Crunch Hype

If there was any doubt that yesterday’s flogging of big tech CEOs by Senate republicans was anything other than an electioneering stunt, president Trump has thumped the point home by tweeting a video message to voters in which he bashes “big tech” as (maybe) too powerful but certainly in need of being “spoken to” and […]

Fintech startup Upgrade has been quite successful with its two flagship products — a low-cost credit card and personal loans. The company is making its credit card more attractive by adding rewards. Upgrade Card consumers will earn 1.5% cash back on all purchases made with the card — there’s no specific category, no partner retailer, no […]

One of the key side-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has been how it has played out in the economy. There are currently 12.6 million people out of work in the U.S. alone, with estimates from the International Labour Organization noting that globally number some 245 million full-time jobs have been impacted. To meet some of […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the hospitality industry especially hard, and hotels around the world are looking for ways to regain revenue. Today, Marriott International and Grab announced a partnership that will cover the hospitality giant’s dining businesses in six Southeast Asian countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand. Instead of room bookings, […]

Ford plans to reveal in November an all-electric version of its Ford Transit cargo van, the company said Wednesday as part of its broader third-quarter earnings report. The unveiling will showcase an electric van for all of the company’s global addressable markets. The company has been talking about producing an electric Transit van for more […]

Today’s Senate hearing on immensely important legal protections for online platforms quickly proved to be little more than an excuse for Senators to accuse the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google of partisan interference with next week’s election. The actual law being considered for revision was mentioned only a handful of times in the nearly […]

New Zealand launch provider Rocket Lab has put its 15th commercial payload into space, delivering 10 Earth observation satellites each to their own orbit. The company is getting back into its stride after an upset in July dampened plans to set a record for launch turnaround time. Aboard the latest Electron launch vehicle to leave […]

Apple might be building a Google competitor, Audible adds more podcasts and an ad measurement company raises $350 million. This is your Daily Crunch for October 28, 2020. The big story: Apple seems pretty interested in search Apple has a growing interest in search technology and might even be working on a product to compete […]

It’s time for us to think critically about how we can build business models that reunite information bubbles, so that people consistently get access to all sides of the story.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Mike Manley confirmed Wednesday the automaker’s Ram brand will bring an electric pickup truck to market. The remarks, made in response to an analyst question during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, puts to rest rampant speculation, which was fueled by previous comments from Manley, that the automaker was planning to join […]

The accelerated shift to e-commerce due to the pandemic will have a significant impact on U.S. online holiday sales, according to a new forecast from Adobe Analytics. Adobe Analytics predicts that U.S. online sales for the months of November and December 2020 will reach $189 billion, representing a 33% year-over-year increase and setting a new record. […]

True bills itself as the social networking app that will “protect your privacy.” But a security lapse left one of its servers exposed — and spilling private user data to the internet for anyone to find. The app was launched in 2017 by Hello Mobile, a little-known virtual cell carrier that piggybacks off T-Mobile’s network. […]

My employer, a company based in Slovakia, moved me to the U.S. to help establish our U.S. operations. What are my options if I want to look for other job opportunities here in the U.S. with a different company?

Encouraged by the spate of antitrust activity brewing in both the Justice Department and on Capitol Hill, Apple may be developing a search competitor to Google, according to a report in the Financial Times. That would be a move ripe with irony as the push for an end to anti-competitive practices is seemingly creating greater […]

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken a messy beating from critics unhappy with how they handle questionable content on their platform, with some complaining they don’t do enough to rein in misinformation, and others decrying censorship. But what about Spotify? The company is never mentioned in this context, and with its traditional […]

AppFollow, an app management startup, has raised a $5 million Series A round led by Barcelona’s Nauta Capital, alongside existing investors Vendep Capital and RTP Global participating. The Helsinki-headquartered company says benefitted during the pandemic and even in April 2020 as the desire for automation and apps exploded. It says it now has 70,000 clients […]

Outrider, a startup aiming to bring its autonomous technology to the nerve center of the supply chain, has raised $65 million in funding just eight months after coming out of stealth. The Series B round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies and brings its total funding raised to $118 million. Other existing investors increased their […]

