Crunch Hype

What a difference a week makes. This time last week, in the wake of earnings from tech’s five largest American companies and early results from other software companies, it appeared that tech shares were in danger of losing their mojo. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or […]

As the pandemic rages on, companies are looking for an edge when it comes to sales. Having the right data about the customers most likely to convert can be a huge boost right now. Slintel, an early-stage startup building a sales intelligence tool, announced a $4.2 million seed round today. The investment was led by […]

The new generation of consoles is both a hard and an easy sell. With a big bump to specs and broad backwards compatibility, both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are certainly the consoles anyone should buy going forward. But with nearly no launch content or must-have features, they also fail to make a […]

Spain’s All Iron Ventures (AIV), an investor in B2C marketplaces and e-commerce plays, has closed its first fund with commitments totalling €66.5 million (~$79 million) — which it touts as one of the largest first-fund raises in the country. Capital committed to the fund by its parent group’s founding partners and other investors brings its […]

Netflix is testing out a programmed linear content channel, similar to what you get with standard broadcast and cable TV, for the first time (via Variety). The streaming company will still be streaming said channel — it’ll be accessed via Netflix’s browser-based website — and it will be initially available in France only, having rolled […]

Starling founder Anne Boden recently told TechCrunch that the U.K. challenger bank is on track to be profitable by Christmas, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t out raising additional capital already. According to well-placed sources, Starling has hired Rothschild with the aim of raising a new £200 million round. The draw is its expected profitability, […]

Amazon will invest about $2.8 billion in Telangana to set up a new AWS Cloud region in the southern state of India, a top Indian politician announced on Friday. The investment will allow Amazon to launch an AWS Cloud region in Hyderabad by mid-2022, said K. T. Rama Rao, Minister for Information Technology, Electronics & […]

PUBG Mobile, the sleeper hit title that was banned in India two months ago over cybersecurity concerns, is plotting to make a return in the world’s second largest internet market, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The South Korean firm has engaged with global cloud service providers in recent weeks to store Indian […]

Rumors have been floating for months that ByteDance is going public with TikTok and Douyin separately. Just last night, Bloomberg reported that ByteDance is seeking a pre-IPO round of $2 billion at a staggering valuation of $180 billion. Before any of that materializes, ByteDance Chinese rival Kuaishou moved ahead to file for an initial public […]

Former presidential advisor and right-wing pundit Steve Bannon had his show suspended from Twitter and an episode removed by YouTube after calling for violence against FBI director Christopher Wray and the government’s leading pandemic expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Bannon, speaking with co-host Jack Maxey, was discussing what Trump should do in a hypothetical second term. […]

Teslaquila, the Tesla -branded liquor that co-starred in CEO Elon Musk’s controversial April Fool’s Day joke about the automaker filing for bankruptcy, has arrived. The automaker now lists Tesla Tequila (a bit different from the original Teslaquila branding) on its website. The tequila — described as a “small-batch premium 100% de agave tequila añejo made […]

SpaceX has launched a GPS III satellite on behalf of customer the U.S. Space Force, the second GPS III generation satellite it has launched for the U.S. military this year. The first took off in June, and was the third overall GPS III put in orbit by SpaceX. This is the fourth, and will provide […]

Fresh off of its success on Election Day, Uber is signaling that it will continue to push laws similar to the Proposition 22 measure approved by California voters that will keep gig workers classified as independent contractors. The ride-hailing company’s ambitions for laws that preserve its business model are global. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said […]

The DOJ challenges Visa’s acquisition of a fintech startup, Apple releases the latest version of iOS and goPuff acquires an iconic alcohol retailer. This is your Daily Crunch for November 5, 2020. The big story: DOJ files suit to stop Plaid acquisition The Department of Justice is challenging Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of financial services […]

The various iterations of the new iPhone were announced 800 million years ago. Actually, wait, I just double checked — it was only about two or so weeks ago, but it turns out that time has no meaning anymore. Another cursory glance at my calendar tells me that, while the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 […]

Florida is renowned for its strange news stories. In recent weeks alone, one resident reported an alligator in her garage that turned out to be a pool floatie; another discovered a python in her washing machine; and a horse needed to be pulled out of a septic tank by firefighters. Still, don’t dismiss Orlando residents […]

