Crunch Hype

Chinese users of the instant messenger Signal knew that the good times wouldn’t last long. The app, which is used for encrypted conversations, is unavailable in mainland China as of the morning of March 16, a test by TechCrunch shows. The website of the app has been banned in mainland China since March 15, according […]

Over the years, Jack Ma has accumulated a media portfolio in China that rivals that of Jeff Bezos in the United States. But now the future of Ma’s media empire is in the crosshairs of the Chinese government, which is wary of the billionaire’s increasing media clout. The Chinese authorities have ordered Alibaba to divest […]

Shared micromobility startup Bird said it is investing $150 million into a European expansion plan that will including launching in more than 50 cities this year, a move that it says will double its footprint in the region. This growth plan is already underway with Bird recently bringing its scooters to Bergen, Norway, Tarragona, Spain […]

Sherpa, a startup from Bilbao, Spain that was an early mover in building a voice-based digital assistant and predictive search for Spanish-speaking audiences, has raised some more funding to double down on a newer focus for the startup: building out privacy-first AI services for enterprise customers. The company has closed $8.5 million, funding that Xabi […]

Stripe gets a mind-boggling valuation, Facebook promotes COVID vaccines and Elon Musk has an interesting new title. This is your Daily Crunch for March 15, 2021. The big story: Stripe valued at $95B That’s right: The popular payments company has raised $600 million in new funding at a $95 billion valuation. It says it will […]

GitHub has reached an “amicable resolution” with the person the company fired in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January, the former employee told TechCrunch. On the day a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, a worried GitHub employee warned his co-workers in the D.C. area to be […]

Gumroad, a startup that helps creators sell their work, is raising $6 million at a $100 million valuation. While $1 million of that total is reserved for AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant and Basecamp founder Jason Fried, the remaining $5 million is being raised with a twist: anyone willing to fork over at least $100 bucks […]

Every once in a meme-ified blue moon, the wildly irrational cryptocurrency ecosystem gives birth to something that might outlive the hype.

Amid growing competition from Twitter Spaces and other newcomers, popular social audio startup Clubhouse is making a move aimed at seeding its network with more high-quality content: It’s launching an accelerator program. During its weekly town hall event on Sunday, the company detailed its plans for its inaugural accelerator called “Clubhouse Creator First,” which will […]

Kelauni Jasmyn, general partner at the new Black Tech Nation Ventures, can explain her aims for the new firm quite succinctly: “The goal is to get more Black people funded.” That’s something Jasmyn has been working on already with Black Tech Nation, a Pittsburgh-based organization that supports Black entrepreneurs with education, content, community and more. […]

Fondeadora, a fintech startup based in Mexico City and building a challenger bank, has extended its Series A funding round. I covered the company’s original round back in August 2020. And now, Fondeadora is adding $14 million on top of the original $14 million it had already raised — it now represents a $28 million […]

From distributed homes in Cambridge, Mass. and Cambridge, England, inBalance Research is joining Y Combinator as it looks to accelerate its business as the oracle for independent energy providers, utilities and market makers. Selling a service it calls Delphi, the very early-stage startup is hoping to provide analysis for power producers and utilities on the […]

Let's explore both companies' pricing intervals through our usual lens of revenue multiples, market comps and general sass.

You might think that Clubhouse is the final word on audio-centric social networks, but a San Francisco startup called Swell is launching its own iOS and Android app focused on voice conversations. The big difference: While conversations on Clubhouse all happen in real time — meaning that you’ve got to listen live or miss it […]

For modern cars, the standalone, photo-frame-like display in the center of the dashboard has become something of a default. But with its next-generation iDrive 8 system, BMW is moving away from this design language by introducing what it calls the “BMW Curved Display,” which takes this idea to the next level by expanding that center […]

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 back to The Station, a newsletter dedicated to all the present and future ways people and packages move from Point A to […]

A ban by Amsterdam authorities on housing owners offering their properties for vacation rentals in three central districts of the popular tourist city has been overturned after a court ruled it has no basis in law. City authorities had been responding to concerns over the impact of tourist platforms like Airbnb on quality of life […]

More than one-fourth of the U.S. adult population lives with some form of disability, and businesses that are ignorant or slow to respond to accessibility needs are producing products for a smaller group of users.

