Crunch Hype

Moft is a clever company that makes clever products. For a while there, I was sporting their laptop stand. It was a head-turner when I used to unfold it during meetings — back when we used to do those in-person. The truth is, I ended up having to tear it off the bottom. It lasted […]

They say business needs certainty to succeed, but new tech startups are still getting funded aggressively despite the pandemic, recession, trade wars and various large disasters....

Nearly eight years ago, Hamet Watt and Stacy Spikes launched MoviePass, the subscription-based movie ticketing service that captured the minds and dollars of investors and brought thousands of cinephiles a too-good-to-be-true deal for all-you-can watch movie passes. Watt, who came to MoviePass as an entrepreneur in residence at True Ventures, previously founded the brand and […]

There’s a certain kind of panic that at some point gets us all. You just got to work but did you leave the oven on at home? The gut-punch “call me ASAP” message from your boss but now they’re not answering their phone. Or that moment you unexpectedly see your camera light flash on your […]

Trump escalates his campaign against Chinese tech companies, Facebook extends work from home until the middle of 2021 and Netflix adds support for Hindi. Here’s your Daily Crunch for August 7, 2020. The big story: Trump signs orders banning US business with TikTok owner ByteDance and Tencent’s WeChat Both orders will take effect in 45 […]

Extra Crunch is excited to announce an update to our Partner Perk from design and publishing platform Canva. Starting today, annual and two-year members of Extra Crunch can receive 20% off an annual Canva Pro plan. You must be new to Canva to claim this offer, and reside in the U.S., Canada or U.K. Canva […]

During an Unpacked event that featured the announcement of five key new devices, the Galaxy Tab S7 didn’t get a ton of love. Understandable, perhaps. It doesn’t quite have the star power of the Note line, nor does it have the novelty of a new foldable or Bluetooth earbuds. Tablets in general just aren’t exciting […]

Welcome back to Human Capital (formerly known as Tech at Work), which looks at all things labor in tech. This week presented Uber and Lyft with a fresh labor lawsuit as a judge heard arguments from Uber, Lyft and lawyers on behalf of the people of California in a separate suit brought forth by California’s […]

I see far more research articles than I could possibly write up. This column collects the most interesting of those papers and advances, along with notes on why they may prove important in the world of tech and startups. This week: supercomputers take on COVID-19, beetle backpacks, artificial spiderwebs, the “overwhelming whiteness” of AI and […]

A federal judge has approved the Department of Justice’s efforts to end the Paramount Consent Decrees — 70-year-old court orders that prevented movie studios from engaging in a variety of anti-competitive behaviors, including ownership of movie theaters. U.S. District Court Judge Analisa Torres cited the rise of streaming services like Netflix as one of the […]

Early-stage startup founders who are embarking on a Series A fundraising round should consider this: their relationship with the members of their board might last longer than the average American marriage. In other words, who invests in a startup matters as much — or more — than the total capital they’re bringing with them. It’s […]

Leveraging data, hardware and biological solutions can help brick-and-mortar stores remain relevant and continue churning out cash.

One of the best-kept secrets in the world of capital is that the federal government has billions of dollars it’s dying to give away to early-stage founders and inventors — and all you have to do is ask. Well, there’s a bit more to it than that, so here’s a guide to getting in the […]

Since launching our membership product Extra Crunch 1.5 years ago, we’ve added a number of new features at the request of our community. This includes improvements to login stability, introducing the video Q&A series Extra Crunch Live, launching over a dozen Partner Perks and revamping our newsletters. We also listened to the community for where […]

mmhmm, the latest project from Evernote founder Phil Libin and All Turtles, has today announced the launch of the mmhmm Beta 2. The 100,000-strong waitlist of people who have requested access are getting their invite to the platform today. Also part of the beta 2: a handful of new features for the video presentation software. […]

Today, companies can capture intent data through conversational interfaces for proactive customer interactions and hyper-personalized experiences.

