Crunch Hype

RealPage, a publicly traded full-service property management technology firm with over 12,200 clients worldwide, today announced that it has acquired Stratis IoT, a startup that provides IoT services to the real estate industry, with a focus on access and energy management tools. “RealPage aims to become a leading provider in the burgeoning rental property automation […]

Earlier this year, online marketplace OfferUp raised $120 million and acquired a top competitor, letgo, as a part of the fundraise led by letgo’s majority investor, OLX Group. As a part of the deal, OfferUp said it planned to eventually combine the businesses’ respective marketplaces into one but didn’t get into specifics of how that […]

As a business model, SaaS has expanded to epic size. A number of major SaaS companies filed to go public last week, and there are now thousands of SaaS startups growing all around the world. That scale makes it easier for banks and financial institutions to offer tailored solutions to this market around everything from […]

TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 kicks off in 37 days, but the countdown clock on early-bird pricing runs out in just five. Engage with the mobility community’s brightest minds, makers, visionaries and investors from around the globe on October 6-7. Buy your early-bird pass before the bird expires September 4 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT), and you’ll […]

In last week’s IPO wave, one company fell a bit by the wayside amongst filings from better-known companies like Asana and Palantir. JFrog, a company that TechCrunch reported helps allows developers and companies deliver application updates “in the background without disturbing the user experience” when it raised $165 million in 2018, is positioned for an […]

Amazon has been granted an approval by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that will allow it to start trialing commercial deliveries via drone, Bloomberg reports. This certification is the same one granted to UPS and a handful of other companies, and while it doesn’t mean that Amazon can immediately start operating a consumer drone […]

Tired of signing up for email newsletters? Then maybe it’s time to try out The New Paper‘s news digest, which arrives in the form of a daily text message rounding up the biggest headlines. The Indianapolis-based startup is announcing that it’s leaving private beta testing. It raised $300,000 in pre-seed funding last year, including $80,000 from […]

Algorithmic recommendation systems on social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, have shouldered much of the blame for the spread of misinformation, propaganda, hate speech, conspiracy theories and other harmful content. Facebook, in particular, has come under fire in recent days for allowing QAnon conspiracy groups to thrive on its platform and for helping […]

The Smart Clock Essential really blurs smart display lines. Aesthetics aside, Lenovo’s news device probably has more in common with the Echo Dot with Clock than it does the company’s first generation Smart Clock. In fact, at $50, it’s actually $10 less expensive than Amazon’s offering. Lenovo Smart Clock review Essentially the Essential is a […]

In a few short weeks, some of the best product developers from some of the world’s most important tech companies will take to the virtual stage of our virtual Disrupt this September 14-18 to share all the tips and tricks they’ve learned over decades spent working at Zoom, Slack, Facebook, Amazon, Hulu, and Oculus. This […]

Apple has some of the strictest rules to prevent malicious software from landing in its app store, even if on occasion a bad app slips through the net. But last year Apple took its toughest approach yet by requiring developers to submit their apps for security checks in order to run on millions of Macs […]

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 that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can […]

Streaming services have built-in kids’ profiles, so why not devices? Google today is responding to parents’ demand for a better way for their children to interact with technology with the launch of the new “Google Kids Space,” a dedicated kids mode on Android tablets which will aggregate apps, books, and videos for kids to enjoy […]

Rocket Lab is back to active launch status after encountering an issue with its last mission that resulted in a loss of the payload. In just over a month, Rocket Lab was able to identify what went wrong with the Electron launch vehicle used on that mission and correct the issue. On Sunday, it successfully […]

SpaceX performed a milestone first polar orbital launch of a satellite from its East Coast launch facility at Cape Canaveral on Sunday. The Falcon 9 mission carried three payloads, including a SAOCOM-1B synthetic aperture radar satellite which was flown on behalf of the Argentine space agency, and two small satellites for clients Tyvack and PlanetiQ. […]

Semalytix, a Bielefeld, Germany-based startup that offers pharmaceutical companies an AI-powered data tool to better understand real-world patient experiences, has raised €4.3 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is venture capital firm btov Partners, with participation from existing investor Fly Ventures and several unnamed angels. Semalytix will use the injection of cash to […]

