Crunch Hype

Techfugees, the global non-profit which advocates the use of technology to aid refugees and displaced people, has appointed tech entrepreneur and Raj Burman as its new CEO. Burman succeeds Josephine Goube, who will continue as executive director of the adjacent Techfugees Charity in order to concentrate on scaling its country-based programs for refugees. Burman has […]

Following fast on the heels of Pfizer’s announcement of its COVID-19 vaccine efficacy, Moderna is also sharing positive results from its Phase 3 trial on Monday. The biotech company says that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate has shown efficacy of 94.5% in its first interim data analysis, which covers 95 confirmed COVID cases among its study […]

Organizations today are sitting on mountains of data that they amass and use in their own businesses, but many are also looking to share those troves with other parties to expand their business — a model that comes with challenges (privacy and data protection being two key ones); and these days (due to Covid-19 and […]

Apple has updated a documentation page detailing the company’s next steps to prevent last week’s Gatekeeper bug from happening again, as Rene Ritchie spotted. The company plans to implement the fixes over the next year. Apple had a difficult launch day last week. The company released macOS Big Sur, a major update for macOS. Apple […]

Walmart announced today it will sell most of its shares in Seiyu, the Japanese supermarket chain it acquired 12 years ago, to KKR and Rakuten. The deal values Seiyu at about $1.6 billion and means Walmart will almost completely exit its operations in Japan. Under the agreement, investment firm KKR will buy a 65% stake […]

The real estate industry has been slow to adopt technology compared to many other sectors. So when Dominic Penaloza left his job at WeWork China as the head of innovation and technology this spring, he decided to focus on proptech in Asia. Instead of building a startup himself or investing in one, Penaloza combines both […]

SpaceX has become the first private company to launch astronauts to the International Space Station, marking the culmination of years of work in partnership with NASA on developing human spaceflight capabilities. At 7:27 PM EST (4:27 PM PST), NASA astronauts Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, and Michael Hopkins, and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi left launch pad […]

MindTickle, a startup that is helping hundreds of small and large firms improve their sales through its eponymous sales readiness platform, said on Monday it has raised $100 million in a new financing round. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the Pune and San Francisco-headquartered startup’s new financing round, which is a combination of debt and […]

“The Vow” is a fascinating documentary, but we can’t quite recommend it whole-heartedly. As we discuss on the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, HBO’s new docuseries tells the story of NXIVM (pronounced nex-ee-um), a self-improvement company that was subsequently revealed as a sex cult, with its leader Keith Raniere sentenced to 120 years […]

SpaceX and NASA have spent years working towards today’s Crew-1 mission, which is set to launch from Florida at 7:27 PM EST (4:27 PM PST). This is the first time that SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket will be officially used as a spacecraft certified by NASA for human flight on a regular astronaut […]

Reliance Retail has acquired a majority stake in furniture and decor platform Urban Ladder, making a broader push into e-commerce as the largest retail chain in India gears up to fight Amazon and Flipkart. In a filing to the local stock exchange, Reliance Retail said it had acquired a 96% stake in Urban Ladder for […]

Welcome back to Human Capital. In this week’s edition of HC, you’ll read about the latest labor struggles at Amazon and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, President-Elect Joe Biden’s promises to gig workers, a primary care network for Black people and people of color and more. Lastly, I pulled out some nuggets from DoorDash’s S-1 that […]

This is The TechCrunch Exchange, a newsletter that goes out on Saturdays, based on the column of the same name. You can sign up for the email here. DoorDash filed to go public on Friday, meaning we’ll have at least one more unicorn IPO before 2020 comes to a close. For a high-level look at its numbers, […]

DoorDash has become the go-to delivery choice for millions of people cooped up during the pandemic this year. Will they stay as life returns to normal after the vaccine? What will be "normal," anyway?

