Crunch Hype

WeWork, the once $47 billion company that was on the brink of a public offering, has been divesting a great number of its assets as it looks to right the course since releasing its S-1, which exposed its expanding costs, among other things, and sent its valuation plummeting. Today, WeWork is announcing the sale of […]

It hasn’t taken long for B Capital to amass a pretty hefty third fund. Just five years after the venture firm was launched by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and Raj Ganguly, a veteran of private-equity firm Bain Capital, the firm is taking the wraps off a third fund that has amassed $822 million in capital […]

Hunters, a Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity startup that helps enterprises defend themselves from intruders and analyze attacks, today announced that it has raised a $15 million Series A funding round from Microsoft’s M12 and U.S. Venture Partners. Seed investors YL Ventures and Blumberg Captial also participated in this round, as well as new investor Okta Ventures, […]

API management platform Kong today announced that it is donating its open-source Kuma control plane technology to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Since Kong built Kuma on top of the Envoy service mesh — and Envoy is part of the CNCF’s stable of open-source projects — donating it to this specific foundation was likely […]

Menten AI has an impressive founding team and a pitch that combines some of the hottest trends in tech to pursue one of the biggest problems in healthcare — new drug discovery. The company is also $4 million richer with a seed investment from firms including Uncork Capital and Khosla Ventures to build out its […]

Welcome back to the second half of our two-part Boston investor survey. Catching you up, TechCrunch reached out to a host of Boston-area venture capitalists to get their take on the current state of their market, and what they think might be coming up in the future. More VCs than we initially anticipated got back […]

There’s a lot of complexity around managing data lakes in the cloud that often requires expensive engineering expertise. Upsolver, an early stage startup, wants to simplify all of that, so that a database administrator could handle it. Today the startup announced a $13 million Series A. Vertex Ventures US was lead investor with participation from […]

A growing number of internet service providers in India have started to block their subscribers from accessing TikTok a day after New Delhi banned the popular short-video app and 58 other services in the world’s second largest internet market over security and privacy concerns. Many users on Airtel, Vodafone and other service providers reported Tuesday […]

In China and the U.S., there’s much debate about when and how humans will achieve fully autonomous robotaxis at scale — cars that chauffeur passengers under complex road conditions without safety drivers behind the wheel. Many pieces are needed to make this happen: mammoth amounts of test data, advanced algorithms, strong operational teams, big checks […]

SpaceX is set to launch a Falcon 9 rocket today from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch is set to take place at 3:55 PM EDT (12:55 PM PDT), with a 15-minute window opening at that time, and there is a backup opportunity on Wednesday, July 1 if the launch needs to […]

In 2019, in the US alone, more than 10,000 startups raised more than $133 billion in venture funding, with a large proportion of that equity investments. Today, a company building a platform to help startups consider alternative routes to financing — specifically less dilutive options that give up less or no equity in the process […]

Willa, the Sweden and U.S.-based fintech that wants to help freelancers request payment and get paid immediately for a fee, has raised $3 million in funding. The company’s founders are former early members of Spotify’s growth team and also created influencer marketing platform Relatable. Leading the seed round is EQT Ventures. Also participating is ex-Atomico […]

DeepSpin, a Berlin-based startup that is developing what it describes as a “next-generation, AI-powered MRI imaging machine”, has raised €600,000 in seed funding. Backing the round is APEX Digital Health, with participation from existing investors Entrepreneur First (EF) and SOSV, along with a number of unnamed angel investors. Including grants and earlier investment, it brings […]

Facebook Avatars, which lets users customize a virtual lookalike of themselves for use as stickers in chat and comments, is now available in India, the social juggernaut’s biggest market by users account. The American firm said Tuesday it had launched Avatars to India as more social interaction moves online amid a nationwide lockdown in the […]

You can now tip your Ola driver. The Indian ride-hailing giant said on Tuesday that it has rolled out this feature to its users in India, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom — all the nations where it currently operates. Ola said riders in each market will see a range of denominations they can […]

The pandemic has wreaked havoc on all manner of professional sports this year, and cycling has not been immune. For example, the best-known race on the planet, the Tour de France, normally staged in July, has had to be pushed back to August 29 through September 20. That doesn’t mean that the world — and […]