Despite surging delivery demand, Uber’s third-quarter ultimately failed to meet investor revenue expectations in the third quarter. Uber reported gross bookings of $14.7 billion in the period, a decline of 10% compared to the year-ago quarter. That level of platform spend generated revenue of $3.1 billion for the company, down 18% from a year-ago result. […]

Bentley Motors, the ultra luxury automaker under VW Group, will only produce plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars starting in 2026 with an aim to drop all combustion engines in the next decade. The company said Thursday its entire lineup will be all-electric by 2030. That plan, known as Beyond 100, is already underway with the […]

Vimeo has raised $150 million in new equity funding, announced in conjunction with the third quarter earnings of its parent company IAC. In a letter to shareholders, IAC CEO Joey Levin said the company has “begun contemplating spinning Vimeo off to our shareholders.” “Given Vimeo’s success, and investor adulation for the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) category generally, […]

Facebook has taken down a group that had amassed over 300,000 members and was sharing misinformation and organizing around false allegations of impropriety during the 2020 elections. The group, called “Stop the Steal 2020,” was organizing protests targeting the election officials currently counting ballots cast in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. “In line with […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. What a week from us here in the United States, where the election is still being tabulated and precisely zero people are stressed at all. But, no matter what, the wheels of Equity spin on […]

A series of tweets by one Miami University student that were critical of a proctoring software company have been hidden by Twitter after the company filed a copyright takedown notice. Erik Johnson, a student who works as a security researcher on the side, posted a lengthy tweet thread in early September about Proctorio, an Arizona-based […]

As social media platforms struggle to get U.S. election misinformation under control with varying degrees of success, TikTok has taken new actions to stop people from searching and browsing select hashtags associated with misinformation and conspiracies related to the U.S. election results. The video app has redirected some hashtags — including #RiggedElection, #SharpieGate and others […]

ByteDance, the company behind the social media sensation TikTok, is in talks to raise another $2 billion before the initial public offering of a large chunk of its international businesses on the Hong Kong StockExchange, according to a Bloomberg report. The new financing would give the Chinese tech powerhouse a valuation of $180 billion, according […]

Facebook today began to block select hashtags which were being used to share misinformation related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Now, searches for the hashtags #SharpieGate is being blocked on the social network. Another election conspiracy hashtag #stopthesteal is also blocked on Facebook, with a note saying some of its content goes against the […]

A lot of the past decade in smart home gadgets has been figuring out just how smart we actually want our appliances to be. In a lot of cases when it comes to cooking, the old ways are best, and smart features tend to just complicate things. The new Revolution Cooking R180 High-Speed Smart Toaster […]

Rocket Lab is set to complete a crucial test for its rocket reusability program during its next mission, which is currently set to take place sometime in mid-November, with a launch widow that opens on November 16. This is a bit of a surprise, because the launch company said that it would be doing this […]

While the world awaits the Airbnb IPO filing that could come as early as next week, Upstart dropped its own S-1 filing. The fintech startup facilitates loans between consumers and partner banks, an operation that attracted around $144 million in capital prior to its IPO. First Round Capital, Khosla Ventures, Third Point Ventures, Rakuten and […]

No-code is the name of the game in enterprise software, and today a startup called Ushur that has built a platform for any business to create its own AI-based customer communication flows with no coding required is announcing some funding to help fuel its growth. The startup has picked up $25 million in a Series […]

It takes deep analysis and lots of hard work to establish and maintain a fair pay model. Several factors are critical to pull it off successfully.

GoPuff is making a big acquisition less than a month after it announced a $380 million round that valued the Philadelphia-headquartered delivery startup at $3.9 billion. Bloomberg’s Katie Roof reported today that goPuff was in talks to buy alcoholic beverage chain BevMo, and goPuff just put out a press release confirming that it has reached an acquisition […]

Let’s get this out of the way: The Aeron is better. But not much, and that’s the story here. The tCentric Hybrid starts at $900 and offers serious comfort and support for the tireless worker. There are endless adjustment levers, knobs and options. The chair is available for ordering with a bevy of accessories and […]

The Department of Justice moved to block the long-impending Visa-Plaid deal today. The transaction was announced in early 2020, making the decision by the government to try and scuttle its consummation in November a large irritation to both parties. The pair spent nearly the entire year operating in the gray area between having struck a […]

