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Robert Vt Hoenderdaal/Getty Images It’s easy to get caught up in the names of Harley-Davidson bikes — Iron 883, Forty-Eight, Roadster, and so on. But if you have ever looked closer at a spec sheet or service manual, you’ve probably seen a short Harley-Davidson model code like FXST, FLHX, or even XL. While “XL” means “extra large” on a clothing tag, it means something totally different on a Harley. Rather, this simple code tells a lot more about your bike than you can imagine. So, what does the “XL” mean? In simple terms, “XL” is the internal label Harley-Davidson uses for its Sportster lineup — a range of bikes known for their smaller size, agility, and urban cruising. But like most things Harley, there’s some history behind it. The letters aren’t just slapped on at random, but can actually be traced back to a naming system that’s been evolving since the early 1900s. And if you know what the different codes mean, you’ll realize that they reveal a lot about the kind of ride you’re getting. Breaking down the XL code in Harley-Davidson motorcycles Sue Thatcher/Shutterstock Over the years, Harley has used a full alphabet soup of letters and numbers to identify their bikes. But there’s a system behind how it all works. In general, the first letter of a Harley model code refers to the engine type. For example, in the “XL” category, the “X” signals a smaller engine, unlike the larger “F” used for the heavyweight Big Twins. The “L” that follows can mean different things depending on the model — sometimes Low, other times Limited, or even linked to suspension or styling choices. It’s not always clear-cut, but it gives a general idea of how the bike is built. You’ll also see additional numbers that reflect Harley-Davidson engine displacement. For example, “XL883” points to a Sportster with an 883cc engine, while “XL1200” refers to a bigger 1200cc version. Some variants go even further — a model like “XL883N” means it’s an Iron 883, one of the most popular bobber-style Sportsters that was discontinued by Harley-Davidson. This coding system might feel a bit old-school, but it’s actually quite useful, especially when you’re buying parts or checking compatibility. Why riders still look for the XL code Maksim Rumiantsev/Getty Images Even though most riders now refer to their bikes by name, like Sportster Iron 883 or 1200, the “XL” code hasn’t gone away. In fact, it’s still stamped on many modern Sportsters and remains a useful shorthand in Harley culture. It tells experienced riders right away what kind of frame and engine they’re dealing with. Also, the dealers and mechanics often use these codes to identify exact models for repairs and upgrades. What’s even more amazing is that “XL” bikes are considered a good entry point into the Harley-Davidson world, as they’re lighter and easier to handle, making them ideal for city rides or weekend cruises. Plus, thanks to their long-running popularity and unique model codes, XL bikes benefit from strong aftermarket support and easy customization. So, whether you’re restoring an old Ironhead or picking up your first new Harley, understanding what “XL” stands for can make you feel a little more connected to the culture. Read More

Benny Marty/Shutterstock When you think about museums, you may picture something like the renowned Louvre Museum in Paris or the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Museums are more than just Monet and the Mona Lisa, though. In the U.S., you can visit what many have dubbed floating museums — retired Navy battleships. Battleships are large, armored warships that are heavily armed with large-caliber guns and torpedoes. The first were constructed in the late 19th century and used heavily through World War II. After the war ended, battleships were retired due to changes in modern warfare and advancements in weapons and technology. While you can’t simply put a battleship into a museum, you certainly can transform such a ship into a floating exhibition. Today, there are eight intact battleships around the country that you can visit, along with the sites of two sunken ones. They offer a glimpse back in time and help to remind us of all that went into the Allies’ effort to turn the tide of World War II. Locations and Logistics John Seaton Callahan/Getty Images If you guessed that the sites of the two sunken battleships are in Hawaii, you’d be correct. The United States lost a total of four battleships during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The USS Arizona is perhaps the most widely known of those ships. The memorial stretches over the wreckage, giving visitors a glimpse into the massive vessel where more than 1,000 crewmen died. The lesser-known USS Utah was also sunk during the attack at Pearl Harbor. There’s a memorial that extends out from Ford Island toward the ship, parts of which are visible above the water line. Because Ford Island is an active military base, visitors are required to reserve seats on the Ford Island Bus Tour. While these two ships are priceless reminders of the cost of war, there are also fully intact ships that the general public can visit, which may be closer to home than Hawaii. There are eight spread throughout the U.S. Since they’re all the same class of ship, they offer a similar experience despite their varied histories. A visit to one may be enough for some, while others may want to see them all. Take a tour… or two or three Denistangneyjr/Getty Images The USS Alabama is in Mobile, Alabama, its namesake, while the USS Iowa is in Los Angeles, California. Likely