Crunch Hype

The current rave about newsletters and so-called or social audio is just the latest version of the story of podcasting. Take the idea that podcasting is experiencing a new wave of popularity and scaffolding. Are you sure? Apple is bent on turning the space into a subscription model, and we’re all going to twist again […]

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. A week ago TechCrunch covered Pico’s $6.5 million funding round and described it as “a New York startup that helps online creators and media companies […]

MasterClass, which sells a subscription to celebrity-taught classes, sits on the cusp of entertainment and education. It offers virtual, yet aspirational learning: an online tennis class with Serena Williams, a cooking session with Gordon Ramsay. While there’s the off chance that an instructor might actually talk to you — it has happened before — the […]

Yifat Aran Contributor Share on Twitter Dr. Yifat Aran is a visiting scholar at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and an incoming Assistant Professor in Haifa University Faculty of Law. She earned her JSD from Stanford Law School where her dissertation focused on equity-based compensation in Silicon Valley startups. Imagine that you get a […]

This week’s episode of Found features The SMART Tire Company co-founder and CEO Earl Cole, a one-time Survivor champion whose startup is working with NASA to commercialize some of its space-age tech. Cole won a NASA startup competition seeking entrepreneurs to work with its scientists and researchers on applications of innovations it created for space […]

Twitter and Facebook have taken down about 100 posts in India, some of which were critical of New Delhi’s handling of the coronavirus, to comply with an emergency order from the Indian government at a time when South Asian nation is grappling with a globally unprecedented surge in Covid cases. New Delhi made an emergency […]

Standard operating processes exist for the simplest of tasks, so why isn’t there a standardized approach for dealing with security of the public cloud — something fundamental to our society?

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android […]

Belfast is among one of the U.K.'s fastest growing tech hubs, so we reached out to investors, founders and executives for an inside look at the city's startup ecosystem.

Bobby Goodlatte has only been an investor for about a decade, but he appears to have already made tens of millions of dollars, contrary to the expectations of some traditional VCs who have privately, and publicly, griped that too many novice investors have flooded into the industry. “I remember a very prominent investor saying at […]

Click Studios, the Australian software house that develops the enterprise password manager Passwordstate, has warned customers to reset passwords across their organizations after a cyberattack on the password manager. An email sent by Click Studios to customers said the company had confirmed that attackers had “compromised” the password manager’s software update feature in order to […]

We get up close with a robotic Groot, SpaceX has a successful astronaut launch and cryptocurrency prices tumble. This is your Daily Crunch for April 23, 2021. The big story: Meet Disney Imagineering’s new robot Disney Imagineering’s Project Kiwi represents a real robotics milestone — a free-walking robot that seems to fully capture the personality […]

Earlier this year we reported on how Snap had acquired Berlin-based Fit Analytics, an AI-based fitting technology startup, as part of a wider push into e-commerce services, specifically to gain technology that can help prospective online shoppers get a better sense of how a particular item or size would fit them. A 10-Q filing from […]

Honda’s new goal is to achieve 100% EV sales in North America by 2040 as part of its broader target of being carbon neutral by 2050. CEO Toshihiro Mibe announced the planned shift away from internal combustion engines at a news conference on Friday, his first since taking over executive leadership of the company in […]

SPACs have been around for decades, but they took the 2020 IPO market by storm. For some context: 2020 had more than 248 SPACs — more than the sum of the SPACs in the previous decade.

Hawke Ventures, the investment arm of marketing consultancy Hawke Media, is announcing that it has closed its first $5.6 million venture fund. Managing Partner Drew Leahy acknowledged that the firm’s focus on marketing technology isn’t exactly in high demand among other VCs right now. “People are running away from martech […] but that’s our circle […]

Origin stories are satisfying because we already know the hero will overcome the odds — and in doing so, they'll reveal their core strengths.

The median step up in biotech valuations from seed to Series A is now 2x, higher than in all later rounds. As a result, biotech startups will continue to attract more investment at earlier stages.

