Crunch Hype

Amazon expects to incur $4 billion in COVID-related costs next quarter, an estimate that provides a bellwether for other businesses, large and small, trying to stay operational and control expenses amid the pandemic. The upshot: Amazon is planning for COVID to remain an unwelcome companion through the end of the year with costs higher than […]

WhatsApp, the popular instant messaging app owned by Facebook, is now delivering roughly 100 billion messages a day, the company’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said at the quarterly earnings call Thursday. For some perspective, users exchanged 100 billion messages on WhatsApp last New Year’s Eve. That is the day when WhatsApp tops its engagement figures, […]

What does a hologram-obsessed entrepreneur do for a second act after setting up a virtual Ronald Reagan in the Reagan Memorial Library, or beaming Jimmy Kimmel all the way from Hollywood to the Country Music Awards in Nashville? If that entrepreneur is David Nussbaum, the founder of PORTL Hologram, the next logical step is to […]

Tesla has made good on founder and CEO Elon Musk’s promise to boost the price of its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software upgrade option, increasing it to $10,000 following the start of the staged rollout of a beta version of the software update last week. This boosts the price of the package $2,000 from its price […]

Polestar, the electric vehicle brand that was spun out of Volvo Car Group, has issued another recall for its newest electric vehicle. The company is voluntarily recalling nearly 4,600 vehicles over what has been described as faulty inverters, Reuters reported. Polestar said in a statement that all affected customers will be notified, beginning November 2. […]

Corsair Gaming today announced that it has acquired EpocCam, the software developer behind the iOS software of the same name. It’s easy to see why the gaming company would be interested in such an acquisition in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has lead to a worldwide spike in remote working — and, as a result, more […]

Google releases its latest earnings report, Spotify is getting ready to raise prices and Excel gets friendlier to custom data types. This is your Daily Crunch for October 29, 2020. The big story: Google had a good quarter Google’s parent company Alphabet released its third-quarter earnings report this afternoon, coming in well ahead of Wall […]

PUBG Mobile, the sleeper hit mobile game, will terminate all service and access for users in India on October 30, two months after New Delhi banned the game in the world’s second largest internet market over cybersecurity concerns. India on September 2 banned PUBG Mobile Nordic Map: Livik and PUBG Mobile Lite, along with more […]

Apple is launching its Apple One services bundle tomorrow, though the company’s workout service Fitness+ isn’t quite ready yet. On an earnings call today, CEO Tim Cook revealed tomorrow’s rollout and called the service the “easiest way for users to enjoy Apple services.” In a conversation with Bloomberg, Apple CFO Luca Maestri revealed the launch […]

Time for another Netflix price hike! About a year and a half after the last price increase, Netflix is bumping up the cost for most of its monthly plans in the U.S. by one to two dollars. Here’s how the changes break down: The “Premium” plan (4k and 4 simultaneous streams) will go from $15.99 […]

Twitter continued to see its total traffic rise in the third quarter, thanks to that trifecta of returning sports, the presidential campaign and the COVID-19 pandemic. But there wasn’t nearly enough growth to appease Wall Street. Twitter beat out analyst expectations on revenue and net income; however, Wall Street was stuck on Twitter’s user figures, […]

Facebook reported its Q3 earnings today, including revenues of $21.5 billion, net income of $7.8 billion. The company earned $2.71 in per-share profit during the three month period. Analysts had expected Facebook, the social giant, to earn a much-smaller $1.91 per-share off smaller revenues of $19.82 billion. The company also reported an average of 1.82 […]

On Thursday, Apple delivered a Q4 earnings beat but the stock slid anyway as wary investors saw worse than expected iPhone revenues. At the time of writing, stock was down around 5% in after-hours trading. It was a mild beat, with Apple posting $64.7 billion compared to the $63.7 billion Wall Street was expecting and […]

Amazon has continued to reap the rewards of a society increasingly dependent on ecommerce — a trend further fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company crushed analyst expectations Thursday, reporting net income of $6.3 billion in the third quarter, or $12.37 per diluted share, compared with $2.1 billion in net income, or $4.23 per diluted […]

Comcast’s latest earnings report includes some official user numbers for Peacock, the new streaming service from Comcast-owned NBCUniversal. Specifically, Comcast says that Peacock has received nearly 22 million sign-ups since it launched in July, and that it’s “exceeding our expectations on all engagement metrics in only a few months.” What’s not clear, however, is how […]

Today after the bell, Alphabet announced its Q3 performance. The Google parent company generated revenues of $46.2 billion and per-share profit of $16.40 off the back of net income of $11.2 billion. Analysts had expected Alphabet to earn $11.21 per share, from revenues of $42.88 billion according to Yahoo Finance; other estimates were larger, targeting […]

