Crunch Hype

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 […]

We’re on the other end of nearly every single SaaS earnings report that you can name, with the exception of Slack, and shares of software companies are holding onto their year’s gains. Which means SaaS and cloud companies have made it through a somewhat steep gauntlet largely unscathed. There were exceptions, of course, but when […]

A security vulnerability in Android could have allowed malicious apps to siphon off sensitive data from other apps on the same device. App security startup Oversecured found the flaw in Google’s widely used Play Core library, which lets developers push in-app updates and new feature modules to their Android apps, like language packs or game […]

The market for female-focused health products (aka “femtech”) is set for growth via segmentation, per an analyst note from PitchBook which identifies opportunities for entrepreneurs to target a growing number of health issues that specifically affect women or affect women in a specific way — broadening out from a traditional focus on reproductive health. Femtech […]

Looks like another chapter is opening up for Wirecard, the disgraced fintech out of Germany that collapsed into insolvency earlier this year after facing a huge accounting scandal and subsequently failing to make payments on $1.5 billion in loans coming due. Railsbank, the UK startup backed by Visa and others that offers a range of […]

Undermyfork, a diabetes tracking app designed to help people with the disease improve “time-in-range” and better manage their condition, has raised $400,000 in seed funding. Investment comes from AltaIR Capital, AltaClub, and Runa Capital . Undermyfork co-founder Mike Ushakov’s previous company, Metabar (the maker of the browser add-on Sovetnik), was also backed by Runa, before […]

As you know by now, Disrupt is going completely virtual for its 10th anniversary. TechCrunch’s Asia team (me, Rita Liao and Manish Singh) will miss seeing everyone in Moscone Center, but this will be the most accessible Disrupt ever, and we are excited to bring a full roster of Asia-focused sessions to its agenda for […]

Elon Musk called an attempted cyberattack against Tesla “serious,” a comment that confirms the company was the target of a foiled ransomware attempt at its massive factory near Reno, Nevada. The Justice Department released a complaint Thursday that described a thwarted malware attack against an unnamed company in Sparks, Nevada. Tesla has a factory in […]

Turmoil continues at TikTok, Salesforce lays off 1,000 people and Warby Parker is now valued at $3 billion. This is your Daily Crunch for August 27, 2020. The big story: TikTok’s CEO resigns Kevin Mayer, the former Disney executive who joined TikTok as CEO just over 100 days ago, announced yesterday that he’s resigning. While […]

Frankly, the most surprising thing about the PuriCare is that more tech companies haven’t launched a similar product in recent months. LG is showing it off as part of the upcoming IFA press conference in Berlin — though the company is opting for a virtual presence at this year’s show. There’s a lot going on […]

Shared electric moped startup Revel has resumed operations in New York City a month after shutting down its service following several deaths. The startup’s blue mopeds that had become a familiar sight in New York City are back, but with a number of new protocols and features aimed at boosting safety and assuaging city officials. […]

KitchenMate is a Toronto-based startup promising businesses a fresh approach to feeding their employees. The startup has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Eniac Ventures and Golden Ventures, with participation from FJ Labs and Techstars. It’s also expanding into the United States. Founder and CEO Yang Yu said KitchenMate was founded with the goal […]

Box has always been a bit of an enigma for Wall Street, and perhaps for enterprise software in general. Unlike vendors who shifted to the cloud tools like HR, CRM or ERP, Box has been building a way to manage content in the cloud. It’s been a little harder to understand than these other enterprise […]

Apple’s upcoming operating system iOS 14 (currently in public beta) could have a big impact on publishers who work with Facebook’s ad network — at least, according to Facebook. The company published a couple of blog posts yesterday outlining the potential impact of a major privacy change that Apple announced at WWDC — namely, the […]

I’d been asking for something like the reMarkable for a long time before it showed up out of the blue a few years ago. The device was a real treat, but had a few problems and an eye-popping price tag. The reMarkable 2 builds on the first, with a more beautiful, streamlined device and several […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is the fourth episode of the week, pushing our production calendar to the test. Happily, we’ve managed to hold it together amidst the news deluge that the last few days have brought. It was […]

Juni Learning connects kids with math and science tutors, but co-founder Vivian Shen would prefer not to be lumped in with other edtech startups, despite the sector’s pandemic-born boom. “We’re not just in the middle to take a few percentage points off of each side and pretend like we’re delivering value,” said Shen. “That’s not […]

Facebook announced today it’s suing multiple developers in the U.S. and, for the first time, in the U.K., for violations of its policies. In the U.K., both Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland are suing MobiBurn, parent company OakSmart Technologies and its founder Fatih Haltas, in the High Court of Justice for failing to comply with […]

The most important question in data science is not which machine learning algorithm to choose or even how to clean your data. It's the questions you need to ask before code is written.