Uber has reportedly made an offer to buy food delivery service Postmates, according to The New York Times. According to the Times, the talks are still ongoing and the deal could fall through. For those that have been paying attention to Uber, this appetite is not new, albeit consistent. A little over a month ago, […]

The United States government began measures today to end its special status with Hong Kong, one month after Secretary of State Michael Pompeo told Congress that Hong Kong should no longer be considered autonomous from China. The new actions include suspending export license exceptions for sensitive U.S. technology and ending the export of defense equipment […]

Despite the Wirecard fallout, German fintech startup solarisBank has raised a Series C funding round of $67.5 million (€60 million). Following today’s funding round, solarisBank is now valued at $360 million (€320 million). solarisBank doesn't have any consumer product directly. Instead, it offers financial services to other fintech companies through a set of APIs. With […]

Amazon Prime Video is beginning to roll out a co-viewing feature to Amazon Prime members in the U.S., the company announced today. The “Watch Party” feature, which is included at no extra cost with a Prime membership, allows participants to watch video content together at the same time with the playback synchronized to the host’s […]

AWS today announced that CodeGuru, a set of tools that use machine learning to automatically review code for bugs and suggest potential optimizations, is now generally available. The tool launched into preview at AWS re:Invent last December. CodeGuru consists of two tools, Reviewer and Profiler, and those names pretty much describe exactly what they do. […]

How to find real benefits in virtual CVC, get the best returns and prepare for the future.

The next iteration of fintech is upon us, according to Inspired Capital’s Alexa von Tobel. “Fintech 1.0 was very much, ‘Let’s take what already exists and let’s do it better,’” she said in a recent appearance on Extra Crunch Live. Consumers are shifting away from Chase Bank and migrating to no-fee trading platforms like Robinhood; […]

YouTube just took action against a collection of controversial figures synonymous with race-based hate, kicking the cluster of major channels off its platform on Monday. The company deleted six channels: Richard Spencer‘s own channel and the affiliated channel for the National Policy Institute/Radix Journal, far right racist pseudo-science purveyor Stefan Molyneux, white supremacist outlet American Renaissance […]

Lululemon today announced plans to acquire home exercise startup Mirror for $500 million. The fitness apparel company noted its plans by way of a press release, noting that it hopes to close the sale by the end of the second fiscal quarter of this year. The deal comes at a time when home workout solutions […]

Last November, Spotify confirmed it was testing real-time lyrics synced to music in select markets. Tomorrow, the company will announce the launch of its new lyrics feature in 26 worldwide markets across Southeast Asia, India and Latin America. This will be the first time lyrics have been offered in 22 of these 26 markets, as […]

As e-commerce companies aim to capitalize on the online spending boom connected to shelter-in-place and keep the party going as physical retailers open back up, more are turning their attention to how they can juice the functionality of their online storefronts and improve experiences for shoppers. Enter Nacelle, an LA-based startup in the burgeoning “headless” […]

Apple is launching an interesting new Apple Card program for people who have their application declined. Declined Apple Card applicants may begin seeing notifications on their device later today that offer them the Path to Apple Card program. It’s an opt-in program that can run for up to 4 months. It leverages the information that […]

Google is piloting a new way to bring local news about the COVID-19 pandemic to its Google News application. In partnership with regional news publications in select cities across the U.S., the Google News app will now offer a dedicated section in select markets detailing critical information like community reopening timelines, business updates, school openings, […]

Two big new pieces of news today from the ongoing battle between social media and politics. Both Twitch and Reddit have made moves against political content, citing violations of terms of service. Twitch confirmed today that it has temporarily suspended the president’s account. “Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch,” a spokesperson for the streaming […]

Here’s a Fourth of July event that doesn’t require a mask or social distancing. This week only you can save an extra $50 when you buy Disrupt Digital Pro passes or a Disrupt Digital Startup Alley Package for Disrupt 2020. Buy the pass or package you want and save $50 at checkout when you use […]

In the two years since Jeff Semenchuk took the reins in the newly created position of chief innovation officer for Blue Shield of California, the nonprofit health insurer with $20 billion in revenues has stepped up its investments in startup companies. As one of California’s largest insurance providers with more than four million members, Blue […]

Blackbaud offers enterprise tools ostensibly in a campaign to support social good, but the company also provides services to far-right organizations the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Security Policy, TechCrunch has discovered. Blackbaud describes itself as “the world’s leading cloud software company powering social good,” and collects revenues in the hundreds of millions of […]

Connecting audio interfaces to the various mobile and computing devices we use these days can be a confusing headache. The iRig Pro Duo ($199.99 USD), which IK Multimedia announced this year at CES and recently released, is a great way to simplify those connections while giving you all the flexibility you need to record high-quality […]

It’s only a matter of time before buying a house becomes a fully-digital process, and visiting a title insurance company to read through and sign hundreds of pages of paper will soon feel like a relic of the past.

