Crunch Hype

Guests on tech podcasts are a microcosm of what has been happening in the startup ecosystem: Black minds are undervalued and under-appreciated.

Digital locker service Movies Anywhere is today officially launching its movie-sharing feature dubbed “Screen Pass,” which lets you lend out one of your purchased movies to a friend or family member. The feature was rushed into beta testing this March, followed by a more open public beta trial in April, thanks to increased demand from […]

What do you get when you combine six early-stage startup founders with a panel of top VCs and savvy TechCrunch editors? It’s Pitchers & Pitches, a rapid-fire pitch competition with a hefty side of advice to turn your 60-second pitch into a key that unlocks opportunity. Grab a snack, bring your questions and tune in […]

The first sales hire will set the best practices, cultural tone and is also responsible for making sure each subsequent new sales hire succeeds.

Want to save $100 on your pass to TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? Silly question, right? Of course, you do. Here’s the thing. You have just four days left to buy in at the lowest price. Knock this easy task off your to-do list and buy your pass before the early-bird savings disappears on September 4 […]

The world of retail has been absolutely rocked by the coronavirus pandemic. Stores closed across the country, and at the same time, online sales went through the roof. Direct-to-consumer brands, many of whom are masters of both online and brick-and-mortar channels, experienced unprecedented change in a matter of weeks and months. To unpack all of […]

Apple and Google are continuing to make good on their planned roll-out of exposure notification technology for helping with COVID-19 contact tracing efforts. The two partners are introducing new tools that make it much easier for public health authorities to implement digital exposure notification, without the need for developing and maintaining their own individual apps. […]

Back in early July, TechCrunch covered the Envision Accelerator. The program was put together by a group of students and recent graduates, often with some early venture capital experience, to help give some young startups a boost, and to shake up industry diversity metrics at the same time. Now on the other side of their […]

TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey the venture capital investors of Europe. Our survey of VCs in Madrid & Barcelona will capture how the cities are faring, and what changes are being wrought amongst investors by the coronavirus pandemic. We’d like to know how your city’s startup scene is evolving, how […]

A few months ago, Plaid unveiled Plaid Exchange, a product that helps financial institutions build and maintain an API that other developers can use. The company is iterating on that product and now updates account activity in near real-time. Plaid is better known for its universal banking API that lets you connect an app or […]

Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s IT, and Law and Justice minister has accused Facebook India’s leadership team of suppressing the reach of pages that support and promote right-leaning ideology, in what is the latest turn of events for the social giant in its biggest market by users where it has also been accused of playing favoritism […]

In January, Amazon announced a new feature would allow Alexa users to pay for their gas at the pump using voice commands via Echo Auto and other Alexa-enabled mobility devices. Today, the company says the feature is now live at over 11,500 Exxon and Mobil gas stations across the U.S., allowing customers to say “Alexa, […]

Tesla said Tuesday will sell up to $5 billion in new stock as the company seeks to take advantage of an unprecedented run up in its share price. Tesla will sell the shares from “time to time,” through an “at-the-market” offering program, the company said Tuesday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange […]

Sumo Logic filed an S-1/A this week, updating the world to its latest financial results ahead of its IPO pricing. Today, just over a week after we first looked at Sumo Logic’s recent financial performance when it filed its first S-1 document, let’s explore what’s new in the document and what the numbers tell us. […]

Netflix just announced its plans to turn Cixin Liu’s “Three-Body Problem” trilogy into an original science fiction series. The show will be executive produced and written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (the “Game of Thrones” showrunners signed a multi-year deal with Netflix last year that is reportedly worth more than $200 million), along with Alexander […]

2020 was going to be the year 5G went truly mainstream. Things obviously haven’t gone according to plan these past several months, but this is undoubtedly the year Samsung went all-in on the next generation technology. After being one of the first to market with a 5G device, it’s since made its way across the […]

It can be easy to mock the very concept of a ‘smart toothbrush’ – what other device in our lives do we use daily that seems least in need of a connected upgrade? But Oral-B has been upgrading its powered toothbrush lineup with Bluetooth and app-based intelligence for quite a while now, and its latest […]

If you’re going to spend $1,000 on a phone, you might as well spend $2,000. And honestly, if you’re going to spend $2,000, why not just go for it and spend $3,300? That seems to be a chief guiding principle behind the Samsung Galaxy Fold Z 2 Thom Browne edition — a handset for those […]