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the TechCrunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People are now spending three hours and 40 minutes per day […]

The digital divide is not a new phenomenon. Still, it largely took Americans by surprise when, as the U.S. began to shut down to slow the spread of Covid-19 in March, schools grappled with how to move forward with online classes. It wasn’t just a matter of altering students’ curriculum. Many lacked either internet access […]

When you’re laser-focused on reaching beyond the stars, it’s hard to remember more earthly, mundane tasks. That’s why we’re giving you an extra week to score early-bird savings to TC Sessions: Space 2020 (December 16-17). So, to all you harried, procrastinating visionaries: take a breath, relax a bit and buy your pass before November 20 […]

NextView Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital fund, has raised an $89.6 million fund, according to SEC filings. The firm’s fourth fund, its largest to date, is oversubscribed, with early documents indicating a $70 million goal. The NextView Ventures team did not immediately respond to request for comment. NextView Ventures was launched in 2010 by Rob […]

Google today announced that it is ending support for Expeditions. The VR app will also be pulled from its own Play Store and Apple’s App Store in June of next year. In a blogpost somewhat confusingly titled, “Expanding Google Arts and Culture with Expeditions,” the company notes the 360-degree tours captured for the project will […]

Eighteen months ago, Uber’s self-driving car unit, Uber Advanced Technologies Group, was valued at $7.25 billion following a $1 billion investment from Toyota, DENSO and SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Now, it’s up for sale and a competing autonomous vehicle technology startup is in talks with Uber to buy it, according to three sources familiar with the […]

One of my favorite series of Monty Python sketches is built around the concept of surprise: Chapman: I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition. [JARRING CHORD] [Three cardinals burst in] Cardinal Ximénez: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! I was reminded of this today when I needed to reschedule a few stories so we could cover DoorDash’s S-1 […]

The next generation of gaming is here with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X — except it isn’t, because there are almost no next-generation games to play on them. Demon’s Souls is the first title that can truly be called next-gen, and it shows — even though it’s a remake of a PS3 game… […]

Online education has been one of the hotspots in the tech world this year, as people turn to e-learning tools to fill in the gaps variously arising from closed schools, closed offices, social distancing and more time on our hands at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And that is giving a big bump to […]

DoorDash filed to go public today, publishing numbers that showed rapid growth, enhanced profitability and an improving cash flow record which helped explain how the company had grown to a $16 billion valuation while private. The unicorn’s impending liquidity event will enrich a host of venture capital firms that bet on its eventual maturity. Instead […]

Silicon Valley peer-to-peer car rental startup Getaround has secured a $25 million loan from Horizon Technology Finance Corporation. The financing announcement comes one month after Getaround raised $140 million from investors, including SoftBank Vision Fund, Menlo Ventures, Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus’ Reinvent Capital. Getaround’s raise signals that the company is looking for new ways […]

Even within the same industry, not all big, established companies are the same when it comes to their readiness to start investing in new technology.

Nintendo will never stop mining its past for new nostalgia-based products, but at least it tends to do so with aplomb and occasionally even generosity. The former at least is on display with the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch, a standalone handheld that plays the first Mario game, its unbelievably hard “Lost Levels” sequel […]

We’ve initiated the final countdown, and we’re just hours away from the deadline for early-bird savings to TC Sessions: Space 2020 (December 16-17). It’s your last chance to grab the first of many opportunities this two-day conference provides. Purchase your early-bird ticket today before the offer expires tonight at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Let’s talk about the […]

With one in 54 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in the U.S., the issue of how to treat patients diagnosed with the condition has become almost as acute as the prevalence of the condition itself. That’s one reason why Jia Jia Ye and the team at the healthcare startup studio Redesign Health were able […]

NASA’s human spaceflight program took big strides in 2020 with the official kick-off of the Commercial Crew Program with SpaceX, and plans to return humans to the surface of the moon via the Artemis program. NASA Associate Administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate Kathryn Lueders has been there for it all, […]

The venture capital market appears to be getting later, larger and more expensive. As a result, fintech — one of its hottest and most-funded sectors — is evolving in a similar manner. For late-stage fintech companies, it’s great news. But for smaller players, is the shift toward bigger, more mature rounds undercutting their ability to […]

Kyklo, a startup that helps wholesale distributors of electrical and automation products launch e-commerce stores, is announcing that it has raised $8.5 million in seed funding. The industry may sound a bit arcane, but it’s one that founders Remi Ducrocq (Kyklo’s CEO) and Fabien Legouic (CTO) know from having worked at Schneider Electric. Ducrocq said […]

After years of rumors and high-flying headlines, we finally have the S-1 for DoorDash. Alex has covered the primary details, but I figured it would be good to dive in so we can see who is raking in the returns on the country’s delivery startup champion. DoorDash’s filing indicates that the company raised a combined […]

