Crunch Hype

Amazon founder and current CEO Jeff Bezos will be transitioning to executive chair of the company sometime in Q3 of this year, with current AWS CEO Andy Jassy taking over the top executive role at the commerce company. Amazon announced the news alongside its earnings results on Tuesday. Amazon initially rose after-hours as the market […]

SpaceX has once again flown its Starship spacecraft, a still-in-development space launch vehicle it’s building in south Florida. This test was a flight of SN9, the ninth in its current series of prototype rockets. The test involved flying SN9 to an altitude of around 10 km (just over six miles, or nearly 33,000 feet). After […]

Springbig today announced that it acquired Canada-based BudTender, a customer experience platform for cannabis retailers. The acquisition adds 200 clients to springbig, which brings the total amount of retailers in its purview to 1,900. This move comes as cannabis retailers are seeking novel approaches to expand their client base. In most regions, cannabis companies are […]

The broadened geographic focus of VCs for marketing purposes and FOMO is not adequately capturing the real narrative.

Facebook spent more time than usual talking about their success with VR in their quarterly earnings call, taking time to note developer success and their own wins peddling their latest Quest 2 VR headset. One of the VR platform’s remaining quirks is a general lack of third-party support for apps that go beyond gaming. The […]

Not having a gig economy strategy as we start 2021 is like missing the internet trend in 1990 or failing to get ahead of the mobile revolution in 2010.

Landed, a startup aiming to improve the hiring process for hourly employers and job applicants, is officially launching its mobile app today. It’s also announcing that it has raised $1.4 million in seed funding. Founder and CEO Vivian Wang said that the app works by asking applicants to fill out a profile with information like […]

The Los Angeles-based commerce and content platform StackCommerce has been acquired by the Integrated Media Company, a holding company set up by the massive private equity fund, TPG, to acquire new media businesses. StackCommerce’s affiliate buying platform has distributed more than $175 million on its platform by going directly to merchants. Through its platform publishers […]

Babbel, the Berlin-based language-learning platform, today announced that it is now going well beyond its core app-based learning service and is introducing live classes. Capped at six students, these conversation-driven classes will be taught by certified teachers, using Babbel’s existing methodology. Learners can add live classes to their existing Babbel subscription for an additional fee, […]

Nearly a year ago, the spread of COVID-19 ended the daily commute for millions of Americans, an abrupt change that sent the ridesharing industry into a free fall. Hip, which connected commuters with third-party bus and shuttle operators via an app, was just one of the many mobility-as-a-service startups that watched its clientele and revenue […]

Cloud hosting company Scaleway is adding a new type of instances today — Mac minis powered by Apple’s M1 chip. The new instances cost €0.10 per hour, around $0.12 at today’s rate — there’s a minimum commitment of 24 hours. Scaleway is hosting those new computers in its DC4 data center in Paris — it’s a former […]

"We are now seeing, with the rise of remote working, better talent than ever before. But we still have a long way to go."

Miami tech is in a nascent phase to the outside world, and it allows the locals and newcomers to learn from major tech hubs' mistakes and decidedly do things differently.

Alloy Automation, a startup that was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2020 cohort, announced today that it has closed $5 million across two rounds, the most recent of which brought $4 million to the company in October of 2020. The new funds were raised at a $16 million pre-money, $20 million post-money valuation, Alloy […]

As the COVID-19 era drags on, first-time founders need to find new ways to raise capital needed to keep startups offensive (and defense). Luckily, a trio of investors from top venture capital firms are joining us at TC Sessions: Justice on March 3 to make sense of different paths to funding. The panel will include […]

TrustLayer, which provides insurance brokers with risk management services via a SaaS platform, has raised $6.6 million in a seed round. Abstract Ventures led the financing, which also included participation from Propel Venture Partners, NFP Ventures, BoxGroup and Precursor Ventures. Interestingly, the startup also got some industry validation in the way of investors. Twenty of […]

Trades in the infamous Reddit-basket of stocks and trades are taking a pounding today, with GameStop down 52.7%, AMC Entertainment off 42.7%, the silver-squeeze flopping and more. CNBC has a longer list if you want to feast your eyes on the carnage. What a surprise that the thing that was always going to happen, has […]

