Crunch Hype

Consumer genomics company Ancestry has confirmed it fought two U.S. law enforcement requests to access its DNA database in the past six months, but that neither request resulted in turning over customer or DNA data. The Utah-based company disclosed the two requests in its latest transparency report covering the latter half of 2020. The report […]

Apple Maps is inching into more Waze-like territory with an update that will give drivers the ability to report road hazards, accidents, or even speed traps. The new features are live now in the iOS 14.5 beta, which is now open to public beta testers as well as developers, but won’t roll out to the […]

The founders of Accord, an early stage startup focused on bringing order to B2B sales, are not your typical engineer founders. Instead, the two brothers, Ross and Ryan Rich, worked as sales reps seeing the problems unique to this kind of sale first-hand. In November 2019, they decided to leave the comfort of their high-paying […]

Lang.ai, which has developed a no-code platform for businesses, closed on a $2 million seed funding round. The company’s SaaS platform aims to allow business users to structure any free-text data with custom categories built through a drag & drop interface, based on AI-extracted concepts. Village Global led the financing, which included participation from new […]

Earlier this week, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei spoke rather diplomatically about the company’s hopes of holding talks with the new U.S. administration. The hardware giant is also taking a less conciliatory route, challenging its FCC designation as a national security threat. The company this week filed a suit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for […]

The era of social audio 1.0 is in full swing, and while podcasts and Clubhouse have led the way, there are many other audio startups joining the fold. Quilt, an audio social network that focuses on wellness and community, has raised a $3.5 million seed round led by Mayfield Fund, with partner Rishi Garg joining […]

The insane saga of a potential forced sale of TikTok’s US operations is reportedly ending — another victim of the transition to methodical and rational policymaking that appears to be the boring new normal under the Presidency of Joe Biden. Last fall, the U.S. government under President Donald Trump took a stab at “gangster capitalism” […]

If you want to make your website accessible right now but lack the resources for the kind of serious revamp it would take, an “accessibility overlay” may take the pressure off while the work gets done. Though critics argue that these tools aren’t a permanent solution, AccessiBe has raised $28 million to show that its […]

This morning Level, a Seattle-based startup that offers credit to gig-economy workers, announced that it has raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round. Level intends to provide various services to gig-economy workers, starting with a lending product. The goal of Level today is to furnish access to credit to workers who might not be able to […]

SoLo Funds wants to replace payday lenders with a community-based, market-driven model for individual lending and now has $10 million to expand its business in the U.S. Payday lenders offer high interest, short-term loans to borrowers who are at their most vulnerable and the terms of their loans often trap borrowers in a cycle of […]

SLAs, SLOs, SLIs. If there’s one thing everybody in the business of managing software development loves, it’s acronyms. And while everyone probably knows what a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is, Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Service Level Indicators (SLIs) may not be quite as well known. The idea, though, is straightforward, with SLOs being the […]

After years of optimizing its products for engagement, no matter the costs, Facebook announced today it will “test” changes to its News Feed focused on reducing the distribution of political content. The company qualified these tests will be temporary, impact a small percentage of people, and will only run in select markets, including the U.S., […]

Managing IoT devices in a large organization can be a messy proposition, especially when many of them aren’t even managed directly by IT and often involve integrating with a number of third-party systems. SecuriThings wants to help with a platform of services to bring that all under control, and today the startup announced a $14 […]

Fiverr is adding a new way for freelancers on the marketplace to charge for their work — three- or six-month subscriptions. Through this feature, sellers on Fiverr can offer to provide a defined set of work each month. They can also offer discounts to subscribers, although it’s not required. The buyer or seller can cancel […]

Meet Powder, a French startup that helps you share video clips of your favorite games, follow people with the same interests and interact with them. The company has raised a $14 million Series A round led by Serena. Powder wants to build the video infrastructure for social gaming. While many communities of gamers already share […]

Cybersecurity startup CYE has raised $100 million in a new growth round, led by investment firm EQT and with participation from 83North. CYE was founded in 2012 by Reuven Aronashvili to help companies shore up their security posture. It does this in large part by conducting offensive operations against their customers — with their explicit […]

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 noticed last week that we had a bevy of software-as-a-service (SaaS) stories that we wanted to chat about. So we decided to break them out into their own episode. What came out of the conversation is a […]

There seems to be plenty of activity in adtech and martech, particularly across the commerce ecosystem with tools that support monetization for small merchants.

