Crunch Hype

Eben Bayer has spent the better part of fourteen years proving out the power of the humble mushroom as the world’s truly functional food. As the chief executive and founder of Ecovative Design, Bayer has made replacements for foam packaging, lamps and furniture, leather materials, and even meats like bacon from mighty mushroom mycelia (they […]

Byju’s is eying acquisition of a startup that could help the biggest e-learning Indian firm deepen its footprint in the U.S. The Indian startup is in talks to acquire online reading platform Epic, a startup that offers unlimited access to over 40,000 books, videos, and quizzes from more than 250 publishers to kids aged 12 […]

MessageBird, the omnichannel cloud communications platform recently valued at $3 billion, is continuing to ramp up its M&A activity. Following last year’s acquisition of Pusher, a company that provides real-time web technologies, it is announcing that it has acquired “video-first” customer engagement platform 24sessions, and customer data platform Hull. Terms of the two new deals […]

User guides, knowledge articles and community discussions form a detailed, yet very fragmented, landscape of information about a company and its products. Today, a company that’s built a platform both to organize that data, and help those who need it to tap into it more effectively, is announcing a round of funding that underscores the […]

After weeks of rumors, Xiaomi officially confirmed that it is making a foray into the electric vehicle space. The Chinese smartphone and IoT giant will set up a wholly-owned subsidiary to operate a smart EV business, the company said in a filing on Tuesday. Xiaomi will inject an initial 10 billion yuan ($1.52 billion) into […]

In the world’s largest gaming market, China, console games play a relatively small part as their revenue has been meager compared to mobile and PC games for years — at least by the official numbers (more on this later). There remains a community of hardcore console lovers, but they are finding it harder to get […]

After partnering with Patreon last year to support patron-only podcasts, Acast has developed a full suite of subscription tools called Acast+. The company has experimented with paywalled podcasts beyond Patreon in the past, but Acast+ appears to be its most comprehensive offering yet. Podcasters who run ads from Acast will be able to introduce a variety of other paid options, […]

IBM has installed a couple of its own Quantum System One machines across the world in recent years, but today it announced its first private-sector U.S. deployment thanks to a new ten-year partnership with the Cleveland Clinic. This not only marks IBM’s first U.S. install of one of its quantum computers outside of its own […]

Google is announcing a handful of major updates to Google Maps today that range from bringing its Live View AR directions indoors to adding weather data to its maps, but the most tantalizing news — which in typical Google fashion doesn’t have an ETA just yet — is that Google plans to bring a vastly […]

Staffbase, which provides an intranet-style internal communications platform for companies, has raised a $145 million (€122 million) financing round led by General Atlantic, a growth equity firm. Existing investors Insight Partners and e.ventures also participated in the round. Started in Chemnitz in Germany in 2014, Staffbase has managed to onboard over 1,000 clients including Adidas, […]

European satellite and communications startup, Hiber BV has secured €26 million in EU and private investment to expand its IoT satellite network. The funding comes from the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), the EU’s innovation agency, which has a €278 million Innovation Fund. The EIC co-invested with an innovation credit provided by the Dutch […]

Many work teams, especially stores and restaurants, rely on manual spreadsheets to ensure their operations are running smoothly. Based in Singapore, Nimbly develops software that automates more of that process. Its features include digital checklists, inventory management and field audits that can be accessed through a mobile app. The startup announced today it has raised […]

Vienna-based GoStudent, which connects students to tutors on a virtual learning platform, has raised a €70M Series B funding round led by new US investor Coatue. Coatue has been making ‘raids’ into the European startup scene for the past year or so. It was joined by existing investors Left Lane Capital and DN Capital. This […]

Finch Capital, the early-stage fintech VC with a presence in London and Amsterdam, is acquiring Wirecard Turkey, a subsidiary of Wirecard, the disgraced fintech out of Germany. The acquisition, for which terms remain undisclosed and is still subject to regulatory approval, sees Finch create a new Ireland-registered entity called Nomu Pay. After facing a huge […]

Men’s health and wellbeing startup Manual has raised a $30m Series A round from US-based Sonoma Brands and Waldencast, and Manual’s existing European investors Felix Capital and Cherry Ventures. FJ Labs and the GISEV Family Office also participated in the round. The cash will be used for product development and international expansion. Manual provides diagnostics, treatments […]