The Utah Jazz, an NBA basketball team based in Salt Lake City, announced today that Qualitrics CEO and co-founder Ryan Smith was buying a majority stake in the team along other properties. ESPN is reporting the deal is worth $1.6 billion. Smith can afford it. He sold Qualtrics, which is based in Provo, Utah, in […]

Apple is today rolling out an update to its video creation app, Clips, which brings much-needed support for vertical videos, allowing for sharing to TikTok and the “Stories” feature in other social apps. The addition is one of several arriving with the release of Clips 3.0, which also introduces support for horizontal video, as well […]

Robust.AI today announced that it has raised a $15 million Series A, led by Jazz Venture Partners. Existing partners Playground Global, Liquid2, Fontinalis, Jaan Tallinn and Mark Leslie also participated in the round, which brings the Bay Area-based robotics AI startup’s funding up to $22.5 million. Founded mid-2019, the company counts Rodney Brooks among its […]

After announcing its latest data center region in Austria earlier this month and an expansion of its footprint in Brazil, Microsoft today unveiled its plans to open a new region in Taiwan. This new region will augment its existing presence in East Asia, where the company already runs data centers in China (operated by 21Vianet), Hong […]

Deep learning has made tremendous strides in recent years, with new systems and models like GPT-3 offering higher quality interpretations of human language, empowering developers to use these concepts in more diverse applications. We can see these developments in our text-to-speech voice recorders and dual language translation apps, which have gotten shockingly good these days. […]

Portable power is a very convenient thing to have on hand, as proven by the popularity of pocket power banks for providing backup energy for smartphones and tablets. Jackery’s lineup of battery backups offer an entirely different, much greater level of portable energy storage, and when combined with the company’s durable and portable solar panels, […]

Dr. Will Roper, the man in charge of the purse strings for the Air Force’s $60 billion research and development and acquisition budget, oversees some 550 programs for the Air Force. It’s a huge responsibility that has massive implications for the future of the American military, and as the priorities for the military’s air and […]

The American venture capital world has staged an impressive comeback from the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. For a moment, there was worry that startups would struggle to raise for quarters, leading to layoffs, slowed hiring and budget cuts. But as the pandemic accelerated plans to shift operations online, many startups wound up more […]

Mobile companies that seize on the progress already taking place and learn from or integrate trends like digital wallets, QR codes, on-demand delivery and 5G will be poised for the biggest success in LATAM — and quite possibly, on a global stage.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is launching a debit card in the U.S. this winter. Customers can join the waitlist and get the Coinbase Card whenever it is available. Coinbase already launched the Coinbase Card in the U.K. and Europe. The Coinbase Card is a Visa debit card that works with any Visa-compatible payment terminal, online checkout […]

Musicians have taken issue with Spotify’s artist compensation for about as long as there’s been a Spotify. Making a living as a musician is difficult enough for the vast majority of those who are brave — or perhaps foolish — enough to attempt such things, but being thrown in a seemingly endless global pandemic has […]

The other day we announced the first ten sessions for Sight Tech Global, a virtual event Dec. 2-3 that is convening the world’s top technologists to discuss how AI-based technologies are revolutionizing the future of accessibility. Today, we’re pleased to announce three additional sessions. Registration is free and and open now. Designing for Everyone: Accessibility […]

Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook company, is further expanding into podcasts with the addition of approximately 100,000 of podcasts, totaling 5 million episodes to its service. The shows will be offered for free streaming to Audible members and non-subscribers alike, Audible says. Included in the new lineup are top podcasts like Pod Save America, You’re Wrong […]

Data management company Lotame is announcing a new way for publishers and marketers to track identity that it calls Panorama ID . For years, online advertisers have relied on cookies to track and target audiences, but they need new approaches as the major browsers phase out support for third-party cookies. (This shift isn’t limited to […]

Seattle-based Pulumi, one of the newer startups in the ”infrastructure-as-code” space, today announced that it has raised a $37.5 million Series B funding round led by NEA. Previous investors Madrona Venture Group and Tola Capital also participated in this round, which brings the total investment in the company to $57.5 million. The new investment follows […]

Xiaomi, which has led the Indian smartphone market for three consecutive years, has ceded ground to its long-rival Samsung in the world’s second largest market, according to a new report. According to estimates from marketing research firm Counterpoint, Samsung commanded 24% of the Indian smartphone market in the quarter that ended in September this year, […]

