Crunch Hype

The shift to online shopping has accelerated in the COVID-19 pandemic, but today Amazon made a bold move that underscores its belief that physical stores will remain a key component of how consumers shop. In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Woodland Hills, the e-commerce giant today opened its first Amazon Fresh supermarket. This is the […]

Samsung Electronics will reportedly begin trialing a work-from-home program for some employees next month as South Korea as the country deals with its largest increase in COVID-19 cases since March. According to Reuters, a company official said the pilot program will be open to some employees at Samsung’s mobile phone and consumer electronics divisions, and […]

Dutch social enterprise, Fairphone, has moved a little closer to the sustainability dream of a circular economy by announcing the launch of a modular upgrade for its flagship smartphone. The backwards compatible hardware units mean users of last year’s Fairphone 3 only need swap out a few modules to be holding the Fairphone 3+ in […]

Fronted, the new London-based startup aiming to make life easier for renters, including lending the cash needed for a deposit, has picked up seed investment from Passion Capital. The investment showed up in a recent regulatory filing for the company. The exact cheque size isn’t yet disclosed, but what we do know is that Passion […]

Grocery delivery has emerged as one of the hottest categories in e-commerce in the last six months, partly due to coronavirus pandemic, where stay-at-home orders plus a general reluctance to avoid crowded places have led many more consumers to shopping online. Today, one of the big players in on-demand restaurant delivery is picking up a […]

Kevin Mayer, the chief executive of TikTok, announced on Wednesday that he is resigning, just over 100 days after the former Disney executive joined the world’s largest short video app in mid-May. The news came on the heels of TikTok’s move to sue the U.S. government over its forthcoming ban. The app, owned by Chinese internet upstart […]

Facebook has removed a local self-declared militia’s page and a related event following the events that unfolded last night in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Two people were killed and another was wounded when a man believed to be 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly began firing on a group protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man […]

I can’t remember the last time I did a hands-on with a device prior to powering it on. The idea of basing posts entirely around glamour shots without really interfacing with the product feels like a relic of an early era of gadget blogging. But every so often a device comes along that warrants the […]

Spotify explores virtual concerts, Twitter tests a “quotes” count and Google’s Nest Hub becomes more hotel-friendly. This is your Daily Crunch for August 26, 2020. The big story: Spotify is testing virtual events We can’t have real-world concerts at the moment, so the popular music streaming service is exploring virtual alternatives. The feature isn’t live […]

Instagram is working to expand its recently launched “Guides” feature which initially debuted with a specific focus on wellness content. The feature, which launched in May, has allowed select organizations and experts to share resources related to managing your mental health — including things like handling anxiety or grief amid the COVID-19 pandemic, for example. […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Yep, it’s another Equity Shot. We’re back. And then we’re going to be back on Friday. Because we can’t stop talking about the biggest news week in the world of startups and venture capital in […]

When Brynne McNulty Rojas moved to Bogotá, Colombia four years ago, she encountered a fragmented real estate industry that lacked a central database for consumers to find or compare homes. Rojas was struck by the magnitude of the problem; she was also inspired by the opportunity. Rojas and business partner Sebastian Noguera homed in on […]

Ford, Bosch and Bedrock today announced an automated valet parking demonstration in downtown Detroit. This system is designed to allow drivers to exit a vehicle and the vehicle would park itself in the parking structure. Systems in a Ford Escape test vehicle communicate with Bosch sensors to locate an empty parking location and move the […]

I really like the Luna Display. The dongle still occupies a spot in my travel-cord bag. But like the bag it resides in, the iPad accessory hasn’t gotten much use in the past year.

SpaceX has secured a contract to act as the launch partner for Masten Space Systems, one of the companies awarded a NASA launch contract under that agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Masten’s first lunar mission is set to take place in 2022 if all goes to plan, and will take the company’s XL-1 […]

The Palantir S-1 finally dropped yesterday after TechCrunch spilled a bunch of its guts last Friday. You can read the filing here, if you are so inclined. Today, however, instead of our usual overview, I have a different goal: We’re going to be a bit more specific. It’s fun and easy to clown on Palantir’s […]

Powered amps for electric guitars have gotten some neat tricks powered by modern mobile tech over the years, but the new Positive Grid Spark ($299) might be the one that packs the most intelligence and versatility into a single package. From a companion app, to voice commands, to tunable modeling and home recording — on […]

Twitter wants to make it easier to see the conversations taking place around a tweet. This May, the company rolled out a change to its user interface that allowed users who clicked on the “Retweets” metric beneath a tweet to view both those Retweets with comments and those without all on one screen. But a […]

Nearshoring is mutually beneficial because developers don't have to give up their culture for a great employment opportunity and businesses can reap the benefits of diversification.