If you are a founder and launched a startup last February of 2020 just before the pandemic hit, then you may have felt like you were living the ultimate business nightmare. But if your company serves to stabilize the supply-chain business, then, in fact, you may have hit the ground running at just the right […]

This morning Ramp, a startup that competes in the corporate spend market, announced that it has secured a $150 million debt facility with Goldman Sachs. Ramp previously raised a $30 million Series B in late December 2020, after raising a $23 million Series A earlier in the same year. TechCrunch spoke with Ramp co-founder and […]

NeuReality, an Israeli AI hardware startup that is working on a novel approach to improving AI inferencing platforms by doing away with the current CPU-centric model, is coming out of stealth today and announcing an $8 million seed round. The group of investors includes Cardumen Capital, crowdfunding platform OurCrowd and Varana Capital. The company also […]

A new startup called Insight is bringing web browser extensions to the iPhone, with the goal of delivering a better web browsing experience by blocking ads and trackers, flagging fake reviews on Amazon, offering SEO-free search experiences, or even calling out media bias and misinformation, among other things. These features are made available by way […]

It’s difficult to get credit if you don’t have credit. That’s the problem that startup TomoCredit is trying to solve. Co-founder and CEO Kristy Kim came up with the concept for the company after being rejected multiple times for an auto loan while in her early 20s. Kim, who immigrated to the U.S. from South […]

Podz is the latest startup trying to solve the problem of podcast discovery, with backing from investors like M13, Katie Couric and Paris Hilton. “Even though podcasts have gained a lot of momentum — there are 100 million folks in the U.S. who listen to podcasts — we still haven’t seen that crossover behavior, where […]

Archer Aviation, the electric aircraft startup targeting the urban air mobility market, has landed United Airlines as a customer and an investor in its bid to become a publicly traded company via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. Archer Aviation said Wednesday it reached an agreement to merge with special purpose acquisition company […]

The Amazon Marketplace roll-up play is well and truly underway. In the latest development, Thrasio — one of the biggest and earliest movers in the market to consolidate third-party sellers on the platform, with the promise to provide better economies of scale to manage and grow those businesses — announced that it has raised another […]

Freelancers who work well together in teams are the target for Collective, a French startup that’s launching a software-as-a-service marketplace today. (Not to be confused with Collective, a US-based startup that offers back-office tools for the self employed running a business-of-one.) Collective (the French ‘teams’ edition) is co-founded by Jean de Rauglaudre and Vianney de […]

Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm with $16.5 billion in assets under management, has poured millions into an edtech startup that sells virtual STEM lab simulations to institutions. Copenhagen-based Labster, which sells virtual science laboratory simulations to schools, announced today that it has raised $60 million in a Series C round led by the prominent […]

Uptime, the self-described “knowledge hacking” app, has raised $16 million in seed funding, after officially launching on iOS in January. Positioned as a “micro-learning” platform,” Uptime presents five-minute “knowledge hacks” from books, courses and documentaries. The idea is to let you quickly “grasp ideas and insights from trusted authors, instructors, and creative minds,” without spending […]

Snap has partnered with ShareChat’s Moj app to integrate its Camera Kit into the Indian app as the American social giant looks to accelerate its growth in the world’s second largest internet market. This is the first time Snap has partnered with an Indian firm for its Camera Kit technology, which unlocks a range of […]

Fintech startup Klarna is turning its mobile app into a banking app in Germany. Customers living there can now open a consumer bank account and get a Visa debit card. For now, Klarna is launching bank accounts for a limited number of users. The company expects to roll it out more broadly in the coming […]

Most people who use AI-powered translation tools do so for commonplace, relatively unimportant tasks like understanding a single phrase or quote. Those basic services won’t do for an enterprise offering technical documents in 15 languages — but Lengoo’s custom machine translation models might just do the trick. And with a new $20M B round, they […]

Alexa von Tobel has always felt strongly that too many people are shut out of the stock market. She felt this as a 23-year-old who didn’t have $5,000 to open a brokerage account. She felt it while building LearnVest, a financial planning startup she launched in 2009 and sold in 2015 to Northwestern Mutual for […]

IROKO, a Nigerian-based media company, could file to go public in the next 12 months on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) Alternative Investment Market. Founded by Jason Njoku and Bastian Gotter in 2011, IROKO boasts the largest online catalog of Nollywood film content globally. According to this report, the media company will raise between $20 […]