because the state of Iowa is a landlocked state. It’s the only battleship on the West Coast but offers various experience tours, including a scavenger hunt with the ship’s mascot –Vicky the Dog. You can tour the USS Massachusetts in Fall River, Massachusetts, where it’s moored with several other historical vessels. The USS Missouri is located in Honolulu, Hawaii, but was commissioned after Pearl Harbor. You can choose a guided or unguided tour. The USS New Jersey, the most decorated battleship in U.S. history, can be visited in Camden, New Jersey. The USS North Carolina is fittingly moored in Wilmington, North Carolina, and is one of the most affordable ships to tour, with adult tickets only coming in at $14. The USS Wisconsin, one of the largest battleships ever built, can be found in Norfolk, Virginia. Visitors on the USS Wisconsin can choose from several different types of tours, including one of the engine room. Finally, the USS Texas is currently undergoing repair work, so it’s not available for a visit, but will eventually be relocated to Galveston, Texas, and opened to the public. It is the last surviving battleship to serve in both World War I and World War II. Read More

Tesla Owning an electric car, such as a Tesla, can be a bit of a learning curve for first timers. Unlike internal combustion engine-powered vehicles, Tesla EVs require drivers to consider charging, battery health, range, and various other factors to properly maintain an electric vehicle’s battery. But what if one decides to skip driving their Tesla for days or weeks at a time and decides to leave it parked? First things first, if possible, it’s always best to leave it plugged in. This will prevent the battery from depleting fully while also ensuring the battery does not overcharge, thanks to Tesla’s advanced safety battery management systems. The car’s onboard systems will manage charging effectively and keep the battery charge at a safe level and thus allowing owners to leave the car parked for extended periods without worry. If one must leave it unplugged, making sure it has enough charge is a must. Tesla cars lose about 1% of their battery per day, even when parked, depending on conditions. A good rule of thumb is to plan to discharge at least 1% per day of planned inactivity (e.g., 14% for two weeks) and make sure your battery is at a level that exceeds that. Ultimately, some phantom drain is unavoidable, making it vital to understand Tesla’s battery management systems and how to make the most of them while the car remains idle for long durations. What affects Tesla battery life while idle? Tesla The 1% battery discharge per day rule is an easy way of understanding how much charge a Tesla battery loses while idle. However, many other factors can either worsen this or make it considerably better, and these include the ambient temperature, sentry mode, cabin overheat protection, frequent vehicle checks, the energy-saving feature, battery age, software, and more. Cold weather can hurt a Tesla battery and will increase phantom drain while the car sits idling due to inefficient lithium cycling. If a Tesla has the Sentry Mode activated, it will keep some of the car’s sensors and cameras running and thus will use more battery while idling. If it’s hot outside and the car has the cabin overheat protection feature turned on, it will kick in the A/C to cool the car down, and that can have a massive impact on the battery. Frequent vehicle checks through the app wake the car up more frequently and use more power, while the energy-saving feature reduces the amount of energy consumed when the car is not in use, so using it can be a great way to conserve a bit of battery while idling. Older batteries are also more susceptible to phantom drain, while potential software updates and bugs can never be completely ruled out. Risks of a fully depleted Tesla battery Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock According to Tesla, fully discharging the high-voltage battery “may result in damage to vehicle components.” At near 0% charge, the Model Y, like other Tesla models, engages a power-saving mode that disables all but critical functions, including support for the 12‑volt system. This low-power state can last only so long before the car becomes completely inoperable unless recharged as soon as possible. A 2024 study by the International Journal of Data Science and Applications on lithium-ion battery safety also underlines why a complete battery discharge is a serious risk. According to the study, “dropping below the charge cut-off voltage level permanently damages the chemical structure of the battery, significantly reducing its capacity. Moreover, if the discharge process continues, the chemical reactions of the electrolytes inside the battery can occur uncontrollably, leading to serious problems such as overheating and even explosion.” If the battery dies completely, Tesla recommends an EV-specific jump-start procedure that uses a jump pack on the low-voltage battery only, and a Tesla should never be used to jump-start another car. Moreover, the company also warns that Tesla vehicles should only be transported on a flatbed truck, as towing with the wheels on the ground can damage the electric motors. With that in mind, preventing issues is far better than facing the consequences of neglect, which is why the best practice is to keep your parked Tesla plugged in. Read More

