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Edtech is so widespread, we already need more consumer-friendly nomenclature to describe the products, services and tools it encompasses.

As Roblox eyes what could be a historic debut on public markets in the coming months, investors who have valued the company at $29.5 billion are certainly eyeing the gaming company’s dedicated and youthful user base — but it’s the 7 million active creators and developers on the Roblox platform that they are likely most […]

Out of nine SaaS IPOs in recent years that had the best net dollar retention, seven employ usage-based models.

The Dyatlov Pass incident is the mother of all cold cases: nine people found dead in 1959, deep in the Ural mountains, under circumstances no one has ever been able to satisfactorily explain. But new research uses simulation techniques from multiple eras to advance what is perhaps the least implausible story of this tragic mystery. […]

Where can new founders and budding entrepreneurs turn for expert advice to navigate the formative phases of building a startup? Head to TechCrunch Early Stage — a two-day virtual bootcamp that gives early founders (pre-seed through Series A) access to the leading experts across a range of essential entrepreneurial skills. We’re talking dozens of workshops […]

Any startup that hopes to build a direct connection with its customers should consider recruiting a group of users who will share their experiences, insights and advice.

In June of 1999, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins invested $25 million into an early-stage company developing a new search engine called Google, paving the way for a revolution in how knowledge online was organized and shared. Now, Sequoia Capital is placing another bet on a different kind of search engine, one for physical objects […]

Facebook’s “Supreme Court” is now accepting comments on one of its earliest and likely most consequential cases. The Facebook Oversight Board announced Friday that it would begin accepting public feedback on Facebook’s suspension of former President Trump. Mark Zuckerberg announced Trump’s suspension on January 7, after the then-president of the United States incited his followers […]

A gig economy-powered consumer edtech platform is heading to the New York Stock Exchange. Edtech startup Nerdy, which owns the popular tutoring business Varsity Tutors, is seeking to become a public company through a special purpose acquisition vehicle, otherwise known as a SPAC. Nerdy will merge with TPG Pace Tech Opportunities (NYSE: PACE), a publicly […]

How can we ensure that all of the new data from our smart cars will be handled in a secure and private way?

Rocket fuel technology startup Firehawk Aerospace has added $1.2 million to its existing seed financing, bringing the full amount invested in the round to $2.5 million. The new tranche comes from Harlow Capital Management, a Dallas-based firm run by Colby Harlow, who will join Firehawk’s board of directors as part of the deal. Firewhawk, which […]

Each year Okta processes millions of SaaS logons via its authentication system. It kindly aggregates that data to find the most popular apps and publishes an annual report. This year it found that the most popular tool by far was Microsoft Office 365. It’s worth noting that while app usage popularity varied by region, Office […]

To dig into African venture capital results, we're looking at a report concerning 2020 data from Briter Bridges, a research group that focuses on the continent's private capital market.

In recent years we’ve seen a whole bunch of visual/style fashion-focused search engines cropping up, tailored to helping people find the perfect threads to buy online by applying computer vision and other AI technologies to perform smarter-than-keywords visual search which can easily match and surface specific shapes and styles. Startups like Donde Search, Glisten and […]

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued an official statement on the tumult of the past week in the public stock market. It’s a relatively brief statement and doesn’t mention any of the key players by name (aka GameStop, Reddit, Robinhood and others), but it does acknowledge that “extreme stock price volatility has […]

After a turbulent week for the stock market and halts to the trading of certain speculative securities including GameStop (GME) and AMC, consumer investing app Robinhood has raised new capital. The new funds total more than $1 billion, with the company telling TechCrunch that they were raised from its existing investor base. The New York […]

Another COVID-19 vaccine is almost ready to begin being distributed — a single-shot inoculation made by Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals subsidiary. The company just released an efficacy report based on data from its Phase 3 trial, which found that the new vaccine is 66% effective overall in preventing moderate to severe incarnations of COVID-19 […]

Uber’s plan to acquire Autocab, a maker of SaaS for booking and dispatch software for the taxi and private-hire vehicle industry, which also operates a global trip marketplace for taxis and PHVs (iGo), is being looked at by the U.K.’s competition watchdog — which announced the launch of an inquiry today. The deadline for a […]

