Crunch Hype

One of the biggest pain points for startups and small businesses is keeping up with back office tasks such as bookkeeping and managing taxes. QuickBooks, it seems, just doesn’t always cut it. Three-time co-founders Waseem Daher, Jeff Arnold, and Jessica McKellar formed Pilot with the mission of affordably providing back office services to startups and […]

"When the CEO sets that culture of customer obsession and customer delight, it sets the foundation for the future."

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 […]

John Ruffolo isn’t as famous as some investors, but he’s very well-known in Canadian business circles. The longtime head of Arthur Andersen’s tech, media, and telecommunications practice, he joined OMERS roughly a decade ago when a former colleague became CEO and brought him aboard the pension giant to create a venture fund. The idea was […]

Our reporting team watched more than 300 pitches over 8 hours at YC Demo Day and made a list of their favorite startups.

Amazon pushes back against unionization, WeWork eyes the SPAC route and there’s new spyware on Android. This is your Daily Crunch for March 26, 2021. The big story: Amazon makes PR push ahead of union vote Workers at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama (a suburb of Birmingham) will vote next week on whether to […]

Net revenue retention is the most underrated metric out there. The greater the NRR, the quicker companies can scale. Simply put: the power of compound math.

Last October as Slack was preparing for its virtual Frontiers conference, the company began thinking about different ways people could communicate on the platform. While it had built its name on being able to integrate a lot of services in a single place to alleviate the dreaded task-switching phenomenon, it has been largely text-based up […]

“Headless commerce” is a phrase that gets thrown around lot (I’ve typed it several times today already), but Vue Storefront CEO Patrick Friday has an especially vivid way of using the concept to illustrate his startup’s place in the broader ecosystem. “Vue Storefront is the bodiless front end,” Friday said. “We are the walking head.” In other […]

The same frustrations have plagued urban roadways for decades. But technology is finally providing new ways to address the challenges of crowding, pollution and parking enforcement on city streets.

The interest in creating value through e-commerce brands is striking. So what’s the roll-up hype about?

This week’s Amazon public relations push will no doubt go down as one of the odder public-facing strategies in tech. As some of the company’s biggest rivals were getting ready to virtually testify on Capitol Hill, the retail giant’s CEO of worldwide consumer business appeared to suggest that Amazon is not only as progressive as […]

Gamefam learned to develop on Roblox the hard way -- by trial and error and by getting better at listening to the community’s unique gamer culture. Here are some common mistakes.

Woven Capital, the investment arm of Toyota’s innovation-focused subsidiary Woven Planet, has announced an investment into Silicon Valley-based autonomous delivery vehicle company Nuro. This kicks off the new $800 million strategic fund, which will invest in growth-stage technology companies that could one day develop into partners or acquisitions to further a mission of building the […]

Hub, a productivity platform for technical pre-sales, has formally launched with $1 million in seed funding. CEO Freddy Mangum and CTO Karl Gainey founded Hub in 2020. The pair both had experience in technical sales and recognized the challenges of using spreadsheets to manage their business. They researched and surveyed sales engineers at big and […]

When TechCrunch covered UIPath’s Series A in 2017, it was a small startup out of Romania working in a little known area of enterprise software called robotic process automation (RPA). Then the company took off with increasingly large multibillion dollar valuations. It progressed through its investment rounds, culminating with a $750 million round on an […]

While new headless commerce platforms are emerging all the time, Swell CEO Eric Ingram told me that it remains “really hard to do something new in e-commerce.” Specifically, he told me that most headless platforms (which offer back-end infrastructure separate from the front-end shopping experience) allow businesses to build a faster shopping experience, but they’re […]

UiPath added its name to the list of companies pursuing public-market offerings with the release of its S-1, which details a quickly growing software company with sharply improving profitability.

