Global venture capital firm Partech achieves first close of Africa’s largest fund at €245m – TechCrunch

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True crime has its grip on us all, and LawrenceThe review of “Tracers in the Dark” is fascinating. In the book, the author explains how the cops go after cybercriminals, and it shows that there is hope in stopping drug dealers, dark web market kingpins and child abusers . And it’s all thanks to the immutable and persistent nature of the Bitcoin blockchain, the perfect place to track money.

Our mention of the day for Black History Month is “So You Want to Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluo, which Haje read last year and kinda opened my eyes to all the things that he thought he knew but really didn’t. on how race manifests itself, ranging from police brutality and cultural appropriation to the myth of the model minority. For white people, this is 100% worth reading before you start asking stupid, embarrassing questions of your friends of color.

— Christina And haje

TechCrunch’s top 3

• The first fence is the best fence: Global venture capital firm Partech has achieved a first close on its new €245m fund, making it the largest Africa-focused fund. Tags writes that “overwhelming interest from LPs meant that Partech Africa II exceeded what was originally set for the entire fund at the first close”.
• Bing, not Chanandler Bong: Frederic writes that Microsoft is celebrating “a new day of search” by launching the new Bing, featuring ChatGPT.
• Capture this: Drone imaging company DroneBase is now Zeitview. It also landed $55 million to continue developing its air and ground data capture technology, Kyle reports.

Startups and VCs

You’ve been waiting ages for an actual AI image generation app, then suddenly two show up at once. brian writes about how FRIDA’s robotic arm attempts to bring DALL-E-style AI art to real-world canvases, and Haje explains how 3D laser cutting company Glowforge adds image generation IA to its software package.

Almost a year ago to the day, the 50-year-old Sequoia Capital investment center announced its reorganization around a unique and long-lasting structure, Connie reports. Now, thanks to an SEC form filed Friday, we know how much is in the Sequoia Capital Fund. And because we’re sneaky capitalists doing it for the clicks. If you want to know how much, you have to read the article.

And we’ve got five more for you, complete with a soundtrack that swings between a number of unlikely genres:

Cybersecurity teams, beware: the defender’s dilemma is a lie

The defender’s dilemma is one of the touchstones of cybersecurity: “Defenders have to be right every time. Attackers only need to be right once.

It may sound genuine, but David J. Bianco, a staff security strategist at Splunk, says it’s actually a false narrative that leaves systems less secure.

“Defenders rightly expect attackers to lie and cheat to achieve their goals, but sometimes we forget that lying and cheating can work both ways.”

Three others from the TC+ team:

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Big Tech inc.

What is your status? Well if you are a whatsapp user now you can give voice status update, Jagmeet writing. Each voice note can last up to 30 seconds and then set as your status. So now people have a voice to accompany your photo.

Today, everything was dedicated to the OnePlus smartphone: brian gives you a look at the $699 OnePlus 11, which arrives February 16, and it also takes a look at some of OnePlus’ additional products like a tablet and a mechanical keyboard. SO Ivan writes about the Buds Pro 2, which will set you back $179 but has improved sound and noise cancellation.

And we have five more for you: