Crunch Hype

It's unicorn melting season, with gobs of investors hoping for liquidity while public markets are hot. Expect more Kalturas.

A startup by an Apple alum that has become home to millions of low-skilled workers in India said on Tuesday it has raised an additional $12.5 million, just five months after securing $8 million from high-profile investors. One-year-old Apna said Sequoia Capital India and Greenoaks Capital led the $12.5 million investment in the startup. Existing […]

A challenger bank raises funding at a massive valuation, Instagram adds Live Rooms and Google updates Workspace. This is your Daily Crunch for March 1, 2021. The big story: Klarna valued at $31B The Swedish challenger bank and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service has raised $1 billion at a post-money valuation of $31 billion. Klarna says it […]

Google over the weekend began to update many of its flagship iOS apps after a lengthy delay caused by the company’s failure to add Apple’s newly required privacy labels in a timely fashion. Though Google earlier this year said it would “soon” begin to add the labels to its apps as they were updated, it […]

“You’re seeing a lot of large companies … are now investing significant amounts into really trying to understand their emissions profile and prioritize emission reductions in a data-driven way."

AWS launched the DeepRacer League in 2018 as a fun way to teach developers machine learning, and it’s been building on the idea ever since. Today, it announced the latest league season with two divisions: Open and Pro. As Marcia Villalba wrote in a blog post announcing the new league, “AWS DeepRacer is an autonomous […]

Facebook was ordered to pay $650 million Friday for running afoul of an Illinois law designed to protect the state’s residents from invasive privacy practices. That law, the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), is a powerful state measure that’s tripped up tech companies in recent years. The suit against Facebook was first filed in 2015, alleging […]

TC Sessions: Justice is coming up on Wednesday, and we’ve decided to sweeten the deal for what’s included with your event pass. Buy your ticket now and you’ll get a free month of access to Extra Crunch, our membership program focused on founders and startup teams with exclusive articles published daily. Extra Crunch unlocks access […]

Twitter announced Monday that it would begin injecting new labels into users’ timelines to push back against misinformation that could disrupt the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. The labels, which will also appear as pop-up messages in the retweet window, are the company’s latest product experiment designed to shape behavior on the platform for the better. […]

As the next Y Combinator demo day approaches, more startups from the current Winter 2021 batch are showing up in our inboxes. One of the most interesting from the mix is BrioHR, which is building human resources (HR) software for Southeast Asia. The company fits into a theme I’ve noticed amongst startups, namely a focus […]

Rocket Lab packed a ton of news into Monday to kick off this week: It’s going public via a SPAC merger, for one, and it’s also building a new, larger launch vehicle called Neutron to support heavier payloads. I spoke to Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck about why it’s building Neutron now, and […]

You might call Cappuccino the anti-Clubhouse, but the company has been iterating on its app concept for a couple of years — its CEO doesn’t have any strong opinions on Clubhouse. And it’s true that Cappuccino is an interesting social app on its own. It has been attracting a loyal user base, especially after a […]

As building in public continues to gain popularity with early-stage startup founders, Murmur, coming out of stealth today, wants to leverage that natural transparency to a louder frequency. Founded by Aaron Dignan, Murmur helps startups create work agreements based on the policies of other startups. “Work agreements” is an intentionally broad phrase, but encapsulates everything […]

Product principles should always evolve to keep up with the changing ways you work and what your customers need.

In a move designed to directly challenge Amazon, Walmart today announced it’s dropping the $35 minimum order requirement for its two-hour “Express” delivery service, a competitor to Amazon’s “Prime Now.” With Walmart Express Delivery, customers can order from Walmart’s food, consumables or general merchandise assortment, then pay a flat $10 fee to have the items […]

On a recent episode of Extra Crunch Live, Bain Capital Ventures’ Matt Harris said that if you had asked him a year ago what would happen to venture capital during a pandemic lockdown, he would have replied “it would have fallen off a cliff.” Before the world changed so fundamentally, VCs and founders alike believed […]

Buzzy mega-rounds and high-profile IPOs often dominate headlines. But many of those companies were once early-stage and scrapping to raise a seed round. Today, Chicago Ventures, a VC firm that often leads seed-stage rounds, announced the close of its third fund — a $63 million vehicle that it’s already put to work. Chicago Ventures (which […]

