Crunch Hype

One of the jobs for which robots are best suited is the tedious, repetitive “pick and place” task common in warehouses — but humans are still much better at it. UC Berkeley researchers are picking up the pace with a pair of machine learning models that work together to let a robot arm plan its […]

It takes a bold vision and nerves of steel to venture into outer space. The same holds true for the pioneering startups forging the future of space technology. Connect with other bold visionaries at TC Sessions: Space 2020 to go farther and faster together. If you want to go farther and faster for less, you […]

Earlier today, Apple announced it will reduce the App Store commissions for smaller businesses so that developers earning less than $1 million per year pay a 15% commission on in-app purchases, rather than the standard 30% commission. Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games, says the move — an apparent reaction to current investigations into Apple […]

When Zoom announced Zapps last month — the name has since been wisely changed to Zoom Apps — VC Twitter immediately began speculating that Zoom could make the leap from successful video conferencing service to becoming a launching pad for startup innovation. It certainly caught the attention of former TechCrunch writer and current investor at […]

As IBM transitions from software and services to a company fully focussed on hybrid cloud management, it announced its intention to buy Instana, an applications performance management startup with a cloud native approach that fits firmly within that strategy. The companies did not reveal the purchase price. With Instana, IBM can build on its internal […]

Twitter has at various times acknowledged that Donald Trump isn’t bound by the same rules that govern the rest of us. This executive privilege has allowed him to continue posting comments that could have long ago gotten any normal person banned from the platform. More recently, the service has sought to balance misinformation/disinformation with warning […]

A group of more than 200 Facebook content moderators, as well as some full-time employees,* are demanding the tech company “stop needlessly risking moderators’ lives,” they wrote in an open letter to Facebook and the company’s contractors that manage content moderators, Accenture and Covalen. This comes after The Intercept reported how Facebook content moderators were […]

“Almost every business on earth is affected by weather,” says Alexander Levy, an investor serial entrepreneur whose latest company is the new weather prediction startup Atmo. The company, which graduated from Y Combinator earlier this year, has recently raised $2 million from Signia Ventures and Sound Ventures for its predictive software, because sometimes businesses do […]

Google is launching a major redesign of its Google Pay app on both Android and iOS today. Like similar phone-based contactless payment services, Google Pay — or Android Pay as it was known then — started out as a basic replacement for your credit card. Over time, the company added a few more features on […]

Farmstead, a startup that operates an online grocery business while also selling software to other grocers, is announcing that it has raised $7.9 million in Series A funding. While there’s been plenty of demand for grocery delivery this year, the major players like Instacart are making purchases and deliveries from existing supermarkets. Farmstead co-founder and […]

AI startup RealityEngines.AI changed its name to Abacus.AI in July. At the same time, it announced a $13 million Series A round. Today, only a few months later, it is not changing its name again, but it is announcing a $22 million Series B round, led by Coatue, with Decibel Ventures and Index Partners participating […]

After rising sharply in the second quarter of 2020, Robinhood’s income from routing its users’ orders to different parties for execution appears largely flat in the third quarter. To be clear, Robinhood’s year-over-year growth is likely very impressive given the gains we’ve seen in the key revenue category for the heavily-funded unicorn this year. But, […]

The admissions process for international students applying to colleges is outdated. For starters, there is no Common App, the one-stop application that U.S. students are able to use to apply to a variety of schools in one go. Instead, international students must navigate thousands of schools, each having their own requirements and application process, on […]

Jinx is launching a simple way to buy dog food and manage orders via text message. The startup says it has developed “the first text-to-buy platform in the legacy pet food space,” in partnership with its investor Initialized Capital and the firm’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian (who departed earlier this year and is raising a new fund). […]

Unless you’ve been on very extended digital detox, you’ll have noticed algorithms don’t exactly have the greatest reputation these days, saddled as they are with pervasive questions of bias and inequity. Not to mention the dubious content amplification choices of social media platforms. Nor has 2020 helped their automated cause — with, in just one […]

Now that we know the virus that causes COVID-19 can be transmitted via aerosol (tiny particles in the air that can hang around for a long time), researchers and engineers globally have turned their attention to helping promote air circulation where risk exposure is high, and also to kill any active viral particles that might […]

Amazon announced today it’s bringing Alexa Routines — the feature that allows users to create their own Alexa shortcuts that combine multiple actions — to its Fire TV platform. Starting today, Amazon customers will be able to include Fire TV commands in their Alexa routines, including those that power on or off the TV, open […]