Google is testing a new feature that could improve discovery for Android apps on Google Play. The company confirmed it’s experimenting with a “Compare Apps” option that would allow Google Play users to quickly and more easily understand the slight differences between otherwise similar apps by comparing specific features and metrics — like star ratings […]

In 2019, only one Black woman was named partner in venture capital, according to All Raise, a nonprofit focused on accelerating female founders and investors. The data has shown, shows, and will continue to show how the tech industry fails to invest in underrepresented women of color. Thus, hiring the next generation of founders and […]

There’s an AR ghost on Google Search. There’s a dancing skeleton, set of creepy jack-o’-lanterns, and costumed cats and dogs, too. Ahead of Halloween weekend in the U.S., Google has launched a set of fun, augmented reality-powered features on Google Search which appear as an option when you search for specific Halloween terms using a […]

Stephen Milbank Contributor Share on Twitter Stephen Milbank is the co-founder and Head of Global Strategic Partnerships at Button, a mobile commerce technology company that is powering a commerce-driven internet. The COVID-19 pandemic has already dramatically reshaped how Americans shop, with e-commerce expected to grow 20% in 2020 as a greater proportion of users shift […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. A few notes before we get into this. One, we have a bonus episode coming this Saturday focused on this week’s earnings reports. And, second, we did not record video this week. So, if you […]

Y Combinator -backed employment platform 70 Million Jobs is launching a new social network geared toward helping formerly incarcerated individuals connect with each other. While 70 Million Jobs focuses on helping people with criminal records find jobs, Commissary Club wants to serve as a place for folks to find community. “Folks with [criminal] records have […]

NASA just made history by landing a spacecraft on an asteroid. If that kind of technical achievement carbonates your glass of Tang, join us on December 16-17 for TC Sessions: Space 2020, an event dedicated to early-stage space startups. We’ve launched early-bird pricing, and $125 buys you access to all live sessions, plus video on […]

Workplace SaaS tools for teams have seen rocket ship growth in the past several years, and that adoption has given rise to a host of software tools geared towards improving individual productivity. Many of the startups behind these tools see building a cult following among individual users as the best way to set themselves up […]

Despite e-commerce firms Amazon and Walmart and others pouring billions of dollars in India, offline retail still commands more than 95% of all sales in the world’s second largest internet market. The giants have acknowledged the strong hold neighborhood stores (mom and pop shops) have in the country, and in recent quarters scrambled for ways […]

If you miss hanging out with your coworkers but don’t want to spend a single second more on Zoom, the latest product from Donut might be the answer. The startup is launching its new Watercooler product today while also announcing that it has raised $12 million in total funding, led by Accel and with participation from […]

Atmos wants to make designing a house as simple as a single click. Well, that vision is now getting a double click from VCs. The company, which we profiled back in July, announced today that it raised another $4 million, this time from Evan Moore at Khosla Ventures, real estate strategic investors like David Gerster […]

The Wanderlust Group, a Rhode Island-based startup focused on building software for the boating world, announced that it has closed a $14.2 million Series B round of capital this week. The new funds were provided by Allen & Company and the Alaris family office. (Post updated to amend investor list after publication.) Wanderlust had raised […]

YC-backed Goodcover, the insurtech startup that looks to pass unused premiums back to the policyholder, is today announcing the close of a $7.5 million Series A funding round. The funding was led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Fuel Capital, Broadhaven Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Liquid 2 and TransRe. Goodcover launched out of Y Combinator […]

Disruption favors the small startup, and the pandemic has most certainly been disruptive. So it’s no surprise that accelerators and incubators are pumping out new startups who are ready to tackle the problems of 2020. One such accelerator is the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, which is graduating 11 new startups out of the program today with […]

One of the most interesting projects to watch these days in tech is RISC-V. The non-profit organization and wider community is building an open-source and standardized instruction set architecture (ISA) that allows chip creators to design their own chips unencumbered by licensing and patents typical of other ecosystems, such as those of Arm. Building an […]

Spotify is planning further price increases, according to comments made by co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek during the company’s third quarter earnings on Thursday. The streaming service had added 6 million subscribers in Q3 to achieve a total 144 million paying customers across 320 million active users, but fell short on both sales and earnings, […]

In its latest quarterly financial report, Spotify announced that it had crossed 320 million active monthly users. That marks a 29% growth for the quarter, coming on the heels of what seems to be a rather successful launch into the Russian market. Of that number, it now counts 144 million paid users — a 27% […]