As far as launches for revolutionary products are concerned, the Galaxy Fold could have gone a lot better. It’s not for lack of hype, of course. Years of prelude punctuated by Samsung’s own breathless expectations provided plenty of build-up, but in the end, the device felt like a partially baked disappointment. A number of early […]

We’re seeing a gradual expansion of national regulations that require data from SaaS applications to be stored locally, in the country where it’s sourced and used. Today a startup that’s built a service around that need — specifically, data residency-as-a-service — is announcing some funding to continue building out its company amid strong demand. InCountry, […]

Amazon is leveraging its investment in live-streaming site Twitch to expand its Amazon Music service. The company announced this morning Twitch’s livestreams will now be available in the Amazon Music app on iOS and Android, with the goal of allowing fans and artists to connect amid a pandemic where in-person concerts have been cancelled. Since […]

Many companies have posted the occasional big quarter. These outsized periods may come when a business sells part of itself, or, through some arcane non-cash financial hijinks, it posts impressive numbers that appear prodigious when compared to their regular operating results. (Like when Uber recorded huge profits in its March 31, 2018 quarter.) The Exchange […]

Gong announced a $200 million Series D investment just last month, and loaded with fresh cash, the company wasted no time taking advantage. Today, it announced it was buying early stage Isreali sales technology startup Vayo. The companies did not share terms of the deal, but Gong CEO Amit Bendov said the deal closed a […]

Bambuser is a name that you may not have heard in a while, but the Stockholm-headquartered company is announcing today that it’s raised $45 million in new funding this year, with $34.5 million of that amount raised during the pandemic. Bambuser’s history goes back more than a decade (the first TechCrunch coverage appeared in 2008). […]

PicnicHealth, the startup that’s looking to give patients a way to manage their care in one place and pharmaceutical companies access to patient records for real world data, has just raised $25 million in financing to grow its business. Founded in 2016 by a former international development worker and Crohn’s Disease patient, Noga Leviner, PicnicHealth’s […]

Hazel Health was founded five years ago to provide telemedicine services to children in public schools. Launched by a former Apple software engineer and serial entrepreneur, Nick Woods, and named after one of Woods’ children, Hazel Health has grown to work with school districts responsible for 1.5 million children, and has raised $33.5 million to […]

Oliver Zahn began his professional career studying the stars. The founder of Climax Foods, a startup that’s using data science to replace animal proteins with plant-based substitutes, spent years at the University of California at Berkeley with his eyes fixed firmly toward the heavens before taking up with Pat Brown and Impossible Foods as the […]

A new Los Angeles startup is betting that enough consumers are interested in paying between $69 and $149 per year to receive lessons in life and sports from celebrity athletes like Maria Sharapova and Shaun White to make a billion-dollar business. That’s the gamble that Maveron, Global Founders Capital, and 8VC are taking on The Skills, […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven a significant catalyst for robotics investments, as companies look to invest in automation. Utah-based Sarcos Robotics bucks the trend a bit, however, as the purveyor of a technology designed to augment an existing human workforce, rather than replacing a significant chunk through automation. Today the robotic exoskeleton creator announced a […]

VoIP provider Dialpad, the company behind the popular video conferencing service UberConference, today announced that it has acquired Highfive, a well-funded video conferencing startup that focuses on providing businesses with conference room solutions. The two companies did not disclose the purchase price, but Highfive raised $77.4 million from the likes of Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen […]

Salesforce has been adding artificial intelligence to all parts of its platform for several years now. It calls the underlying artificial intelligence layer on the Salesforce platform Einstein. Today the company announced some enhancements to its field service offering that take advantage of this capability. Eric Jacobson, VP of product management at Salesforce says that […]

Seedrs — the UK’s first full-function private equity secondary market to launch back in 2017 — is launching its secondary market offering to all private businesses. The idea is that this will allow founders, employees and early investors to realize secondary liquidity without having to wait for an IPO or exit event. Seedrs has offered […]

Data protection and data privacy have gone from niche concerns to mainstream issues in the last several years, thanks to new regulations and a cascade of costly breaches that have laid bare the problems that arise when information and data security are treated haphazardly. Yet that swing has also thrown up a whole series of […]

Adtech giant and self-styled ‘free speech champion’, Facebook, has threatened to pull the plug on the public sharing of news content on Facebook and Instagram in Australia. The aggressive threat is Facebook’s attempt to lobby against a government plan that will require it and Google to share revenue with regional news media to recompense publishers […]