Tech companies are no stranger to controversy and workplace issues. Over the years, it’s become clear that no company is immune from diversity issues. But it’s the job of those in the diversity, equity and inclusion departments to create and foster environments that are welcoming to all. Last year, in the wake of the police […]

Google Workspace, the company’s productivity platform you’ll forever refer to as G Suite (or even “Google Docs”), is launching a large update today that touches everything from your calendar to Google Meet and how you can use Workspace with Google Assistant. Indeed, the highlight here is probably that you can now use Assistant in combination […]

Zeta Global, the marketing technology company founded by David A. Steinberg and former Apple CEO John Sculley, is announcing an additional $222.5 million in new debt financing. The company has gone down the debt route before — a Series F raised in 2017 combined $115 million funding with $25 million in debt. BofA Securities served […]

Wondering how to nail that virtual pitch meeting and raise VC funding? Or how to build a high-octane sales team? What about recruiting early team members that will fuel future growth? Managing the finances of a new company while also wondering about your own personal finances as a founder? Legal? Marketing? PR? Being a great […]

Let's see what we can learn about Coinbase's recent trading volume before looking into Robinhood's. Is Robinhood crypto a possible threat to Coinbase's consumer trading volumes?

Instagram today announced it’s adding a much-requested feature to its app with the launch of “Live Rooms,” which allow up to four people to broadcast live together at the same time. Previously, the app only allowed users to live stream with one other person, similar to Facebook Live. The company says it hopes Live Rooms […]

The European Commission has said it will present a legislative plan later this month for what it’s calling a “digital green pass” — aka a digital certificate — which it says will be aimed at facilitating cross-border travel in the age of coronavirus. President Ursula von der Leyen said today that the planned digital tool will […]

Tonal, maker of the smart home fitness trainer, announced it is more than tripling the number of physical locations it sells devices in through a new partnership with Nordstrom. Starting this month, Tonal will have 50-square-foot stations in the women’s activewear departments of at least 40 Nordstrom locations across the U.S., bringing the total number […]

Few things are more personal than a keyboard and yet they are often overlooked by Work From Home guides. Why use the standard issue keyboard when there are so many options available? This is a sampling of some of the keyboards used by TechCrunch’s editorial staff. Some are boring, some are for different languages, and each […]

Atlanta startups can now add another name to their rolodexes of venture firms operating out of the Big Peach with the close of Silicon Road Ventures new $31 million fund. Silicon Road invests across the U.S. from its base in Atlanta, the firm said with a focus on e-commerce, retail, and consumer packaged goods. The […]

Extra Crunch Live, the members only event series that features tech leaders waxing poetic on how to perfect the pitch deck (and more!) has gotten off to a strong start in 2021. Thus far, we’ve seen the most beautifully simple deck in existence with the help of Justworks’ Isaac Oates and Bain’s Matt Harris, learned […]

The U.S.-based oil major Chevron is doubling down on its investment in geothermal power by investing in a Swedish developer of low-temperature geothermal and heat power projects called Baseload Capital. Oil companies are under pressure to find new lines of business as the world prepares for a massive shift to renewable energy resources to power […]

Syniverse Technologies, a company that helps mobile providers move communications across public and private networks, announced an extensive partnership with Twilio this morning. Under the agreement, Twilio is investing up to $750 million to become a minority owner in the company. The idea behind the partnership is to combine Twilio’s API communications expertise with Syniverse’s […]

An iPhone hacking team has released a new jailbreak tool for almost every iPhone, including the most recent models, by using the same vulnerability that Apple last month said was under active attack by hackers. The Unc0ver team released its latest jailbreak this weekend, and says it works on iOS 11 (iPhone 5s and later) […]

TechCrunch is embarking on a major project to survey the venture capital investors of Europe, and their cities. Our <a href=”https://forms.gle/k4Ji2Ch7zdrn7o2p6”>survey of investors in Zagreb will capture how Croatia is faring, and what changes are being wrought amongst investors by the coronavirus pandemic. We’d like to know how the Croatian startup scene is evolving, how […]

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 […]

