Crunch Hype

“Marketing Cloud” has become an increasingly popular concept in the world of marketing technology — used by the likes of Salesforce, Adobe, Oracle and others to describe their digital toolsets for organizations to identify and connect with customers. Now, a startup that is building its own take on the idea aimed specifically at e-commerce companies […]

The UK government is suspending the use of an algorithm used to stream visa applications after concerns were raised the technology bakes in unconscious bias and racism. The tool had been the target of a legal challenge. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) and campaigning law firm Foxglove had asked a court […]

WhatsApp, one of the most popular instant messaging platforms on the planet, has rolled out a new feature in select markets that makes it easier for users to verify whether the assertions made in messages they have received on the app are true. The Facebook -owned service has enabled users in Brazil, Italy, Ireland, Mexico, […]

Twitter has disclosed it’s facing a potential fine of more than a hundred million dollars as a result of a probe by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) which believes the company violated a 2011 consent order by using data provided by users for a security purpose to target them with ads. In an SEC filing, […]

TaxScouts, the U.K. tax preparation startup founded by TransferWise and MarketInvoice alumni, has raised £5 million in Series A funding for European expansion. Leading the round is Octopus Ventures, with previous investors SpeedInvest, Seedcamp and Finch Capital, following on. Also participating is Clocktower Technology Ventures, the U.S. venture capital firm specialising in financial technology. Aiming […]

Grab announced today that its financial unit, which previously focused mainly on services for entrepreneurs and small businesses, is launching a slew of consumer products, including micro-investments, loans, health insurance and a pay-later program. Based in Singapore, Grab began in 2012 as a ride-hailing company before expanding into on-demand deliveries and other services. In January […]

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has decided to ask the public for its thoughts on an attempt initiated in Trump in May to water down certain protections that arguably led to the creation of the modern internet economy. The nakedly retaliatory order seems to be, legally speaking, laughable, and could be resolved without public input — […]

A possible Microsoft -TikTok acquisition is causing plenty of drama, we review Google’s new budget Pixel and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon returns to Earth. Here’s your Daily Crunch for August 3, 2020. Microsoft-TikTok acquisition inches closer to reality This weekend, Microsoft confirmed reports that it’s in talks to acquire TikTok, the popular mobile video app currently […]

EventGeek was a Y Combinator-backed startup that offered tools to help large enterprises manage the logistics of their events. So with the COVID-19 pandemic essentially eliminating large-scale conferences, at least in-person, it’s not exactly surprising that the company had to reinvent itself. Today, EventGeek relaunched as Circa, with a new focus on virtual events. Founder […]

In one of the crazier news stories (and in 2020, that is saying something), President Donald Trump said today during a media availability event that in order for the U.S. government to sign off on a potential Microsoft/TikTok deal, “a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury […]

We’ve got a great Extra Crunch Live chat coming up on Thursday, August 4, that you won’t want to miss. The one and only Max Levchin, is Silicon Valley icon and entrepreneur extraordinaire, is joining us to talk all things tech and fintech. You might know him as the CEO of Affirm, one of the […]

Few challenges have excited technologists more than building tools to help people who are blind or visually impaired. It was Silicon Valley legend Ray Kurzweil, for example, who in 1976 launched the first commercially available text-to-speech reading device. He unveiled the $50,000 Kurzweil Reading Machine, a boxy device that covered a tabletop, at a press […]

Today the president appeared to bless the budding Microsoft-TikTok deal, continuing his evolution on a possible transaction. After stating last Friday that he’d rather see TikTok banned than sold to a U.S.-based company, Trump changed his tune over the weekend. TikTok is owned by China-based company ByteDance, which owns a portfolio of apps and services. […]

When BigCommerce, the Texas-based Shopify competitor, first announced an IPO price range, the numbers looked a little light. With a range of just $18 to $20 per share, it appeared that the firm was targeting a valuation of around $1.18 billion to $1.31 billion. Given that BigCommerce had revenue of “between $35.5 million and $35.8 […]

SaaS investing has been on fire the past decade and the returns have been gushing in, with IPOs like Datadog, direct listings like Slack and acquisitions like Qualtrics (which is now being spun back out) creating billions of wealth and VC returns. Dozens more SaaS startups are on deck to head toward their exits in […]

Remote-virtual-digital work is going to be a key part of the playbook forever, and the essential revenue software stack is the best way to set up your teams for success.

