Crunch Hype

The Czech Republic may be better known for beer, hockey and the sights of Prague, but its entrepreneurial community is as ambitious as any.

Who says there is no room for a new social network? Tiger Global is in advanced stages of talks to lead a round of $15 million to $20 million in seven-month-old Kutumb that values the Indian startup at about $170 million, four people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The American investment firm has offered […]

Apple has discontinued its original HomePod after four years. It says that it will continue to produce and focus on the HomePod mini, introduced last year. The larger HomePod offered a beefier sound space but the mini has been very well received and clearly accomplishes many of the duties that the larger version was tasked […]

Passion Capital, the early-stage venture firm in London, told TechCrunch earlier this week that — in an apparent first for a European fund — it plans to crowdfund the final stage of its third and latest vehicle. Specifically, it’s carving out around half a million dollars for anyone who wants to invest in the vehicle, […]

Our growing library of how-to stories are aimed squarely at early-stage founders and workers trying to solve long-term problems.

A prominent Republican senator weighs in on Amazon’s labor disputes, Microsoft reports a security vulnerability in Exchange and we examine ByteDance’s gaming strategy. This is your Daily Crunch for March 12, 2021. The big story: Marco Rubio sides with Amazon workers Senator Marco Rubio published an op-ed in USA Today declaring his support for workers […]

Immune intelligence startup Serimmune hopes to better understand the relationship between antibody epitopes (the parts of antigen molecules that bind to antibodies) and the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The company’s proprietary technology, originally developed at UC Santa Barbara, provides a new and specific way of mapping the entire array of an individual’s antibodies through a small blood […]

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweets are the subject of another lawsuit. A Tesla investor is suing the company board and Musk for continuing to send “erratic tweets” that violate a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that requires oversight of his social media activities. The lawsuit, which was first reported by Bloomberg, claims […]

Here, I’ll share what I’ve learned and offer tactical advice for finding, reaching out to, cultivating relationships with and working at deep tech companies as a nontechnical candidate.

Hackers are exploiting recently discovered vulnerabilities in Exchange email servers to drop ransomware, Microsoft has warned, a move that puts tens of thousands of email servers at risk of destructive attacks. In a tweet late Thursday, the tech giant said it had detected the new kind of file-encrypting malware called DoejoCrypt — or DearCry — […]

There has been an unprecedented IPO boom of tech companies in the Brazilian stock exchange, which is transformative for a market that was traditionally dominated by utilities, mining, oil and financial companies.

BMW has joined the cohort of investors that are backing Boston Metal’s carbon dioxide-free production technology for steel. The Boston-based startup had targeted a $50 million raise earlier in the year, as TechCrunch reported, and BMW’s addition closes out that round, according to a person familiar with the company. Looking to decarbonize the metal industry, […]

Spring may be just around the corner (in the U.S., anyway), but it’s never too early to start planning for TechCrunch Disrupt 2021, which takes place on September 21-23. This all-virtual conference allows makers, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors from around the world to connect, collaborate and grow. Startup Alley is a huge part of every […]

Hindenburg Research, the short-seller firm whose report on Nikola Motor led to an SEC investigation and the resignation of its founder, is targeting another electric vehicle company. This time it’s Lordstown Motors, the Ohio electric automaker that went public after merging with special-purpose acquisition company DiamondPeak Holdings Corp., with a market value of $1.6 billion. […]

Madrid-based TaxDown, which automates income tax filing by calculating regional deductions due to users so they don’t have to navigate complex tax rules themselves, has raised €2.4 million (~$3M) in seed funding. US-based FJ Labs has joined TaxDown’s investment board as it closes the seed round. It says all its previous investors participated in the […]

One last time, let's discuss some big startups that are scaling quickly: Appspace, Synack, and Druva. We'll proceed in alphabetical order.