Procrastinators, last-minute decision makers and overwhelmed entrepreneurs heed this call! Your last chance to save $100 or more and attend both TechCrunch Early Stage 2021 bootcamps expires tonight! You’re dedicated to learning the essentials of building a solid early-stage startup, yes? That’s exactly what you’ll get at TC Early Stage 2021 (Operations & Fundraising: April […]

At this point, if you aren't going public via a direct listing, traditional IPO or SPAC, are you even a growthy business?

Benitago Group, a startup looking to build a big portfolio of Amazon brands, is announcing that it has raised $55 million in new funding — most of it in the form of credit lines to fund acquisitions, plus an equity investment. “We want to take these brands and growth them and run them a lot […]

China’s largest question and answer platform Zhihu began trading in New York at $9.5 per share at the lower end of its IPO range, valuing the company at about $5.3 billion. The aggregate offering size of Zhihu’s IPO and the concurrent private placements is $772.5 million, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their option to […]

Security researchers say a powerful new Android malware masquerading as a critical system update can take complete control of a victim’s device and steal their data. The malware was found bundled in an app called “System Update” that had to be installed outside of Google Play, the app store for Android devices. Once installed by […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. News was right back up to a dull roar this week, so we did our best to trim and hone and just bring you the most […]

Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis company, announced Friday it has closed on $100 million in Series D financing, doubling its valuation to over $2 billion. The round comes just four months after the company secured a $100 million Series C round at a $1 billion valuation. Paradigm led the latest funding event while existing backers Addition […]

This morning, well-known robotic process automation (RPA) unicorn UiPath has filed to go public. The company’s S-1 filing comes after it raised billions of dollars while private, making it amongst the best-funded startups in history. Over the last year, for example, the company’s rapid-fired fundraising included its Series E and Series F rounds of capital, both […]

We’ve seen a lot of trend lines moving throughout 2020 and into 2021 around automation, workflow, robotic process automation (RPA) and the movement to low-code and no-code application building. While all of these technologies can work on their own, they are deeply connected and we are starting to see some movement towards bringing them together. […]

Vibrant, a medical technology company that’s developed a disposable vibrating pill to treat chronic constipation, today announced its Series E for $7.5 million. The company is based in Tel Aviv and is lead by Lior Ben-Tsur, a startup veteran. Since its founding in 2007, the company has raised a total of $25 million. This round is […]

Google’s latest investment in India is a startup that is helping businesses come online. One-year-old DotPe, a Gurgaon-based startup, said on Friday it has raised $27.5 million in its Series A financing round. The round was led by PayU, with participation from existing investor Info Edge Ventures and Google. The young startup, now valued at […]

If you browse Instagram, you are probably familiar with the term “link in bio.” Links aren’t allowed in post captions, and users are only allowed one URL in their bios, so many create a simple website with multiple links for their followers. Linktree, one of the most popular “link in bio” services with more than […]

The home ownership rate in Vietnam is about 90%, but many millennials are struggling to join that number. Rising property prices in cities, coupled with a lack of financing options, mean more people have to delay buying their first homes unless they have family support. Part of Y Combinator’s latest batch, Homebase was founded in 2019 […]

There is tremendous potential in the Middle East for adtech startups and digital marketing agencies. Although consumers there used to prefer traditional advertising, the internet took over in 2020.

BBG Ventures, an eight-year-old, New York-based seed- and early-stage venture firm that only backs founding teams which feature at least one woman, just locked down $50 million in capital for its third fund, a major leap over its first two funds, both sized at $10 million. One determining factor in the bigger fund is that […]

Tech executives face Congress, Spotify gets a redesign and Snapchat is developing a new Remix feature. This is your Daily Crunch for March 25, 2021. The big story: Zuckerberg defends Facebook over role in Capitol attack Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Sundar Pichai appeared at a hearing today with the House Energy […]

If Congress wants to write laws that effectively regulate companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter, it needs to change the ways it interacts with those companies, because these hearings ain’t it. They’re a waste of everyone’s time, and no one is even pretending otherwise. To truly put Big Tech on the spot, future hearings need […]