For Dr. Cecily Morrison, research into how AI can help people who are blind or visually disabled is deeply personal. It’s not only that the Microsoft Principal Researcher has a 7-year-old son who is blind, she also believes that the powerful AI-related technologies that will help people must themselves be personal, tailored to the circumstances […]

Like any successful founder, Andrew Grauer had bright, long-term ambitions for Course Hero from the moment he launched it in 2006. He started the business to create a place where students could ask questions and get answers similar to Chegg, which launched 15 months before Course Hero . But as he slowly built it, he […]

Exceptions for new H-1B visas at embassies and consulates around the world will help a lot of tech companies whose employees got stuck outside the U.S.

There’s a growing wave of commercial activity from companies that are creating products using new biological engineering technologies. Perhaps the most public (and tastiest) example of the promise biomanufacturing holds is Impossible Foods . The meat replacement company whose ground plants (and bioengineered additives) taste like ground beef just raised another $200 million earlier this […]

Benchmark used to be the quintessential Silicon Valley venture firm. It was small. It was focused. It was aggressive while also remaining founder friendly. It stuck to its knitting, when it came to its fund size, raising fund after fund in the $450 million range. Over the years, the world changed. Some of the biggest […]

Failing to explore new options to prevent a voting disaster this fall amidst a global pandemic could have grave repercussions on the future of this nation.

If you’re overwhelmed trying to choose the next movie or TV show to watch on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max or any other streaming service, Bingie could be the app for you. You may recall a previous wave of TV recommendation apps from a decade ago, like Viggle and GetGlue. Those apps have largely disappeared, with […]

Canon and Google today announced a new software integration that enables automatic Google Photos backup of pictures taken with select Canon cameras — a full list is available here, but it’s most of their recent interchangeable lens cameras dating back basically to when they started getting Wi-Fi on board. The auto-backup feature will work via […]

LaunchNotes, a startup founded by the team behind Statuspage (which Atlassian later acquired) and the former head of marketing for Jira, today announced that it has raised a $1.8 million seed round co-led by Cowboy Ventures and Bull City Ventures. In addition, Tim Chen (general partner, Essence Ventures), Eric Wittman (chief growth officer, JLL Technologies), […]

Given the number of rooms I’ve stayed in over the past couple of years that still sported a 30-pin iPod alarm clock, I think it’s a safe bet that refreshing a new technology isn’t high up on the list of priorities for most hotels. For those looking to offer a little tech hospitality beyond the […]

Hundreds of founders have launched their startups with an aim to change the world. But uttering the words “making the world a better place,” isn’t the same as doing it or doing it well. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, founder of Promise, and Jessica O. Matthews, founder of Uncharted Power, have not only launched companies that “do good,” […]

Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group has put on hold plans to invest in Indian startups amid geo-political tensions between the two countries, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing two unnamed sources. The Chinese group, which has invested more than $2 billion in Indian startups since 2015, plans to freeze new investments in Indian startups for at least […]

The coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the music industry, as artists who relied on live performances and concerts suddenly had the rug pulled out beneath them, impacting their ability to generate income. An upcoming feature in development at Spotify could help turn things around, by again connecting artists with their fans through […]

Turning away from the public markets, IPOs, SPACs and Palantir for a moment, would you like to talk about startups again? I would. This morning, I pored over venture capital funding patterns for wellness-focused startups. Broadly, according to a new report, these startups raised less money in the first half of 2020 than they did […]

GM provided a glimpse Wednesday of not one, but two versions of the Chevrolet Bolt, the all-electric vehicle that first launched in 2017 with an aim at hitting the market before — and carving sales away from — the Tesla Model 3. The all-electric hatchback, which came to market with 238 miles of range, had […]