Cosmose tracks foot traffic in brick-and-mortar stores to help predict customer behavior, providing data that is increasingly important as companies try to weather COVID-19’s economic impact. Today the startup announced it has raised a $15 million Series A. The round was by Tiga Investments, with participation from returning investors OTB Ventures and TDJ Pitango, who […]

Javed, a middle-aged man, worked as a driver before losing that job earlier this year as coronavirus spread across India, prompting New Delhi to enforce a nationwide lockdown and temporarily curb several business activities. There are millions of people like Javed in India today who have lost their livelihood in recent months. They are low-skilled […]

This one is unusual: Laird Superfood, a five-year-old, 100-person, Sisters, Ore.-based startup that was cofounded by famed surfer Laird Hamilton and which makes plant-based packaged beverage products, filed today to raise up to $40 million in an IPO. We’d reported on this company early last year in large part because it had attracted backing from […]

Walmart today officially unveiled its new membership service and Amazon Prime rival, which it’s calling “Walmart+.” The $98 per year service will combine free, unlimited same-day delivery on groceries and thousands of other items, with additional benefits, like fuel discounts and access to a new Scan & Go service, similar to Walmart-owned Sam’s Club, that […]

Much was made during the Republican Convention of the lack of a party platform. The media characterized this as a capitulation to the Cult of Trump phenomenon, but the questioned begged was: so what? If you’re running as a candidate to disrupt the status quo…. But beneath the media framing, an important question emerges. […]

Reinvent Technology Partners, a new special purpose acquisition company formed by famed investor and serial entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, Zynga founder Mark Pincus and veteran hedge fund manager Michael Thompson, filed Monday for a $600 million initial public offering. The SPAC was formed by Hoffman, Pincus and Thompson, formerly of BHR Capital, with the intention of […]

TechCrunch is on the hunt to feature 10 early-stage mobility startups at our virtual TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 pitch night. The pitch-off event, originally set for May, will now be held October 5th — the evening before Mobility 2020. The top five companies from pitch night will take the stage at the main event with […]

Netflix tests a free promotional offering, Amazon’s drone delivery gets trial flight approval from the FAA and Neuralink shows off its human-brain tech. This is your Daily Crunch for August 31, 2020. The big story: Netflix sets some content free Netflix has taken some of its best-known Originals out from behind the paywall. The company […]

PayPal today introduced a new installment credit option for PayPal users called “Pay in 4.” The name itself explains what the service offers — basically, it’s the ability for customers to pay for purchases, interest-free, over four separate payments. The service is an expansion on PayPal’s existing lineup of Pay Later solutions, which also includes […]

Another busy week in cybersecurity. In case you missed it: A widely used messaging app used by over a million protesters has several major security flaws; a little-known loophole has let the DMV sell driver’s licenses and Social Security records to private investigators; and the U.S. government is suing to reclaim over $2.5 million in […]

With Dorian, co-founder and CEO Julia Palatovska said she’s hoping to empower fiction writers and other storytellers to create their own games. The startup is announcing that it has raised $3.25 million in seed funding led by March Capital Partners, with participation from VGames, Konvoy Ventures, London Venture Partners, Michael Chow (co-creator of the Twitch […]

Filled with innovation labs, co-working spaces and students, Boston has a ton of entrepreneurial characteristics baked into its DNA. However, when the coronavirus swept through the country, the area’s startup scene was stress-tested as badly as other entrepreneurial hubs. Could Boston’s startups still thrive without the city’s robust in-person ecosystems? Last month, we answered this […]

Apple’s App Store policies have gotten quite a bit more attention in the past few months, and while it seems likely that Apple’s team will fight tooth and nail to avoid dismantling any of the core pillars of their Store economy, the company did announce a small policy change today that will hopefully keep users […]

Once upon a time, fintech founders could pitch 10 investors before closing a round in a relatively hushed way. Entrepreneurs could even ask VCs to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to keep their information confidential. Today, everyone is a fintech investor and no one signs NDAs. This changed dynamic puts founders in a difficult position. Nabeel […]

Traditional roadmaps for startups center around this idea of the exit. Oftentimes, the ideal exit in the minds of startups and venture capitalists goes one of two ways: IPO or acquisition by another company. But there are other ways for startups to exit that could potentially bring more value to a larger variety of stakeholders. […]