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2017, Jyoti Bansal co-founded San Francisco-based security company Traceable alongside Sanjay Nagaraj, a former investor. With Traceable, Bansal — who previously co-launched app performance management startup AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco in 2017 — sought to build a platform to protect customers’ APIs from cyberattacks. Attacks on APIs — the sets of protocols that establish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2247288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"21e92303-d27c-3dcf-9cab-3525359b4b08","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_id":"f9267b18-b4bb-4195-b440-ee65b8063315","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A-SZ7GLS7QZW0QO5luAYzFQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577047203,449557044,20429],"tags":[4276,965824,801,576785662],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCitigroup's VC arm invests in API security startup Traceable | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Image Credits:<\/strong> Traceable<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>\n “In order to detect modern threat scenarios, Traceable trained in-house models by fine-tuning open source large language base models with labeled attack data,” Bansal explained. “Our platform provides tools for API discovery, testing, protection and threat hunting workflows for IT teams.”<\/p>\n The API security solutions market is quickly becoming crowded, with vendors such as Noname Security<\/a>, 42Crunch<\/a>, Vorlon<\/a>, Salt Security, Cequence, Ghost Security<\/a>, Pynt<\/a>, Akamai, Escape<\/a> and F5 all vying for customers. According<\/a> to Research and Markets, the segment could grow at a compound annual growth rate of 31.5% from 2023 to 2030, buoyed by the increasing threats in cybersecurity and the demand for more secure APIs.<\/p>\n But Bansal claims that Traceable is holding its own, analyzing around 500 billion API calls a month for ~50 customers and projecting revenue to double this year. Most of Traceable’s clients are in the enterprise, but Bansal says the company’s investigating piloting with governments.<\/p>\n “Traceable is building a long-term sustainable company, which from a financial perspective means that we have a very healthy margin profile that continues to improve as our revenue grows,” he said. “We’re not profitable today by choice, as we\u2019re investing into the business responsibly … Our focus is on strategic investments maximizing return, not simply spending.”<\/p>\n To that end, Traceable today announced that it raised $30 million in a strategic investment from a group of backers that included Citi Ventures (Citigroup’s corporate venture arm) IVP, Geodesic Capital, Sorenson Capital and Unusual Ventures. Valuing Traceable at $500 million post-money and bringing Traceable’s total raised to $110 million, the new cash will be put toward product development, scaling up Traceable’s platform and customer engineering teams and building out the company’s partnership program, Bansal said.<\/p>\n Traceable has ~180 staffers currently. Bansal expects headcount to reach 230 by year-end 2024, as the the bulk of the new investment goes to hiring.<\/p>\n “Traceable wasn’t fundraising, as we still had substantial cash runway prior to this investment,” Bansal said, adding that Traceable secured a “sizeable” line of credit in addition to the new funds, “but we received significant inbound demand from investors. With the combination of the strategic alignment with Citi Ventures and the attractive terms of the investment, we decided to take a smaller investment now to accelerate our product and go-to-market initiatives before thinking about a more substantial fundraise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2017, Jyoti Bansal co-founded San Francisco-based security company Traceable alongside Sanjay Nagaraj, a former investor. With Traceable, Bansal — who previously co-launched app performance management startup AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco in 2017 — sought to build a platform to protect customers’ APIs from cyberattacks. Attacks on APIs — the sets of protocols that establish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2247288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"21e92303-d27c-3dcf-9cab-3525359b4b08","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_id":"f9267b18-b4bb-4195-b440-ee65b8063315","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A-SZ7GLS7QZW0QO5luAYzFQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577047203,449557044,20429],"tags":[4276,965824,801,576785662],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCitigroup's VC arm invests in API security startup Traceable | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

“In order to detect modern threat scenarios, Traceable trained in-house models by fine-tuning open source large language base models with labeled attack data,” Bansal explained. “Our platform provides tools for API discovery, testing, protection and threat hunting workflows for IT teams.”<\/p>\n

