Crunch Hype

Koyo, a fintech startup using open banking to offer loans to people with poor credit histories, has closed a Series A funding round of $50 million in debt and equity led by Force Over Mass, with participation from existing investors Forward Partners, Frontline Ventures and Seedcamp. New investors in Koyo include Force Over Mass, Matt […]

A number of Spotify playlist curators are complaining that the streaming music company is not addressing the ongoing issue of playlist abuse, which sees bad actors reporting playlists that have gained a following in order to give their own playlists better visibility. Currently, playlists created by Spotify users can be reported in the app for […]

Private equity giant Thoma Bravo has taken a stake in Intel 471, a provider of cyberthreat intelligence for enterprises and governments. The strategic growth investment, which comes as organizations double down on cybersecurity amid a pandemic-fueled rise in cyber threats, will enable Intel 471 to evolve its product suite, broaden its go-to-market strategy and continue […]

Sila Nanotechnologies next-generation battery technology made its commercial product debut Wednesday in the new Whoop fitness tracker, a milestone that caps a decade of research and development by the Silicon Valley startup all aimed at cracking the code to packing more energy into a cell at a lower cost. Billions have been spent over the […]

As companies try to navigate an ever-changing security landscape, it can be challenging to protect everything. Security startup TrueFort has built a zero trust solution focusing on protecting enterprise applications. Today, the company announced a $30 million Series B. Shasta Ventures led today’s round with participation from new firms Canaan and Ericsson Ventures along with […]

Never mind buying a robot dog for your kids — you might just get them a mythical creature instead. Chinese EV maker Xpeng has teased a robot unicorn meant for children to ride.

The U.K. government is preparing to spend over half a million dollars to encourage the development of detection technologies for child sexual exploitation material (CSAM) that can be bolted on to end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms to scan for the illegal material, as part of its ongoing policy push around internet and child safety. In a […]

Twitter announced yesterday that it’s testing a feature on the web that makes it possible to remove followers without blocking them. Sometimes, users want to stop a follower from seeing their tweets without outright blocking them — if that follower were to navigate directly to their page, it’d be clear that they had been blocked, […]

Gig and independent workers have different needs when it comes to financial products than salaried employees at a company. It’s a challenge that Tilak Joshi, founder of Lean, became acutely aware of during his tenure as head of Mint and years as a product exec at American Express and PayPal. While the U.S. has seen […]

Space can and should be about much more than giving the 1% another Instagrammable moment and increasing the wealth of the billionaires who provide the service.

My husband just accepted a job in Silicon Valley. His new employer will be sponsoring him for an E-3 visa. How soon can I apply for my U.S. work permit?

Mayors have the toughest job in the world, and leading a city is only getting harder. Even as populations swell in urban cores across the world, climate change is constraining the geographies where that growth can happen. Coastal communities which are popular with residents are also taking a gamble when it comes to rising sea […]

Notion said on Wednesday it has acquired Automate.io, an Indian startup that builds connectivity and integrations with over 200 services, as the workplace productivity startup looks to accelerate its product expansion to become more compelling for tens of millions of individuals and businesses that are increasingly moving to digital collaborative tools. The San Francisco-headquartered startup, […]

Organizations are swimming in data these days, and so solutions to help manage and use that data in more efficient ways will continue to see a lot of attention and business. In the latest development, SingleStore — which provides a platform to enterprises to help them integrate, monitor and query their data as a single […]

The new fund comes as the global sports technology market is poised to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 17.5% to reach $40.2 billion by 2026.

DJI’s camera stabilization tech started life as an outgrowth of its drone tech, and has managed to develop into a robust line of its own. Roughly this time last year, the company announced that its smartphone-focused Osmo line was being rebranded to the simpler OM. Today, the OM 5 arrives, with a more compact design, […]

Product quality is hugely important when it comes to the success of a product. Even if your product seems really cool, if it’s buggy or doesn’t work well, many people will just stop using it rather than taking the time to figure it out or even report a problem. UnitQ, a Burlingame, California-based startup using […]

Google is tying everything together with a handbook for navigating hybrid work, which includes best practice blueprints for five common hybrid meetings.

Buy now, pay later is officially everywhere, and Latin America is no exception. Today, one startup in the region, Addi, is announcing a $75 million extension to its Series B, bringing the total round size to $140 million. In late May, the startup announced it had raised $35 million in an equity round led by […]

Steve Dent Contributor Steve Dent is an associate editor at Engadget. More posts by this contributor NVIDIA’s latest tech makes AI voices more expressive and realistic Apple drops its lawsuit against maker of iPhone emulation software After launching it in Go stores and then bringing it to larger Freshsupermarkets, Amazon’s cashierless “Just Walk Out” tech […]

Many efforts are underway to reduce the environmental impact of cars, but what about the tires those cars ride on? Continental thinks it might help, with its new Conti GreenConcept tire.