St. Louis-based voice assistant startup Disruptel is announcing that it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding. The money comes from an impressive group of investors who seem well-aligned with what the startup is aiming to do — namely, build a voice assistant that can provide detailed information about what’s happening on your TV screen. […]

Workers at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse have already received public support from Democratic politicians ranging from Bernie Sanders to Joe Biden, the latter of whom promised to be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen,” late last year. Now, as many look to unionize, the team is getting some political backing from a more unexpected […]

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. Like every week, we had to leave a lot of great stuff on the cutting-room floor. But, we did get to touch on a bunch of […]

Yesterday, the European oil and gas major producer Shell announced the latest cohort selected to participate in its Shell GameChanger Accelerator (GCxN), focused on supporting companies developing tech for the transition away from fossil fuels. The three companies will have access to technical resources through Shell that can serve to aid in their commercialization. “GCxN’s […]

The federal government and regulatory powers need to hold Big Tech accountable to their commitments by immediately enacting policy change.

Uber has had a good result against litigation in the Netherlands, where its European business is headquartered, that had alleged it uses algorithms to terminate drivers — but which the court has rejected. The ride-hailing giant has also been largely successful in fending off wide-ranging requests for data from drivers wanting to obtain more of […]

From the point of view of a consumer, customer service sometimes feels like a monolith, but behind the scenes it can be a very fragmented business, with dozens of companies providing various different tools to help agents do their jobs. Today, a startup founded by three Stripe alums that has set out to build a […]

For the last few years, ByteDance, the parent company of short video app TikTok, has been working to diversify its revenue streams beyond advertisement and find more ways to monetize its hundreds of millions of users. One area it is targeting is gaming, which has historically been a lucrative business in China’s internet economy. China […]

Luminar Technologies has deepened ties with Volvo Cars to develop and eventually sell an automated driving system for highways to other automakers. The partnership, announced Thursday, is between Luminar and Volvo’s self-driving software subsidiary Zenseact. The two companies are combining their tech to create what Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell described as a “holistic […]

B2B SaaS startup Legl has bagged $7M in Series A funding led by Octopus Ventures for its platform for law firms which offers tools to streamline core business processes such as customer onboarding, due diligence and payments. Existing investors Backed, Samaipata and First Round Capital, and angels including Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas (ex CPO and COO GoCardless), Al Giles […]

The artist Beeple scores a huge NFT sale, Twitter Spaces are coming soon and Seth Rogen’s weed startup launches in the U.S. This is your Daily Crunch for March 11, 2021. The big story: NFT artwork sells for $69M For the first time, auction house Christie sold a digital-only artwork: “Everydays — The First 5000 […]

Coupang's IPO was a success, no matter how you slice it, even if you have valuation quibbles. And it was a huge win for SoftBank.

GM’s venture arm invested in battery startup SolidEnergy Systems five years ago. Now, GM is tapping the MIT spinout to help it pack more energy into its batteries, the latest in a string of moves by the automaker aimed at accelerating its shift to electric vehicles. GM president Mark Reuss, who announced the partnership Thursday […]

Today, the auction of an NFT digital art collage from a relatively unrecognized digital artist ended with a purchase price above $69 million. The work, called “Everydays — The First 5000 Days,” chronicled several years’ worth of daily sketches from the artist Mike Winkelmann — known online as Beeple. Unlike every other work the auction […]

We’ve identified six common patterns of how VCs articulate their theses, and some best practices in doing so.

Backed by innovations in science, big data, financing and farmer networking, investing in regenerative agriculture promises to slash farming’s carbon footprint while rewarding farmers for their stewardship.

Volkswagen, once a dabbler in electric vehicles, is now betting its future on the technology. And the new Volkswagen ID.4 — a five-passenger, fully-electric crossover with a starting price of $33,995 (before federal or state incentives) — is its first global effort to make EVs a mainstream product and part of its larger goal to […]

Gather helps people, well, gather in virtual spaces for any reason, whether it be for weddings, magic conventions, or, just a regular day at work. Over the past few months, as remote workers look for better ways to interact with each other, the startup has quietly amassed more than 4 million users, and today, an […]