The API security solutions market is quickly becoming crowded, with vendors such as Noname Security<\/a>, 42Crunch<\/a>, Vorlon<\/a>, Salt Security, Cequence, Ghost Security<\/a>, Pynt<\/a>, Akamai, Escape<\/a> and F5 all vying for customers. According<\/a> to Research and Markets, the segment could grow at a compound annual growth rate of 31.5% from 2023 to 2030, buoyed by the increasing threats in cybersecurity and the demand for more secure APIs.<\/p>\n But Bansal claims that Traceable is holding its own, analyzing around 500 billion API calls a month for ~50 customers and projecting revenue to double this year. Most of Traceable’s clients are in the enterprise, but Bansal says the company’s investigating piloting with governments.<\/p>\n “Traceable is building a long-term sustainable company, which from a financial perspective means that we have a very healthy margin profile that continues to improve as our revenue grows,” he said. “We’re not profitable today by choice, as we\u2019re investing into the business responsibly … Our focus is on strategic investments maximizing return, not simply spending.”<\/p>\n To that end, Traceable today announced that it raised $30 million in a strategic investment from a group of backers that included Citi Ventures (Citigroup’s corporate venture arm) IVP, Geodesic Capital, Sorenson Capital and Unusual Ventures. Valuing Traceable at $500 million post-money and bringing Traceable’s total raised to $110 million, the new cash will be put toward product development, scaling up Traceable’s platform and customer engineering teams and building out the company’s partnership program, Bansal said.<\/p>\n Traceable has ~180 staffers currently. Bansal expects headcount to reach 230 by year-end 2024, as the the bulk of the new investment goes to hiring.<\/p>\n “Traceable wasn’t fundraising, as we still had substantial cash runway prior to this investment,” Bansal said, adding that Traceable secured a “sizeable” line of credit in addition to the new funds, “but we received significant inbound demand from investors. With the combination of the strategic alignment with Citi Ventures and the attractive terms of the investment, we decided to take a smaller investment now to accelerate our product and go-to-market initiatives before thinking about a more substantial fundraise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2017, Jyoti Bansal co-founded San Francisco-based security company Traceable alongside Sanjay Nagaraj, a former investor. With Traceable, Bansal — who previously co-launched app performance management startup AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco in 2017 — sought to build a platform to protect customers’ APIs from cyberattacks. Attacks on APIs — the sets of protocols that establish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2247288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"21e92303-d27c-3dcf-9cab-3525359b4b08","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_id":"f9267b18-b4bb-4195-b440-ee65b8063315","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A-SZ7GLS7QZW0QO5luAYzFQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577047203,449557044,20429],"tags":[4276,965824,801,576785662],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCitigroup's VC arm invests in API security startup Traceable | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

But Bansal claims that Traceable is holding its own, analyzing around 500 billion API calls a month for ~50 customers and projecting revenue to double this year. Most of Traceable’s clients are in the enterprise, but Bansal says the company’s investigating piloting with governments.<\/p>\n

“Traceable is building a long-term sustainable company, which from a financial perspective means that we have a very healthy margin profile that continues to improve as our revenue grows,” he said. “We’re not profitable today by choice, as we\u2019re investing into the business responsibly … Our focus is on strategic investments maximizing return, not simply spending.”<\/p>\n

To that end, Traceable today announced that it raised $30 million in a strategic investment from a group of backers that included Citi Ventures (Citigroup’s corporate venture arm) IVP, Geodesic Capital, Sorenson Capital and Unusual Ventures. Valuing Traceable at $500 million post-money and bringing Traceable’s total raised to $110 million, the new cash will be put toward product development, scaling up Traceable’s platform and customer engineering teams and building out the company’s partnership program, Bansal said.<\/p>\n

Traceable has ~180 staffers currently. Bansal expects headcount to reach 230 by year-end 2024, as the the bulk of the new investment goes to hiring.<\/p>\n