If you want to know what the future of finance looks like, head east, where it’s already been laid down in China. Digital payments through mobile phones are ubiquitous, and there is incredible innovation around lending, investments and digital currencies that are at the vanguard of global financial innovation. Take the cover photo of this […]

Meet Bella, a new challenger bank launching on November 30th. The company is trying to differentiate itself with two distinctive features. First, you can interact with the app using keywords and text commands. Second, Bella is trying to build a community that helps each other to differentiate its product from soulless monolithic banking services. Let’s […]

Actress Kerry Washington has made an investment of undisclosed size in direct-to-consumer jewelry startup Aurate. This isn’t Washington’s first startup investment — she’s also backed The Wing, Community and Byte. In fact, when we asked her about her dream investment at Disrupt in September, she hinted at a new deal that “feels pretty dreamy.” When I […]

One founder is on a green card and already works there. The other founder is from India and is working on an H-1B at a large tech company. Can the H-1B co-founder lead this company?

Facebook’s internal R&D group, NPE Team, has today officially launched its latest app, E.gg, to a broader audience. The app, a freeform creation tool described as a “digital zine creator” and “GIF collage bonanza,” was announced earlier this year, but was only onboarding users via a waitlist until now. Today, it’s available in the App […]

Creating a great customer experience requires a lot of data from a variety of sources, and pulling that disparate data together has captured the attention of companies and big and small from Salesforce and Adobe to Segment and Klaviyo. Today, Grouparoo, a new startup from three industry vets is the next company up with an […]

Last week, we reported that popular language learning app Duolingo, with 500 million total app downloads​, was raising $35 million on a valuation of at least $2.21 billion — the latest chapter in what has become a long book on how e-learning and other education startups are raking in big audiences and significant funding, a […]

Bond Vet, the NYC-based tech-forward veterinary startup, has announced the close of a $17 million Series A financing. The round was led by Talisman Capital Partners. The startup has clinics across NYC that are meant to fill the gap between veterinary ERs and the veterinary equivalent of a primary care physician, modeling the business after […]

Cryptocurrency exchange Liquid has confirmed it was hacked, but that the scope of the incident is still under investigation. The company’s chief executive Mike Kayamori said in a blog post the attack happened on November 13. The hacker gained access to the company’s domain records, allowing the hacker to take control of several employee email […]

Startups that take time to scale before going public or getting acquired can represent big, if long-term, returns for employees that hold equity in them. Big, because tech companies have proven to be some of the most valuable in the world when it comes to exits; long-term, because it might take years for a startup […]

Since launching four years ago, hitting level 40 in Pokémon GO meant hitting the top. You could still keep catching Pokémon and gathering XP, of course — but that shiny level badge wasn’t going up any higher. That’ll change later this month with an update that bumps the cap to 50, introduces new Pokémon, and […]

Former Yahoo CEO and early Google employee Marissa Mayer’s startup Lumi Labs is today rebranding to Sunshine and releasing its first official product. Its new app, Sunshine Contacts, aims to be a better tool for organizing, updating and sharing contact information with others. In time, the company envisions a portfolio of consumer-facing applications that simplify […]

On the heels of Hopin’s $125 million funding round, a newcomer in the virtual events space is gaining steam. Welcome, led by co-founder and CEO Roberto Ortiz, is positioning itself as the “Ritz Carlton for virtual events,” Ortiz told me. Today, it’s announcing a $12 million Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins with participation […]

Bay Area-based Rapid Robotics today announced it has raised $5.5 million in seed funding in a round led by Greycroft and Bee Partners. The announcement comes during what has been a solid several months for robotics funding, and more and more companies are looking to automate workforces as the COVID-19 pandemic has ground a lot […]

Build.security, a Tel Aviv and Sunnyvale-based startup that aims to make it easier for developers to bake authorization policy management right into their applications, today announced a $6 million seed funding round led by cybersecurity-centric firm YL Ventures. CrowdStrike CEO and co-founder George Kurtz also participated in this round, in addition to former Zscaler CISO […]

The term ‘DevOps’ has been rendered meaningless and developers still don’t have access to the right tools to put the overall idea into practice, the team behind DevOps startup OpsLevel argues. The company, which was co-founded by John Laban and Kenneth Rose, two of PagerDuty’s earliest employees, today announced that it has raised a $5 […]

Japanese startup Astroscale is aiming for March 2021 for a launch of its first-ever active orbital debris removal mission. This demonstration of its technology, which it hopes to use to help ensure that low-Earth orbit becomes a sustainable environment for commercial activity as it becomes increasingly crowded thanks to the rapid pace of new spacecraft […]

Arrival has gone from stealthy electric vehicle startup to prospective public company in a span of a year. The UK-based company, which operated in relative secrecy for several years until January when it announced a $110 million investment from Hyundai and Kia, said Wednesday it has agreed to merge with special purpose acquisition company CIIG […]

This excerpt follows a high-growth period for Douyin, detailing how it gained around 200 million daily active users within a year via a loyal creator community, viral memes, algorithmic recommendation and aggressive ad spending.

