Crunch Hype

Tens of millions of people each year purchase a second-hand smartphone in India, the world’s second-largest market. Phone makers and giant online sellers such as Amazon and Flipkart are aware of it, but it’s too much of a hassle for them to inspect, repair and resell used phones. But these firms also know that customers […]

As consumer VR begins to have a moment following years of heavy investment from Facebook and other tech giants, corporate America is similarly beginning to find more utility in the technology, as well. Bank of America announced today that they’ll be working with Bay Area-based VR startup Strivr to bring more of their workplace training […]

Twitter confirmed it’s testing a new way to display tweets that link out to e-commerce product pages — like products on a Shopify store, for example. With a new Twitter card format, the company is experimenting with tweets that include a big “Shop” button and integrate product details directly into the tweet itself, including the […]

As Okta announced earnings today after the bell, it revealed that it’s buying cloud identity startup Auth0 for a hefty $6.5 billion. The company had a valuation of $1.92 billion when it raised $120 million led by Salesforce Ventures last July. With Auth0, Okta gets a cloud identity company that helps developers embed identity management […]

Toro this week announced its intentions to acquire Left Hand Robotics. The Colorado-based startup (not to be confused with Righthand Robotics) is a natural fit for the lawn mowing giant, as the producer of the RT-1000, an autonomous system capable of mowing large lawns and clearing snow from sidewalks. Toro is best known for its […]

Amazon is rolling out a new experience for its Fire TV platform that puts more focus on subscription-free streaming and other live content. The company today announced several new services are being integrated into its suite of Live features, including Xumo and its own IMDb TV and Amazon news app. The company also soon plans […]

Can you help demystify the H-1B process and provide any tips? We also want to hire an Australian and transfer their E-3. How quickly can this be done?

As a devoted coffee drinker I was enthused by the idea of Bottomless. The Y Combinator-backed startup sends its users coffee as they run low so that they never run out of the Magic Juice of Life. What could be better? Because life is somewhat funny, after signing up for its service the company reached […]

Weeks or even months of working on your pitch deck could come down to the 170 seconds (on average) that investors spend looking at it.

At an online event, Google today announced Flutter 2, the newest version of its open-source UI toolkit for building portable apps. While Flutter started out with a focus on mobile when it first launched two years ago, it spread its wings in recent years and with version 2, Flutter now supports web and desktop apps […]

Postscript helps Shopify stores stay in touch with customers via SMS, with a focus on keeping everything opt-in, legally compliant, and spam free. The company raised $4.5M back at the end of 2019; this morning it’s announcing it has raised a $35M Series B. The company has grown pretty rapidly over the last year. When […]

GSV Ventures, co-founded by Deborah Quazzo and Michael Cohn, has raised $180 million in its second fund, exclusively focused on backing edtech startups across the globe. The startup now manages $277 million in cumulative assets, inclusive of its debut fund that was closed in 2016. The new fund will let GSV invest in 13 core […]

A little over thirteen years ago, Shai Agassi, a promising software executive who was in line to succeed the chief executive at SAP, then one of the world’s mightiest software companies, left the company he’d devoted the bulk of his professional career to and started a business called Better Place. That startup promised to revolutionize […]

The sub-category of soft robotics has transformed the way many think about the field. Oft-influenced by natural phenomenon, the technology offers a dramatically different approach than the sort of rigid structures we traditionally think of when we discuss robots. Soft designs offer a number of benefits, including compliance, which has already seen a number of […]

Tesla, Rivian, Lordstown Motors and Lucid Motors — potential rivals in the burgeoning EV market — are working together to pass laws that would allow direct sales in at least eight states with another batch of proposed legislation likely being introduced this year. Passage of such legislation would clear the way for EV giants like […]

Late last year, Netflix began experimenting with a new TikTok-like feed of funny videos inside its mobile app, which it called “Fast Laughs.” Today, the company announced the new feature is now rolling out on iOS, allowing users to watch, react, or share the short clips as well as add the show or movie to […]

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced educational institutions to go virtual, many were scrambling to develop online or blended curriculums. That struggle was particularly challenging for trade schools, many of which were not designed to teach online and were mostly paper-driven. CourseKey, a San Diego-based trade school management SaaS startup, was in a unique […]

Could a bet on AppLovin then be viewed as a wager not on its business income growth, but on the strength of consumer app demand?

