Crunch Hype

Today Divvy, a Utah-based startup that focuses on corporate spend management, announced that it has closed a $165 million round at a $1.6 billion valuation. The company said that the new capital was raised from Hanaco, Schonfeld, PayPal Ventures and Whale Rock, along with a cadre of prior investors. The new investment is not Divvy’s […]

Chronosphere, the scalable cloud native monitoring tool launched in 2019 by two former Uber engineers, announced a $43.4 million Series B today. The company also announced that their service was generally available starting today. Greylock, Lux Capital and venture capitalist Lee Fixel, all of whom participated in the startup’s $11 million Series A in 2019, […]

Tile is preparing to introduce a new product this year that will serve as a rival to Apple’s long-awaited AirTags and other lost-item trackers coming to the market, including those from Samsung, TechCrunch has learned. While previous Tile trackers have leveraged Bluetooth to help users locate lost items — like a misplaced set of keys, […]

The aggregate fintech venture dataset shows an active sector with global demand from investors, but demand is not even.

"The next social network needs to be a place to hang also when you don’t come for a game session."

Pokémon GO creator Niantic has acquired a small SF gaming startup building a league and tournament organization platform to help gamers create their own communities around popular titles. Mayhem was in Y Combinator’s winter 2018 batch and went on to raise $5.7 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Other backers include Accel, which led the […]

There’s a decent chance you missed the news back in May — there was, after all, a lot going on at the time. General Electric sold off its more than 100-year-old GE Lighting division to smart home company Savant. Today, the division’s new owner is announcing a key rebranding effort, six months after the initial […]

In an unexpected turn, the New York Stock Exchange said Monday that it no longer intends to delist China’s three major telecoms operators, a decision that was originally announced on December 31. The initial action targeted China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom as part of the Trump administration’s move to bar investment in companies […]

Using Xiami was once synonymous with having good music taste in China. The music app, which debuted around 2008 and was acquired by Alibaba in 2013, is discontinuing its streaming service today, Xiami said in a notice to users. Xiami, which means “small shrimp” in Chinese, was once known for its smart discovery, elegant design, […]

After a dismal year, the global smartphone market will slowly start recovering in 2021, predicts TrendForce. But Huawei won’t benefit and, in fact, will fall out of the research firm’s list of the world’s top six smartphone makers by production volume. In 2020, global smartphone production dropped 11% year-over-year to 1.25 billion units. This year, […]

SVB Financial Group agreed today to buy Boston Private Financial Holdings in Boston for $900 million in cash and stock. It’s a big deal for SVB, which has earned a reputation over its 37-year history as a bank that’s friendly to startups, as well as venture and private equity investors. Boston Private, founded in 1987, […]

The world’s attention is on Jack Ma’s whereabouts after reports noted the billionaire founder of Alibaba and Ant Group had been absent from public view since late October. On October 24, Ma delivered fiery remarks against China’s financial system to an audience of high-rank officials. Days later the Chinese authorities abruptly halted Ant’s initial public […]

Steel production accounts for roughly 8% of the emissions that contribute to global climate change. It is one of the industries that sits at the foundation of the modern economy and is one of the most resistant to decarbonization. As nations around the world race to reduce their environmental footprint and embrace more sustainable methods […]

Google employees take another step in their activism, Venmo adds a check-cashing feature and Slack has some issues. This is your Daily Crunch for January 4, 2021. The big story: Hundreds of Google and Alphabet employees unionize More than 200 employees at Google and its parent company Alphabet have announced that they have formed the […]

Twitter has acquired social broadcasting app Breaker, the companies announced today via a combination of blog posts and tweets. The deal will see Breaker’s team joining Twitter to help “improve the health of the public conversation” on the service, as well as work on Twitter’s new audio-based networking project, Twitter Spaces. The Breaker app, however, […]

While the customer dynamic has changed over the last 20 years, it's actually gotten easier to convert and retain customers through the subscription funnel.

The start of a new year presents the perfect opportunity to reflect on the annual performance of our focus, the Israeli cybersecurity ecosystem.