Bollinger Motors, the Michigan-based startup known for its rugged electric SUV and pickup truck, unveiled Thursday a delivery van concept that it plans to start producing in 2022. The big takeaway here is versatility. The van concept called Deliver-E is configurable — notably the wheelbase and battery pack — to meet the needs of commercial […]

Instacart is facing a lawsuit from Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine that alleges the company charged customers millions of dollars in “deceptive service fees” and failed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sales tax. The suit seeks restitution for customers who paid those service fees, as well as back taxes […]

Berbix, an ID verification startup that was founded by former members of the Airbnb Trust and Safety team, today announced that it has raised a $9 million Series A round led by Mayfield. Existing investors, including Initialized Capital, Y Combinator and Fika Ventures, also participated in this round. Founded in 2018, Berbix helps companies verify […]

Discord said removed four million accounts for spamming.

Meet Fondeadora, a fintech startup based in Mexico City that wants to build a full-stack neobank. The company just raised a $14 million Series A round led by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture fund. Founded in 2018, the company already manages 150,000 accounts and is adding $20 million in deposits every month. Mexico represents a […]

Fresh off a $40 million Series A round, edge AI specialist Kneron today announced the launch of its newest custom chip, the Kneron KL 720 SoC. With funding from the likes of Alibaba, Sequoia, Horizons Ventures, Qualcomm and SparkLabs Taipei (as well as a few undisclosed backers), it’s worth taking the company’s efforts seriously, and […]

Chinese electric vehicle startup XPeng Inc. raised $1.5 billion through an initial public offering in the U.S. as investor interest in EVs and clean energy outstripped concerns over escalating tensions between the U.S. and China. The automaker, which is headquartered in Guangzhou, China and has offices in Silicon Valley and San Diego, said in a […]

Google is revamping its two-year old “Snapshot” feature in Google Assistant for iOS and Android. The company in 2018 had first introduced Google Assistant Snapshot as a way for mobile users to stay on top of their day, by showing timely information like appointments, reminders, commute times, stocks, packages in transit, and more. Today, the […]

There’s been a flurry of TikTok news today, and the flood doesn’t seem to be letting up. First was the announcement that Kevin Mayer, who joined the company just a bit more than three months ago, has stepped down overnight. TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigns after 100 days Now, we are receiving a bunch of […]

The fintech industry has had a wild couple of years. Consumer fintech startups, such as Robinhood, Revolut and Coinbase, have been massively successful and managed to attract millions of customers. At the same time, enterprise companies have created the infrastructure that will make finance truly digital, from payments to API-driven integrations and risk assessment. That’s […]

It’s time again to start warming up your pitching arm. Our next Pitchers & Pitches session takes place next week on September 2. Register today! Pitchers & Pitches sessions combine critique and competition with a focus on helping early-stage startup founders create an iron-clad, 60-second pitch. Here’s how it works. Everyone is welcome to attend, […]

Everyone’s habits have changed/are changing as a result of the pandemic, so marketers need to be testing and learning as quickly as possible.