Mediaphotos/Getty Images For many riders, especially those who are shorter than average, hopping onto a motorcycle can feel intimidating. While bikes are built to offer freedom and adventure, they’re often designed with average or taller riders in mind. That’s why one of the most common questions among beginners and even experienced riders with shorter height is whether they can lower the seat on their motorcycle. The short answer is yes — and doing so can make a huge difference in comfort, balance, and confidence. Unlike some bikes made for shorter riders, most motorcycle seats sit somewhere between 675mm to 840mm off the ground. That might not sound like much on paper, but in real life, even an extra inch can make a difference in how you ride. Lowering your motorcycle just a bit can help you plant your feet flat on the ground instead of tiptoeing at every stop. Being able to firmly plant both feet on the ground isn’t just comfortable, but a lot safer, as a bike that’s too tall can be hard to handle, especially at slow speeds or in traffic. Simple ways to lower your motorcycle seat Idan Grunberg/Shutterstock There are a few ways riders can bring that seat closer to the pavement. One of the easiest methods is to modify the motorcycle seat itself. You can remove some foam from the seat to shave off about half an inch to three-quarters of an inch. Even better, narrowing the front of the seat can make it easier for your legs to reach the ground, without losing comfort. Custom seat jobs are often affordable too — sometimes costing as little as $20 at a local shop. If you need to go lower, you might consider adjusting the suspension. Lighter riders can tweak the rear shock preload to help the bike settle lower when seated. This adjustment helps the suspension sag slightly, effectively lowering the seat. But it’s important to be cautious, as modifying the front suspension, especially if it uses a Ceriani-type setup, isn’t recommended unless you’re a pro. The key is balance — if you drop the rear more than 3 inches, the front may also need adjustment to keep the bike handling safely. Some kits modify suspension linkages to change how high the bike sits. Fork tube adjustments can also lower the front slightly. For a more aggressive drop, some riders even swap to smaller wheels. A few extra tricks and warnings Suspended Image/Getty Images Before you start changing things around, it’s smart to talk to a professional. Lowering a motorcycle’s seat can mess with clearance, comfort, or even safety, and always remember that the seat width matters just as much as height. A narrow seat is easier to straddle, making your legs reach further down without modifying anything. Besides the seat, the position and choice of your handlebars, and the position of the footpegs can play a role in how comfortable and grounded you feel on your ride. If you’re not into mechanical changes, try riding boots with thicker soles. Even a one-inch boost in footwear can help you feel more stable, and if you’re not flat-footing it, don’t panic, as many shorter riders learn to lean slightly at stops or rely on technique over height. With the right tweaks or gear, almost any rider can make a tall bike feel just right. Read More

Alex Photo Stock/Shutterstock Google is the default search engine on Chrome; that means when you search for any query, your results will be shown in the Google search engine. Chrome allows you to manually change your search engine, but what if you notice it has been changed automatically to Bing? While Bing is definitely a good Google alternative, it’s completely normal to trust Google results over Bing as a matter of personal preference. You can definitely switch to Google again, but what if you notice that Chrome changes the search engine back to Bing again? This indicates that there’s something fishy going on with your Chrome browser. Perhaps your device is affected by malware, or a recently installed extension is interfering with Chrome and forcing it to change the search engine.  Before we get into the advanced fixes, we recommend you update Google Chrome to the latest build and then try switching the search engine to Google again. Doing this will eliminate the possibility of a bug in the current Chrome build causing the problem. However, if the problem remains even in the latest Chrome version, then continue reading to find out its solution. Get rid of malicious agents Aman Kumar/ SlashGear If you notice that the problem has started to occur after installing a particular application on your device, then most likely that application itself is the culprit. The best way to confirm this is to uninstall that application from your device. If you’re facing the issue on your smartphone and have Microsoft SwiftKey or any other Microsoft application installed, consider uninstalling it. If Chrome no longer changes the search engine automatically, then congratulations, as you have resolved the problem. You can report the issue to the app developers as a gesture of goodwill. However, if you still continue to face the issue, then the next thing you should check is the list of installed extensions. It’s possible for a malicious extension to interfere with Chrome and change the search engine to Bing without your knowledge. