Crunch Hype

“We’re building a decentralized ghost kitchen,” is a sentence that could launch a thousand investor calls, and Alex Canter, the chief executive officer behind Ordermark, knows it. The 29 year-old CEO has, indeed, built a decentralized ghost kitchen — and managed to convince Softbank’s latest Vision Fund to invest in a $120 million round for […]

The first mission to officially carry astronauts to the International Space Station for a standard crew rotation is now tentatively set for November 14. NASA provided an updated date for the mission this week, after it shifted from an original planned timeframe of sometime in October. This is the first time that Crew Dragon, SpaceX’s […]

Zoom, the video calling company that millions turned to during the pandemic, has finally launched end-to-end encrypted video calls for free accounts. The company said last week that it was readying the feature, months after it drew criticism for denying end-to-end encrypted calls to free users, effectively drawing a line between paid users whose conversations […]

Postmates is now rolling out what could be the biggest update to the company’s service in a long time — adding a retail option for users to shop local stores and for local merchants to set up a virtual on-demand storefront in the app. Starting in Los Angeles — and building on yesterday’s test run […]

Salto, a Tel Aviv-based open-source startup that allows you to configure SaaS platforms like Salesforce, NetSuite and HubSpot with code, is coming out of stealth today and announced that it has raised a $27 million Series A round. This round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures. The general idea […]

Israeli startup SimilarWeb has made a name for itself with an AI-based platform that lets sites and apps track and understand traffic not just on their own sites, but those of its competitors. Now, it’s taking the next step in its growth. The startup has raised $120 million, funding it will use to continue expanding […]

The entire asset class of venture capital is built atop systemic racism. The numbers don’t lie: only 2% of partner-level VCs are Black, and 81% of venture capital firms don’t have a Black partner on board. The lack of diversity in check-writers doesn’t stay in board rooms: homogeneity trickles down to the founders who get […]

Theta Lake, a provider of compliance and security tools for conferencing software like Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, RingCentral, Zoom and others, said it has raised $12.7 million in a new round of funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round with commitments from Cisco Investments, angel investors from the collaboration and security space, and previous investors, […]

The chip industry consolidation dance continued this morning as AMD has entered into an agreement to buy Xilinx for $35 billion, giving the company access to a broad set of specialized workloads. AMD sees this deal as combining two companies that complement each other’s strengths without cannibalizing its own markets. CEO Lisa Su believes the […]

Uber is facing another legal challenge in Europe related to algorithmic decision making. The App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) filed a case, yesterday, with a court in the Netherlands seeking to challenge the ride hailing company’s practice of ‘robo-firing’ — aka the use of automated systems to identify fraudulent activity and terminate drivers based […]

Deci, a Tel Aviv-based startup that is building a new platform that uses AI to optimized AI models and get them ready for production, today announced that it has raised a $9.1 million seed round led by Emerge and Square Peg. The general idea here is to make it easier and faster for businesses to […]

Only a few weeks after the successful public offering of Array Technologies proved that there’s a market for technologies aimed at improving efficiencies across the solar manufacturing and installation chain, Leading Edge Equipment has raised capital for its novel silicon wafer manufacturing equipment. The $7.6 million financing came from Prime Impact Fund, Clean Energy Ventures and […]

With a new $4 million round, the Bogota-based supply chain logistics technology developer Tül is prepping to expand across the Latin American region. Founded by Enrique Villamarin Lafaurie and Juan Carlos Narváez, Tül’s technology connects construction manufacturers to the small businesses across Latin America that are responsible for handling half of the inventory for construction […]

NeoLight, a startup company that’s working to bring hospital-grade neonatal care technologies to the home, has raised $7 million more in financing. Dignity Health and Honor Health Systems came in to support the company along with previous investors like the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and his wife Ashley and other, undisclosed investors. Initially intended […]

FreshToHome, an Indian e-commerce startup that sells fresh vegetables, fish, chicken and other kinds of meat, has raised $121 million in a new financing round as the Bangalore-headquartered firm reports accelerated growth spurred by the coronavirus pandemic. The startup, which offers its service in several major Indian cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and Hyderabad, […]

Tinder, currently the world’s biggest biggest dating app for people to find matches and connect with them, is expanding another feature today to extend the time people spend in the app, and the communications they can have within it. Face to Face, an opt-in-only feature that Tinder launched earlier this year that lets users video […]