Another banner month month for Nintendo hardware sales, per the latest figures from NPD. The firm puts Switch sales (including the standard and Lite models) at 735,000 units in the U.S., making the best October for a Nintendo console since the Wii sold 807,000 units in October 2008. It’s been a good couple of years […]

There are big changes today at Onfido, the global identity verification and authentication platform which has rocketed in adoption as so many services become digitized during the pandemic. The company, which has raised more than $200 million to date, is appointing a new CEO with the intention of moving towards an IPO “at some point” […]

After filing earlier this year, DoorDash dropped its public S-1 filing this morning, bringing clarity to its numbers and moving it closer to a public debut that should happen before the end of the year. The company is one of several startups that we expect to see IPOs from before the year ends, despite some […]

Microsoft has revealed that hackers backed by Russia and North Korea have targeted pharmaceutical companies involved in the COVID-19 vaccine development efforts. The technology giant said Friday that the attacks targeted seven companies in the U.S., Canada, France, India, and South Korea. But while it blocked the “majority” of the attacks, Microsoft acknowledged that some […]

There are plenty of reviews out there for the Hero 9 already, so I wanted to do something a little different. I decided to put GoPro’s latest to the test while hugging turns in my 1970 Chevelle. I recently swapped the automatic transmission in it for a Tremec Magnum 6-speed manual in order to do […]

It’s no secret that a massive digital transformation is happening within financial services companies and amid the growing number of non-financial outfits that are also adding financial products to their offerings. Still, Sheel Mohnot, who was formerly a general partner at the fintech fund of 500 Startups, and Jake Gibson, co-founder of personal finance startup […]

The fate of TikTok in the United States got even more confusing this week. The U.S. Justice and Commerce Departments sent conflicting messages today about TikTok’s future, which is now up in the air with the upcoming administration transition. The Department of Commerce said Thursday it would abide by an injunction issued October 30 by […]

Reports that Dominion Software, which provides voting tabulation tools to about half the states in the U.S., “deleted” millions of votes have been soundly rebuffed after outgoing President Trump parroted numbers from a random internet forum. Tweeting Thursday morning about baseless claims of election fraud, Trump cited OANN, a right-wing news outlet, which itself seemed […]

The latest Mac operating system arrives, Amazon faces a lawsuit over PPE and Disney+ turns one. This is your Daily Crunch for November 12, 2020. The big story: Apple releases macOS Big Sur This update, which was first announced five months ago at WWDC, includes a number of design changes that continue to blur the […]

Just over a week after the U.S. elections, Twitter has offered a breakdown of some of its efforts to label misleading tweets. The site says that from October 27 to November 11, it labeled some 300,000 tweets as part of its Civic Integrity Policy. That amounts to around 0.2% of the total number of election-related […]

Truebill, a startup offering a variety of tools to help users take control of their finances, announced today that it has raised $17 million in Series C funding. When I first wrote about the startup in 2016, it was focused on helping users track and cancel unwanted subscriptions. Since then, it’s expanded into other financial […]

Netflix already borrowed the concept of short-form video “Stories” from social apps like Snapchat and Instagram for its Previews feature back in 2018. Now, the company is looking to the full-screen vertical video feed, popularized by TikTok, for further inspiration. With its latest experiment, Fast Laughs, Netflix is offering a new feed of short-form comedy […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The full Equity crew was on hand to debate the current venture capital market, curious about how risk-on, or risk-off things really are today. Danny, Natasha and I framed the conversation around a number of […]

Buying someone a gadget is a time-honored tradition, but these days it can be particularly fraught, considering you may buy them a fitness tracker that also monitors emotions, or a doorbell that snitches to the cops. Mozilla has put together a helpful list of popular gadgets with ratings on just how creepy they are. “Privacy […]

If you’re on a Mac running a relatively new version of macOS (Catalina or Big Sur, seemingly) and it’s having all sorts of weird issues right now: you’re not alone. We’re seeing a flood of reports from both users and developers of an issue preventing apps — particularly those not made by Apple — from […]

Disney+, the streaming service that launched one year ago today, grew to 73.7 million paid subscribers as of early October. That’s according to The Walt Disney Company’s fourth-quarter earnings report, which covers the company’s finances through October 3. The company previously said Disney+ had 60.5 million subscribers as of August 3. The release also includes […]

Salespeople planning on jumping ship — and the startups considering hiring them — should be informed about the current legal landscape.