A new project from Microsoft’s in-house incubator, Microsoft Garage, introduces a different take on meeting transcriptions. While today there are a number of real-time transcription apps to use on your phone — like Otter.ai or Google’s Recorder app for Pixel devices, for example — Microsoft’s new Group Transcribe app reimagines meeting transcriptions as a more […]

Clari, the revenue operations platform that helps companies predict revenue outcomes, announced $150 million Series E today on a $1.6 billion valuation, a number that more than triples its 2019 Series D valuation of $500 million. Silver Lake led the latest investment with participation from B Capital Group and existing investors Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital […]

Today’s the day we roll up our collective sleeves, engage in vital conversations about diversity, inclusion and equity in tech — and continue the important work of building a better industry for everyone. TC Sessions: Justice 2021 features an impressive agenda packed with interactive presentations, breakout sessions and panel discussions with some of the tech world’s […]

Presight Capital has closed its $350 million second fund only a year and a half after it announced an $80 million first fund. In fact, General Partner Christian Angermayer told me that the fund was raised in just a few weeks, and that it shot past the initial goal of $250 million. Presight is the […]

TechCrunch is coming to Miami — virtually, at least. On March 11, TechCrunch is hosting a small online event with local venture capitalists, founders, and those curious about the growing ecosystem. There will also be a small pitch-off event where Florida-based startups have three minutes to pitch their companies to Florida-based VCs. Everyone is welcome […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numberhttps://twitter.com/cgates123s behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down and focus on a single topic, or theme. This week we’re talking agtech, a surprisingly cool bit of the technology startup world. But Chris and Danny and Natasha and […]

While we’ve written about attempts to build alternatives to cookies that track users across websites, Google says it won’t be going down that route. The search giant had already announced that it will be phasing out support for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser. Today it went further, with David Temkin (Google’s director of product management […]

As demand for cloud native applications is growing, Yugabyte, makers of the cloud native, open source YugabyteDB database are seeing a corresponding rise in demand for their products, especially with large enterprise customers. Today, the company announced a $48 million Series C financing round to help build on that momentum. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the […]

Open source software is at the core of… well, practically everything online. But while much of it is diligently maintained in some ways, in others it doesn’t receive the kind of scrutiny that something so foundational ought to. $1.3 million worth of grants were announced today, split among 13 projects looking to ensure open source […]

At a time when e-commerce is exploding due in large part to the pandemic, a business that helps any online merchant ship goods to a consumer in one or two days is going to be in demand. Deliverr is a startup that fits that bill, and today the company announced a $170 million financing round. […]

Brave, the privacy-focused browser co-founded by ex-Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, is getting ready to launch an own-brand search engine for desktop and mobile. Today it’s announced the acquisition of an open source search engine developed by the team behind the (now defunct) Cliqz anti-tracking search-browser combo. The tech will underpin the forthcoming Brave Search engine […]

Almost by default, open-source developers get very little insight into who uses their projects. In part, that’s the beauty of open source, but for developers who want to monetize their projects, it’s also a bit of a curse because they get very little data back from these projects. While you usually know who bought your […]

Many of the startups raising capital in Mexico are focused on financial inclusion, aiming to level the playing field in a country that is largely unbanked and has a burgeoning middle class. One such company, minu, a Mexico City-based, pay-on-demand startup, announced Wednesday that it has raised $14 million in a Series A round of […]

Late last night Oscar Health, a tech-enabled medical insurance provider, priced its IPO at $39 per share. The final price came in $1 per share above its raised IPO guidance; Oscar Health had originally targeted a $32-$34 per-share IPO price. Some 37,041,026 shares were sold at $39, including 36,391,946 offered by the company itself. Not […]

Israeli fraud prevention startup Identiq has raised $47 million at Series A as the company eyes international growth, driven in large part by the spike in online spending during the pandemic. The round was led by Insight Partners and Entrée Capital, with participation from Amdocs, Sony Innovation Fund by IGV, as well as existing investors […]

Games company Zynga has been on an acquisition tear the last several years to beef up its activity in particular in mobile and casual-puzzle games, spending over $3 billion to pick up a range of startups across Europe (specifically Turkey and Finland) in the process. Today, however, it’s taking a turn towards more immersive, highly […]