Sirenum, a platform for remotely managing a shift-based workforce across industries such as railway, aviation, construction and the gig economy, has raised a $2.7 million Series A funding round from new investors, including former Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy, alongside the William Currie Group. Sirenum says its subscription model platform simplifies the process of managing […]

French startup Chefclub announced earlier this week that it has raised a $17 million funding round led by First Bridge Ventures. SEB Alliance, the venture arm of kitchen appliance maker Groupe SEB, Korelya Capital and Algaé Ventures are also participating. Chefclub has been building a major media brand on social media platforms. It has attracted […]

Xiaomi, the world’s third largest smartphone maker, today unveiled “Mi Air Charge Technology” that it says can deliver 5W power to multiple devices “within a radius of several metres” as the Chinese giant invited customers to a “true wireless charging era.” The company said it has self-developed an isolated charging pile that has five phase […]

German startup Trade Republic is rolling out its app and service in France this week. This is a significant expansion move as Trade Republic has only been available in Germany and Austria so far. Trade Republic lets you buy and sell shares or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from your phone with low, transparent fees. The company […]

The impact of United States government sanctions on Huawei is continuing to hurt the company and dampen overall smartphone shipments in China, where it is the largest smartphone vendor, according to a new report by Canalys. But Huawei’s decline also opens new opportunities for its main rivals, including Apple. Canalys says Apple’s performance in China […]

For American importers, finding suppliers these days can be challenging not only due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. The U.S. government’s entity list designations, human rights-related sanctions, among other trade blacklists targeting Chinese firms have also rattled U.S. supply chains. One young company called International Compliance Workshop, or ICW, is determined to make sourcing easier for […]

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 hopped online for our weekly show, sans Gamestop news (which you can find here) to talk about all the other busy news happening in startup world right now. Here’s a taste of what we got into: Qualtrics […]

The GameStop stock saga continues, Apple releases more details about its privacy changes and Qualtrics goes public. This is your Daily Crunch for January 28, 2021. The big story: Robinhood restricts GameStop trading Robinhood has responded to an upsurge in retail investors buying shares in companies like GameStop, AMC and Blockbuster by restricting trading on […]

Miami, an emerging startup hub, has a new check-writer in town: SoftBank. The Japanese multinational conglomerate announced plans today to invest $100 million, drawn from across its funds, into Miami-based startups. Notably, SoftBank’s $5 billion Latin America fund is headquartered in Miami, as well. The initiative is led by SoftBank CEO Marcelo Claure. The fund […]

Amidst the sturm und drang of l'affaire GameStop, the cloud software vendor received a warm welcome from public investors.

After enduring a day’s worth of taking a beating across social media, government, and the various app stores of the mobile world, Robinhood took to its own blog and CEO’s Twitter account to explain why it had halted trading of some stocks earlier today. That Robinhood had restricted trading in a number of securities was bombshell […]

The GameStop short squeeze saga caught the attention of Congress Thursday morning and that buzz is already panning out into hearings on the topic. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, announced plans for an investigation into the situation, pointing to a history of “predatory conduct” from hedge funds. Waters […]

An early Snapchat employee who once architected the “Our Stories” product, Chloë Drimal, has now launched her own social app, Yoni Circle. Described as a membership-based community, the app aims to connect womxn using storytelling — including through both live video chat sessions as well as with pre-recorded stories that are available at any time. […]

With better access to capital and worldwide talent, there will be further opportunities outside Silicon Valley to scale and create a new wave of solutions to solve today’s cybersecurity problems.

Few tech sectors had more to gain from the events of 2020 than home fitness. Interest in the category was swift, as gyms were declared one of the bigger problem areas amid the worldwide spread of COVID-19. Suddenly home workouts were more than just luxury. For YC-backed Aviron, it was the ideal time to pivot. […]

Three of the popular retail stock market trading apps that have hosted much of the activity related to the Wall Street Bets subreddit-spurred run on stocks including GameStop (GME) and AMC, among others, have removed all restrictions on their exchange by their users. M1, Webull and Public had restricted transactions for the affected stocks earlier […]

Have you built your total addressable market (TAM) and serviceable addressable market (SAM) estimates for 2021 considering how things evolved in 2020?