“Traceable wasn’t fundraising, as we still had substantial cash runway prior to this investment,” Bansal said, adding that Traceable secured a “sizeable” line of credit in addition to the new funds, “but we received significant inbound demand from investors. With the combination of the strategic alignment with Citi Ventures and the attractive terms of the investment, we decided to take a smaller investment now to accelerate our product and go-to-market initiatives before thinking about a more substantial fundraise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2017, Jyoti Bansal co-founded San Francisco-based security company Traceable alongside Sanjay Nagaraj, a former investor. With Traceable, Bansal — who previously co-launched app performance management startup AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco in 2017 — sought to build a platform to protect customers’ APIs from cyberattacks. Attacks on APIs — the sets of protocols that establish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2247288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"21e92303-d27c-3dcf-9cab-3525359b4b08","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_id":"f9267b18-b4bb-4195-b440-ee65b8063315","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-01T12:00:37Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A-SZ7GLS7QZW0QO5luAYzFQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577047203,449557044,20429],"tags":[4276,965824,801,576785662],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCitigroup's VC arm invests in API security startup Traceable | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Kyle Wiggers is a senior reporter at TechCrunch with a special interest in artificial intelligence. His writing has appeared in VentureBeat and Digital Trends, as well as a range of gadget blogs including Android Police, Android Authority, Droid-Life, and XDA-Developers. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, a piano educator, and dabbles in piano himself occasionally -- if mostly unsuccessfully.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Kyle-Wiggers.jpg","twitter":"kyle_l_wiggers","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"author":[{"id":133574536,"name":"Kyle Wiggers","url":"","description":"Kyle Wiggers is a senior reporter at TechCrunch with a special interest in artificial intelligence. His writing has appeared in VentureBeat and Digital Trends, as well as a range of gadget blogs including Android Police, Android Authority, Droid-Life, and XDA-Developers. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, a piano educator, and dabbles in piano himself. occasionally -- if mostly unsuccessfully.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/kyle-wiggers\/","slug":"kyle-wiggers","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c444ee74e16b994683cd9c6497173dda?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c444ee74e16b994683cd9c6497173dda?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c444ee74e16b994683cd9c6497173dda?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nKyle Wiggers, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Kyle Wiggers is a senior reporter at TechCrunch with a special interest in artificial intelligence. His writing has appeared in VentureBeat and Digital Trends, as well as a range of gadget blogs including Android Police, Android Authority, Droid-Life, and XDA-Developers. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, a piano educator, and dabbles in piano himself occasionally -- if mostly unsuccessfully.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Kyle-Wiggers.jpg","twitter":"kyle_l_wiggers","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2247288,"date":"2021-12-14T09:07:33","slug":"api-interface-api-application-programming-interface-illustration","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2021\/12\/15\/noname-security-unicorn-series-c\/api-interface-api-application-programming-interface-illustration\/","title":{"rendered":"API Interface, API – Application Programming Interface – Illustration"},"author":133574210,"featured_media":0,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":{"source_key":"getty images","person_url":"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/search\/photographer?family=creative&photographer=Vaibhav+Designer"},"authors":[133574210],"caption":{"rendered":"

Germany, Machine Learning, Sketch, Computer Language, Icon<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":3000,"height":2279,"file":"2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=150,114","width":150,"height":114,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=300,228","width":300,"height":228,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=768,583","width":768,"height":583,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=680,517","width":680,"height":517,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=1536,1167","width":1536,"height":1167,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=1536"},"2048x2048":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=2048,1556","width":2048,"height":1556,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=2048"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=1200,912","width":1200,"height":912,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?resize=50,38","width":50,"height":38,"filesize":362185,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"GettyImages-1142274453.jpg","width":1024,"height":778,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"","caption":"Germany, Machine Learning, Sketch, Computer Language, Icon","created_timestamp":"1555113600","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"API Interface, API - Application Programming Interface - Illustration","orientation":"1","keywords":[]},"filesize":362185},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1142274453.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2247288"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2247288"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574210"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577047203,"description":"News coverage on artificial intelligence and machine learning tech, the companies building them, and the ethical issues AI raises today. This encompasses generative AI, including large language models, text-to-image and text-to-video models; speech recognition and generation; and predictive analytics.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/artificial-intelligence\/","name":"AI","slug":"artificial-intelligence","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nAI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n