We already knew there was a big trend towards remote working, and this has only been drastically accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the distractions of daily life can easily impinge on the ‘deep work’ many need to get done when working on something important, like writing a book, or launching a […]

Drugmaker Pfizer has provided updated analysis around its COVID-19 vaccine Phase 3 clinical trial data, saying that in the final result of its analysis of the 44,000-participant trial, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate proved 95% percent effective. This is a better efficacy rate than Pfizer reported previously, when it announced a 90% effectiveness metric based on […]

Mental health has taken a nosedive for many people this year — spurred by economic and political uncertainty, a Covid-19-fueled public health crisis, and being cooped up, among other things. In the U.S., a startup is today announcing some funding to make it easier for those who need it to find help. Headway, which helps […]

Epic acquired Houseparty way back in June of last year, following an absolutely massive $1.25 billion raise. It was clear why the Fortnite publisher would be interested in the social video app. After all, Fortnite is one of the most social games around. Now, after several months of global quarantining, the deal is finally bearing […]

Amid increased regulatory scrutiny over how it runs its App Store, Apple today announced it will reduce the App Store commissions for smaller businesses. Under the new guidelines of the “App Store Small Business Program,” as it’s called, developers earning up to $1 million per year will only have to pay a 15% commission on […]

The tourism and travel industry has been one of the hardest hit by the global Covid-19 health pandemic, and today a promising startup in the space announced some funding to help it weather the storm. Berlin-based Tourlane, which has built a platform that mimics the role of an in-person travel agent to plan and book […]

Many restaurants still rely on spreadsheets to track their inventory of produce, meat and other ingredients. But using manual methods often results in food wastage and higher costs. Malaysia-based Food Market Hub is a cloud-based platform that connects food and beverage (F&B) outlets directly to suppliers, making it easier to communicate and manage orders. The […]

True Balance, a South Korean startup which runs an eponymous financial services app aimed at tens of millions of users in small cities and towns in India, said on Wednesday it has raised $28 million in a new financing round and expects to turn a profit next year. SoftBank Ventures Asia, Naver, BonAngels, Daesung Private […]

Nigeria based startup Autochek looks to bring the sales and servicing of cars in Africa online. The newly founded venture has closed a $3.4 million seed-round co-led by TLcom Capital and 4DX ventures toward that aim. The raise comes fresh off of Autochek’s September acquisition of digital car sales marketplace Cheki in Nigeria and Ghana. […]

Vienna-based e-learning start-up GoStudent has increased the Series A round it raised earlier this year to €13.3 million, adding €5m this week, in a round led by Left Lane Capital and DN Capital. To date it has raised a total of €16m. GoStudent operates a platform connecting students with teachers worldwide for individual and group […]

Panasonic, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of lithium ion batteries, has signed a preliminary agreement with the Nordic energy company, Equinor, and engineering and industrial company, Norsk Hydro, to collaborate on building a battery business in Northern Europe. The three companies said that over the coming months they’ll work to assess the market for […]

Launched in the Philippines, social commerce startup Resellee wants to recreate the success of Pinduoduo, one of China’s fastest-growing e-commerce companies, in Southeast Asia. A major part of Resellee’s business is grocery deliveries, including fresh produce, and it has struck partnerships with the government and farmers’ groups to meet demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. The […]

French startup Yubo is the biggest social media app you’ve never heard of — unless you’re a teen. With a focus on young people under 25, the company has managed to attract 40 million users. A fraction of them hang out every day in live-streaming rooms, meet new people and spend money for more features. […]

Tech companies around the world are still identifying the “next big thing” enabled by 5G connections. Some, such as Oppo, are betting it will be augmented reality. The Chinese smartphone firm showcased its progress in AR at a Tuesday event swarmed by hundreds of reporters, analysts, and partners in Shenzhen. Green strobe light, the color […]