Ever since I read this Bloomberg story about how songs are engineered to go viral on TikTok, I’ve had one thought in my head, if you can call it that — it’s more of a noise, or impression: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Yes, it’s the sound of internally screaming. Just when I thought I understood how deeply social […]

Cryptocurrency prices continued to tumble Friday with Bitcoin leading the charge, with prices for the internet currency dipping below $50,000 for the first time since early March. Bitcoin is down roughly 20% week-over-week, around 30% from its all-time high of nearly $65,000 early last week. The market cap of the coin has dipped below $1 […]

A biotech company that has spent 11 years researching supplements to increase human longevity plans to launch its supplements later this year. Longevica says it has attracted a total of $13 million from investors, including Alexander Chikunov, a longevity investor, who is also president of the company. Longevica says it created a biotechnology platform for […]

Raising capital for a new fund is always hard. But should you give preferential economics or other benefits to a seed anchor investor who makes a material commitment to the fund?

India’s central bank has restricted American Express and Diners Club from adding new customers starting next month, it said Friday, citing violation of local data-storage rules. In a statement, the Reserve Bank of India said existing customers of either of the two card companies will not be impacted by the new order, which goes into […]

Don’t let procrastination slow your roll. Yeah, we’re looking at you, early-stage founders. At TechCrunch, we love to reward action with savings. Want to save a cool $100? Buy your Early Stage 2021: Marketing & Fundraising pass before April 30, at 11:59 p.m. (PT), and you’ll keep a cool $100 in your pocket. Take action, […]

The best venture capitalists take moonshot risks based on due diligence, support portfolio companies through ups and downs and find focus through noise. When you look at the job description of the best founder, you’ll find nearly the exact same list of characteristics (except, of course, instead of a portfolio, the founder is supporting a […]

While there’s been plenty of attention and money lavished on virtual event platforms over the past year, Introvoke co-founder and CEO Oana Manolache predicted that we’re only at the beginning of a “third wave of digital transformation.” In her framing, the first wave came at the beginning of the pandemic, when everyone was using video […]

After spending much of his career in mission-critical environments, including the Israeli Air Force, Israeli Intelligence and leading development of a cybersecurity product at Microsoft, Amit Rosenzweig turned his attention to autonomous vehicles. It was a technology that he soon recognized would need what every other mission-critical system requires: humans. “I understood that there are […]

This is why I only buy index funds. No one knows what anything (interesting) is worth.

In the explosion of edtech businesses with new approaches, we are in danger of overlooking an established model that can be adapted to solve these challenges. That model is apprenticeships.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. First and foremost, Equity was nominated for a Webby for “Best Technology Podcast”!!! Drop everything and go Vote for Equity! We’d appreciate it. A lot. And even if we lose, well, we’ll keep doing our thing and making […]

Does the science, technology — and yes, art — of creating new ways to transport people and parcels get your EV motor running? Then join us on June 9 at TC Sessions: Mobility 2021. We’ll pack the day with interactive presentations and breakout sessions. Explore new tech, find emerging trends, discover what’s catching investor interest […]

The black curtain pulls aside and a character straight out of the movies waves hello. This is not an uncommon occurrence when I’m around Imagineers, but this time is special. The character isn’t a costume, it’s a robot. And, unlike the m​any animatronic figures you’ve seen in the parks, it’s not stuck in one place. […]

The European Union’s lead data protection supervisor has called for remote biometric surveillance in public places to be banned outright under incoming AI legislation. The European Data Protection Supervisor’s (EDPS) intervention follows a proposal, put out by EU lawmakers on Wednesday, for a risk-based approach to regulating applications of artificial intelligence. The Commission’s legislative proposal […]

Alphawave IP is a global semiconductor IP company that focuses on the way semiconductors communicate — something which is going to be crucial as 5G data networks roll out and start to power everything from homes, industry and autonomous vehicles, for instance. It’s therefore interesting to note that the Toronto-born company is planning a London […]