Netflix said on Wednesday it will roll out 41 Indian films and shows this year, its biggest annual roster of Indian content to date, as the American giant makes further push to win subscribers in the world’s second largest internet market. The streaming giant, which committed to spending about $420 million on locally produced Indian […]

Sometimes the smallest innovations can have the biggest impacts on the world’s efforts to stop global climate change. Arguably, one of the biggest contributors in the fight against climate change to date has been the switch to the humble LED light, which has slashed hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions simply by […]

Robotic process automation has taken the enterprise world by storm, by providing a set of tools for those doing repetitive, volume-based tasks to use software to remove some of that labor to let those people focus on more complicated tasks. Today a startup that’s taken some of that ethos and is applying it to more […]

When merchants launch their e-commerce businesses, they can easily manage the end-to-end operations in the early stages. But as they begin to grow, managing their own operations, from warehousing and logistics to delivery and cash collection, can become difficult. This can prevent them from scaling effectively despite having a steady inflow of demand. Now, there’s a […]

In China’s cosmetics world, where foreign brands were historically revered, indigenous startups are increasingly winning over Gen-Z consumers with cheaper, more localized options. One of the rising stars is the direct-to-consumer brand Perfect Diary, which is owned by five-year-old startup Yatsen. Yatsen impressed the capital market with a $617 million initial public offering on NYSE […]

In a year where mass transit on airplanes, trains and buses has had lower traveler numbers in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the startups hoping to pioneer a totally new approach to getting individuals from A to B — flying taxis — has raised some significant funding. Volocopter, a startup out of […]

The rapid growth of e-commerce in Indonesia, especially during the pandemic, is placing increasing demands on its supply chain infrastructure. But the country’s logistics industry is highly fragmented, with companies usually relying on multiple distributors for one shipment, and many warehouses are still concentrated around major cities. Advotics wants to help with software to make […]

The Facebook Oversight Board (FOB) is already feeling frustrated by the binary choices it’s expected to make as it reviews Facebook’s content moderation decisions, according to one of its members who was giving evidence to a UK House of Lords committee today which is running an enquiry into freedom of expression online. The FOB is […]

Jack Abraham has a lot of confidence in what he’s building. Then again, you can’t be immodest or unsure of yourself if you’re going to bet exclusively on your own startups as an investor, which is precisely the model that Abraham’s San Francisco-based venture studio, Atomic, has followed since it was launched nine years ago. […]

Sales engagement platforms (SEP) help sales teams automate and track the large number of tasks they need to do each day as they contact leads and home in on potential deals. Focused on small-to-medium-sized companies, SEP startup Outplay announced today it has raised $2 million from Sequoia Capital India’s Surge program for early-stage startups. Outplay […]

In changing Facebook into a for-benefit corporation, Mark Zuckerberg could insulate himself against presidential rage while rehabilitating his reputation — and his company's.

Microsoft shows off a new AR/VR meeting platform, Uber spins out a robotics startup and Compass files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for March 2, 2021. The big story: Microsoft unveils Mesh for AR/VR meetings Mesh is a platform that allows for shared meetings between Microsoft’s HoloLens (augmented reality) and Windows Mixed […]

As businesses continue to grapple with this new reality, they must remember the crucial nature of the onboarding process. If they get that right, it will breed trust, information sharing and collaboration, and the organization will see their systems improve ad infinitum.

Yusaku Maezawa, the first paying passenger to book a trip aboard SpaceX’s (still in development) Starship spacecraft around the moon, has provided a promised update about his mission. It’s still aiming for 2023 for a flight date, and the plan is still to fly a week-long trip around the moon and back. Now, however, Maezawa […]

Digital collectibles are having a very large moment. Just last month, a piece of digital art by Beeple sold for $6.6 million on online art marketplace Nifty Gateway. Meanwhile, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda recently sold clips of a song via online marketplace Zora. Over on Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot, more than 200,000 people recently […]

It’s not yet fire season thankfully, which affords some breathing room for firefighters and emergency responders to begin planning out how to confront the increasingly complex and unwieldy task of preventing and responding to fires in the American West. Wildfires in the region have been particularly acute in recent years in states like California, mostly […]