The expression “it takes a village” easily applies to building a successful mobility startup, especially in uncertain and tumultuous times. It also takes opportunities, and you’ll find plenty of those at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 (Oct. 6-7). Even better — you can bring your entire village, increase your opportunity potential and save money with our group […]

Launching a company, even in the best of times, is one of the most challenging exercises a person can go through. In an economic recession, it can seem downright impossible. But founders across the country, and indeed across the globe, are in the midst of that process as I write. They aren’t the first. Alexa […]

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death and widespread protests for racial justice, a number of venture capitalists made public statements about wanting to improve diversity in the tech industry — and more specifically to fund more diverse founders. Their comments are certainly worth applauding, but actual change is a lot harder. And if it […]

Nerdwallet, which provides resources for people looking for a new credit card, loan, insurance or other financial product or just financial advice, is making a move today to spearhead a move into international markets. The startup is acquiring Know Your Money, a Norwich-based startup that provides a similar range of comparison and information tools geared […]

Billion dollar natural disasters are on the rise in the United States, according to CNBC. Even as I write, a hurricane is making landfall in Louisiana while wild fires rage in northern California. And those are just the big disasters. There were more than 1.3 million fires in the United States in 2018, and nearly […]

One of the nice things about virtual events is you can essentially hold as many as you’d like. It’s one thing to ask people to fly across the country or world to attend and another entirely to get them to tune into a livestream for an hour. On September 1 at 10AM ET, Samsung will […]

We’re big believers in second chances here at TechCrunch, and that’s great news for early-stage founders who didn’t apply to compete in the Startup Battlefield during Disrupt 2020 (September 14-18). Your second chance comes in the form of two Wild Card entries to the world’s most legendary startup competition. Want a shot to head-to-head with […]

Salesforce launched in 1999, one of the early adherents to what would eventually be called SaaS and cloud computing. On Tuesday, the company reached a huge milestone when it surpassed $5 billion in revenue, putting the SaaS giant on a $20 billion run rate for the first time. Salesforce revenue has been on a firm […]

Live streaming of video has come into its own during the coronavirus pandemic, with services like Zoom, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and many others giving people a way to stay connected with each other, run events and continue working even when they can not be in the same physical spaces together. Now, a startup called Restream, […]

Los Angeles was always more than a one industry town, even when it comes to technology startups, but media and entertainment (and social networking) were always the big draws in tinseltown. Now the city’s enterprise tech scene can claim a really big winner with Signal Sciences, the security monitoring and management company that is getting […]

If your platform doesn’t have a developer community yet, creating one takes a few purposeful steps. Here are some of the best practices we’ve learned.

When shelter-in-place was first announced in the United States, most companies in the travel space saw bookings drop. Some shuttered. Hipcamp, a San Francisco-based startup that provides private land for people who want to go glamping or camping, found itself in a similar spot. (even though its entire sell is about getting you away from […]

News app Flipboard is further expanding into video with Flipboard TV. The company’s curated video service first launched earlier this year as a Samsung exclusive, and is now making its way to all Flipboard users in the U.S. With today’s launch, the service will offer users access to video from hundreds of publishers, including global […]

Now that the great Y Combinator rush is behind us, we’re returning to a topic many of you really seem to care about: no-code and low-code apps and their development. We’ve explored the theme a few times recently, once from a venture-capital perspective, and another time building from a chat with the CEO of Claris, […]

TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey the venture capital investors of Europe. Our <a href=”https://forms.gle/k4Ji2Ch7zdrn7o2p6”>survey of VCs in Warsaw will capture how the city is faring, and what changes are being wrought amongst investors by the coronavirus pandemic. We’d like to know how the Warsaw startup scene is evolving, how the […]

Warby Parker, the optical ecommerce giant, has today announced the close of a $245 million funding round from D1 Capital Partners, Durable Capital Partners, T. Rowe Price, and Baillie Gifford. A source familiar with the company’s finances confirmed to TechCrunch that this brings Warby Parker’s valuation to $3 billion. The fresh $245 million comes as […]

Amazon has introduced an entirely new membership program called Halo today that aims to provide comprehensive personal health and wellness monitoring and advice. The Halo service, which is opening to early access by special request today, includes both the service and a new Amazon Halo Band wristworn activity tracker for $64.99 for a six-month membership. […]

The moonphase watch is a long-standing marvel of the analog watch industry – featuring a complication that allows it to accurately track the phases of the Moon across a long period (provided the watch remains wound). Christopher Ward’s C1 Moonglow ($1,995) is a fresh, contemporary take on a moonphase that that really puts the Moon front […]

Narrative has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding and is launching a new product designed to further simplify the process of buying and selling data. I’ve already written about the company’s existing marketplace and software for managing data transactions. With the new Data Streams Marketplace, the process should be simpler than ever — not […]