The American stock market is struggling today, with tech stocks in particular taking extra stick. After European stocks tanked on the back of COVID-19 concerns, American stocks are following suit. Tech stocks in particular. As of the time of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a venerable if dated stock market barometer, is off 2.81%. […]

It’s not just big tech that’s getting the antitrust treatment from the Department of Justice. Late Monday afternoon, the Department of Justice tipped its hand that it was investigating Visa’s proposed $5.3 billion acquisition of the venture-backed Plaid, which allows applications to connect with a users’ bank account. It’s a tool that powers a good […]

Last year, payments giant Stripe announced that it would donate $1 million of its own funds annually into companies that are building technology to remove carbon from our environment, with the recipients of that investment announced in May of this year. Now, it’s expanding that commitment with a new product aimed at getting its customers […]

No matter who wins the election, or how the transition goes -- if the markets stay rich, the IPOs can flow.

Priori Legal, a startup rethinking the way that large corporations hire outside counsel, has raised $6.3 million in Series A funding. Founded by CEO Basha Rubin and CPO Mirra Levitt (who met while classmates at Yale Law School), Priori launched as a legal marketplace for small and medium businesses before finding its current model in […]

TikTok announced this morning it will expand the set of resources provided in its in-app election guide in the U.S. to include direct access to sites that help users get information about polling locations and hours, those that help people having voting difficulties, and those offering other details how the voting process works, and more. […]

The pandemic has resulted in a growth spurt for gaming, an industry that was already growing on the backs of esports and Twitch streaming. So it makes sense that startups big and small are flocking to the industry to find their own place in the ecosystem. One such company is Shotcall, founded by Thomas Gentle, […]

MarketerHire, a Los Angeles-based startup backed by a slew of executives from some of the city’s hottest startups, launched its new service matching freelance marketing experts with open jobs listed on its platform. “Today’s startup economy depends on the expertise of industry specialists as much or more than full-time generalists,” said Nick Green, co-founder and […]

VPNs, or virtual private networks, are a mainstay of corporate network security (and also consumers trying to stream Netflix while pretending to be from other countries). VPNs create an encrypted channel between your device (a laptop or a smartphone) and a company’s servers. All of your internet traffic gets routed through the company’s IT infrastructure, […]

Many smart home gadgets focus on convenience or automation of typically manual tasks, but Flume’s smart water sensor provides a potentially much more vital service: The ability to track how much water you’re consuming, and alert you to potential leaks in you home’s plumbing. The company just released its second-generation Flume Smart Home Water Monitor […]

Ad-based platforms can face a lot of heat from advertisers when they can’t control how and where their ads run: just look back to the ad boycott against Facebook earlier this year (or earlier boycotts against YouTube and others) as examples of when it all goes wrong. One of the ways this is getting addressed […]

With many restaurants forced to rely entirely on the delivery and takeout business during the pandemic, there’s been a lot of discussion about whether the industry can survive while paying hefty fees to delivery platforms like Uber Eats and Grubhub. Lunchbox, on the other hand, is a startup that allows restaurants to build ordering experiences on […]

If the past five years are any indication, product-led sales will increasingly become the dominant model for selling software.

There’s a new company that’s sitting on top of some of the fastest growing consumer-facing businesses in the world — liquor and marijuana delivery — and its name is Pacific Consolidated Holdings Group. The investment firms and executive teams behind the Los Angeles-based delivery liquor delivery company, Saucey, along with Inception Companies, the backer of […]

Kandji, a mobile device management (MDM) startup, launched last October. That means it was trying to build the early stage company just as the pandemic hit earlier this year. But a company that helps manage devices remotely has been in demand in this environment, and today it announced a $21 million Series A. Greycroft led […]

Enso Security, a Tel Aviv-based startup that is building a new application security platform, today announced that it has raised a $6 million seed funding round led by YL Ventures, with participation from Jump Capital. Angel investors in this round include HackerOne co-founder and CTO Alex Rice; Sounil Yu, the former chief security scientist at […]

In a move to shore up institutional support in what’s likely to be it’s last fundraising as a private company, the Los Angeles-based mobile gaming behemoth Scopely has raised $340 million in its latest eye-popping round of funding. Acting as if there’s not still a global pandemic raging throughout the world, some of the largest […]