More robots are coming to White Castle. Expanding a partnership with Miso Robotics, around 10 new White Castle locations will be rolling out the Pasadena, Calif.-based company’s robotic fry cook. The move accelerates the adoption of Miso Robotics’ newly designed Flippy robot into kitchens to speed up production and allow more staff to work in […]

InVideo, a Mumbai-based startup that has built a video creation and editing platform, has raised $15 million as it looks to court more users and customers worldwide. The startup offers a freemium web-based editing tool that allows users to create videos that are fit to be published on popular social media platforms (such as Twitter, […]

In the first real test of the potentially transformative power of its food-preserving technology, the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Apeel Sciences is bringing its innovative food treatment and supply chain management services to distribution centers in select markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The goal is to alleviate food insecurity among farmers, who comprise one […]

Last month, former Facebook and Pinterest executive Tim Kendall told Congress during a House hearing on the dangers of social media that Facebook made its products so addictive because its ad-driven business model relies on people paying attention to its product longer every day. He said much the same in the Netflix documentary “The Social […]

Not just the future of civilization is up for grabs this November. In this age of mobile social computing, we’re figuring out how to vote, entertain, teach, learn, and commit to meaningful change. Thanks to the pandemic emergency, our plans for transforming our country and planet are subject to immediate recall. Much of the current […]

As promised, Microsoft announced that it has added full trackpad and mouse support for the iPadOS version of Microsoft 360. That includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint, marking another important step in Apple’s longstanding push to blur the line between tablet and desktop, making iPads more well-rounded productivity machines. Apple laid the foundation back in March, […]

Facebook gets into cloud gaming while continuing its public dispute with Apple, Ant Group prepares for a massive IPO and Pinterest embraces iOS widgets. This is your Daily Crunch for October 26, 2020. The big story: Facebook launches cloud gaming service Facebook is launching a cloud gaming service of its very own, although the focus […]

Immigration law firm Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy has confirmed a data breach involving the personal information of current and former Google employees. The New York-based law firm provides companies with employment verification screening services to determine if employees are eligible and authorized to work in the United States. Every company operating in the […]

There likely isn’t a robotics teacher institute in the world actively pursuing robotic learning. The field, after all, holds the key to unlocking a lot of potential for the industry. One of the things that makes it so remarkable is the myriad different approaches so many researchers are taking to unlock the secrets of helping […]

Courtney Caldwell and her husband Tye have been building the Dallas-based startup ShearShare, which provides a marketplace service connecting stylists with open seats at hair salons, since 2017. Since their launch the two co-founders have been committed to the humble hustle of starting their own business — including flying between San Francisco and Dallas weekly […]

Starting today, Twitter users in the U.S. will see two large notices at the top of their feeds that aim to “preemptively debunk” misinformation related to voting. The striking messages are designed to push back against the deluge of false claims about the 2020 election. One notice warns users that they “might encounter misleading information” […]

Max Q is a weekly newsletter from TechCrunch all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox. This past week, we unveiled the agenda for TC Sessions: Space for the first time. It’s our inaugural event focused on space startups and related technologies, and it’s happening December 16 and […]

Ryan Caldbeck, co-founder and former CEO of consumer-brands-focused crowdfunding site CircleUp, recently published an email he’d written to a former director on the board of the company. According to Caldbeck, he wrote the letter after CircleUp had bought out the investor’s firm because he wanted to provide constructive feedback, given that this individual’s “involvement was […]

Freshworks, the customer and employee engagement company that offers a range of products, from call center and customer support software to HR tools and marketing automation services, today announced the launch of its newest product: Freshworks CRM. The new service, which the company built on top of its new Freshworks Neo platform, is meant to […]

As you may already know, there’s a lot of data out there, and some of it could actually be pretty useful. But privacy and security considerations often put strict limitations on how it can be used or analyzed. DataFleets promises a new approach by which databases can be safely accessed and analyzed without the possibility […]

One week to the U.S. presidential election and things are getting spicy. It’s not just the rhetoric — hackers are actively working to disrupt the election, officials have said, and last week they came with a concrete example and an unusually quick pointing of blame. On Wednesday night, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe blamed […]

A new startup, Mailman, recently launched an email assistant that helps Gmail users to get better control over their inbox. Unlike many email startups, which require users to switch to a new platform or even adopt a new email address, Mailman works along with your existing Gmail account to do things like block annoying emails, […]