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to catch that extension. You’ll have to disable all the installed extensions. Then, enable each extension one by one and check for the problem after activating each extension. You should uninstall the extension that changes the Chrome search engine after being enabled. Malware could also be the reason why Chrome is automatically switching the default search engine. Your best port of call in this case is to launch an antivirus program on your device and run a full system scan. If the antivirus detects any malware, virus, or any other suspicious file that shouldn’t be on your device, you should immediately delete it from your system or follow the steps that your antivirus recommends to remove it. Adjust Chrome settings Aman Kumar/ SlashGear If you are facing the issue on Windows or macOS, then you can access the Chrome settings and remove Bing from the search engine list. To do so, open the Settings menu in Chrome, choose Search Engine from the left sidebar, and then select the Manage search engines and site search option. Click the three dots next to Bing and choose Delete from the menu that appears. Now restart Google Chrome, and you should no longer be facing the problem. However, after a restart, if you notice that Bing is again added to the search engine list and Chrome automatically switches to it, then you will have to reset the Chrome settings to fix the problem. To do this, select Reset settings in the Chrome settings menu, click Restore settings to their original defaults, and then Reset settings. Aman Kumar/ SlashGear In the worst-case scenario, if you still continue to face the problem, then you are left with no option other than to contact the Chrome support team. That being said, once you have successfully resolved the issue, you must enable enhanced protection in Chrome to ensure that the browser doesn’t again face any similar problem in the future. To enable it, choose Privacy and security in the Chrome settings menu, and then select the Security option on the right, then choose the Enhanced Protection option under the Safe Browsing section. In addition to activating the Chrome built-in security feature, you should also regularly update your installed antivirus and use its full system scan feature to constantly check your system for any malware and viruses. Read More

When Parthi Duraisamy was a consultant at McKinsey’s Dubai office, he discovered that the American Express cards his company relied on for corporate expenses were rarely accepted in the Middle East. This forced Duraisamy to cover significant travel expenses out of pocket and file endless expense reports. “It was a constant pain,” Duraisamy explained on the call. “I’d spend my weekends uploading receipts, reconciling every expense manually.” Now, Alaan, the company he launched with fellow McKinsey alumnus Karun Kurien, is the Middle East’s leading spend management platform. It just announced that it raised $48 million in Series A funding led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) with participation from others like founders of 885 Capital, Y Combinator, 468 Capital, and Pioneer Fund. Founders of some of Alaan’s unicorn customers, like Hosam Arab (Tabby), Mudassir Sheikha (Careem), and Khalid Al Ameri, a well-known YouTuber in the region, also invested. This is one of the largest Series A rounds for a fintech in the region, compared to Saudi Arabia’s buy now, pay later platform Tamara, which raised $110 million a couple of years ago. “The category has demonstrated strong product-market fit in the MENA region, and Alaan stands out as the category leader,” said GV Ravishankar, Managing Director at Peak XV. “Their customer-centric and product-led mindset has enabled them to build solutions tailored to modern finance teams.” (Peak XV also participated in a large Series B round last month, backing UAE’s proptech Huspy.) Alaan’s path to category leadership wasn’t without challenges, however. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025 While the fintech raised a $2.5 million seed round in mid-2021, it couldn’t launch for nearly a year, largely due to regulatory complexities and the need for banking partnerships in the UAE. Its recent expansion into Saudi Arabia posed similar hurdles, taking years to secure approvals from the country’s apex bank before finally launching this January.  “The biggest challenge we faced, both in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, was simply going live,” the CEO shared. Yet, Duraisamy said the fintech was able to move fast in other ways such as in Alaan’s pioneering move to integrate Apple Pay into its B2B offerings, something previously unavailable to finance teams in the region.  In early 2023, the company also claimed to be the first in the Middle East to integrate OpenAI into its services, a move Duraisamy says shaped the company’s current product strategy. Initially, Alaan rolled out a chatbot, anticipating that users would enjoy conversational interactions around their spending. But the feature failed to gain traction. Lesson learned, the fintech shifted focus, realizing customers got more value when AI worked in the background. Alaan began using AI to help streamline processes like receipt matching, reconciliation, and VAT extraction—a particularly valuable use case in the region, where the platform helps businesses navigate complex VAT regulations and reclaimable tax. The company claims its spend management platform has already saved finance teams more than 1.5 million hours of manual work. Its a number Alaan expects to grow as it continues to invest in automation. Since launching in 2022, Alaan has processed over 2.5 million transactions for more than 1,500 finance teams across major regional enterprises, including G42, Careem, Tabby, and Lulu Group. What’s more, the company is profitable, Duraisamy says, noting that it spent $5 million to generate $10 million in revenue. Duraisamy credits YC and his mentors for instilling a disciplined approach in a market where many fintechs are focused on payment volumes. Now, Alaan is looking