Over the past year, Netflix has attempted to expand its appeal in part by making a title or two free to non-paying users in select markets. Now the American giant is extending this test to users across the globe — with a larger free catalog. The on-demand video streaming service is currently offering select Netflix […]

Mumbai-based Eruditus, which works with top universities globally to offer more than 100 executive-level courses to students in over 80 nations, said on Monday it has raised $113 million in a new financing round as it looks to further scale its business to reach more learners. The Series D financing round for the 10-year-old startup […]

TechCrunch Disrupt is right around the corner. And this year, we’re trying something different — we’re taking Disrupt virtual. That’s why we’re excited to announce that we used this opportunity to invite a slate of incredible European speakers to join TechCrunch on our virtual stage on September 14-18. It represents a great opportunity to learn […]

While Beijing has repeatedly spoken out against Washington’s pressure on Huawei, it has remained relatively quiet amid TikTok’s recent struggles in the U.S. As the red-hot video app approaches a final sale in the U.S., however, the Chinese authority moved unexpectedly to make the deal more complicated to go through. On late Friday, China’s Ministry […]

SockSoho is a direct-to-consumer brand that aspires to become the “Uniqlo of India.” The company launched sales ten months ago, starting with men’s socks, and recently completed Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 program. Founded by Pritika Mehta, a data scientist who has worked at companies including TripAdvisor, and growth marketer Simarpreet Singh, SockSoho now has more […]

Twitter flagged an inflammatory video by House Republican Whip Steve Scalise on Sunday for altering footage of a conversation between progressive activist Ady Barkan and Joe Biden. The video is now labeled as “manipulated media” in a tweet from Scalise, though remains online. The inflammatory video pulls in out-of-context quotes from a number of Democrats […]

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox. Hello and welcome back to The Station, a newsletter dedicated to all the present and future ways people and packages move from Point A to Point B. I’ll […]

A breeding ground for European entrepreneurs, Berlin has a knack for producing a lot of new startups: the city attracts top international, diverse talent, and it is packed with investors, events and accelerators. Also important: it’s a more affordable place to live and work when compared to many other cities in the region. Berlin ranked […]

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. (You can sign up for the newsletter here!) Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors. The week’s biggest IPO news had nothing to […]

Nearly one year ago, a Cessna 172 Skyhawk stealthily made aviation history when it landed at a small airport in Northern California marking the completion of the first successful remote-piloted flight of a passenger airplane in the United States. The company behind this milestone in commercial aviation history is Reliable Robotics, a startup founded in […]

Pandemic numbers are looking better, it's still a couple months before US elections, and a growing line of tech companies have already ventured out into public markets successfully this summer.

On a surface level, the world of venture capital doesn’t look to change much year to year. But in truth, the industry is very much in flux, with many firms grappling with a lack of diversity, dealing with succession questions, and confronting a growing pipeline of aging portfolio companies — to name just a few […]

Reliance Retail, India’s largest retail chain, has found a much simpler way to expand its dominant position in the country: Acquire most of the second largest bricks-and-mortar retailer. On Saturday evening (local Indian time), Reliance Retail said it has reached an agreement with Future Group to acquire the latter’s retail and wholesaler business, and its […]

This week, two big stories dominated the news: Apple's fight with Fortnite maker Epic Games and TikTok's negotiations with top U.S. tech firms over a sale.

If you can’t keep up with the latest rumor mill on TikTok’s impending doom acquisition, my suggestion is simple: don’t. Or instead, enjoy it for what it is: one of the most absurd bakeoff deals in investment banking history. Walmart and its always low prices are in the fray. Oracle is looking to find synergies […]

“High Score” is a new Netflix documentary series that looks back at the early years of the video game industry. Across six episodes, key developers, artists, executives and even players discuss the initial arcade and home console boom, the emergence of Nintendo, the rise of adventure and role-playing games, the battle between Sega and Nintendo, […]

Elon Musk -founded Neuralink has made headlines over the past many years around it efforts to develop a new kind of interface between the human brain and computing devices. On Friday, the company provided a demo of the technology, and Musk kicked off the demo by saying that the purpose of the entire presentation was […]

While the science was front-and-center in Elon Musk’s presentation about Neuralink, his human brain computer inference company, the surgical robot the company debuted made a splash of its own. The rounded polycarbonate sci-fi design of the brain surgeon bot looks like something out of the Portal franchise, but it’s actually the creation of Vancouver-based industrial […]