African-focused talent recruitment and outsourcing company TalentQL today announced that it has been accepted into Techstars Toronto. The company will join nine other startups in the accelerator’s class of 2021. This comes two weeks after Nigerian bus-booking platform Plentywaka announced its participation in the program as well. TalentQL was launched last November by serial entrepreneurs Adewale Yusuf, […]

Everli, the European marketplace for online grocery shopping that started in Italy but now also operates in Poland, Czech Republic and France, has raised a $100 million in Series C funding. The round is led by Verlinvest, with participation from new investors Luxor, DN Capital, C4 Ventures, and Convivialité Ventures. FITEC (part of Fondo Italiano […]

If you develop software for a large enterprise company, chances are you’ve heard of Tricentis. If you don’t develop software for a large enterprise company, chances are you haven’t. The software testing company with a focus on modern cloud and enterprise applications was founded in Austria in 2007 and grew from a small consulting firm […]

During every economic boom, there are startup investors who appear on the scene from new corners. Some churn out; others earn the respect of the old guard over time. Jake Paul would be happy to be in the latter camp. Then again, the 24-year-old didn’t become a social media star by being conventional. Little wonder […]

LIVEKINDLY Collective, the shouty parent company behind a family of plant-based food brands, has snagged cash from the global impact investing arm of $103 billion investment firm TPG to close its latest round of funding at $335 million. The company’s fundraising shows that investors still have high hopes for plant-based food brands and that despite […]

We’ve got the details on Boston Dynamics’ upcoming warehouse robot Stretch, Apple releases security patches and Cazoo is going public via SPAC. This is your Daily Crunch for March 29, 2021. The big story: Boston Dynamics shows off its next commercial robot Boston Robotics continues its transformation from research organization to commercial robotics company: Stretch […]

Earlier this year Divvy, a Utah-based software company that provides corporate spend management software, raised a $165 million round at a $1.6 billion valuation. It followed its competitor Brex to unicorn-status as the market for financial services software and corporate payment solutions stayed red-hot in 2021 after a blockbuster 2020. Now Ramp, a competitor to […]

Swiss automation and technology company ABB has announced a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create a cloud-based EV fleet management platform that it hopes will hasten the electrification of fleets. The platform, which the company says will help operators maintain business continuity as they switch to electric, will roll out in the second […]

Oh hello. What’s this then? A Niantic-branded AR headset? Perhaps? John Hanke, CEO of the Pokémon GO developer teased what could be a first-party head-mounted wearable, as the company makes a more aggressive push into augmented reality. “Exciting to see the progress we’re making to enable new kinds of devices that leverage our platform,” the […]

A growing number of companies have emerged over the last few years determined to reduce waste in the electric vehicle battery market. Chief among these is recycling firm Redwood Materials, which has quickly expanded since its launch in 2017 by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel to become the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America. Now […]

Another proptech is considering raising capital through the public arena. Knock confirmed Monday that it is considering going public, although CEO Sean Black did not specify whether the company would do so via a traditional IPO, SPAC merger or direct listing. “We are considering all of our options,” Black told TechCrunch. “We pioneered the real […]

With the advent of the pandemic, there’s a historic opportunity to bring the smart city community together and revitalize these urban centers to make them more livable, sustainable and inclusive.

Before NFTs are written off as a flash in the pan, it might be worth considering that NFTs were never designed to be very useful in traditional investment frameworks.

The best way to know which aspects of the NFT craze will outlast this trendy boom is to look at the history of comparable assets; people have been making crypto collectibles for nearly seven years.

The coming wave of electric vehicles will require more than thousands of charging stations. In addition to being installed, they also need to work — and today, that isn’t happening. If a station doesn’t send out an error or a driver doesn’t report it, network providers might never know there’s even a problem. Kameale C. […]

This morning Bunch announced that it has closed a total of $4.4 million in seed capital, including a new $1 million infusion this week. The company’s product, a mobile app, focuses on teaching leadership skills to the younger generations more accustomed to learning in smaller chunks, often on the go. Don’t roll your eyes, all […]

EQT Ventures, an investment firm based in Europe that has raised more than €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion USD), announced that it has promoted Laura Yao to partner. At the same time, the firm announced it recently hired Anne Raimondi, former SVP of Operations at Zendesk, as operating partner. The company is based in Stockholm, with […]