to replicate its growth in Saudi Arabia, where it launched earlier this year and has been doubling transaction volumes month over month for the past six months, according to the startup. The Series A will accelerate this expansion, allowing the company to scale hiring across sales, customer success, and compliance, while also doubling down on AI-driven finance automation. While the four-year-old fintech, which is equipping MENA finance teams with AI agents, has now raised one of the largest Series A rounds in MENA, I asked Duraisamy if Ramp’s explosive growth—its valuation has doubled this year after raising three rounds—played a role in investors betting big on Alaan. “When you talk to investors, what really matters for a company at our stage is the fundamentals: how capital-efficient we are, how much revenue we generate, how strong our go-to-market motion is,” he said. “We are not in a market where you know size is an advantage, like the US or Europe. So, regardless of whether Ramp was able to raise or not, I think we would have raised this much because our fundamentals were very strong.” Read More

At a time when the world feels increasingly divided between East and West, Uzbekistan has emerged as a rare middle ground, as the Central Asian nation’s homegrown unicorn, Uzum, has raised $65.5 million in a new funding round co-led by China’s Tencent and the New York- and London-based VR Capital, with participation from U.S.-based FinSight Ventures. The all-equity round brings the Tashkent-headquartered startup’s post-money valuation to approximately $1.5 billion — a nearly 30% jump from the $1.16 billion valuation it announced when it first hit unicorn status in March last year. Founded in 2022, Uzum started its journey in Uzbekistan with an e-commerce marketplace called Uzum Market, and shortly after its success, the startup added fintech with a debit card and later expanded into its express food delivery service, Uzum Tezkor. Uzum currently boasts over 17 million monthly active users — nearly half of Uzbekistan’s adult population, or about two-thirds of all smartphone users in the country — and 16,000 merchants. In the first half of 2025 alone, the startup recorded $250 million in gross merchandise value (GMV), up nearly 1.5 times year-over-year. Its digital banking arm, Uzum Bank, launched a co-branded Visa debit card with pre-approved credit limits in August last year. That product has already issued 2 million cards and is on track to surpass 5 million by year-end. Meanwhile, Uzum’s unsecured lending business hit $200 million in financed volume in Q1, growing 3.4 times from the same period last year. The startup also posted $150 million in net income in 2024 — a 50% year-over-year jump. With a portfolio spanning e-commerce, fintech, and digital banking, how has a startup just over three years old managed to scale this quickly — and draw the attention of global investors like Tencent? Uzum founder and CEO Djasur Djumaev attributes the success to a combination of deep local knowledge and disciplined execution. He believes that understanding the country’s culture, consumer behavior, and business environment — and pairing that with the technical and operational expertise that global companies have developed — has been critical to building a business that can scale quickly and sustainably. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025 The startup built its digital and physical infrastructure from scratch to kick off its business in Uzbekistan. This includes setting a logistics capacity that has grown to than 112,000 square meters, with a storage capacity of 1.1 million square feet, allowing it to process more than 200,000 orders per day. The startup has also set up more than 1,500 pickup points across 450 cities, towns, settlements, and villages in the country to enable next-day deliveries. These pickup points also allow the issuance and distribution of Uzum Bank cards. “Betting on local expertise and infrastructure in frontier markets gives you an advantage to then perform and scale your business very fast,” Djumaev told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview. Uzum’s pickup pointImage Credits:Uzum Initially, Uzum operated on a fulfilled-by-operator model to enable e-commerce deliveries. It has since expanded to include fulfillment-by-seller and delivery-by-seller options, with a goal of routing 20–30% of deliveries through these new models. These new delivery models will also help Uzum expand its stock-keeping units, which are currently over 1.5 million available for its next-day delivery service, up from over 600,000 SKUs at the time of its last funding announcement in March 2024. When asked what brought Tencent onto its cap-table this time, Uzum’s chief strategy and business development officer, Nikolay Seleznev, told TechCrunch the startup’s strong growth metrics convinced the Chinese investor to come on board after several quarters of ongoing discussions. Uzum plans to grow its fintech business by introducing a deposit product in September and a long-term (more than 12 months in maturity) credit facility for its B2C customers. The startup also plans to expand its merchant base and help its existing and new merchants with its QR code payment processing system, expand its Visa debit card program, and build new products to support small and medium enterprises in the country. Similarly, the startup plans to introduce new products adding value-added services to its e-commerce business, including those helping to generate advertisement revenues. It is also working toward scaling its financial