Another week, another email newsletter. This time, the story is Punchbowl, a politics-centric newsletter founded by a crop of recent Politico alums including Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan. Ben Smith has the story, as does Maxwell Tani at the Daily Beast with some more juicy details. Why do we need another newsletter analyzing […]

A somewhat nebulous, but high-profile and potentially heavily moneyed joint venture is coming to an end: Haven, the JV created by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase, is being “disbanded” according to CNBC, three years after its original formation. One of the main reasons is that each partner in the venture was apparently just pursuing […]

Aeva, the lidar company started by two former Apple engineers, has raised an additional $200 million in private investment from Hong Kong hedge fund Sylebra Capital ahead of its debut as a publicly traded company. The Mountain View, California-based startup announced in fall 2020 that it was merging with special purpose acquisition company InterPrivate Acquisition […]

As we turn the page, I have a number of questions worth raising as we muck into 2021.

Research papers come out far too rapidly for anyone to read them all, especially in the field of machine learning, which now affects (and produces papers in) practically every industry and company. This column aims to collect the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in but not limited to artificial intelligence — and […]

A court in Italy has dealt a blow to unalloyed algorithmic management after a legal challenge brought by three unions. The Bologna court ruled that a reputational-ranking algorithm used by on-demand food delivery platform Deliveroo discriminated against gigging delivery workers by breaching local labor laws. The ruling, reported earlier in the Italian press, found Deliveroo’s ranking […]

One Way Ventures, a venture capital firm that backs immigrant founders, has closed its second fund at $57.5 million. The close comes three years after One Way announced its debut fund, a $28 million investment vehicle. The new fund will allow One Way to grow their check size from $500,000 to $1 million, giving them […]

Healthcare startup Color has raised a sizable $167 million in Series D funding round, at a valuation of $1.5 billion post-money, the company announced today. This brings the total raised by Color to $278 million, with its latest large round intended to help it build on a record year of growth in 2020 with even […]

The new year is kicking off with the launch of a new streaming service — Discovery+, which offers programming from Discovery’s networks including HGTV, Food Network, TLC, ID, OWN, Travel Channel, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. Discovery+ actually launched in the United Kingdom and Ireland last fall through a deal with Sky, but the company […]

A new agreement between Hulu and ViacomCBS will bring 14 new channels to Hulu’s live TV streaming service, while also renewing the deal that allows Hulu to carry various CBS broadcast stations and Showtime. According to ViacomCBS, the new multi-year distribution deal will for the first time allow Hulu + Live TV subscribers to stream […]

Slack did its best to ease the working world back into their jobs this morning by breaking, ensuring that everyone’s return to the grind would be as chaotic and unproductive as possible. Precisely when the downtime began is not clear, though problems amongst the TechCrunch staff began a little after ten o’clock in the morning. […]

Industrial sensor giant Teledyne is set to acquire sensing company FLIR in a deal valued at around $8 billion in a mix of stock and cash, pending approvals with an expected closing date sometime in the middle of this year. While both companies make sensors, aimed primarily at industrial and commercial customers, they actually focus […]

Venmo this morning announced it will begin to offer a new check cashing service, “Cash a Check,” in the Venmo mobile app. The feature, which is being rolled out to select users starting today, can be used to cash printed, payroll and U.S. government checks, including the new stimulus checks, the company says. Though typically […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You […]

ShareChat, an Indian social network that added Twitter as an investor in 2019, may soon receive the backing of two more American firms. The Bangalore-based startup is in advanced stages of talks to raise money from Google and Snap, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The new financing round — a Series E […]

A UK district court judge has refused to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US. In a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court this morning, Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied the extradition on grounds that Assange is a suicide risk and extradition to the US prison system would be oppressive, given the likely impact on his […]

A group of more than 200 Google and Alphabet workers have announced their efforts to form a union. With the help of Communication Workers of America Union’s Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA), the Alphabet Workers Union seeks to be open to both employees and contractors. Of the roughly 227 workers who have so far […]

Bangalore-based CRED is kickstarting the new year on a high note. The two-year-old startup, led by high-profile entrepreneur Kunal Shah, said on Monday it has raised $81 million in a new financing round and bought shares worth $1.2 million (about 90 million Indian rupees) from employees. The Series C financing round, as first reported by […]