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced today that Amazon will be required to pay $61.7 million to settle charges that it withheld some customer tips from its Amazon Flex drivers over a two and half year period. According to the complaint against Amazon and its subsidiary Amazon Logistics, the company had advertised that it paid […]

Udemy, which launched more than a decade ago, has sold courses to 50 million students through its digital learning platform. But new president Greg Brown sees “exponential growth” opportunities in doubling down on its enterprise arm, which currently has over 7,000 customers. In a phone interview, Brown said Udemy for Business, the company’s corporate learning […]

Car insurance startup MetroMile said it has fixed a security flaw on its website that allowed a hacker to obtain driver’s license numbers. The San Francisco-based insurance startup disclosed the security breach in its latest 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. MetroMile said a bug in the quote form and application process […]

There are some additions to the TechCrunch team that I’m happy to announce. First, Kirsten Korosec, who has been with us for more than two years, was promoted to Transportation Editor. Kirsten has done amazing work, helping to elevate our foothold in the transportation space and making our Mobility events some of the most successful […]

An “anonymously”-led startup called Millions has raised a $3 million seed round for its fintech company that’s currently giving away free money through its Twitter account. The concept, inspired by the likes of YouTuber David Dobrik, is partly aimed at attracting attention for the new company but is also setting the stage for a forthcoming […]

If you’ve ever applied for a mortgage, you know it’s one of the most painful processes out there. Keeping up with payments and dealing with customer service over the course of the loan is no picnic either. So it’s no surprise that big bucks are being poured into the space with the goal of making […]

Atlassian has made it clear for some time that it’s all in on the cloud, but now it’s official. The company stopped selling new on-prem server licenses as of yesterday. Perhaps to take away the sting of that move for large organizations, today it announced a new all-inclusive enterprise pricing tier. Atlassian chief revenue officer […]

Could this IPO prove that there is lucrative space in the market for more dating products?

Own a Tesla Model S or Model X? It might have a recall, and it’s serious. Tesla today issued one of its largest recalls to date, covering roughly 135,000 Model S and Model X. The touchscreen is the concern. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the touchscreen in these vehicles can fail […]

Uber today announced plans to acquire alcohol delivery service Drizly. The approximately $1.1 billion deal includes stock and cash and is expected to close in the first half of the year. The plan will build Drizly’s marketplace directly into the Uber Eats app, though the company notes that it will maintain Drizly as a standalone […]

Despite all the headaches that come with it, homeownership is still the American dream for many. Divvy Homes – a startup that is out to help more people realize that dream by buying a house and renting it back to them while they build equity – has just closed on $110 million in Series C […]

For the longest time, Acrobat was Adobe’s flagship desktop app for working with — and especially editing — PDFs. In recent years, the company launched Acrobat on the web, but it was never quite as fully featured as the desktop version, and one capability a lot of users were looking for, editing text and images […]

5G has been on a tear the last few years as wireless operators and smartphone manufacturers have made a marketing push touting higher bandwidth and lower latency for users. Yet, for all the attention that 5G gets from consumers, some of the most important new applications for the next-generation wireless technology are actually on the […]

Folx Health is leveraging the explosion of virtual care services to offer greater access to healthcare focused on the needs of the LGBTQIA+ community, and has raised $25 million in new funding to help it grow. It’s part of a revolution in care that’s targeting the needs of specific communities with access to physicians that […]

Following a government review, the U.K.’s financial services regulator will instructed to regulate the buy now, pay later industry made popular by companies such as Klarna, and AfterPay (known as Clearpay in the U.K.). A further consultation with the industry is underway and then, when parliamentary time allows, new laws regulating buy now, pay later […]

Holded, a platform billing itself as an ERP aimed at small businesses, has raised a €15M Series B funding round led by VC firm Elaia, together with Lakestar, Nauta Capital and Seedrocket. Holded says it gives small business access to ERP-style planning across invoicing, accounting, sales, project management, inventory management and HR, in one dashboard. It’s […]

There’s something difficult to reconcile watching Spot walk up a flight of stairs in some industrial setting. After years of watching viral videos of Boston Dynamics robots perform aesthetically impressive feats, there’s a banality in the quadruped performing those dull, dirty and dangerous tasks that roboticist love to talk about. But six and half months […]