If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd<\/a>, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas<\/a>.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant in the desktop CNC milling industry, promising to make the technology accessible to everyone, from professionals to hobbyists. Coast Runner<\/a> is breaking down the barriers of traditional CNC milling with a focus on power, compact size and, most importantly, education.<\/p>\n TechCruch spoke with Tyler Hoeft, who wears multiple hats in the company, from marketing to inventory management, and believes that the lack of educational resources and community forums in the CNC space has significantly hindered potential users. To address this, Coast Runner is committed to providing comprehensive educational videos and establishing a discussion forum for users to share insights and collaborate on designs. Moreover, Coast Runner is developing a bounty board system where users can pay others to create designs or mill parts if they lack the necessary skills. I think it’s a great idea, not least because milling and turning is a bit of a different beast than 3D printing — as any old, grizzled machinist will tell you, tool paths, feeds and speeds are as much art as they are science.<\/p>\n The Coast Runner machine is aiming to be both affordable and powerful.<\/p>\n Coast Runner put one of the machines in a see-through casing for the purpose of CES, showing off its innards. The company manufactures many of the parts itself. Image Credits:<\/strong>\u00a0TechCrunch \/ Haje Kamps<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “We are making one of the most powerful desktop CNC machines you’ll find in the marketplace. You can cut everything up to titanium. Anything softer is possible: Plastics, brass, hard steel, aluminum, everything,” says Hoeft. “You need to change the tools manually — our main focus was to get the price point low enough that people who want to dip their toes or for people that want to manufacture and have four or five of these machines to manufacture small parts for their business.”<\/p>\n Despite its power, the machine is compact and lightweight, weighing only 42 pounds, and fits comfortably on a single desk, making it an interesting option for small businesses or hobbyists.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most exciting feature in the works is that the company is working on AI-powered modeling features. This advancement aims to make modeling a point-and-click process, significantly reducing the learning curve for new users and increasing the appeal of CNC milling to a broader audience.<\/p><\/div>\n Personally, I love the retro takeaway-cup-inspired 1990s design. Don’t let the retro design fool you, though — there’s a lot of 2024 tech in there. Image Credits:<\/strong> TechCrunch \/ Haje Kamps<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In an industry dominated by several big players (Makera’s $6,000 Carvera<\/a> and Bantam Tools’ $7,000 machine<\/a> are probably its closest competitors), Coast Runner’s relentless focus on customer education and powerful, compact CNC machines makes it an interesting new entrant into the market.<\/p>\n “Most companies in this space are content to sell their machines and wish their customers good luck,” Hoeft shrugs. “We are committed to guiding its users from the initial idea to the final product.”<\/p>\n Coast Runner is a name to watch, as it launches its Kickstarter campaign with a $2,400 price tag next month. The final retail price will likely be around $3,000, the team tells me.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170861,"featured_media":2651622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"bb8d9e3a-7ed3-3158-8412-2aad55d112f6","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-12T18:10:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"ff5f534a-cd13-4f58-a757-da9f14a3ffe4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-12T18:40:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_19TSs0TT1inV9qfFKP_5A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052803,449223024,20429],"tags":[449557037,577214924],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

TechCruch spoke with Tyler Hoeft, who wears multiple hats in the company, from marketing to inventory management, and believes that the lack of educational resources and community forums in the CNC space has significantly hindered potential users. To address this, Coast Runner is committed to providing comprehensive educational videos and establishing a discussion forum for users to share insights and collaborate on designs. Moreover, Coast Runner is developing a bounty board system where users can pay others to create designs or mill parts if they lack the necessary skills. I think it’s a great idea, not least because milling and turning is a bit of a different beast than 3D printing — as any old, grizzled machinist will tell you, tool paths, feeds and speeds are as much art as they are science.<\/p>\n