The Justice Department reveals a thwarted malware attack on Tesla, Facebook tests linking your news subscriptions to your social network account and Xiaomi has plans for under-screen cameras. This is your Daily Crunch for August 28, 2020. The big story: Tesla targeted in ransomware attack The Justice Department released a complaint Thursday describing a thwarted […]

Epic Games has been removed from Apple’s App Store. If you’ve already downloaded Fortnite to your Mac or iOS device, it should still work, but Epic’s termination means the Fortnite developer will no longer be able to submit new apps or updates. MacStories Managing Editor John Voorhees noted the termination on Twitter, as well as […]

In June, the CTA announced that CES 2021 would go forward in-person. The event was set to have slipped under the wire — having narrowly avoided a COVID-19-related shutdown two years in a row. A month later, however, its organizers reversed course, announcing the January show was going virtual. Disappointing, perhaps, but not surprising. The […]

For years, India has served as the largest open battleground for Silicon Valley and Chinese firms searching for their next billion users. With more than 400 million WhatsApp users, India is already the largest market for the Facebook-owned service. The social juggernaut’s big blue app also reaches more than 300 million users in the country. […]

The global legal services industry was worth $849 billion in 2017 and is expected to become a trillion-dollar industry by the end of next year. Little wonder that Steno, an LA-based startup, wants a piece. Like most legal services outfits, what it offers are ways for law practices to run more smoothly, including in a […]

Welcome back to Human Capital, where we break down the latest in labor, diversity and inclusion in tech. This week, we’re looking at the launch of the Diversity Riders initiative in venture capital and how it can go further, Instacart’s labor practices and some alternative, more inclusive approaches to running a startup. Also, Y Combinator […]

Elon Musk is set to deliver a progress update for Neuralink, the company and technology he founded that aims to create a direct, ultra-low latency connection between our brains and our computers. The update will kick off at 3 PM PT (6 PM ET), and will be streamed live above. Based on Musk’s tweets, what […]

The right question is almost never whether to buy software or build it internally. Instead, banks have often worked to walk the difficult but smarter path right down the middle.

NASA and Boeing have provided some updates around their Commercial Crew plans, which aim to get Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft certified for regular human flight. The CST-100 and Boeing’s Commercial Crew aspirations hit a snag last year with a first attempt of an uncrewed orbital flight test, which did not go to plan thanks to a […]

GM is moving the engineering team responsible for the mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette to the company’s electric and autonomous vehicle programs to “push the boundaries” on what its future EV battery systems and components can deliver, according to an internal memo. The memo, sent by Doug Parks, GM’s executive vice president of global product development, purchasing […]

For Marco Lai, the founder of Chinese podcast network Lizhi, radio has always been social. Twenty years ago, the entrepreneur was a host at a radio station in southern China. He ran a late-night program where listeners could call in and chat about anything as they wished, often riffing on feelings, relationships or other intimate […]

Autonomous vehicles have yet to become mainstream, but companies like Lyft, Cruise, Nuro and Aurora are still fighting the good fight. The AV space has always faced its share of regulatory and development hurdles, but this year brought a new set of hurdles with the COVID-19 pandemic. At TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility, we’ll hear from Cruise, […]

GPT-3 provides some new tools in a legal department’s arsenal and will be focused on assessing practical, impactful solutions, hopefully making better legal organizations in the process.

At TechCrunch Disrupt, our Startup Battlefield competition this year looks to be fiercer than ever, judging by the applicants. That’s actually saying something, considering the game-changing brands to emerge from our stage over the years, including Cloudflare, Dropbox, Vurb, Mint, GetAround, Fitbit, Yammer and more. Altogether, Startup Battlefield participants have gone on to raise $9 […]

Facebook is testing a new feature that could help news publishers create a better experience for paying subscribers on the social network. The idea is that when Facebook identifies a subscriber from one of its publisher partners, that subscriber will be invited to link their news account to their Facebook account. Once they’re linked, if […]

The front-facing camera has been a pretty constant bugbear for phone makers for a number of years now. Xiaomi certainly isn’t the first to offer a clever technological solution to the problem — and it’s also certainly not the only company to show off under-screen camera tech — but next year, it’s committed to bringing […]