infrastructure further with AI increasingly embedded across credit scoring, fraud protection, and personalized user experiences. Furthermore, Uzum plans to open up its e-commerce marketplace for international merchants, beginning with those in China and Turkey in September. “We are expecting 10 to 15% of cross-border activity coming from these countries,” Seleznev said. The startup has over 12,000 people in its workforce, including blue-collar workers at its pickup points, as well as tech, engineering, and product teams across all its business verticals. Similar to other businesses of its sort, which are profitable and have multiple avenues to generate continuous income over time, Uzum has plans to become public in the medium term. But before that, it aims to raise a Series B round of $250–$300 million in the first half of 2026. That said, the startup has so far raised $137 million in equity, including the latest round. Read More

Indian startup Jeh Aerospace founders Vishal Sanghavi and Venkatesh Mudragalla have had a front row seat to the commercial aircraft sector and its growing production bottleneck. The two former Tata Group executives spent close to two decades in different positions at the company and worked on projects that included participation from global aerospace companies, including Boeing, Sikorsky, and Lockheed Martin. Now, armed with $11 million in Series A funding, the pair are working to ease global supply chain bottlenecks by scaling the production of metallic components for aero engines and aerostructures, which it then sells to U.S.-based Tier 1 suppliers that work with commercial aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus and Boeing. And they plan to help India become a destination for aerospace component manufacturing in the process. “At Tatas, we unlocked India’s potential for these large OEMs, Boeing, Airbus, Sikorsky, and GE [General Electric], but we wanted Jeh Aerospace to unlock India’s potential for the large Tier 1 and Tier 2 manufacturers in the supply chain,” said Sanghavi, who is also CEO at Jeh. Jeh Aerospace co-founders Venkatesh Mudragalla (Left) and Vishal Sanghavi (Right)Image Credits:Jeh Aerospace Jeh Aerospace, which is headquartered in Atlanta to better access its U.S. customer base, has a 60,000-square-foot software-based, precision manufacturing facility is in the Southern Indian city of Hyderabad. The three-year-old startup has combined precision machinery, robotics, and IoT devices to slash product introduction lead times from the industry’s traditional 15-week timeline to 15 days. Jeh Aerospace’s software-defined manufacturing approach helps bring predictability and dynamic scheduling to allow offering a consistent supply to customers with no compromises on quality, Sanghavi said. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025 And it seems VCs and strategic investors are interested in Jeh Aerospace’s pitch. The Series A round was led by Elevation Capital, with participation from General Catalyst. With the infusion of the new capital, Jeh Aerospace has raised about $15 million in total from institutional venture capital firms. The VC fresh funding comes less than a month after the startup received an undisclosed strategic investment from IndiGo Ventures, a corporate venture capital arm of Indian carrier IndiGo. Ashray Iyengar, principal at Elevation Capital, said the company “built a truly differentiated approach to aerospace manufacturing.” Aircraft production bottleneck Global air traffic demand rose 10.4% year-over-year in 2024, surpassing 2019 levels by 3.8%, per the International Air Transport Association data released earlier this year. The rebound has spurred airlines to expand fleets, pushing up orders even as the industry grapples with talent and production bottlenecks, as Deloitte notes in a recent report. Tier 1 suppliers are facing extended lead times as the commercial aircraft backlog reaches a record nearly 15,700 units, according to McKinsey. Jeh Aerospace’s founders believe using technology to scale production of metallic components for aero engines and aerostructures will unplug that bottleneck. That premise has shaped how Sanghavi, the former chief operating officer at Tata Boeing Aerospace, and Mudragalla have built its 100-person workforce, team of advisers, and business model. Image Credits:McKinsey Aerospace & Defense Practice Instead of working directly with OEMs like Airbus and Boeing, which makes makes 30% of commercial aircraft, Jeh Aerospace deliberately decided to tap Tier 1 and Tier 2 manufacturers, Sanghavi told TechCrunch, adding this group makes 60% to 70% of aircraft. The startup currently has half a dozen paying customers, including Vermont-based GS Precision and Ohio-headquartered RH Aero. Sanghavi said each of these customers is a “high dollar, high ARR customer,” and they have the potential to become large accounts in the next one to two years. “What we believe is that to work with lesser, but better customers, not to have a transactional relationship, but a far deeper and meaningful relationship. So, we are also very, very focused on not having too many customers,” he said. “The business doesn’t need too many customers because you can really scale with few customers very fast and very quickly.” The company has also assembled an advisory team with deep ties to commercial aircraft OEMS. The startup counts former Boeing India President Pratyush (Prat) Kumar and former Airbus India CEO and Managing Director Dwaraka Srinivasan among its early advisors and backers. Jeh Aerospace has made notable manufacturing and financial