Here’s a shout-out to all the early-stage founders attending Disrupt 2020. Don’t forget to register for our next Pitchers & Pitches — on August 13 — and get ready to hone your 60-second pitch to a razor’s edge. If you’re not in the know, our ongoing Pitchers & Pitches webinar series is a pitch-off-masterclass-mashup. It’s […]

The media landscape is changing rapidly. Even before COVID, media companies were looking at new revenue models beyond your standard banner ad, all the while trying to navigate the oft-changing world of social media and search, where a minor algorithm change can boost or tank traffic. Anytime an industry is in the midst of a […]

Clean.io, a startup that helps digital publishers protect themselves from malicious ads, recently announced that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The Baltimore-based company isn’t the only organization promising to fight malvertising (such as ads that force visitors to redirect to another website). But as co-founder Seth Demsey told me last year, […]

If you’re exhibiting in Digital Startup Alley during Disrupt 2020 — or you plan to — do not miss this opportunity to sharpen your media skills. The first of our three-part interactive webinar series takes place on August 12th with The Dos and Don’ts of Working with the Press. Pro tip: Our August webinar series […]

With the already narrow window of remaining time to complete a census count abruptly cut short by the Trump administration, getting every person living in the U.S. to fill out the form, already a scramble in a normal census year, is a compound challenge in 2020. The critical once-a-decade count determines everything from Congressional representation […]

When Wendell Brooks was promoted to president of Intel Capital, the investment arm of the chip giant in 2015, he knew he had big shoes to fill. He was taking over from Arvind Sodhani, who had run the investment component for 28 years since its inception. Today, the company confirmed reports that he has resigned […]

Let’s just say it has been a year. While a few ambitious startups like InVision and GitLab built their corporate cultures and talent hiring with a remote-first mentality, the reality is that the vast majority of founders never thought they would have to be socially distant from all of their employees. And it isn’t going […]

It’s last call startup fans, last call. We’re not talking about International Beer Day (which is a thing and it’s today — look it up). No, we mean August 7 is your absolute last chance to save up to $300 on a pass to Disrupt 2020. Beat the clock, buy your early-bird pass before 11:59 […]

Imagine buying a dress online because a piece of code sold you on its ‘flattering, feminine flair’ — or convinced you ‘romantic floral details’ would outline your figure with ‘timeless style’. The very same day your friend buy the same dress from the same website but she’s sold on a description of ‘vibrant tones’, ‘fresh […]

More than ever before, people are getting life’s essentials delivered — good news for Amazon, but bad news for the environment, which must bear the consequences of the resulting waste. LivingPackets is a Berlin-based startup that aims to replace the familiar cardboard box with an alternative that’s smarter, more secure and possibly the building block […]

Because algorithmic bias is rarely straightforward, many GPT-3 applications will act as canaries in the growing coal mine that is AI-driven applications.

Google has long been known as the leader in email, but it hasn’t always been that way. In 1997, AOL was the world’s largest email provider with around ten million subscribers, but other providers were making headway. Hotmail, now part of Microsoft Outlook, launched in 1996, Yahoo Mail launched in 1997 and Gmail followed in […]

My friend and colleague Natasha Mascarenhas has been reporting on the edtech beat quite a lot in 2020. So far reading her coverage, I’ve discovered that not only is edtech less dull than I anticipated, it’s actually somewhat interesting on a regular basis. This week, for example, India’s Byju bought WhiteHat Jr., another Indian edtech […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. As ever I was joined by TechCrunch managing editor Danny Crichton and our early-stage venture capital reporter Natasha Mascarenhas. We had Chris on the dials and a pile of news to get through, so we […]

Facebook has joined Google in saying it will allow employees to work from home until the middle of next year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. “Based on guidance from health and government experts, as well as decisions drawn from our internal discussions about these matters, we are allowing employees to continue voluntarily working […]

Mashroom, the London proptech that offers an “end-to-end” lettings and property management service, has raised £4 million in new funding. Backing comes from existing unnamed private investors and matched funding from the U.K. taxpayer-funded Future Fund. It brings total funding to date for the company to £7 million. Pitching itself as going “beyond the tenant-finding […]

Only about 10% of India’s 1.3 billion people know English. Yet, scores of firms operating in the country offer their services only in English. Netflix, one such company, said on Friday it’s aiming to break through the language barrier. The American on-demand video streaming giant today rolled out support for Hindi, a language spoken by […]

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday banning transactions with ByteDance, the parent company of popular app TikTok . The White House also announced that he signed a similar order banning transactions with WeChat, the messaging app owned by Tencent that is ubiquitous in China, but has a much smaller presence than TikTok […]