Santa Monica, Calif.-based Atom Tickets, the ticketing and concessions buying app, is finally launching its branded ticket buying experience inside Snapchat. The new Movie Tickets by Atom joins a slew of mini apps released by companies like Headspace, which are using Snap’s new mini app-distribution platform to offer services directly inside the Snapchat app. Atom […]

Beyond the drones it’s known for, DJI has carved out a nice niche for itself in the camera stabilization market. Building on the technology it has developed for the aerial imaging space, the company’s got a number of products, running the gamut from professional video to consumer smartphone accessories. DJI Osmo Mobile 3 review Today […]

Messenger Rooms, Facebook’s social Zoom competitor, is today rolling out new features aimed at making Rooms easier to both create and discover as well as those for further personalizing your Rooms experience. The changes follow Messenger’s recent slight dip from the top of the U.S. App Store charts, where typically it ranks in the top […]

Stride.VC, the London early-stage VC firm founded by Fred Destin and podcaster Harry Stebbings, is losing Paris-based partner, Pia d’Iribarne, TechCrunch has learned. According to a regulatory filing, d’Iribarne’s partnership officially ended today, a little more than a year and a half after her appointment as Stride’s third investment partner was announced. Contacted by TechCrunch, […]

We’ve all been in a video conference, especially this year, when the neighbor started mowing the lawn or kids were playing outside your window — and it can get pretty loud. Cisco, which owns the WebEx video conferencing service wants to do something about that, and late yesterday it announced it was going to acquire […]

Like other accelerators, Brinc hasn’t let 2020 get in the way of its program for early-stage startups. The firm is known for focusing on food technology, health tech, clean energy, and hardware, and has a knack for finding some of the most interesting startups in those spaces. Today, we joined Brinc’s first online Demo Day […]

Finix, a startup that provides payments-related services to other companies, announced it has extended its Series B financing with a $30 million investment led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and American Express Ventures. The fintech startup has now raised over $96 million in venture capital. According to CEO and co-founder Richie Serna, $90 million of that […]

Desktop Metal’s had no shortage of investor interest in its business during in its half-decade existence. To date, the metal 3D printing company has raised $430 million, becoming one of the fastest U.S. companies to achieve unicorn status in the process. Today it also became the latest in a recent string of firms to announce […]

Grid, a SaaS startup founded in Iceland that lets you turn spreadsheets into visual “narratives,” has closed $12 million in Series A funding. The round is led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from existing investors BlueYard Capital, Slack Fund, Acequia Capital and other unnamed “strategic” partners. The injection of capital will be used […]

Xiaomi reported a revenue of $7.77 billion for the quarter that ended in June this year, up 3.1% since the same period last year and up 7.7% over the previous quarter as the Chinese smartphone maker sees recovery in most of its overseas markets. The company, which appointed Alain Lam (former APAC senior executive from […]

Building out its previous commitment, the White House is announcing a $1 billion investment into two of tech’s most promising frontiers, AI and quantum computing. Last year, the Trump administration rolled out an executive order on AI declaring its intention to bolster U.S. dominance in the field, but the order didn’t address much in the […]

The once-pioneering BlackBerry is pretty much out of the smartphone manufacturing game, but the Canadian company has been busy transitioning to providing software for connected devices, including smart cars. Now it’s brought that section of its business to China. This week, BlackBerry announced that it will be powering the Level 3 driving domain controller of […]

A lagging trend of the past few months has been witnessing startups that COVID seemed poised to kill end up scaling back some of those deep cuts and taking off again. Not all spaces have been quite so lucky, in particular, lately we’ve seen a host of location-based virtual reality startups shut their doors. Virtual […]

FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that offers derivatives, options and other sophisticated products, is acquiring a popular portfolio tracking app, Blockfolio. FTX is spending $150 million for the acquisition. But take that price with a grain of salt as it’s a combination of cash, cryptocurrency and stock. Cryptocurrency (and stock) in particular might not be perfectly […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We’re back out of sequence, because literally every company you can name (well, almost) dropped an S-1 yesterday so we had to sit down and parse them out a bit. That so many filings dropped […]

Axon, the company formerly known as Taser and which provides the majority of police body cameras, has a few new tech tools for cops that could cut down on paperwork and improve response times. But at a time when the fundamental means and mission of police is being questioned, is this what’s really needed? Even […]