Crunch Hype

Facebook has announced that the limp “Oversight Board” intended to help make difficult content and policy decisions will not launch until “late fall,” which is to say, almost certainly after the election. You know, the election everyone is worried Facebook’s inability to police itself will serious affect. On Twitter, the board explained that as much […]

Samsung’s next big Unpacked event is scheduled for August 5. As is the trend these days, the unveiling will be online-only, following in the footsteps of big virtual events from the likes of Microsoft and Apple. It’s Samsung’s first crack at the format. The company just made it under the pre-COVID-19 shutdown wire back in […]

There’s new leadership at troubled startup Magic Leap, Uber launches grocery delivery and Palantir files to go public. Here’s your Daily Crunch for July 7, 2020. The big story: Magic Leap has a new CEO Can Peggy Johnson, the former vice president of business development at Microsoft, turn things around for Magic Leap? The augmented/mixed […]

What began as a relatively small effort by activist organizations to hold Facebook accountable for perceived policy failings has snowballed into a mass corporate backlash — and a rare moment of discomfort for a company that enjoys its status as one of tech’s untouchable giants. As the #StopHateforProfit campaign continues to attract surprisingly mainstream corporations […]

One thing is for sure, the path to prosperity would look a lot better if Colombia further embraced innovation.

We’re excited to announce that Extra Crunch is now available to readers in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. That adds to our existing support in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and select European countries. You can sign for Extra Crunch here. Latin America has always caught the eye of big tech. For companies like Facebook, Amazon […]

Arm today announced plans to spin off its two IoT businesses, a move that would effectively transfer the divisions under the broader umbrella of the SoftBank Group core, which purchased the chip designer back in 2016. The move comes as Arm seeks to focus its efforts exclusively on the semiconductor IP business that has made […]

Even in the best of times, finding a notary can be a challenge. In the middle of a pandemic, it’s even more difficult. DocuSign announced it has acquired Liveoak Technologies today for approximately $38 million, giving the company an online notarization option. At the same time, DocuSign announced a new product called DocuSign Notary, which […]

The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Michael Markman, Keith Teare, Denis Pombriant, Brent Leary, and Steve Gillmor . Recorded live Wednesday, June 24, 2020. For more, subscribe to the Gillmor Gang Newsletter. Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor @fradice, @mickeleh, @denispombriant, @kteare, @brentleary, @stevegillmor, @gillmorgang Liner Notes Live chat stream The Gillmor Gang […]

The new order will force many international students at schools that are only offering remote online classes to find an “immigration plan B” or leave the U.S. before the fall term to avoid being deported.

This fundamental shift provides an opening for a new cohort of no code companies to grow into the next generation of software powerhouses.

When Manatee founder Damayanti Dipayana’s brother was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, the family took all the steps to ensure that he was properly cared for. All of the things that could have been an obstacle to getting treatment weren’t for Dipayana’s family. A comfortably middle class background, a supportive family and ready access to […]

Hungarian autonomous driving startup AImotive is leveraging its technology to address a different industry and growing need: autonomous satellite operation. AImotive is teaming up with C3S, a supplier of satellite and space-based technologies, to develop a hardware platform for performing AI operations onboard satellites. AImotive’s aiWare neural network accelerator will be optimized by C3S for […]

Kerry Washington’s fingerprints are all over Hollywood. The Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe-nominated actor, director and producer has touched myriad projects, from her role as Olivia Pope on “Scandal” (where she was the first African American woman since 1974 to headline a network drama) to her production of Hulu’s “Little Fires Everywhere” and Netflix’s “American […]

Connect Ventures, the London-based seed-stage VC that was an early investor in Citymapper and Typeform announced a new $80 million fund last month to continue investing in “product-led” founders. Launched back in 2012, when there was a shortage of institutional capital at seed stage in Europe and micro VC was a novelty in the region, […]

Tesla’s 2014 acquisition of SolarCity turned the electric vehicle manufacturer into the undisputed largest player in residential solar, but that lead has steadily eroded as its major competitor, Sunrun, surged ahead with more aggressive plans. Now with the $3.2 billion dollar acquisition of the residential solar installation company, Vivint Solar, Sunrun looks to solidify its […]

Team members at Adobe have built a new way to use artificial intelligence to automatically personalize a blog for different visitors. This tool was built as part of the Adobe Sneaks program, where employees can create demos to show off new ideas, which are then showcased (virtually, this year) at the Adobe Summit. While the […]