The COVID-19 pandemic boosted U.S. online shopping by $183 billion, according to a new report by Adobe’s e-commerce division, released this morning. This figure represents the increase in online shopping during the months of March 2020, when the pandemic began in the U.S, through February 2021. During this time, U.S. consumers spent a total of […]

Voyage, the autonomous vehicle startup that spun out of Udacity, has been acquired by Cruise, a deal that points to the continued consolidation within the nascent industry. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed; the majority of Voyage’s 60-person team will move over to Cruise and the company’s co-founder and CEO Oliver Cameron will […]

Early-stage founders why not take a page from the old Doublemint gum slogan — double your pleasure, double your fun — and buy a dual-event pass for access to both TC Early Stage 2021 events? We can’t promise minty-fresh breath, but you will get twice the knowledge and double the opportunity to connect and expand […]

Mass manufacturing may be the future of 3D printing (one hopes), but health products are very much its present. From orthodontics to prosthesis, medical needs are right in the sweet spot for additive manufacturing. Prototyping is a category with a specific ceiling, while true mass manufacturing is still at an impossible scale for most of […]

Netflix’s original films received 35 Oscar nominations this year, once again putting the streaming service ahead of ahead of any other Hollywood studios. “Mank” led the pack with 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Oldman) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Amanda Seyfried). That […]

Relativity Space already has a significant volume of launch contracts on the books – more pre-sales for its Terran 1 rocket than any other launch vehicle in history, in fact, according to CEO and co-founder Tim Ellis. But its latest customer is a key one: The U.S. Department of Defense, which has contracted Relativity Space […]

Let's examine the company's newly-shared growth results, compare them to what we knew previously, and see if we can suss out why Stripe could be worth $95 billion today, and presumably more when it does float.

Airtable, the no-code relational database that has amassed a customer base that spans 250,000 different organizations, has today announced the close of a $270 million in series E funding. The valuation comes out to $5.77 billion post-money, more than doubling its valuation from September, when it raised $185 million in Series D funding. This latest […]

Millennials and GenZers seem interested in investing more than ever these days. As a result, a number of startups have emerged in recent years to give them more options. One such startup, Gatsby, announced Monday that it has raised $10 million in a Series A round of funding. Backers include Techstars Ventures, Beta Bridge Capital, […]

Researchers at Canada’s University of Waterloo are showcasing work with prosthesis and exoskeletons that utilizes cameras and AI to deliver more natural human movement. The ExoNet project leverages video captured by wearable camera, run through deep learning AI, in order to mimic how humans adapt and adjust movements based on their environment. The project is […]

UpCodes, a startup that develops building code compliance tools, announced today it has raised $3.36 million in pre-Series A funding. This brings its total raised so far to $4.15 million. The new funding was led by Berlin-based Point Nine Capital, which focuses on SaaS and online marketplaces. The company also recently won a legal victory […]

Sprinklr, a New York-based customer experience company, announced today it has filed a confidential S-1 ahead of a possible IPO. “Sprinklr today announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock,” the […]

Match Group, the parent company to Tinder, Match, OkCupid, Hinge and other top dating apps, announced this morning it’s made a seven-figure investment into nonprofit background check platform Garbo, with the goal of helping Match Group’s users make more informed decisions about their safety when dating online. The deal will see Match working closing with […]

Last week, Elon Musk made $25 billion in one day. On Monday, he crowned himself “Technoking of Tesla.” In Musk-speak, this new title still translates into the Chief Executive Officer of the electric car company. The eccentric billionaire is nothing if not creative with his dubs (see: Offspring named X Æ A-Xii.) Zach Kirkhorn, the […]

Low-code and no-code tools have been a huge hit with enterprises keen to give their operations more of a tech boost, but often lack the resources to handle more complex integrations. Today, one of the startups that has been building low-code finance tools is announcing funding to tap into that trend and expand its business. […]