The battle is heating up between Tesla and its Chinese challenger Xpeng as the latter makes clearer its stance on the future of autonomous driving. Over the weekend, Xpeng, which counts Xiaomi and Alibaba among its investors, announced that it will be using lidar sensors from Livox, a startup with closes ties to the Chinese […]

TMYTEK recently raised a Series A+ round of about $10 million for products that make it easier to test 5G millimeter wave equipment. So far, the company’s clients include KDDI, NTT DoCoMo and research institutions. But the Taiwanese startup has aspirations to sell its own base stations, too, competing with well-established players like Nokia, Ericsson, […]

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Samsung’s next flagship is set to debut January 14. The company just confirmed earlier rumors surrounding the date for its next Unpacked event (virtually, of course). This one sports the name, “Welcome to the Everyday Epic.” “Over the past year, mobile technology has taken center stage in […]

T-Mobile, the third largest cell carrier in the U.S. after completing its recent $26 billion merger with Sprint, ended 2020 by announcing its second data breach of the year. The cell giant said in a notice buried on its website that it recently discovered unauthorized access to some customers’ account information, including the data that […]

It’s fair to say that most people have heard about diversity reports. And it’s probably also fair to say that most of us have watched, sometimes with a metaphorical bucket of buttered popcorn, as companies crisis-comms their ways out of … crises. But most of us do not know what goes on behind the scenes. […]

Hellllooooo, 2021! Welcome back to Human Capital, a weekly newsletter that details the latest in the realms of labor, and diversity and inclusion. Not a ton happened this week so I figured I’d use the time to look back on some of the more notable labor stories of 2020. Sign up below to receive Human […]

My big question for 2021, and the one that is on every startup’s mind, is how will a cataclysmic event such as a global pandemic show up in post-pandemic innovation? I think we’re in the early innings of seeing what ‘aha moments’ have materialized into companies. And we won’t know the pandemic’s true impact on […]

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion total downloads and $120 billion in global consumer spend in 2019. Not including Chinese third-party app stores, iOS and […]

Tesla delivered 499,550 vehicles in 2020, a 36% increase over the previous year and just a few dozen short of hitting an historic and long-awaited milestone that CEO Elon Musk has been aiming for more than five years. Tesla reported Saturday that it produced 509,737 electric vehicles in 2020. Tesla was able to reach the […]

“Wonder Woman 1984” was released on HBO Max on Christmas Day, where it quickly divided the hosts of the Original Content podcast. Perhaps it was predictable that Anthony — a fan of clunky-but-ambitious superhero sequels like “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron” — enjoyed the film. Darrell, meanwhile, took the side of […]

NASA recently announced the astronauts who will be taking part in the Artemis missions, and among them is Anne McClain, who has spent 203 days in orbit and conducted two spacewalks on the ISS. With the space industry looking nothing like it did 10 years ago and new spacecraft and technologies on the rise, McClain […]

Sony said on Friday that it will launch the PlayStation 5 in India on February 2, suggesting improvements in the supply chain network that was severely impacted last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Japanese firm said it will begin taking pre-order requests for the new gaming console in India, the world’s second largest […]

As 2020 comes to a long-awaited end, a series of filings indicate that venture capitalists are ending the year with fresh money. According to SEC paperwork, Learn Capital and USV have filed paperwork that shows the firms have raised new, multimillion-dollar funds. If you’ve been paying attention to news this past year, it’s clear that […]

It’s been a strange year for sleep. For me, levels have fluctuated between too little and too much, but have – more often than not – tended toward the former. 2020 gave most of us no shortage of excuses for sleep deprivation, from personal stresses to larger societal concerns. And, thankfully, the past few years […]

When the Los Angeles-based extended reality data visualization company, BadVR, first heard that one of its earliest benefactors, Magic Leap, was about to shed 1,000 jobs and was fighting for its life, the young startup was unfazed. Despite the very public ties that BadVR had to Magic Leap, as one of the enterprise applications on […]