Paris-based VC fund Gaia Capital Partners has change its name to Revaia and announced the final closing of its first growth fund, at €250 million. The firm said it exceeded its initial target of €200 million, and the fund will be ‘ESG focused’. Revaia is also claiming to be Europe’s largest female-founded VC fund, although […]

The beauty industry is worth some $500 million annually, and the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a sharp rise in the proportion of sales being carried out online. Today, a London-based beauty startup is announcing a major round of funding in hopes of reaping the spoils of that trend with a direct-to-consumer online storefront selling […]

Over 70% of Egypt’s young and fast-growing population of over 100 million is financially underserved despite mobile penetration exceeding 90%. Traditional banks often overlook this segment because of their spending power or financial status and fintechs have seized the opportunity to cater to their needs. One such fintech is MNT-Halan, and today, the company which […]

PayPal Holdings, the U.S. fintech company, announced an acquisition of Paidy, a Japanese buy now, pay later (BNPL) service platform, for approximately $2.7 billion (300 billion yen), mostly in cash, to enhance its business in Japan. The transaction completion including the regulatory approval is expected in the fourth quarter of 2021. After the acquisition, the […]

In Nigeria, there are more than 40 million micro-businesses underserved in some form or another regarding banking services. Although some of these businesses have registered bank accounts, gaps exist in how banks use the data available to serve the needs of each business. With banks, presenting a series of transactions as statements is all these businesses […]

Leap, a two-year-old startup with headquarters in San Francisco and Bangalore that is helping students in India find the right college abroad, prepare for entrance tests, and also secure visas and loan, said on Wednesday it has raised $55 million in a new financing round from several high-profile edtech backers. Leap said it has raised […]

Even as there are hundreds of millions of Indians who have bank accounts, only about 30 million of them have credit cards. The adoption rate of the plastic card has largely remained stagnant in the South Asian nation for the last few years. The relatively young credit-rating system in India covers only a tiny fraction […]

We know that large data centers running powerful servers use vast amounts of electricity. Anything that can reduce consumption would be a welcome change, especially in a time of climate upheaval. That’s where the new IBM Power E1080 server, which is powered by the latest Power10 processors, comes into play. IBM claims it can consolidate […]

Cao Cao Mobility, the ride-hailing unit of Chinese automaker Geely Automobile Holdings, has announced a $589 million (RMB 3.8 billion) Series B raise that the company says will help it upgrade its technology and expand its fleet, according to a statement released by the company (in Chinese). The raise, which Cao Cao announced on Monday, […]

Intudo Ventures, the “Indonesia-only” investment firm, announced today it has closed its third fund, totaling $115 million. Called Intudo Ventures Fund III, it was raised in less than three months and oversubscribed. Fund III’s limited partners include Black Kite Investments, the family office of Singaporean businessman Koh Bon Hwee; Wasson Enterprises, the family office of […]

Four months after its last funding announcement, Singapore-based e-commerce aggregator Rainforest has closed a $20 million pre-Series A round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. Other participants included January Capital, Crossbeam Venture Partners, Amasia and Lo & Behold Group, along with returning investors Nordstar and Insignia Venture Partners. Rainforest announced in May that it had raised […]

Marshmallow — a U.K.-based car insurance provider that has made a name for itself in the market by providing a new approach to car insurance aimed at using a wider set of data points and clever algorithms to net a more diverse set of customers and provide more competitive rates — is announcing a milestone […]

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Reducing waste is key to meeting environmental milestones, and some retail firms have narrowed in on a unique approach to minimize what their customers throw away: personalization.

San Francisco-based startup Orbit Fab wants to be the go-to source for orbital refueling, and now it has raised over $10 million in its quest to get there. The money will go toward funding a refueling trial that’s due to launch as early as the end of 2022, in which the company plans to send […]

Twitter is exploring ways to build a more visually immersive experience with its latest test, which brings edge-to-edge tweets to the app on iOS. Full-width images and videos track for the direction the company has shown some interest in going lately. Twitter introduced bigger images with improved cropping controls for its pair of mobile apps […]

In late summer, car collectors converged in Monterey, Detroit and, most recently, Oxford, England, in an annual tradition focused on ogling over — and oftentimes bidding for — luxury and historic vehicles. The outdoor luxury automotive events ruled in 2021 after a universal pause the year before due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The events, which […]

The process to train algorithms to detect wear and tear would be different for factories that produce different products; after all, a shoe is not a smartphone is not a bicycle.

Not all startup growth is equal, and there are a few key aspects that make the difference between a startup reaching its full potential or falling short.

Don't wait to be blindsided: Put an action plan in place to assess employee engagement. Remember, seven out of the next 10 people you see on a video call might be polishing their resumes.

Ford Motor has hired Doug Field, the engineering executive who was leading Apple’s special projects team, as the automaker seeks to gain an edge in software and other advanced technology. Field, who previously was senior vice president of engineering at Tesla, was named Tuesday as Ford’s chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer. Field was […]

Solid Power, a battery developer backed by Ford and BMW, is expanding its Colorado-based factory footprint as it prepares pilot production of its solid state batteries early next year. The new production facility will be dedicated to manufacturing one of the company’s flagship products, a sulfide-based solid electrolyte material, by up to 25 times its […]

There are plenty of reasons why Vilnius, Lithuania's capital city, has an increasingly visible startup sector.

Microsoft today is introducing its own personalized news reading experience called Microsoft Start, available as both a website and mobile app, in addition to being integrated with other Microsoft products, including Windows 10 and 11 and its Microsoft Edge web browser. The feed will combine content from news publishers, but in a way that’s tailored […]

Just like the automotive industry, aerospace has its sights set on going electric — but flying with battery-powered engines is a tougher proposition than rolling. Wright is among the startups looking to change the math and make electrified flight possible at scales beyond small aircraft — and its 2-megawatt engine could power the first generation […]

Matthew Wansley Contributor Matthew Wansley is Assistant Professor of Law at Cardozo School of Law in New York A jury will soon decide whether former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is guilty of a federal crime. But the deeper public policy questions that Theranos raised remain unanswered. How did a startup built on a technology that […]

Speech recognition holds tremendous promise for something desperately needed in the era of COVID-19: technology that can significantly improve reading outcomes and tackle the global literacy crisis in a real and profound way.

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 to catch up on weekend news and prep for the days ahead. We’re here on Tuesday this week since us folks in the United States had off for Labor Day. You […]