California Superior Court Judge Ethan P. Schulman heard arguments from Uber and Lyft, as well as lawyers representing the people of California, regarding the request for a preliminary injunction that seeks to force Uber and Lyft to immediately reclassify their drivers as employees. Schulman did not make a ruling today but said we could all […]

GM unveiled Thursday the Cadillac Lyriq, an all-electric crossover dripping in luxury, tech-forward touches and promising more than 300 miles of range that aims to propel the brand into a new electrified era. That new era for Cadillac will have to wait though. The company said the Lyriq will go into production in the U.S. […]

Google has partnered with one of the largest states in India to provide its digital classroom services to tens of millions of students and teachers, the search giant said today, as it makes a further education push in the world’s second largest internet market. The company, which recently announced plans to invest $10 billion in […]

Facebook and Twitter are taking a stronger stand against pandemic misinformation, we preview the latest version of macOS and a mental health startup raises $50 million. Here’s your Daily Crunch for August 6, 2020. The big story: Twitter, Facebook take action against Trump misinformation Facebook and Twitter both took action against a post from President […]

Uber reported its second-quarter earnings Thursday, and buried in the blizzard of less-than-rosy numbers is a stunning figure that illustrates how much the company has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Uber’s delivery business — better known as Uber Eats — is now bigger than its original and core ride-hailing division, based on adjusted net revenue. […]

Few could ever forget back in 2015 when security researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek remotely killed a Jeep’s engine on a highway with a Wired reporter at the wheel. Since then, the car hacking world has bustled with security researchers looking to find new bugs — and ways to exploit them — in a […]

Today after the bell, American ride-hailing giant Uber released its second-quarter results. The company’s revenue fell compared to both the year-ago quarter (Q2 2019), and the sequentially preceding period (Q1 2020). Investors had anticipated Uber’s declines due to COVID-19, and the company had spent time earlier this year assuring the investing public that it had […]

SpaceX is getting ready for a third try at launching its tenth Starlink mission, after two prior attempts were scrubbed, first in June and then again in July. Meanwhile, SpaceX has accomplished a lot — including another launch of a GPS satellite, and returning astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to Earth from the International […]

The world is changing quickly. It seems to be growing more complicated by the minute. Throughout the centuries, humans have used storytelling to make sense of the world around them. That is perhaps more true today than it ever was, as we have access to more stories (via the internet) than we ever have in […]

Emerging market challenger banks will have to look carefully at market conditions, possible target segments, sustainable revenue sources and the regulatory structure that best supports their desired business model.

Casa, a Colorado-based provider of bitcoin security services, is launching a managed service allowing customers to buy and hold their own bitcoin, rather than using an external custodian like Coinbase. “With self-custody using Casa it’s impossible to be hacked and nearly impossible to have your bitcoin stolen,” wrote chief executive Nick Neuman in an email. […]

Lucia, a six-year old, hides from Zoom calls and has rejected every edtech tool from Seesaw to Khan Academy. She will spend all of first grade in quarantine. Her mother, Claire Díaz-Ortiz, says her daughter fits squarely into the “distance learning death zone.” The idea is that younger children are too young to do distance […]

I honestly can’t remember when I first started writing about the mobile creep in macOS. It has happened little by little, update after update. My earlier fears that it would fully surrender to the influence of iOS have thus far not come to fruition, but the iPhone’s operating system continues to be the clearest indicator […]

Ginger, a provider of on-demand mental healthcare services, has raised $50 million in a new round of funding. The new capital comes as interest and investment in mental health and wellness has emerged as the next big area of interest for investors in new technology and healthcare services companies. Mental health startups saw record deal […]

With the launch of Android 11 getting closer, Google today launched the third and final beta of its mobile operating system ahead of its general availability. Google had previously delayed the beta program by about a month because of the coronavirus pandemic. Since Android 11 had already reached platform stability with Beta 2, most of […]

Twitter is introducing new labels for accounts and tweets tied to government officials and “state-affiliated media.” “Twitter provides an unmatched way to connect with, and directly speak to public officials and representatives,” the company wrote in the blog post announcing these changes. “This direct line of communication with leaders and officials has helped to democratize […]