progress in its short life. Since its $2.75 million seed round in January last year, Jeh Aerospace says it has delivered more than 100,000 flight-critical components and tools on time. The startup has also established a machine capacity exceeding 250,000 hours annually. In the last financial year, the startup reached $6 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) and achieved profitability after taxes. Sanghavi told TechCrunch that it projects a 3x to 4x increase in its ARR this year and also boasts an order book worth $100 million. Jeh Aerospace’s facility includes an Center for Aerospace Skill for talent trainingImage Credits:Jeh Aerospace The company plans to use the new $11 million in capital to scale its manufacturing and inspection capabilities by investing in next-generation digital production technologies, Sanghavi said. The Jeh Aerospace co-founders see an opportunity to bring more local manufacturing to India and trengthen the country’s position on the global aerospace map, much like its recent emergence as a hub for iPhone production. India already plays a growing role in aerospace manufacturing, with Airbus sourcing $1.4 billion worth of components annually from the country and targeting $2 billion by 2030. Boeing, for its part, is aiming for a $1.3 billion annual spend and announced its plans to invest $200 million in a new engineering and technology center in Bengaluru in 2023. Still, the South Asian nation has yet to achieve large-scale success in aerospace component manufacturing — a gap companies like Jeh Aerospace are hoping to fill. Although few Indian startups operate in aerospace component manufacturing, the sector includes players like JJG Aero, which appears to be a peer to Jeh Aerospace based on industry positioning. Sanghavi declined to comment specifically on JJG and noted that his startup sees its primary competition among U.S.-based tier-2 suppliers. Read More

Dribbble has permanently banned dozens of designers from its platform following a new effort to pivot to a marketplace and chase monetization. This includes one of the platform’s most well-known designers, Gleb Kuznetsov, founder of the San Francisco-based design studio Milkinside. Dribbble deleted his account with its over 210 million followers because he shared his contact information with prospective clients through the platform in violation of its new rules. Remarked Kuznetsov in a post on X, “I brought 100,000+ monthly users. 15 years of work. 12,000+ shots. All instantly deleted, because a client asked for my email. One warning. No appeal.” Fed up with the changes at the company, which helps product, UX, web, and other digital designers showcase their portfolios and find new clients, Kuznetsov says he’s been talking to investors about launching a competitor. Totally agree with @jondschubert . I loved @dribbble. I brought 100,000+ monthly users. 15 years of work. 12,000+ shots. All instantly deleted, because a client asked for my email. One warning. No appeal. They didn’t care about the community. Just their 3% cut.Dribbble is… pic.twitter.com/ujzvhkLoXO — Gleb Kuznetsov (@glebich) July 29, 2025 Shortly after his social media post, Dribbble users expressed their shock and anger over the decision, crediting Kuznetsov as being one of their biggest inspirations and lamenting that the platform would make such a misguided move. Dribbble, meanwhile, says Kuznetsov was actually warned multiple times that he was violating the new rules and the email was the final notice. Dribbble’s pivot to a marketplace The issue has to do with a more recent policy change first announced on March 17, 2025. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025 In an email shared in March with Dribbble’s some 750,000 approved designers — meaning those who are authorized to communicate with others on the platform — the company said it was no longer allowing designers to share their contact information with prospective clients until after their client sent payment through its platform. The company positioned this change as one meant to protect designers from non-payment, as well as one that allows Dribbble to continue to sustain its business. The announcement was also posted to social media and the company blog. Image Credits:Dribbble However, Kuznetsov claims that non-payment isn’t a very common problem, and really, this update is about Dribbble attempting to take a larger cut of designers’ business. Dribbble doesn’t dispute that. Before the policy change, Dribbble made money in one of two ways. Starting in September 2024, Dribbble began pivoting to a marketplace that connected designers and clients. Designers could communicate freely on the platform and then either share a 3.5% revenue cut on clients they converted, or they could pay for a Pro subscription to skip the rev share. In March, the company tightened the rules further, saying that anyone finding clients on Dribbble would need to offer the platform a cut of their revenue. “It went from it was optional to use our transactional features to it was required for non-advertisers to use our transactional features, if they were on Dribbble, to find clients,” explains Dribbble CEO Constantine Anastasakis, in an interview with TechCrunch. “If a user is on Dribbble to find inspiration or to get feedback on their work, or to talk shop with their peers, none of this affects them,” he added. Image Credits:Dribbble The exec, who joined the company after working at direct-to-consumer lender Lower, video marketplace Pond5 (exited to Shutterstock), and freelancer marketplace Fiverr, was hired last April to