Today Personal Capital, a fintech company that had attracted over $265 million in private funding, announced that it is selling itself to Empower Retirement, a company that provides retirement services to other companies. The deal is worth $825 million upon closing, with another $175 million in what are described as “planned growth” incentives, according to […]

As America fires up the grill for the 4th of July, Extra Crunch has a tasty deal you don’t want to miss. From now until July 5th, we are offering 25% off your first year of Extra Crunch membership. After the first year, membership fees will increase to $99/year plus tax. This offer is only […]

Facebook takes (small) steps to improve its content policies as advertisers join a broad boycott, founder Alexis Ohanian is leaving Initialized Capital and Waze gets a new look. Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 29, 2020. 1. As advertisers revolt, Facebook commits to flagging ‘newsworthy’ political speech that violates policy In a live-streamed segment of […]

A new paper published by Disney Research in partnership with ETH Zurich describes a fully automated, neural network-based method for swapping faces in photos and videos – the first such method that results in high-resolution, megapixel resolution final results according to the researchers. That could make it suited for use in film and TV, where […]

The Indian government on Monday evening said it was banning 59 apps developed by Chinese firms over concerns that these apps were “engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, and security of state and public order” in what is the latest standoff between the two most populated […]

Agora isn’t the only company headquartered outside the United States aiming to go public domestically this quarter. After catching up on Agora’s F-1 filing, the China-and-U.S.-based, API-powered tech company that went public last week, today we’re parsing DoubleDown Interactive’s IPO document. The Exchange is a daily look at startups and the private markets for Extra Crunch […]

Earlier this year, Google made a significant change to its Shopping search tab in the U.S. to allow the service to primarily feature free product listings selected by Google’s algorithms, instead of paid ads. Building on that change, Google is today introducing a shift to free product listings in the main Google Search results page […]

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has put one of its research projects to work providing disinfection services for The Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB), in an effort to slow the spread and still allow the non-profit to provide services to its patrons. The CSAIL-designed robotic system, which was created in partnership with […]

Crowdsourced navigation platform Waze, which is owned by Google and yet remains a separate, but intertwined product relative to Google Maps, just got one of its biggest UI and design overhauls ever. The new look is much more colourful, and also foregrounds the ability for individual drivers to share their current emotions with Moods, a […]

Amazon warehouse workers in Germany are striking for 48 hours this week, to protest conditions that have led to COVID-19 infections among fellow employees. Strikes began today at six warehouses and are set to continue through end of day Tuesday. The company has drawn international criticism for its decision not to disclose official COVID-19 infection […]

One thing missing from last week’s virtual version of Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference was its ceremony announcing its latest selection of Apple Design Award winners. Today, Apple announced the 2020 award winners, highlighting those it said brought “distinctive new ideas to life” while demonstrating a mastery of Apple technology. The Design Awards serve as […]

Developer and programmer Brie Code has worked at the peak of the video game industry – she was responsible for many of the AI systems that powered non-player character (NPC) behavior in the extremely popular Assassin’s Creed series created by Ubisoft. It’s obvious that gaming isn’t for everyone, but Code became more and more interested […]

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 week-starting primer, in which we go over the latest, look to the week ahead, talk about some neat funding rounds, and dig into the latest on the health of the startup market. Don’t […]

As COVID-19 cases in the US continue to spike and doctors and researchers try to marshal any and all technological resources to help patients, understand the disease, and fight off the spread of the epidemic, one startup that monitors and evaluates medical device technology is offering its services for free so doctors can understand the […]

Early-stage startups are confident of re-opening their offices in the wake of the COVID-19 within the next 6 months. But: there will be changes. An exclusive survey compiled by Founders Forum, with TechCrunch, found 63% of those surveyed said they would only re-open in either 1-3 months or 3-6 months – even if the government […]