Twitter said on Wednesday it has taken actions on more than 500 accounts and reduced visibility of some hashtags in India to comply with “several” orders from the Indian government after New Delhi threatened legal action against executives with American social network. Twitter had suspended hundreds of Twitter accounts, several with links to farmers’ protests […]

In a large win for the Korean startup ecosystem, dating powerhouse Match Group announced this afternoon that it would buy social networking company Hyperconnect for a combined cash and stock deal valued at $1.73 billion. Hyperconnect, which is projected to have $200 million in revenue in 2020 (up 50% from 2019) according to the company, […]

OpenOcean, a European VC which has tended to specialise in big data-oriented startups and deep tech, has reach the €92 million ($111.5 million) mark for its third main venture fund, and is aiming for a final close of €130 million by mid-way this year. LPs in the new fund include the European Investment Fund (EIF), […]

NASA has announced that SpaceX will take two major parts of the Gateway lunar orbiter that will function as a pit stop for future moon missions. The Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics Outpost — which together will form the first usable lunar space station — will go up in 2024 on a […]

The pandemic has upended many aspects of urban life but perhaps the most visible upheaval is to citydwellers’ social lives, with curfews calling time on traditional night life across much of the Western world and social distancing putting a chilly spin on opportunities for getting together with people outside your usual circle. Who knew leaving […]

Hyundai Motor Group is back with a new “walking car” robot that can use its wheels to roll along a path or stand up and navigate tougher terrain on its legs. This time, the concept is designed to carry cargo and is small enough to be carried by a drone. The TIGER robot — short […]

What, you are no doubt asking, is a worm a blob? Well, it’s a blob of worms, obviously. More specifically, it’s a blob of California blackworms. It’s not a flock, nor a swam nor a school. It’s a big, undulating mass of a Lumbriculus variegatus tangled up, but somehow moving as one. Roboticists, of course, […]

Reddit raises more funding, Shopify expands payments to Facebook and a study suggests that the Apple Watch might be able to predict COVID diagnoses. This is your Daily Crunch for February 9, 2021. The big story: Reddit raises $250M This latest funding announcement comes after Reddit has returned to the headlines, with the WallStreetBets subreddit […]

Amazon, Microsoft and IBM have each elevated people who ran their cloud divisions to the CEO role.

Mate Fertility, the new Los Angeles startup launching today with $2.8 million in financing, has a mission to create a more inclusive network of family planning services for people struggling with the high cost and low availability of fertility clinics around the country. Founded by serial entrepreneur Oliver Bogner and his brother Gabriel, Mate was […]

Although the popular audio chat platform Clubhouse today includes a way to share your upcoming hangouts and events across social media, the resulting link that displays is fairly boring. A new link-sharing tool called ClubLink can help. The tool allows hosts to better promote their events by offering a more customized social media preview featuring […]

Last year, in the midst of a particularly spiky U.S. presidential election campaign, a startup called Sentropy emerged from stealth with an AI-based platform aimed at social media and other companies that corralled people together for online conversation. Sentropy had built a set of algorithms, using natural language processing and machine learning, to help these […]

Audi revealed Tuesday the 2022 e-tron Quattro GT and its higher-performing sibling the RS e-tron GT — flagships of the German automaker’s growing electric vehicle portfolio and its first departure from the crossovers and SUVs that have so far dominated the lineup. The Audi e-tron GT and RS are the third and fourth all-electric vehicles […]

Aerion has been working on ushering in a new era of commercial supersonic flight for nearly a decade now, and the company just revealed that it has signed a new partnership with NASA to put that experience to use in the pursuit of supersonic point-to-point travel — the technical name for putting to use the […]

There’s a popular misconception that the cryptocurrency industry is a realm of rogue tech-bro cowboys. But the reality is many of the most ambitious entrepreneurs in fintech are betting big on institutional bitcoin adoption. Such is the case with Lebanese-American venture capitalist Soona Amhaz of Volt Capital, whom Forbes recently listed as one of the […]

Oldsmar is a small town in Florida that became the center of the cyber world this week when a hacker broke into its drinking water supply and tried to poison it. It’s the nightmare scenario that the security community has warned for years, one that could kill thousands by targeting the critical infrastructure that we […]