pivot Dribbble into a marketplace. While the company is profitable under parent company Tiny, it’s still a small 20-person team and isn’t reliant on venture backing to serve its 7.5 to 10 million monthly unique visitors. “Dribbble was something that really accelerated our business dramatically back in the day,” Kuznetsov told TechCrunch. Before Dribbble, there was no platform where designers could share their work with others, he says. It helped designers receive feedback that came specifically from their peers and allowed newer designers to learn from those at the top of the industry. Kuznetsov is now part of the latter group. At Milkinside, Kuznetsov has worked with companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, Scandinavian Airlines, United Airlines, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, and other large companies in the Bay Area. As a result, he likely didn’t feel that Dribbble would risk banning him for not abiding by the new terms. Anastasakis essentially confirmed this to be true. He told TechCrunch that Kuznetsov received 83 work inquiries since the new terms rolled out in March, and responded to 61. In each message, the site shows a warning that reminds users that contact details should not be shared before project payment. However, Kuznetsov shared his contact information in six messages, which would have displayed a stronger warning at that time. Image Credits:Dribbble Image Credits:Dribbble The company then followed up with a warning email on July 22 about his repeated terms-of-service violations, which informed him he was risking permanent suspension. Kuznetsov told us he didn’t see this email initially, but Dribbble says it tracked that the email was opened three times before his suspension. “I believe that Dribbble — it was their goal to hurt me so I can spread that [news] so they can give a harsh lesson to everyone who tries [to break the rules],” Kuznetsov says. Anastasakis confirmed as much to TechCrunch. “There’s really no conceivable way in which he did not realize that what he was doing risked permanent suspension of his accounts,” Anastasakis told us. “I think that ultimately it was that he believed that we wouldn’t take action against a designer of his caliber,” he continued. “As a side note, I actually think that he’s done us a big favor as far as getting the word out about how seriously we take the terms.” For Kuznetsov, or any designer who was banned for similar reasons, the only option to come back to Dribbble is by joining as an advertiser, which requires a minimum campaign budget of $1,500 per month for at least

Google’s AI-powered bug hunter has just reported its first batch of security vulnerabilities.  Heather Adkins, Google’s vice president of security, announced Monday that its LLM-based vulnerability researcher Big Sleep found and reported 20 flaws in various popular open source software. Adkins said that Big Sleep, which is developed by the company’s AI department DeepMind as well as its elite team of hackers Project Zero, reported its first-ever vulnerabilities, mostly in open source software such as audio and video library FFmpeg and image-editing suite ImageMagick.  Given that the vulnerabilities are not fixed yet, we don’t have details of their impact or severity, as Google does not yet want to provide details, which is a standard policy when waiting for bugs to be fixed. But the simple fact that Big Sleep found these vulnerabilities is significant, as it shows these tools are starting to get real results, even if there was a human involved in this case.  “To ensure high quality and actionable reports, we have a human expert in the loop before reporting, but each vulnerability was found and reproduced by the AI agent without human intervention,” Google’s spokesperson Kimberly Samra told TechCrunch.  Royal Hansen, Google’s vice president of engineering, wrote on X that the findings demonstrate “a new frontier in automated vulnerability discovery.”  LLM-powered tools that can look for and find vulnerabilities are already a reality. Other than Big Sleep, there’s RunSybil and XBOW, among others.  Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025 XBOW has garnered headlines after it reached the top of one of the U.S. leaderboards at bug bounty platform HackerOne. It’s important to note that in most cases, these reports have a human at some point of the process to verify that the AI-powered bug hunter found a legitimate vulnerability, as is the case with Big Sleep. Vlad Ionescu, co-founder and chief technology officer at RunSybil, a startup that develops AI-powered bug hunters, told TechCrunch that Big Sleep is a “legit” project, given that it has “good design, people behind it know what they’re doing, Project Zero has the bug finding experience and DeepMind has the firepower and tokens to throw at it.” There is obviously a lot of promise with these tools, but also significant downsides. Several people who maintain different software projects have complained of bug reports that are actually hallucinations, with some calling them the bug bounty equivalent of AI slop.  “That’s the problem people are running into, is we’re getting a lot of stuff that looks like gold, but it’s actually just crap,” Ionescu previously told TechCrunch. Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai is a Senior Writer at TechCrunch, where he covers hacking, cybersecurity, surveillance, and privacy. You can contact Lorenzo securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, on Keybase/Telegram @lorenzofb, or via email at lorenzo@techcrunch.com. View Bio Read More