Last week was, for most Americans, a four-day work week. But a lot still happened in the security world. The U.S. government’s cybersecurity agencies warned of two critical vulnerabilities — one in Palo Alto’s networking tech and the other in F5’s gear — that foreign, nation state-backed hackers will “likely” exploit these flaws to get […]

New York-based startup iRocket has landed a contract award from the U.S. Air Force to develop and build its fully autonomous small payload rockets, which the company says will be able to launch and propulsively land both its first and second stages, with the potential of launching small payloads on demand in as little as […]

You may have heard that we’re taking our events virtual this year. And that means TC Sessions: Mobility is going virtual as well. This won’t just be one long webinar. We have some technical tricks up our sleeves that will bring all of what you’d expect from our in-person events from the informative panels and […]

Nvidia today announced that its new Ampere-based data center GPUs, the A100 Tensor Core GPUs, are now available in alpha on Google Cloud. As the name implies, these GPUs were designed for AI workloads, as well as data analytics and high-performance computing solutions. The A100 promises a significant performance improvement over previous generations. Nvidia says […]

A court granted Microsoft's request to take control of the domains used by the scammers.

Amazon is making it easier for mobile users to access its Alexa virtual assistant while on the go. The company announced today it’s making it possible to use Alexa “hands free” from within its Alexa mobile app for iOS and Android, meaning customers will be able to use Alexa to make lists, play music, control […]

Amazon’s Prime Video is finally adding a feature that’s long since become a standard for streaming video services: user profiles. With profiles, Prime Video users will have access to their own Watchlist, personalized recommendations, and they’ll be able to track their own viewing progress, similar to rival services, like Netflix. Customers can create up to […]

Business is the foundation, of, well, business. For startups, finding a working business model and honing it through decision-making, smart hires, and relentless focus on the right metrics can be the difference between building a scalable company and collapsing into the next Luckin Coffee. Given how important business performance and finance is, it’s not uncommon […]

Zoom announced a new Hardware as a Service offering today that will run on the ServiceNow platform. At the same time the company announced a deal with ServiceNow to standardize on Zoom and Zoom Phone for its 11,000 employees in another case of SaaS cooperation. For starters, the new Hardware as a Service offering allows […]

Yesterday evening Palantir, the quasi-secretive data mining and analysis firm, publicly announced that it has privately filed to go public. The disclosure came in the wake of Palantir raising new capital, taking on hundreds of millions of dollars before its planned public offering. According to Crunchbase data, Palantir has raised billions while private, making its […]

NPB games are known for engaging antics that extend well beyond the play on the field. But what’s to be done in the era of COVID-19 when baseball is played in front of an empty stadium? For many — including Korea’s KBO League and the upcoming shortened MLB season — cardboard cutouts are an attempt […]

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator -backed Nayya is on a mission to simplify choosing and managing employee benefits through machine learning and data transparency. The company has raised $2.7 million in seed funding led by Social Leverage with participation from Guardian Strategic Ventures, Cameron Ventures, Soma Capital, as well as other strategic angels. The process of choosing […]

Maintaining satellites on orbit and ensuring they make full use of their operational lifespan has never been more important, given concerns around sustainable operations in an increasingly crowded orbital environment. As companies tighten their belts financially to deal with the ongoing economic impact of COVID-19, too, it’s more important than ever for in-space assets to […]

Since the killing of George Floyd at the hands of four police officers heightened awareness about racial justice, the experiences of Black people in tech — and the industry’s lack of racial diversity — are getting new attention. In the tech ecosystem at large, the industry is still predominantly white and male, and venture capital […]

Last year Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 765, promising to usher in an era of low-cost 5G devices. Motorola, naturally, was more than happy to take advantage of the technology. While the company has been flirting with premium devices (with mixed results), budget devices will almost certainly be the company’s bread and butter for the foreseeable […]

A few years back, startups focusing on artificial intelligence had a whiff of bullshit about them; venture capitalists became inured to young tech companies claiming that their new AI-powered product was going to change the world as hype exceeded product reality. But in the time since, AI-powered startups have matured into real companies, with investors […]

Replenysh has been kicking since 2016, but up til now, the Orange County, California startup hasn’t done much press. That changes today, as the company announces that it has raised a $2 million seed round with the fairly lofty goal of transforming recycling in the U.S. A press release outlining Replenysh’s plans offers up plenty […]