Intel has been doubling down on building chips and related architecture for the next generation of computing, and today it announced an acquisition that will bolster its expertise and work specifically in one area of future technology: artificial intelligence. The semiconductor giant today announced that it has acquired SigOpt, a startup out of San Francisco […]

Nutrium, a digital health startup which links dietitians and their patients via an app, has raised a €4.25 million Seed round led by Indico Capital Partners, alongside the the Social Innovation Fund in Portugal (SIF) and previous investors. It now offers professional nutrition software to 80,000 nutrition professionals and 800,000 patients in more than 40 […]

The global recovery in venture capital activity did not miss Europe, new data indicates. According to a PitchBook report, European venture capital activity rose in Q3 2020, putting the continent on pace to set a new yearly record for aggregate VC activity (as measured in Euros). The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it […]

Hermeus, a company seeking to build a Mach 5 aircraft that would be capable of making the trip from New York to London in just 90 minutes has raised a $16 million Series A round, led by Canaan Partners and including contributions from existing investors Khosla Ventures, Bling Capital, and the Rise of the Rest […]

It’s been quite a time for chip industry consolidation, and today Marvell joined the acquisition parade when it announced it is acquiring Inphi in a combination of stock and cash valued at approximately $10 billion, according to the company. Marvell CEO Matt Murphy believes that by adding Inphi, a chip maker that helps connect internal […]

Walmart over the years has been working to turn its physical retail stores into online fulfillment centers, and now, with its latest set of test stores announced today, the retailer will try out ideas to make that transition more seamless. Walmart says it will deploy personnel to four test stores across the U.S., where they’ll […]

CoreCare, a provider of revenue management services for healthcare companies dealing with public health benefit providers, has raised $3 million in a seed financing round. The company, which uses machine learning, automates large swaths of billing and revenue cycle management to reduce the burden on hospitals, according to chief executive, Dennis Antonelos. Already, companies like […]

Fintech startup Wise has raised a $12 million Series A round. The company offers business bank accounts with an interesting go-to-market strategy. Wise partners with other companies so that they can offer bank accounts to their own customers. For instance, if you’re running a marketplace or an e-commerce platform that matches companies with individual customers, […]

European lawmakers are taking aim at big tech’s ability to push its own services in search results at the expense of rivals, with Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager confirming today that a legislative proposal due in a few weeks will aim to ban what she called “unfair self-preferencing”. The concern is that so-called gatekeeper platforms have […]

Honeywell, which was a bit of a surprise entrant into the quantum computing space when it announced its efforts to build the world’s most powerful quantum computer earlier this year, today announced its newest system: the Model H1. The H1 uses trapped-ion technology and features 10 fully connected qubits that allow it to reach a […]

Code is the lifeblood of the modern world, yet the tooling for some programming environments can be remarkably spartan. While developers have long had access to graphical programming environments (IDEs) and performance profilers and debuggers, advanced products to analyze and improve lines of code have been harder to find. These days, the most typical tool […]

As communicating with customers across the world grows ever more challenging due to multiple channels, tools and networking providers, companies are looking for a way to simplify it all. Sinch, a company that makes communications APIs, announced a new tool this morning called the Conversation API designed to make it easier to interact with customers […]

LightDeck Diagnostics, a company formed earlier this year from the merger of startups mBio and Brava Diagnostics, has raised $11 million in funding for a new high-speed COVID-19 test, according to a statement. The company’s novel test uses planar wave guide technologies to rapidly assess the presence of specific pathogens in a patient. After collecting […]

Celebrity investors including Gwyneth Paltrow, Rebel Wilson, Ruby Rose, Darren Criss, Baron Davis, Tove Lo, and Casey Neistat have come together to back the Los Angeles-based thc-infused drink company, Cann, the company said. It’s the latest in a string of deals that show the strength of the market for alternative intoxicants — at least in […]

Over the course of the last few years, Microsoft started adding the concept of ‘data types’ to Excel, that is, the ability to pull in geography and real-time stock data from the cloud, for example. Thanks to its partnership with Wolfram, Excel now features over 100 of these data types that can flow into a […]

On the heels of Germany announcing another lockdown to try to contain the rapid rise in Covid-19 cases in the country, one of the hottest startups in its capital city is announcing the closing of a large convertible note to help it keep moving forward. GetYourGuide, which in brighter times runs a thriving and viral […]

ByteDance on Thursday unveiled its first consumer hardware product, a smart light lamp with a display, that it says is part of its education technology portfolio as the Chinese internet giant continues to expand to categories beyond social video. The Dali smart lamp features a display, camera, and a built-in digital assistant. The Dali smart […]