Crunch Hype

The electric, autonomous vehicles of the future might be manufactured by Apple’s main supplier Foxconn and Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. The two companies have agreed to form a joint venture focused on contract manufacturing for automakers, with a specific focus on electrification, connectivity and autonomous driving technology as well as vehicles designed for […]

We’re always looking to make TechCrunch better, and part of that is regularly gathering feedback from the people that matter most — our readers. We’ve compiled a short survey, and we’d appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to respond. The survey can be found here. We look forward to hearing your product […]

The cloud isn't some omnipotent enemy here, but it is the excuse and tool that allows the mass collection of our personal data.

Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have created a set of fish-shaped underwater robots that can autonomously navigate and find each other, cooperating to perform tasks or just placidly school together. Just as aerial drones are proving themselves useful in industry after industry, underwater drones could revolutionize ecology, shipping, and other areas […]

Most of the takes we received were bullish regarding Plaid's chances now that it's no longer being acquired.

In a move that could have wide ramifications across the tech landscape, Intel announced that VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger would be replacing interim CEO Bob Swann at Intel on February 15th. The question is why would he leave his job to run a struggling chip giant. The bottom line is he has a long history […]

Today shares of Affirm, a buy-now-pay-later unicorn, started trading above $90 per share, far above its $49 per-share IPO price, a figure that was already miles above the company’s early expectations. The pop comes after Affirm raised its pricing range earlier this week, to $41 to $44 per share, up from an initial range of […]

The FTC has reached a settlement with Flo, a period and fertility tracking app with 100 million+ users, over allegations it shared users’ health data with third-party app analytics and marketing services like Facebook despite promising to keep users’ sensitive health data private. Flo must obtain an independent review of its privacy practices and obtain […]

Researchers have created a machine learning system that they claim can determine a person’s political party, with reasonable accuracy, based only on their face. The study, from a group that also showed that sexual preference can seemingly be inferred this way, candidly addresses and carefully avoids the pitfalls of “modern phrenology,” leading to the uncomfortable […]

Airbnb won’t be hosting anyone in Washington DC during the week of the Presidential Inauguration, the company said in a statement. Brian Chesky took to Twitter to confirm the company’s move on Wednesday even as lawmakers in the nation’s Capitol were moving ahead with a historic vote to impeach President Donald Trump for a second […]

After launching in October, Tradeswell is announcing today that it has raised $15.5 million in Series A funding. Co-founder and CEO Paul Palmieri previously led digital ad company Millennial Media (now owned by TechCrunch’s parent company Verizon Media), and he said the e-commerce market today is similar to the online ad market when he was […]

GoPro may have started out at the intersection of capability and affordability in the action cam space, but since then it has increasingly leaned towards use by professionals or deployment by businesses. The latest features, announced at CES, underline that priority, making the cameras simpler and more automated for rentals and hands-free operation. If you’ve […]

Drata, a startup that helps businesses get their SOC 2 compliance, today announced that it has raised a $3.2 million seed round led by Cowboy Ventures and that it is coming out of stealth. Other investors include Leaders Fund, SV Angel and a group of angel investors. Like similar services, Drata helps businesses automate a […]

Openbase founder Lior Grossman started his company the way that many founders do — to solve a problem he was having. In this case, it was finding the right open source components to build his software. He decided to build something to solve the problem, and Openbase was born. Today, the company announced a $3.65 […]

The United States has, over the past few decades, been extremely lenient on antitrust enforcement, rarely blocking deals, even with overseas competitors. Yet, there have been inklings that things are changing. Yesterday, we learned that Visa and Plaid called off their combination after the Department of Justice sued to block it in early November. We […]

French startup Iziwork has raised a $43 million funding round. Cathay Innovation and Bpifrance’s Large Venture fund are participating in this funding round. The company has been building a platform focused on improving temporary employment. While it’s a relatively large funding round, the startup is quite young. It was founded in September 2018 and it […]

The last we heard from Luther.ai, the startup was participating in the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield in September. The company got a lot of attention from that appearance, which culminated in a $3.2 million seed round it announced today. While they were at it, the founders decided to change the company name to Human.ai, which they […]

Blue Origin is set to launch one of its New Shepard rockets as early as tomorrow, January 14 at 9:45 AM CST (10:45 AM EST) for its first mission of 2021. This is a big one for the Jeff Bezos-founded space company, too – it includes upgrades to the crew capsule atop the rocket that […]

We could be looking at a 2021 IPO market that resembles last year's heated results.