Northflank, a startup from a couple of guys in their 20s, has been working on a full-stack DevOps platform in the cloud since their first year at university in 2016. Today the startup announced a $2.6 million seed investment and the launch of that platform. The round was led by ​Kindred Ventures, ​Stride.VC​ and Amaranthine […]

Meet Koyeb, a new French startup founded by Yann Léger, Édouard Bonlieu and Bastien Chatelard who have previously worked at Scaleway for many years. Koyeb is a serverless startup that helps you manipulate data in different ways without worrying about your server infrastructure. Competition has become incredibly fierce between cloud service providers, and Koyeb wants […]

Athlane, the YC-backed company from the Summer ’19 cohort, is today ready to launch with a fresh $3.3 million in capital. Investors include Y Combinator, Jonathan Kraft (New England Patriots), Michael Gordon (President of Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club), Global Founders Capital, Romulus Capital, Seabed VC, and more. […]

Alphabet’s Loon has officially begun operating its commercial internet service in Kenya . This is the first large-scale commercial offering that makes use of Loon’s high-altitude balloons, which essentially work as cell service towers that drift on currents in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Loon’s Kenyan service is offered in partnership with local telecom provider Telkom […]

Cavalry Ventures, the Berlin-based early-stage venture fund which was the lead inceptor into BRYTER, has closed its second fund of €80M, more than 3.5x the size of its maiden fund. Geared somewhat like a large Angel syndicate, Cavalry’s LPs tend to be active founders and other LPs in early-stage funds in the DACH region, and […]

K Fund is officially outing its fund II today, which sits at €70 million, up from €50 million the first time around. The remit remains the same, however: targeting Spanish startups with an international outlook, the seed-stage firm plans to invest from €200,000 to €2 million, writing first checks in 25-30 companies. A portion of […]

OwnBackup has made a name for itself primarily as a backup and disaster recovery system for the Salesforce ecosystem, and today the company announced a $50 million investment. Insight Partners led the round with participation from Salesforce Ventures and Vertex Ventures. This chunk of money comes on top of a $23 million round from a […]

Organise, a U.K. startup that has built a platform to help workers organise and campaign for better rights, has raised £570,000 in seed funding. The round is led by Ada Ventures, fitting into the VC firm’s remit to back “overlooked markets and founders”. Also participating is Form Ventures, RLC Ventures (a seed-stage fund who commit […]

Indian online learning platform Unacademy said on Tuesday it has acquired Chandigarh-based startup PrepLadder for $50 million — in a cash and stock deal — as the Facebook-backed edtech giant scouts for deals to expand its presence in the country. PrepLadder, which employs about 150 people, offers courses aimed at medical students. The two-year-old startup, […]

The world’s most popular short video app continues to be in the crosshairs of politicians globally. On Monday night, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News that the United States is “certainly looking at” banning TikTok over concerns that it could be used by the Beijing government as a surveillance and propaganda tool. The […]

As the coronavirus pandemic spread throughout the world, Palantir pitched its technology to bring big data to tracking efforts.

Women start 40 percent of the businesses in the U.S., but they receive just 3% of venture funding. It doesn’t take a math whiz to recognize that such an extreme funding gap could spell opportunity, but it might help if you are math minded, a longtime investor, and happen to be woman and so conceivably […]

We're trying to reduce the amount of workload people have to go through so they can have more time to themselves. Email should not feel like work, it shouldn't be work.

You may have noticed that The Daily Crunch is publishing about six hours later than usual. Do not be alarmed! We decided that sending the newsletter later in the day was a better fit for the TechCrunch news cycle — hopefully, there will be fewer days when we hit Publish and then groan when we see […]

Despite record-setting COVID-19 infections, American equities rose today. All major indices gained ground during regular trading, while tech stocks did even better. The Nasdaq Composite set new 52-week and all-time highs, touching 10,462.0 points before closing at 10,433.65, up 2.21% on the day. Similarly, a basket of SaaS and cloud companies that has risen and […]

The future of offices will require “hot desks,” contact tracing and a volunteer task force run by employees to make sure their colleagues are washing their damn hands. SquareFoot CEO Jonathan Wasserstrum says he’s bullish on the future of office spaces because his startup helps growing companies find office space. Since COVID-19 hit, his firm […]