Rocket launch company Astra, which just reached space this past December with a test launch from Alaska, will be going public on the NASDAQ via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Holicity. The recent SPAC craze has already extended to the New Space sector, and Virgin Galactic was among the in […]

Yesterday, China flipped the switch on a nationwide carbon trading market, in what could be one of the most significant steps taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 — if the markets can work effectively. China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases and its share of the world’s emissions output continues to […]

The growth of remote working and managing workforces that are distributed well beyond the confines of a centralized physical office — or even a single country — have put a spotlight on the human resources technology that organizations use to help manage those people. Today, one of the HR startups that’s been seeing a surge […]

If you were itching to launch an email newsletter via Twitter, following its acquisition of the Dutch newsletter platform Revue last month, it appears you’ll have to wait a little bit longer for the official unveiling — although some Twitter users are reporting being able to sign up for the newsletter publishing tool right now. […]

French startup Seyna is getting a new CEO. Stephen Leguillon is joining the company as chief executive while Philippe Mangematin is stepping back from day-to-day activities for personal reasons — he’ll become honorary chairman. If you’re not familiar with the company, Seyna is an insurtech startup that has obtained an insurance license focused on property […]

Prakhar Singh and ex-Paystack employee Abdul Hassan have known each other for seven years, building different tech products individually and collectively along the way. Before joining Paystack in 2018, Hassan co-founded OyaPay, a payments startup the year before. After leaving the Stripe-owned company in 2019, he launched a data startup called Voyance where Singh, who […]

Digital ordering and paying at restaurants was already gaining much ground in China before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The tap-to-order method on a smartphone is part of the greater development in China where cash and physical documentation is increasingly being phased out. Many restaurants across large cities go as far as making digital menus mandatory, […]

Two years after launching its $56 million debut fund, Kindred Ventures, a San Francisco-based pre-seed and seed-stage venture fund founded by Steve Jang and Kanyi Maqubela, has closed its second fund with $100 million in capital commitments. Jang is himself a founder who later jumped into investing. In more recent years, he cofounded Bitski, a […]

Google has agreed to pay $2.59 million to more than 5,500 current employees and former job applicants as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor over allegations of systemic discrimination as it relates to compensation and hiring. Google has also agreed to reserve $250,000 a year for the next five years to […]

In a creator-economy world, if you’re only as good as your last YouTube video, then your next YouTube video had better be bigger and louder than the last. Vibely, a new startup co-founded by Asana alumni Teri Yu and Theresa Lee, wants to turn the constant, and often exhausting, beast of content creation on its […]

Google rethinks its gaming strategy, Microsoft rolls out its quantum computing platform and UiPath is now valued at $35 billion. This is your Daily Crunch for February 1, 2021. The big story: Google shutters internal game studios When Google announced its Stadia cloud platform, it also said it was forming Stadia Games and Entertainment, an […]

Batteries are the latest landing pad for investors. In the past week alone, two companies have announced plans to become publicly traded companies by merging with special purpose acquisition companies. European battery manufacturer FREYR said Friday it would become a publicly traded company through a special purpose acquisition vehicle with a valuation at $1.4 billion. Houston-area […]

Canon is embracing the AI-infused future with a strange new robotic camera called the PowerShot PICK. This little device swivels and keeps its subjects in view, taking commands or snapping shots on its own. It’s a bit like a smart security camera or Facebook’s Portal, but meant to be taken with you wherever you go, […]

Last year I penned a post positing that Salesforce’s propensity to purchase mature enterprise companies not only provided new technology, but was also helping to produce a profusion of executive talent. As though to prove my point, the company announced today that it was promoting former Vlocity CEO David Schmaier to president and chief product […]

Perhaps Public is correct in deciding that it needed another way to stand out from its in-market competitors.

Nathalie Walton almost didn’t become a mother. Her risky pregnancy caused her placenta to burst during childbirth, almost killing her and her son last year. Walton, who feels lucky to have survived, says the haunting experience made her an example of a reality she had long known: To be a pregnant Black woman is to […]