SpaceX has another successful human space launch to its credit, after a good takeoff and orbital delivery of its Crew Dragon spacecraft on Friday morning. The Dragon took off aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 5:49 AM EDT (2:49 AM EDT). On board were four astronauts, including NASA’s Megan McArthur […]

TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey European founders and investors in cities outside the larger European capitals. Over the next few weeks, we will ask entrepreneurs in these cities to talk about their ecosystems, in their own words. This is your chance to put Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Bielefeld, Frankfurt on the […]

SpaceX is set to launch its second operational commercial crew mission to the International Space Station for NASA, with a liftoff time of 5:49 AM EDT (2:49 AM PDT) on Friday morning. The flight will carry four astronauts, including two from NASA, one from JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and one from the ESA […]

Move over Citi Bike, there’s a new docked, shared bike service in town — only this one is all electric. Next week, JOCO will be the first shared operator in New York City to launch a network of e-bike stations on private property for public use. The service, powered by shared mobility platform Vulog, will […]

We test out Apple’s lost item finder, Google Fi gets a new unlimited plan and Facebook tests new video ad targeting features. This is your Daily Crunch for April 22, 2021. The big story: First impressions of Apple’s AirTags AirTags are Apple’s new Tile competitor designed to help owners locate lost objects. They use Bluetooth […]

While the concept of “deepfakes,” or AI-generated synthetic imagery, has been decried primarily in connection with involuntary depictions of people, the technology is dangerous (and interesting) in other ways as well. For instance, researchers have shown that it can be used to manipulate satellite imagery to produce real-looking — but totally fake — overhead maps […]

Regardless of a young company’s struggles or success, sooner or later the question of when, how or whether to sell the enterprise presents itself. It’s the biggest question a founder will face.

Apple was questioned on its inability to rein in subscription scammers on its App Store during yesterday’s Senate antitrust hearing. The tech giant has argued that one of the reasons it requires developers to pay App Store commissions is to help Apple fight marketplace fraud and protect consumers. But developers claim Apple is doing very […]

As market demand continues to accelerate, companies are taking advantage of the benefits productivity infrastructure bring to their organization both internally and externally.

When Xuezhao Lan first formed Basis Set Ventures, the goal was to leverage technology to give venture capital investing super powers. From the earliest days, when Lan hired former TechCrunch reporter John Mannes, and then built out the team with the data scientist Rachel Wong, former Upfront Ventures partner Chang Xu and former Opendoor vice […]

With the increase of digital transacting over the past year, cybercriminals have been having a field day. In 2020, complaints of suspected internet crime surged by 61%, to 791,790, according to the FBI’s 2020 Internet Crime Report. Those crimes — ranging from personal and corporate data breaches to credit card fraud, phishing and identity theft […]

Google Fi, Google’s cell network, is turning six today and to celebrate, the team is launching a new pricing plan, dubbed “Simply Unlimited” starting at $60 per month for a single line (down to $30 per line for three lines or more). The new plan features unlimited calls and texts in the U.S., plus unlimited […]

Alexa von Tobel, co-founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital, will be joining TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 taking place September 21-23 to help judge the startups competing in Startup Battlefield. NOTE: Applications are now open to don’t hesitate to throw your hat in the ring here! Prior to Inspired Capital, Alexa founded LearnVest in 2008 with […]

A university student is suing exam proctoring software maker Proctorio to “quash a campaign of harassment” against critics of the company, including an accusation that the company misused copyright laws to remove his tweets that were critical of the software. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the lawsuit this week on behalf of Miami University […]

The Biden administration must clarify current laws pertaining to AI and machine learning models — how we will evaluate use by private actors and how we will govern AI usage within our systems.

When should you consider outsourcing customer care, and what should you look for? Here's an overview on how startups are leveraging customer care as a service (CCaaS).