Autonomous drone company Skydio has hired three executives in product and engineering following its recent $100 million Series C funding round as part of the company’s strategy to expand beyond consumer applications and into the enterprise and public sector markets. The hires include Roy Goldman, who was the director of software development at Tesla for […]

Apple has released iOS 14.2 today. It includes multiple new features as well as some important bug fixes and security updates. Among other things, this release introduces over 100 new emojis. You’ll find a transgender flag, a smiling face with tear, pinched fingers, two people hugging, some insects and animals, a disguised face and more. […]

Amazon has officially started operations at its first European Amazon Air hub, based out of the Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany. The new facility spans 20,000 square meters (65,600 square feet) and will host two Amazon-branded Boeing 737-800 aircraft, brining the company’s total operational air fleet to over 70 aircraft. The retail giants says that the […]

We’re back with another episode of Mixtape. This week Marah Lidey, co-founder and co-CEO of Shine, joins us to discuss mental health, venture capital, portfolio diversity and connecting with other founders trying to make it all work. It’s easy to look at 2020 and identify perfectly valid reasons to pursue mental health. But that’s not […]

NASA has issued a new request for proposals from partners that would be able to help it supplement its own storytelling in new and innovative ways, including potentially through use of robotic camera systems, high-resolution and 360-degree video capture, immersive VR content and more. The agency has noted that it’s looking for responses form a […]

Meet Reposite, a software-as-a-service startup that wants to help travel agents of all kinds deal with their daily tasks. While the travel agency industry is huge, most people who work in this industry still don’t have a good system in place to deal with information, orders and communication. Reposite wants to be a one-stop shop […]

Two days ago, about $1 billion worth of bitcoin that had sat dormant since the seizure of the Silk Road marketplace in 2013, one of the biggest underground drug websites on the dark web, suddenly changed hands. Who took it? Mystery over. It was the U.S. government. In a statement Thursday, the Justice Department confirmed […]

Building a SaaS company from the ground up is never easy. In fact, it's generally a grueling, all-consuming process that strains every fiber in your being.

A small wrinkle in the console wars. Sony took to Twitter today to note that the PlayStation 5 won’t be available for in-store purchases on launch day (November 12 or 19, depending on what part of the world you live in). Instead, users will only be able to but it online at that date. The […]

It’s hard to imagine anything more thrilling than turning science fiction into science fact. If you’re forging new frontier technology — or ready to tackle the challenge — then join a growing, global community of startup visionaries at TC Sessions: Space 2020, on December 16-17. Take advantage of early-bird pricing and secure your seat at […]

The Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit challenging Visa’s proposed $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid . News of the DOJ’s investigation first broke last month. “By acquiring Plaid, Visa would eliminate a nascent competitive threat that would likely result in substantial savings and more innovative online debit services for merchants and consumers,” the […]

When Alibaba entered the cloud infrastructure market in earnest in 2015 it had ambitious goals, and it has been growing steadily. Today, the Chinese ecommerce giant announced quarterly cloud revenue of $2.194 billion. With that number, it has passed IBM’s $1.65 billion revenue result (according to Synergy Research market share numbers), a significant milestone. But […]

Meditation app Calm’s brilliant and hilarious marketing campaign that saw it sponsoring CNN’s coverage of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election results this week seems to have paid off for the business. The app, which today offers mindful meditations, peaceful sounds and sleep stories, had flashed on screen during CNN’s “Key Race Alert” coverage, reminding users […]

WhatsApp, which began testing its payments service in India with 1 million users in early 2018, can finally start to expand the feature to more users in the world’s second largest internet market. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the body that operates the widely popular UPI payments infrastructure, said on Thursday evening that it […]

The race is on to build more efficient chip technology for faster and less power-intensive computing, and today an innovative startup that’s built one solution based on in-package optical interconnect (optical I/O) technology is announcing a round of growth funding from a number of strategic investors that speaks to how its approach is getting traction. […]

Google and Walmart have a new challenge ahead of them as they race to expand the reach of their payments apps in India: They won’t be permitted to grow beyond a limit. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the body that operates the widely popular UPI payments infrastructure, said Thursday evening that it will enforce […]

Almost on command after we asked yesterday if a rash of technology IPOs were about to land, news broke that Airbnb plans to drop its S-1 filing early next week with a December roadshow. The document will be of intense interest for shareholders — as well as public investors who hope to purchase shares in the […]