Volkswagen AG is gearing up to seize the top spot as the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer with plans announced Monday to have six 40 Gigawatt hour (GWh) battery cell production plants in operation in Europe by 2030. To get there, the automaker put in a 10-year, $14 billion order with Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt […]

Anthony Geranio has played video games for the past thirteen years. The 26 year-old first time founder of 1v1Me, a new company that lets anyone gamble on their ability to win in a player vs. player game, tried to make it as a professional gamer, but when that didn’t work, he turned to the tech […]

Zeller, a payment and financial services startup founded by former Square executives, quietly raised a $25 million AUD (about $19.4 million USD) Series A last year, it announced today. The funding was led by Addition, the investment firm founded by former Tiger Global partner Lee Fixel, and included participation from returning investors Square Peg and […]

Northvolt, the Swedish battery manufacturer which raised $1 billion in financing from investors led by Goldman Sachs and Volkswagen back in 2019, has signed a massive $14 billion battery order with VW for the next 10 years. The big buy clears up some questions about where Volkswagen will be getting the batteries for its huge […]

A new nanocoating from Curran Biotech could dramatically improve air filtration to prevent the spread of COVID-19 indoors. Their Capture Coating technology acts as a supplement to any household or commercial HVAC system by bonding to the filter fibers, giving them greater hydrophobic properties. This combined effect prevents virus-carrying droplets from traveling through the filter […]

DeepSee.ai, a startup that helps enterprises use AI to automate line-of-business problems, today announced that it has raised a $22.6 million Series A funding round led by led by ForgePoint Capital. Previous investors AllegisCyber Capital and Signal Peak Ventures also participated in this round, which brings the Salt Lake City-based company’s total funding to date […]

ElevateBio, one of the leading biotech companies focused on gene-based therapies has raised a massive $525 million Series C round of financing, more than doubling the company’s $193 million Series B funding which closed last year. This new funding comes from existing investor Matrix Capital Management, and also adds new investors SoftBank and Fidelity Management […]

For years, there was a debate as to whether WeWork was a tech company or more of a real estate play. At first, most people viewed WeWork as a real estate startup disguised as a tech startup. And as it kept scooping up more and more property, the lines continued to blur. Then we all […]

Facebook will soon label all posts discussing the coronavirus vaccination with a pointer to official information about COVID-19, it said today. It also revealed it has implemented some new “temporary” measures aimed at limiting the spread of vaccine misinformation/combating vaccine hesitancy — saying it’s reducing the distribution of content from users that have violated its […]

On the heels of reports that Stripe was raising yet more money, the payments giant has now confirmed the details. The company has closed in on another $600 million, at a valuation of $95 billion. Stripe said it will use the funding to expand its business in Europe, with a focus on its European HQ, […]

Hello friends, and welcome to Week in Review. Last week, I talked a bit about NFTs and their impact on artists. If you’re inundated with NFT talk just take one quick look at this story I wrote this week about the $69 million sale of Beeple’s photo collage. This hype cycle is probably all the […]

SpaceX has delivered another 60 Starlink satellites to orbit — meaning it has sent 180 in total to join its 1,000+ strong constellation in the past two weeks alone. Today’s launch also set a record for SpaceX for its Falcon 9 rocket reusability program, since it was the ninth flight and ninth landing for this […]

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. Want it in your inbox every Saturday morning? Sign up here. Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors. Every quarter we dig into the venture […]

Spending millions for a digital work of art that could be screenshotted feels similar to traipsing around a strip of concrete as a tourist activity. The optics don’t make immediate sense — there’s hardly any appeal in something as accessible as a Google image or street. That’s my best bet at explaining at least some […]

Despite government programs, local entrepreneurs stress that the region’s modest success is primarily driven by the private sector. Each province tends to have a godfather/cheerleader who has championed local startups through investment, advice and connections.

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 devices […]

Whether a company is liable for cyber incidents based on the actions of employees or contractors will depend on the circumstances of what happened.