Despite the fact that capital is abundant and dozens of startups get funding every day, the process of raising institutional capital is anything but simple. From getting an investor’s attention to nailing your virtual pitch meeting to the legal aspects of your term sheet, there is plenty to navigate. Luckily, TechCrunch Early Stage is bringing […]

Payment card network Visa has announced that transactions can be settled using USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin powered by the Ethereum blockchain. Crypto.com is the first company to test the new capability with its own Visa-branded cards. USDC is a stablecoin co-founded by Circle and Coinbase and by managed the Centre consortium. As the name […]

The U.S. government has cut trade ties to Myanmar, two months after the country’s military staged a coup overthrowing the country’s president and also its de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and killed at least 200 protesters resulting from its offensive. In a statement, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the trade suspension would […]

Can the market hold up the optimism that many SPAC-led debuts are implying in their pricing? I do not know. But there are a lot of wagers being made in the market today that are giving me pause.

Cazoo is picking up significant capital today by teaming up with a SPAC in the U.S. at a $7 billion valuation, but it’s the end of the line for another big European name in used-car sales. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Berlin-based Frontier Car Group, which builds used-car marketplaces with a focus on emerging […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You […]

IBM today announced the launch of its first developer certification for programming quantum computers. While quantum computing may still be in its infancy, most pundits in the industry will tell you that now is the time to learn the basic concepts. And while there is little that’s immediately intuitive on the hardware side of quantum […]

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every weekend in your inbox. Hi friends and new readers, welcome to The Station. A few items before we jump into the news. Rebecca Bellan, who started writing for TechCrunch earlier this month, […]

“There is no doubt that over time, people are going to rely less and less on passwords… they just don’t meet the challenge for anything you really want to secure,” said Bill Gates. That was seventeen years ago. Although passwords have lost some of their charm, they have so far survived many attempts to kill […]

Chinese ride-hailing company DiDi Chuxing has started operations in South Africa today, according to Reuters. Founded in 2012, the Beijing based company operates in more than 400 cities in China. It claims to serve over 550 million users in 16 countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Australia. This South African expansion (first launch in […]

Boston Dynamics’ transition from a decades-long research robotics firm to a company that productizes and sells hardware has been a fascinating one to watch. There have been some tough lessons along the way, including the very real lesson that at the end of the day, most robots in the world will be deployed for mundane […]

Meet Singular, a new VC firm based in Paris that just finished raising its initial fund. The firm was founded by two former Alven partners — Raffi Kamber and Jérémy Uzan. They have some ambitious goals and an interesting investment model that could help them remain involved even during late-stage rounds. Overall, the firm raised […]

Cazoo, the UK used-car sales portal that has been on a major fundraising tear in the last year, will be next company to pursue more growth by way of a SPAC: the company today announced that it will list on the NYSE by way of a business combination with AJAX I, a special purpose acquisition […]

Last week the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that the national government’s plan to tax carbon emissions was legal in a decision that could have significant implications for the nation’s climate-focused startup companies. The ruling put an end to roughly two years of legal challenges and could set the stage for a boom in funding and […]

Ajaib, the Indonesian investment app, has added $65 million to its Series A, bringing the round’s new total to $90 million. The extension was led by Ribbit Capital, the fintech investor that also led Robinhood’s $3.4 billion funding last month. Ajaib is Ribbit Capital’s first investment in Southeast Asia. The extension will be used to […]

With the close of its latest investment fund, Norrsken VC is is taking an unprecedented step in tying the compensation of its partners to the positive changes the firm’s portfolio companies have on the world — and not just their financial returns. The firm, which released its impact assessment for 2020 last week, has invested […]

The beauty of podcasting is that anyone can do it. It’s a rare medium that’s nearly as easy to make as it is to consume. And as such, no two people do it exactly the same way. There are a wealth of hardware and software solutions open to potential podcasters, so setups run the gamut […]

Apple has released an update for iPhones, iPads and Watches to patch a security vulnerability under active attack by hackers. The security update lands as iOS 14.4.2 and iPadOS 14.4.2, which also covers a patch to older devices as iOS 12.5.2. watchOS also updates to 7.3.3. Apple said the vulnerability, discovered by security researchers at […]