The Coast Runner machine is aiming to be both affordable and powerful.<\/p>\n

Coast Runner put one of the machines in a see-through casing for the purpose of CES, showing off its innards. The company manufactures many of the parts itself. Image Credits:<\/strong>\u00a0TechCrunch \/ Haje Kamps<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “We are making one of the most powerful desktop CNC machines you’ll find in the marketplace. You can cut everything up to titanium. Anything softer is possible: Plastics, brass, hard steel, aluminum, everything,” says Hoeft. “You need to change the tools manually — our main focus was to get the price point low enough that people who want to dip their toes or for people that want to manufacture and have four or five of these machines to manufacture small parts for their business.”<\/p>\n Despite its power, the machine is compact and lightweight, weighing only 42 pounds, and fits comfortably on a single desk, making it an interesting option for small businesses or hobbyists.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most exciting feature in the works is that the company is working on AI-powered modeling features. This advancement aims to make modeling a point-and-click process, significantly reducing the learning curve for new users and increasing the appeal of CNC milling to a broader audience.<\/p><\/div>\n Personally, I love the retro takeaway-cup-inspired 1990s design. Don’t let the retro design fool you, though — there’s a lot of 2024 tech in there. Image Credits:<\/strong> TechCrunch \/ Haje Kamps<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In an industry dominated by several big players (Makera’s $6,000 Carvera<\/a> and Bantam Tools’ $7,000 machine<\/a> are probably its closest competitors), Coast Runner’s relentless focus on customer education and powerful, compact CNC machines makes it an interesting new entrant into the market.<\/p>\n “Most companies in this space are content to sell their machines and wish their customers good luck,” Hoeft shrugs. “We are committed to guiding its users from the initial idea to the final product.”<\/p>\n Coast Runner is a name to watch, as it launches its Kickstarter campaign with a $2,400 price tag next month. The final retail price will likely be around $3,000, the team tells me.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170861,"featured_media":2651622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"bb8d9e3a-7ed3-3158-8412-2aad55d112f6","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-12T18:10:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"ff5f534a-cd13-4f58-a757-da9f14a3ffe4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-12T18:40:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_19TSs0TT1inV9qfFKP_5A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052803,449223024,20429],"tags":[449557037,577214924],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Coast Runner put one of the machines in a see-through casing for the purpose of CES, showing off its innards. The company manufactures many of the parts itself. Image Credits:<\/strong>\u00a0TechCrunch \/ Haje Kamps<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “We are making one of the most powerful desktop CNC machines you’ll find in the marketplace. You can cut everything up to titanium. Anything softer is possible: Plastics, brass, hard steel, aluminum, everything,” says Hoeft. “You need to change the tools manually — our main focus was to get the price point low enough that people who want to dip their toes or for people that want to manufacture and have four or five of these machines to manufacture small parts for their business.”<\/p>\n Despite its power, the machine is compact and lightweight, weighing only 42 pounds, and fits comfortably on a single desk, making it an interesting option for small businesses or hobbyists.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most exciting feature in the works is that the company is working on AI-powered modeling features. This advancement aims to make modeling a point-and-click process, significantly reducing the learning curve for new users and increasing the appeal of CNC milling to a broader audience.<\/p><\/div>\n Personally, I love the retro takeaway-cup-inspired 1990s design. Don’t let the retro design fool you, though — there’s a lot of 2024 tech in there. Image Credits:<\/strong> TechCrunch \/ Haje Kamps<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In an industry dominated by several big players (Makera’s $6,000 Carvera<\/a> and Bantam Tools’ $7,000 machine<\/a> are probably its closest competitors), Coast Runner’s relentless focus on customer education and powerful, compact CNC machines makes it an interesting new entrant into the market.<\/p>\n “Most companies in this space are content to sell their machines and wish their customers good luck,” Hoeft shrugs. “We are committed to guiding its users from the initial idea to the final product.”<\/p>\n Coast Runner is a name to watch, as it launches its Kickstarter campaign with a $2,400 price tag next month. The final retail price will likely be around $3,000, the team tells me.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170861,"featured_media":2651622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"bb8d9e3a-7ed3-3158-8412-2aad55d112f6","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-12T18:10:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"ff5f534a-cd13-4f58-a757-da9f14a3ffe4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-12T18:40:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_19TSs0TT1inV9qfFKP_5A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052803,449223024,20429],"tags":[449557037,577214924],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