There’s no better way to expose your early-stage startup to global opportunities — we’re talking thousands of potential investors, customers, tech journalists and other mighty influencers — than by exhibiting in Digital Startup Alley at Disrupt 2020. The Alley may be virtual this year, but the benefits of exhibiting are very real. More on those […]

Google is expanding its plans to offer digital banking services in the U.S. The company announced today it’s partnering with half a dozen more banks to offer digital checking and savings accounts to Google Pay users in the U.S., starting sometime next year. The new partners include Bank Mobile, BBVA USA, BMO Harris, Coastal Community […]

Calling all Extra Crunch annual and two-year members! Did you know that as a part of your membership plan, you can get a 20% discount on a Disrupt 2020 pass? Disrupt is our largest and most ambitious event of the year. While it’s typically held in San Francisco, this year the event will be held […]

Intel and Boeing, two of the pillars of American industry. Intel makes some of the most impressive chips in the world and has for decades, driving high-performance computing to its limits while supporting a company with a market cap today of $200 billion and supporting more than 110,000 employees. Meanwhile, Boeing remains a global leader […]

As COVID-19 infections surge in parts of the U.S., many workplaces remain empty or are operating with skeleton crews. Most agree that the decision to return to the office should involve a combination of business, government and medical officials and scientists who have a deep understanding of COVID-19 and infectious disease in general. The exact […]

Lordstown Motors, the one-year-old Ohio electric automaker that revealed a pickup truck prototype in June, has reached a deal to merge with special-purpose acquisition company DiamondPeak Holdings Corp, with a market value of $1.6 billion. The agreement marks the latest company — and electric automaker — to become a publicly traded company through a merger […]

Virgin Orbit’s first attempt at an orbital launch demo may not have gone entirely to plan (the LauncherOne rocket released as planned but its flight was cut short just after that), but it has booked a payload for its next try – 11 science satellites selected by NASA and primarily designed and built by U.S. […]

I wanted to write an essay about Microsoft and TikTok today, because I was effectively a full-time reporter covering the software giant when it hired Satya Nadella in 2014. But, everyone else has already done that and, frankly, there’s a more pressing financial topic for us to parse. Let’s take a minute to take stock […]

Not that YOU would use these resources, but it might be fun to look at them in a hypothetical, “haha what if I were to expose gross injustices?” kind of way.

Snapchat is taking aim at TikTok. The company announced today it will begin testing a new feature that lets Snapchat users set their Snaps to music, similar to TikTok’s app. The feature may allow Snapchat to capitalize on the fracturing of the TikTok audience, who have been exploring alternative apps as the Trump administration weighs […]

Back in January, Robert Playter became the CEO of Boston Dynamics. It was a momentous occasion, marking the company’s first new CEO since its founding in the early 1990s when the company was founded by Marc Raibert. The move came during what was already a transitional period for the company which is why we are […]

Josh Jensen bought his first house in Peoria, Ill., when he was twenty three. He sold the house to pay for a business school and over the course of his tech career — first as a mechanical engineer and then as an executive for startup companies — Jensen and his wife bought, renovated, and […]

Surprise. The latest version of Google’s budget Pixel device will be one of the first two to get its next-gen technology. It’s an odd strategy, to be sure, but sometimes roadmaps work out like that, I guess. You can read basically everything you need to know about the Pixel 4a in my review here. It’s […]

The Pixel line has always felt like more of an underdog product than one should reasonably expect from a corporation as massive as Google. After years of partnerships and Nexus devices, when Google finally did enter the smartphone market in earnest, it found itself attempting to chip away at an already mature category — an […]

Facebook launched two 12-week accelerator programs for startups on Monday as the social juggernaut looks for new ideas and solutions to expand its commerce and connectivity efforts. Facebook’s Commerce Accelerator will select 60 startups from the EMEA and LATAM regions for the program, the company said. The startups that make the cut will explore building […]