It’s estimated that there were some 50 billion connected devices globally in 2020, and while that really says a lot about how far we’ve come in tech, for many it also speaks to a big issue: security vulnerabilities, with the devices themselves, plus all the components and services running on them, all potential targets for […]

The first commercial lunar landers are set to start making their trips to the Moon as early as this year, and now another one has a confirmed ride booked: Intuitive Machines is sending its second lander aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, with a projected launch timeframe happening sometime around 2022 at the earliest. Intuitive Machines […]

I hear the random H-1B lottery will be replaced with a new system that selects H-1B candidates based on their salaries. How will this new process work?

You know what’s great? Becoming a unicorn in two years. You know what’s even better? Exiting at unicorn status in two years. This morning, Qualcomm announced that it was buying high-performance computing startup NUVIA for $1.4 billion, minus some coverage of working capital and debt. The startup, which we extensively profiled on its launch after […]

Gainful, a startup offering personalized subscriptions to protein powders and hydration products, is announcing that it has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding. COO Eric Wu, who founded the company with CTO Jahaan Ansari, told me that Gainful began with his own experience experimenting different protein powders and eventually finding the combination that worked […]

Dell’s kicking off 2021 with a new addition to its monitor lineup that aims to hit a variety of sweet spots. The Dell UltraSharp 40 Curved WUHD monitor offers 39.7″ of screen real estate, with a 5120 x 2160 resolution that matches the pixel density of 4K resolution on a 32-inch conventional widescreen display. It […]

Netflix has released its first-ever diversity and inclusion report. Though, it’s not the first time Netflix has shared this type of data. Netflix has shared representation numbers since 2013, but the company had not put a bow on it until now. Worldwide, women make up 47.1% of Netflix’s workforce. Since 2017, representation of white and […]

Stacklet, a startup that is commercializing the Cloud Custodian open-source cloud governance project, today announced that it has raised an $18 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Addition, with participation from Foundation Capital and new individual investor Liam Randall, who is joining the company as VP of business development. Addition and Foundation Capital also […]

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has agreed to swiftly finalize a long-standing complaint against Facebook’s international data transfers which could force the tech giant to suspend data flows from the European Union to the US within in a matter of months. The complaint, which was filed in 2013 by privacy campaigner Max Schrems, relates to […]

This morning Webflow, a software company that helps businesses build no-code websites, announced that it has raised a $140 million Series B. The round, led by returning investors Accel and Silversmith, comes after the startup raised $72 million in an August, 2019 Series A. The new funding values Webflow at more than $2.1 billion it […]

Car auto-insurance from legacy providers has structural bias built into it. It uses metrics such as credit score, income, marital status and education to figure out insurance rates, which eventually disproportionately hurts low-income individuals through high rates and low protection. Loop, co-founded by John Henry and Carey Anne Nadeau, hopes to launch an alternative model […]

Rho Technologies, the NYC-based fintech behind Rho Business Banking, has raised a $15 million Series A round led by M13 Ventures with participation from Torch Capital, and Inspired Capital. The company will use the proceeds to further expand their commercial banking platform aimed at high-growth businesses, starting with today’s launch of Rho AP. The platform […]

Bryte today announced $24M in Series A funding led by ARCHina Capital. This comes as the company moves away from selling its $8,000 mattress direct to consumers and instead is working with partners who would utilize Bryte’s technology in their mattresses. Bryte says several deals are in the works. According to the company, this pivot […]

Last June, Apple committed $100 million to a Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI). Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, is leading the initiative. Today, Apple is sharing some of its work as part of the initiative. “We’re launching REJI’s latest initiatives with partners across a broad range of industries […]

A wave of organizations — propelled by global Covid-19 pandemic circumstances — are moving their commercial and financial interactions online, and today one of the big players helping to enable that shift is announcing a significant round of growth funding to expand the tools and services that it provides to them. Rapyd, which provides an […]