Porsche has added its first all-electric vehicle, the Taycan sports sedan, to its subscription and short-term rental program as part of a broader expansion that aims to build a new customer base of U.S. owners. The German automaker said Thursday it is also expanding the Porsche Drive subscription and rental programs to five more cities […]

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey got called out by Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) for tweeting during today’s congressional hearing on disinformation and extremism. The tech exec’s tweet was likely expressing frustration with the format of the hearing, which once again saw the tech CEOs forced to boil down their answers to complicated questions into simple “yes” […]

Matt Salzberg, who co-founded and served as CEO of meal kit startup Blue Apron until 2017, is back in the startup business with a new venture studio called Material. Along with Salzberg, Material is led by partners Andy Salamon (formerly a general partner at Atomic Labs who backed Hims and Terminal) and Danielle David Parks […]

It might seem like everyone and their mom is selling a non-fungible token (NFT) these days, but Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova is one of the few strategizing beyond the hype cycle. The NFT market is just getting started, but where is it headed? “I’ve been using cryptocurrency before this,” Tolokonnikova told TechCrunch, noting Pussy […]

On Wednesday, a coalition of a dozen state attorneys general called on Facebook and Twitter to step up their enforcement of their community guidelines to curtail the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on their platforms. Their letter specifically identified 12 “anti-vaxxer” accounts that were responsible for a sizable 65% of public anti-vaccine content on Facebook, […]

In an interview with Reuters six days after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg infamously downplayed her company’s role in the day’s horrific events, which left five people dead. “I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop hate and don’t have […]

Electric vehicle manufacturers are pushing back against a decision to delay penalty increases for automakers who fail to meet fuel efficiency standards. A lobbying group representing legacy automakers — many of whom are now making substantial investments in zero-emissions vehicles — said the increase would have a significant economic impact during a time when the […]

Business leaders are led to believe that reaching out for support is a sign of weakness. That stigma is a huge part of the problem.

While it's not likely that we'll be driving around wearing VR headsets anytime soon, in-car AR is already changing the way we travel, and it promises to continue to evolve.

One of the challenges that some would-be TikTok rivals have faced is that they often lack the same robust set of content creation tools, like filters, effects and tools for repurposing others’ content — like TikTok’s Stitch and Duet, for example. It now appears that Snapchat is working to correct that latter problem, however, as […]

Austin-based home lab testing kit startup Everlywell is expanding its scope considerably with two acquisitions, and a transformation that includes the establishment of a new parent company led by Everlywell CEO and co-founder Julia Cheek. The new entity, called Everly Health, will now offers services including at-home lab testing kits and education, population-scale testing through a […]

Design and marketing consultancy R/GA is expanding its Venture Studios program with the launch of a new Coalition Venture Studio focused specifically on supporting Black-led and Black-owned startups. The initiative is led by R/GA Entrepreneur in Residence Davyeon Ross, a Black entrepreneur who founded sports analytics company ShotTracker. The startup (which is backed by TechCrunch’s […]

A startup from Europe is joining the race to become the first big provider of lab grown fish. Bluu Biosciences has raised €7 million in a round of financing from investors including Manta Ray Ventures, Norrsken VC, Be8, CPT Capital and Lever VC to compete with a host of startups like BluNalu, Wild Type, and […]

New York State officials struck a deal with Gov. Andrew Cuomo to allow recreational use of cannabis. The move would create the largest legal cannabis market on the East Coast, potentially creating tens of thousands of jobs and significant startups opportunities. This is a big first step, though the first sale of recreational weed is […]

Baking operational flexibility, agility and speed into your startup’s DNA from the get-go will go a long way toward driving your ultimate success. Understanding its importance and learning best practices might seem daunting, but TC Early Stage 2021: Operations and Fundraising (April 1-2), is all about connecting early-stage founders with subject-matter experts across the startup […]