The alternative asset market showed promise pre-pandemic but amid a broader rally among traditional asset classes, the number of investors searching for and promoting value in the space has exploded. That has, in turn, promoted a pretty major influx of VC dollars into startups building platforms that wrangle these buyers into specific communities. Enter, Alt. […]

Pakistan has banned TikTok again in the country after reviewing a complaint that said the popular video app hosted immoral and objectionable content. A high court in the city of Peshawar on Thursday ordered the nation’s telecom authority — Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) — to ban TikTok. In a statement Thursday evening, Pakistan Telecom Authority […]

We’re just a few weeks out from the first TC Early Stage 2021 event on April 1-2. This two-day bootcamp helps early-inning founders develop core entrepreneurial skills for startup success. We’re talking essential topics led by experts in their field. Case in point. Intellectual property is your bread and butter — you need to safeguard it and […]

So, this is going to sound like a cop out (because, honestly, it kind of is), but the through line for the past week’s robotics investments is variety. That is to say that this week’s round of funding is all over the place in terms of verticals, which is probably an overall positive sign of […]

Coursera’s S-1 dropped last Friday, giving us a glimpse of the financial impact that COVID-19 had on a large edtech company. We worked through the numbers on the day the filing happened, but here are the core data points: Coursera’s 2020 revenue came to $293.5 million, up 59% from the year prior. During the same […]

We know that a lot of elements go into the formation of a startup ecosystem. When your city is outside of the major coastal tech centers, it takes a deliberate effort to get such a system off the ground. For Indianapolis, Indiana, it started with the creation of ExactTarget in 2000. When that company was […]

The popularity of video and other streamed content like podcasts is continuing to grow at a breakneck speed, and today a startup called Epidemic Sound, a marketplace to source the background music for that media, is announcing a huge round of funding to scale along with it. The Stockholm-based startup has raised $450 million from […]

TechCrunch Sessions: Justice covered a wide variety of topics. From DEI to labor to accessibility, the sessions went deep on the issues that matter most in the tech world. For example, we had an illuminating conversation with Arlan Hamilton around how to find the next unicorn. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who has represented Oakland and the […]

Seth Rogen and four friends-turned-co-founders have been building a weed company for close to ten years, and its products are now available in the United States. The company’s house goods will be available through its website and select dispensaries in Los Angeles will carry Houseplant’s three strains of cannabis. Nearly every smoker has been there: […]

If you’ve ever had to file a claim with your insurance company, you know that it’s not exactly fun. Often, you’re on hold indefinitely waiting to speak to a live person. And if you’ve ever had to file an auto or home insurance claim, you know that all the back and forth with your carrier […]

People returning from a period of incarceration face innumerable challenges, among them entering a high-tech workforce that requires a new set of skills. Jason Jones leads remote instruction at The Last Mile, a code training program for inmates; Deepti Rohatgi is head of Slack for Good, a social-good office within the company running Next Chapter, […]

Valuations are up because software company growth will persist longer than most analysts and investors expected, making the present value of software companies' future cash flows larger, even if they had yet to grow into those later projections.

Los-Angeles based startup Canoo revealed its newest — and now third — electric vehicle, a pickup truck that does away with the sharp corners and huge engine housing of both comparable EV trucks and legacy diesel pickups and is aimed at both commercial customers and weekend warrior-minded consumers. The truck, which Canoo says is the […]

Twitter Spaces, the social network’s Clubhouse rival, is working towards a public launch in April, the company announced in comments made in a public Twitter Space audio room on Wednesday. According to the Space’s host, Alex aka @akkhosh on Twitter, the company intends to make it possible for anyone to host a Twitter Spaces room […]

As we’ve made our way through this pandemic, it has forced businesses to rethink and accelerate trends. One such trend is the movement to no-code tools to allow line-of-business users to create apps and workflows without engineering help. To help answer that demand, ServiceNow released a couple of new tools today as part of their […]

Roblox went public yesterday after seeing tremendous growth in 2020, and that’s not just good news for the company’s employees and investors — there are also startups like Gamefam hoping to take advantage of the platform’s success. Roblox has a whole ecosystem of millions of developers and creators building on its game platform, and some […]