Coinbase plans to go public by way of a direct listing, the company announced in a blog post today. The cryptocurrency exchange was founded in 2012 and allows users to buy and trade decentralized tokens like bitcoin and ethereum. The company has raised over $540 million in funding as a private company. Last month, the […]

According to a new report in the WSJ, WeWork, the co-working juggernaut that saw its attempt at a public offering blow up in spectacular fashion in the fall of 2019, might become a publicly traded company by merging with a blank-check company. Specifically, says the WSJ, the New York-based outfit has been “weighing offers from […]

Twitter only announced its acquisition of newsletter platform Revue two days ago, but the company has already begun to integrate the product into the Twitter.com website. It appears “Newsletters” will soon be the newest addition to Twitter’s sidebar navigation, alongside Bookmarks, Moments, Twitter Ads and other options. The company is also readying a way to […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week the team — Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace — recorded a bonus Equity Shot to help our listeners make sense out of the GameStop trading bonanza happening all over the internet. The story is fast-moving and news continues to break (twice […]

I’m very excited to announce Arlan Hamilton, founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, will be joining us in a fireside chat at TC Sessions: Justice on March 3. Backstage Capital has raised more than $12 million to invest in more than 150 companies led by people of color, women and/or LGBTQ founders, including Spora […]

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has urged Europe to step up privacy enforcement in a keynote speech to the CPDP conference today — echoing many of the points he made in Brussels in person two years ago when he hit out at the ‘data industrial complex’ underpinning the adtech industry’s mass surveillance of Internet users. Reforming […]

Aditya Vishwanath, the founder of Inspirit, wants to bring the creativity associated with Minecraft to the day-to-day schoolwork of students around the world. “These students are coming from TikTok and playing Roblox games [that are] highly interactive and highly engaging,” he said. “Then, they’re coming to the classroom and watching a 20-minute lecture from a […]

SPACs are going to be the tool needed to bring clean tech up to par with sectors such as healthcare. It’s a development that will benefit all of us.

It’s safe to project a rebound for the industry at large in 2021.

With Reddit’s interest in sending some stocks soaring showing no sign of slowing down, the trading app Robinhood started restricting some transactions Thursday morning. Reddit wasn’t happy — and neither are some lawmakers. The incident apparently struck an unusual bipartisan chord, with Texas Republican Ted Cruz throwing his weight behind progressive Democrats who called out […]

The newly resurrected Gowalla wants to realize its mobile dreams from the early-aughts in an augmented reality world, and they’ve raised some new funding to make it happen. The AR startup tells TechCrunch that it has raised $4 million in seed funding co-led by Google’s venture arm GV and Spark Capital. Other investors include Niantic, […]

Cybersecurity startup CybSafe, a ‘behavioral security’ platform, has raised $7.9 million in a Series A funding round led by IQ Capital with participation from Hanover Digital Investments (HDI) GmbH and B8 Ventures. The investment round will be used to focus on expanding its enterprise and mid-market client base. CybSafe is a SaaS product with a […]

New numbers from Canalys show a slowing in the major smartphone decline we saw for 2020. The past year was, of course, a major blow to an industry already suffering a slide. Hope that the arrival of 5G would right the ship were dashed by Covid-19. Things are looking up, fueled in large part by […]

General Motors pledged to be carbon neutral by 2040 — removing emissions from all of its products and global operations or offsetting those emissions through carbon credits or carbon capture within the next two decades. The company also committed to have a fully electric fleet of vehicles by 2035. It’s a big step for a […]

Storetasker is an online marketplace focused on connecting Shopify merchants with developers and other experts who can help grow their business. The product is now owned by the startup previously known as Lorem. Co-founder and COO Charlie Fogarty explained that while Lorem originally had a broader mission of connecting small businesses and developers, “We realized […]