“We are making one of the most powerful desktop CNC machines you’ll find in the marketplace. You can cut everything up to titanium. Anything softer is possible: Plastics, brass, hard steel, aluminum, everything,” says Hoeft. “You need to change the tools manually — our main focus was to get the price point low enough that people who want to dip their toes or for people that want to manufacture and have four or five of these machines to manufacture small parts for their business.”<\/p>\n

Despite its power, the machine is compact and lightweight, weighing only 42 pounds, and fits comfortably on a single desk, making it an interesting option for small businesses or hobbyists.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most exciting feature in the works is that the company is working on AI-powered modeling features. This advancement aims to make modeling a point-and-click process, significantly reducing the learning curve for new users and increasing the appeal of CNC milling to a broader audience.<\/p><\/div>\n Personally, I love the retro takeaway-cup-inspired 1990s design. Don’t let the retro design fool you, though — there’s a lot of 2024 tech in there. Image Credits:<\/strong> TechCrunch \/ Haje Kamps<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In an industry dominated by several big players (Makera’s $6,000 Carvera<\/a> and Bantam Tools’ $7,000 machine<\/a> are probably its closest competitors), Coast Runner’s relentless focus on customer education and powerful, compact CNC machines makes it an interesting new entrant into the market.<\/p>\n “Most companies in this space are content to sell their machines and wish their customers good luck,” Hoeft shrugs. “We are committed to guiding its users from the initial idea to the final product.”<\/p>\n Coast Runner is a name to watch, as it launches its Kickstarter campaign with a $2,400 price tag next month. The final retail price will likely be around $3,000, the team tells me.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170861,"featured_media":2651622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"bb8d9e3a-7ed3-3158-8412-2aad55d112f6","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-12T18:10:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"ff5f534a-cd13-4f58-a757-da9f14a3ffe4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-12T18:40:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_19TSs0TT1inV9qfFKP_5A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052803,449223024,20429],"tags":[449557037,577214924],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Personally, I love the retro takeaway-cup-inspired 1990s design. Don’t let the retro design fool you, though — there’s a lot of 2024 tech in there. Image Credits:<\/strong> TechCrunch \/ Haje Kamps<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In an industry dominated by several big players (Makera’s $6,000 Carvera<\/a> and Bantam Tools’ $7,000 machine<\/a> are probably its closest competitors), Coast Runner’s relentless focus on customer education and powerful, compact CNC machines makes it an interesting new entrant into the market.<\/p>\n “Most companies in this space are content to sell their machines and wish their customers good luck,” Hoeft shrugs. “We are committed to guiding its users from the initial idea to the final product.”<\/p>\n Coast Runner is a name to watch, as it launches its Kickstarter campaign with a $2,400 price tag next month. The final retail price will likely be around $3,000, the team tells me.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170861,"featured_media":2651622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"bb8d9e3a-7ed3-3158-8412-2aad55d112f6","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-12T18:10:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"ff5f534a-cd13-4f58-a757-da9f14a3ffe4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-12T18:40:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_19TSs0TT1inV9qfFKP_5A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052803,449223024,20429],"tags":[449557037,577214924],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

Personally, I love the retro takeaway-cup-inspired 1990s design. Don’t let the retro design fool you, though — there’s a lot of 2024 tech in there. Image Credits:<\/strong> TechCrunch \/ Haje Kamps<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In an industry dominated by several big players (Makera’s $6,000 Carvera<\/a> and Bantam Tools’ $7,000 machine<\/a> are probably its closest competitors), Coast Runner’s relentless focus on customer education and powerful, compact CNC machines makes it an interesting new entrant into the market.<\/p>\n “Most companies in this space are content to sell their machines and wish their customers good luck,” Hoeft shrugs. “We are committed to guiding its users from the initial idea to the final product.”<\/p>\n Coast Runner is a name to watch, as it launches its Kickstarter campaign with a $2,400 price tag next month. The final retail price will likely be around $3,000, the team tells me.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170861,"featured_media":2651622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"bb8d9e3a-7ed3-3158-8412-2aad55d112f6","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-12T18:10:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"ff5f534a-cd13-4f58-a757-da9f14a3ffe4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-12T18:40:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_19TSs0TT1inV9qfFKP_5A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052803,449223024,20429],"tags":[449557037,577214924],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

