Daily Crunch: US law enforcement agencies take down identity theft marketplace

Christine Hall, Haje Jan Kamps / 6:05 PM EDT•June 8, 2022

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We celebrate Dominic- Madori Davis joining the team. If you want to follow her, check out her first article on the site and her first feature on the website. Haje and Christine are excited.

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Shake down, take down: Several U.S. law enforcement agencies are popping bottles following an announcement that they were able to seize website domains said to belong to SSNDOB, a notorious marketplace known to be cashing in on Americans’ Social Security and credit card numbers. This group had listed information on some 24 million individuals and generated $19 million in revenue.
• Going out on a limb: Branch may have had some struggles getting early funding, but even amid a cooling off of insurtech stocks, the company is finding its money tree is growing tall. Branch collected $147 million in Series C funding. Its tree is so tall there is now room for a unicorn to frolic underneath.
• All the iOS 16 features that are fit to print: We know you have been following Apple’s WWDC this week, but there are so many new features that Ivan, our new consumer tech reporter, pulled together some that you may not have heard about yet.

Startups and VC

Tux has a lot of anarchy going on on Wednesday mornings. An interview with them is worth a read.

• Try (with fake data) before you buy (with real money):  TestBox has a goal of making it easier to test software you want to purchase in your own environment. What’s more, it comes prepopulated with synthetic data that is similar to yours to make that even easier, Ron explains, and he covers its $10 million seed round.
• Om nom, and indeed, nom: Christine reports how SCiFi Foods, formerly Artemys Foods, is combining plant-based and cultivated meat technology to create its first burger product, and its mission just got a big venture capital boost from a16z.
• Eat healthy, stretch and keep an eye on your pennies: Fruitful emerges from stealth with $33 million in funding and an app that aims to fuel healthy financial habits, Mary Ann reports.
• Out of the beta and into the fire: Continual, a startup that focuses on simplifying operational AI on top of a modern data stack, today announced that it has raised a $14.5 million Series A funding round. In addition, the company today announced that its cloud platform is now generally available, reports Frederic.
• Just look after our damn data, already: A massive trove of more than 120,000 passports, driver’s licenses and identity documents uploaded by users of bike-sharing service Mobike have been found online, Zack and Rita report.
• Zoom! Enhance! To photographers sitting on an old library of photos that leave something to be desired in the resolution and clarity front, Picsart just launched an AI enhancing tool that is rather close to magic, Haje reports.

As markets go down, government tech spending stays steady: How can investors tap in?

Federal spending on technology is expected to hold steady even as a recession looms, and investors and startup companies should take advantage of this opportunity, according to Josh and Mike.

The current government spending means that companies have a once-in-a-decade chance to enter a funded marketplace looking for new ideas.

It's an incredible opportunity to back the next wave of innovation since the infrastructure spending bill included $110 billion for more than 4,300 projects

As markets go down, government tech spending stays steady: How can investors tap in?

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Big Tech Inc.

You didn't think you'd get away from the day if you didn't have some Musk news. Musk's legal team asked for more transparency on the accounts, and now there are new reports that suggest he might get them. It isn't going to be a neat package. It's more like a fire hose. You can now let your customers set a reminder to know when a new product is on the way, thanks to a new merchant tease feature on the social network.

While we are thinking about features, we have some bad news to share. The text editor for software development has been around for more than a decade, and the company wants to focus on other tools. We have some good news despite this. Meta's game development platform will allow you to play games with friends in real time.

It's meanwhile.

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