Mobile banking startup Varo is becoming its own bank. The company announced on Friday it has been granted a national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and secured regulatory approvals from the FDIC and Federal Reserve to open Varo Bank, N.A. The news follows Varo’s recent close on an […]

Every CEO is in sales. Pitching investors, selling to customers, recruiting all-stars, courting acquirers: it’s all sales

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 […]

“The app that you use the most on your phone and you don’t realize it is your keyboard,” says Christophe Barre the co-founder and chief executive of OneKey. A member of Y Combinator’s most recent cohort, OneKey has a plan to make work easier on mobile devices by turning the keyboard into a new way […]

Historically, podcasts have been focused on appealing to as many listeners as possible. But Artifact, a new YC-backed company launching today, has a different idea. It all started when cofounder and CEO Ross Chanin lost his grandfather. He found himself wishing he’d spent more time asking him about his life. At the same time, he […]

Companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat that are making vegetable-based meat substitutes have captured the imagination and wallets of consumers, but so far, there’s been no real corollary for the seafood industry. Now, a startup coming from Y Combinator’s summer cohort, Kuleana, is hoping it can swim in those waters. While new businesses like […]

Facebook has branded a legal order to globally block a number of Brazilian accounts linked to the spread of political disinformation targeting the country’s 2018 election as “extreme”, claiming it poses a threat to freedom of expression outside the country. The tech giant is simultaneously complying with the block order — beginning Saturday after it […]

Adobe’s work on technical solution to combat online misinformation at scale, still in its early stages, is taking some big steps toward its lofty goal of becoming an industry standard. The project was first announced last November, and now the team is out with a whitepaper going into the nuts and bolts about how its […]

ByteDance is not backing down from its ambitions to become a global technology powerhouse, even as TikTok loses its largest market India and faces insurmountable challenges in the US. But some in China are blasting the Beijing-based company as too accommodating and yielding to US demands. ByteDance said it will “remain committed to our vision […]

Virgin Galactic is making strides towards its goal of creating high-speed commercial aircraft that operates a little closer to Earth than its existing passenger spacecraft. The company revealed the initial design of the commercial passenger airplane it’s creating that’s designed to fly at speeds in excess of Mach 3 – faster than the average cruising […]

Incumbent banks acquiring fintechs is nothing new, and amidst the coronavirus crisis, we can likely expect to see that trend continue. The latest such move comes from publicly-listed Metro Bank which today has announced its intention to purchase peer-to-peer lender RateSetter for up to £12 million. Pending approval by U.K. regulators, Metro Bank is acquiring […]

Google said on Monday it will invest $450 million in ADT and work with the Florida-headquartered firm’s 20,000 technicians to sell and install the search giant’s Nest family of smart home products. As part of the long-term investment — which is granting Google a 6.6% stake in ADT — the two companies will first attempt […]

Days after President Donald Trump announced he could use an executive order to ban TikTok from the United States, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said the administration is “closing in on a solution and I think you’ll see the president’s announcement shortly.” In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo, Pompeo […]

Microsoft has posted a statement today on its corporate blog that says it will continue discussions on a potential TikTok purchase in the U.S.. As a part of the statement, it says that it may invite other “American investors” to participate on a minority basis. The company says that this is a result of conversations […]

SpaceX and NASA have made history once again, successfully completing the crucial final phase of their Demo-2 mission for the Crew Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX’s first spacecraft made for human flight. This marks the end of this last demonstration mission, which flew NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station on May […]

Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia Capital recently set up shop in Europe after hiring Luciana Lixandru away from Accel’s London office. Now, according to a tweet by Revolut product lead George Robson — and since confirmed by Sequoia — the VC has recruited a second European partner. Robson, who also previously co-founded student-run accelerator […]

Identifying the new context we’re asking the system to understand is the first step towards moving visual AI forward. Then we need more content.

One possible solution to cellular agriculture’s biggest problem — how to develop a cheap, humane, growth material for cultured meat — may have come from a conversation in line at a Tim Hortons in Alberta. The husband and wife duo of Matt and Jalene Anderson-Baron were waiting for Timbits and coffee and talking about the […]

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. Before […]