In an industry dominated by several big players (Makera’s $6,000 Carvera<\/a> and Bantam Tools’ $7,000 machine<\/a> are probably its closest competitors), Coast Runner’s relentless focus on customer education and powerful, compact CNC machines makes it an interesting new entrant into the market.<\/p>\n “Most companies in this space are content to sell their machines and wish their customers good luck,” Hoeft shrugs. “We are committed to guiding its users from the initial idea to the final product.”<\/p>\n Coast Runner is a name to watch, as it launches its Kickstarter campaign with a $2,400 price tag next month. The final retail price will likely be around $3,000, the team tells me.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170861,"featured_media":2651622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"bb8d9e3a-7ed3-3158-8412-2aad55d112f6","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-12T18:10:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"ff5f534a-cd13-4f58-a757-da9f14a3ffe4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-12T18:40:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_19TSs0TT1inV9qfFKP_5A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052803,449223024,20429],"tags":[449557037,577214924],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

“Most companies in this space are content to sell their machines and wish their customers good luck,” Hoeft shrugs. “We are committed to guiding its users from the initial idea to the final product.”<\/p>\n

Coast Runner is a name to watch, as it launches its Kickstarter campaign with a $2,400 price tag next month. The final retail price will likely be around $3,000, the team tells me.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170861,"featured_media":2651622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"bb8d9e3a-7ed3-3158-8412-2aad55d112f6","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-12T18:10:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"ff5f534a-cd13-4f58-a757-da9f14a3ffe4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-12T18:40:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_19TSs0TT1inV9qfFKP_5A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052803,449223024,20429],"tags":[449557037,577214924],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

If CES is anything to go by, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for makers and hobbyists. I loved taking a closer look at Rownd, but it was not even close to the only light-manufacturing company showing off cool stuff at the trade show in Las Vegas.\u00a0Coast Runner, is a new entrant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170861,"featured_media":2651622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"bb8d9e3a-7ed3-3158-8412-2aad55d112f6","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-12T18:10:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"ff5f534a-cd13-4f58-a757-da9f14a3ffe4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-12T18:40:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_19TSs0TT1inV9qfFKP_5A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577052803,449223024,20429],"tags":[449557037,577214924],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoast Runner launching a $2,400 CNC mill soon | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n

At TechCrunch, Haje (He\/Him) covers general tech news and focuses mostly on hardware. He has founded several companies to varying degrees of success, spent a while in the VC world, and has been a journalist and TV producer since the dawn of his career. He is more-than-averagely interested in photography and can often be found with a camera slung over his shoulder. He wrote a book about pitching startups to investors, and you can find him on @Haje on Twitter (yes, really), or at Haje.me for everything else. Disclosures.<\/a> <\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Haje-black-and-red-HQ-sq.jpg","twitter":"Haje"}],"author":[{"id":170861,"name":"Haje Jan Kamps","url":"","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/haje-jan-kamps\/","slug":"haje-jan-kamps","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6ffdc4504715913427057be65524d44?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6ffdc4504715913427057be65524d44?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6ffdc4504715913427057be65524d44?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nHaje Jan Kamps, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

At TechCrunch, Haje (He\/Him) covers general tech news and focuses mostly on hardware. He has founded several companies to varying degrees of success, spent a while in the VC world, and has been a journalist and TV producer since the dawn of his career. He is more-than-averagely interested in photography and can often be found with a camera slung over his shoulder. He wrote a book about pitching startups to investors, and you can find him on @Haje on Twitter (yes, really), or at Haje.me for everything else. 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