Businesses, and the tech platforms that support their operations, had to adapt quickly to the pandemic. Ben Thompson, co-founder and chief executive officer of human resources platform Employment Hero told TechCrunch that “COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of employment management software by roughly five years,” as teams adjusted to remote work. The Sydney, Australia-based company announced […]

Clue, an early pioneer in the femtech category with a well-regarded period-tracking app that’s used by around 13 million people, is getting ready to launch a digital contraceptive which will offer users a statistical prediction of ovulation as a birth control tool. A US launch of Clue Birth Control is slated for “this year”. The […]

Monday brings with it not one, but two space SPACS – there’s Rocket Lab, and there’s Spire Global, a satellite operator that bills itself primarily as a SaaS company focused on delivering data and analytics made possible by its 100-plus spacecraft constellation. SPACs have essentially proven a pressure-release valve for the space startup market, which […]

Because news of its SPAC-fueled public market debut wasn’t enough, Rocket Lab also unveiled a new class of rocket it has in development on Monday. The launch vehicle, called Neutron, will be able to carry 8 metric tons (around 18,000 lbs) to orbit, far exceeding the cargo capacity of Rocket Lab’s current Electron vehicle, which […]

The SPAC run is on for space startups, which have been relatively slow in their overall exit pace before the current special purpose acquisitions company merger craze got underway. Rocket Lab is the latest, and likely the most notable to jump on the trend, with a deal that will see it combine with a SPAC […]

Klarna, the Swedish buy now, pay later behemoth and upstart bank, has raised $1 billion in new funding at a post-money valuation of $31 billion. That sees the company retain the crown as the highest valued private fintech in Europe. Backers of this round are said to be combination of new and existing investors, while […]

Remote work has become the norm for many businesses in the last year, and today a startup that has built a cybersecurity platform to help manage all the devices connecting to organizations’ wide-ranging networks — while also providing a way for those organizations to take advantage of all the best that the quite fragmented security […]

Paytm, India’s most valuable startup, said on Monday it processed 1.2 billion transactions in the month of February, illustrating the level of penetration it has made in one of the world’s fastest-growing payments markets where it competes with Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Flipkart-backed PhonePe. Paytm said its users made 1.2 billion transactions last month across […]

On the back of Zynga acquiring Turkey’s Peak Games for $1.8 billion last year and then following it up with another gaming acquisition in the country, Turkey has been making a name for itself as a hub for mobile gaming startups, and specifically those building casual puzzle games, the wildly popular and very sticky format […]

Lime said Monday it has allocated $50 million towards its bike-share operation, an investment that has been used to develop a new ebike and will fund its expansion this year to another 25 cities in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. If the company hits its goal, Lime’s bike-share service will be operational […]

Microsoft is getting a new leader for its Greater China business. Yang Hou, a former senior vice president at Qualcomm, will take over Alain Crozier as the chairman and chief executive officer for Microsoft Greater China Region, says a company announcement released Monday. After eight years at Qualcomm where he led sales and business development, Hou […]

Skydio has raised $170 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Growth Fund. That pushes it into unicorn territory, with $340 million in total funding and a post-money valuation north of $1 billion. Skydio’s fresh capital comes on the heels of its expansion last year into the enterprise market, and it […]

Japanese space startup Gitai has raised a $17.1 million funding round, a Series B financing for the robotics startup. This new funding will be used for hiring, as well as funding the development and execution of an on-orbit demonstration mission for the company’s robotic technology, which will show its efficacy in performing in-space satellite servicing […]

It may be tough to remember, but there was a time long ago when Justworks wasn’t a household name. Though its monthly revenue growth charts were up and to the right, it had not even broken the $100,000 mark. Even then, Bain Capital Venture’s Matt Harris felt confident in betting on the startup. Harris says […]

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. Kicking off with a tiny […]

“A lot of founders mix up raising money with making money.” This quote, which Career Karma founder Ruben Harris mentioned off-hand on a phone call with me, has been on my mind for months. In fact, raising money can cost you money, in the form of that sweet, sweet ownership and equity. That’s why Clearbanc, […]

Storm Ventures, a venture firm that focuses on early stage B2B enterprise startups, announced this week that it has promoted Pascale Diaine and Frederik Groce to partners at the firm. The two new partners have worked their way up over the last several years. Groce joined Storm in 2016 and has invested in enterprise SaaS […]