Earlier this year, the founders of event analytics platform Hubilo pivoted to become a virtual events platform to survive the impact of COVID-19. Today, the startup announced it has raised a $4.5 million seed round, led by Lightspeed, and says it expects to exceed $10 million bookings run rate and host more than one million […]

NASA has made a groundbreaking discovery — confirming the presence of water on the surface of moon in the area that is exposed to sunlight. Previously, we knew that water was present as ice on the dark part of the moon, and that’s part of the reason that the next mission to the moon is […]

In the distant past, there was a proverbial “digital divide” that bifurcated workers into those who knew how to use computers and those who didn’t.[1] Young Gen Xers and their later millennial companions grew up with Power Macs and Wintel boxes, and that experience made them native users on how to make these technologies do […]

Internships are an opportunity for students to experiment with new career paths and land a full-time offer ahead of graduation. For companies, the weeks-long programs help recruit and train job-ready hires. While the stakes are high, the coronavirus-spurred office closures and market volatility made a number of tech companies slim down or cancel their internship […]

TechCrunch recently covered Databricks’ financial performance in 2020, contrasting its recent performance to some historical 2019 data that the company shared. The data-and-analysis-focused unicorn grew its annual run rate 75% to $350 million, compared to its year-ago quarter, meaning that the firm is growing well at scale. TechCrunch described it as “an obvious IPO candidate” […]

YouTube today is rolling out a series of updates to its player page on mobile devices. The changes relocate some elements, add new features — like an expanded set of gesture-based navigation options — and update existing ones, like video chapters, among other things. Video chapters were introduced in May, as an easier way to […]

Readers of a certain age will no doubt remember some region variation of TV Powww. The syndicated program, which found viewers at home giving directions over the phone to an in-studio operating playing an Intellivision game. Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit review Perhaps the best-known variant is New York’s TV PIXXX, wherein the player would say […]

As iPhone owners began customizing their iOS 14 homescreens with new widgets and custom icons, Pinterest iOS downloads and searches surged as the app became a top source for design ideas and inspiration. Today, Pinterest is more directly joining the homescreen customization trend with its own iOS 14 widget of its own. Last month, Pinterest […]

SAP announced its Q3 earnings yesterday, with its aggregate results down across the board. And after missing earnings expectations, the company also revised its 2021 outlook down. The combined bad news spooked investors, crashing its shares by over 20% in pre-market trading and the stock wasn’t showing any signs of improving in early trading. The […]

Our first-ever dedicated space event is coming up on December 16 and 17, and we’re thrilled to announce that Lieutenant General John F. Thompson of the U.S. Air Force will join us on our virtual stage at TC Sessions: Space. Thompson is the Commander, Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and oversees research, design, development […]

Reliance Retail, India’s largest retail chain, said on Sunday evening that its proposed deal to acquire Future Group’s assets for $3.4 billion — against which Amazon has filed a legal proceeding — is fully enforceable under the Indian law and it intends to complete the deal “without any delay.” Mukesh Ambani’s firm issued the statement […]

As we tried to recap the first season of HBO’s “Lovecraft Country,” one thing became clear: The show is pretty nuts. The story begins by sending Atticus “Tic” Freeman (Jonathan Majors), his friend Leti Lewis (Jurnee Smolett) and his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) on a road trip across mid-’50s America in search of Tic’s […]

Hello hello, and welcome back to Week in Review. Last week, I wrote about the possibility of a pending social media detente, this week I’m talking about a rising threat to Facebook’s biz. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox here, and follow my tweets here. And while I […]

Lee Kun-hee, the long-time chairman of Samsung Group who transformed the conglomerate into one of the world’s largest business empires, died today at the age of 78, according to reports from South Korean leading news agency Yonhap. The story of Samsung is deeply intertwined with the history of its home country, which is sometimes dubbed […]

Welcome back to Human Capital! As many of you know, Human Capital is a weekly newsletter where I break down the latest in labor, as well as diversity and inclusion in tech. It’s officially available as a newsletter, so if you want this content when it comes in hot Fridays at 1 p.m. PT, subscribe […]

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange. Data shows that India’s venture capital scene has grown sharply in recent years. Let's dig in.

Startup failure is easy to hold up as a type of martyrdom for progress, especially if the founders are starting out scrappy in the first place and trying to save the world. What about Quibi?