YouTube has been the slowest of the big social media platforms to react to the threat of letting president Trump continue to use its platform as a megaphone to whip up insurrection in the wake of the attack on the US capital last week. But it’s now applied a temporary upload ban. In a short […]

TikTok announced today it’s making changes to its app to make the experience safer for younger users. The company will now set the accounts for users ages 13 to 15 to private by default, as well as tighten other controls for all users under 18, in terms of how they can interact with other users […]

Amazon is doubling down on one of the biggest strengths of Prime Video streaming service: Aggressive pricing. The e-commerce giant on Wednesday launched Prime Video Mobile Edition, an even more affordable tier of the on-demand video streaming service — now also bundling some mobile data. Prime Video Mobile Edition, for which Amazon has partnered with […]

Winnoz’s Haiim is designed to make collecting blood from fingertips easier, increasing the volume drawn so it can be used for more types of tests. The New Taipei City, Taiwan-based company’s vacuum-assisted device can collect up to 150 to 500 microliters of blood from a finger prick, depending on the person, in about two minutes. […]

Barcelona-based TravelPerk has scooped up US-based rival NexTravel as the pandemic drives consolidation in one of the sector’s hardest hit by COVID-19. It’s not disclosing how much it’s shelling out for NexTravel, which has some 700 customers globally and has processed around 300,000 trips since being founded back in 2013, but says the deal is […]

Mobile adoption continued to grow in 2020, in part due to the market forces of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to App Annie’s annual “State of Mobile” industry report, mobile app downloads grew by 7% year-over-year to a record 218 billion in 2020. Meanwhile, consumer spending grew by 20% to also hit a new milestone of […]

Amazon on Wednesday launched Amazon Academy, a service that will aim to help students in India prepare for entry into the nation’s prestigious engineering colleges. The American firm is the latest entrant to this market where scores of startups and institutes have launched digital offerings in recent years. The e-commerce giant, which has invested more […]

Megvii, one of China’s largest facial recognition startups, is gearing up for an initial public offering in Shanghai. The company is working with CITIC Securities to prepare for its planned listing, according to an announcement posted by the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Tuesday. The move came more than a year after Megvii, known for […]

French startup Molotov provides an OTT TV streaming service in France with live TV, premium channels, a cloud DVR and on-demand content. While the service has managed to attract 13 million users in France, it has yet to expand to other countries. Molotov is starting its international expansion this year with a dozen countries on […]

Glassdoor just released its annual ranking of the best companies to work for in 2021. We broke out the top 10 tech companies from the list of large businesses (1,000+ employees) as well as from the small to medium-sized business list. For the large business list, the rankings are based on employee feedback from companies […]

Yo-Kai Express is known for autonomous restaurant technology for venues like office campuses, malls and hotels. As people continue staying home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the company is introducing a smart home cooking appliance with multiple functions. Called Takumi, it includes a coffee maker, high induction cooktop and a steamer for sanitizing utensils […]

The spread of misinformation and fake news online has a dangerous impact on public well-being. Misinformation is difficult to fight, and 73% of Americans surveyed by Pew Research ahead of the presidential election expressed little or no confidence in the ability of major tech companies to keep their platforms from being misused. The open-source Starling […]

As expected, this year’s (virtual) CES has brought with it a new flood of smart home gadgets. The technology has been a major presence over the last several CES events, and with a world stuck at home for the foreseeable future, a lot of this tech has become all the more appealing. Nobi stands out […]

Brian Acton is crossing paths again with Facebook. Over more than a decade of building and operating WhatsApp, the company’s co-founder first competed against and then sold his instant messaging app to the social juggernaut. Only a few years ago he parted ways with the company that made him a billionaire in a bitter split […]

Lime has changed its corporate travel policy to ensure not a dime of its money ends up in the coffers of the Trump Organization’s hotels and other properties in response to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that led to several deaths. The micromobility startup wants to take that action further and has […]

Regulatory action prompts Visa to back off a fintech acquisition, Uber and Moderna partner and Checkout.com is valued at $15 billion. This is your Daily Crunch for January 12, 2021. The big story: Visa calls off Plaid acquisition The deal, valued at $5.3 billion, was first announced just over a year ago. However, the Department […]