Crunch Hype

German police have arrested Markus Braun, the former chief executive of the Munich-based fintech company Wirecard, for fraud, prosecutors in Munich said on Tuesday. Braun turned himself into German authorities on the same day Wirecard admitted that $2.1 billion the company had reported on its balance sheet did not exist. That revelation came three days […]

France released StopCovid three weeks ago. The government is holding a press conference today to give an update on the app. In particular, this conference is a good opportunity to share some numbers. Over the past three weeks, 1.9 million people downloaded the app on the App Store or Play Store. Out of those 1.9 […]

It’s more than four years since major tech platforms signed up to a voluntary pan-EU Code of Conduct on illegal hate speech removals. Yesterday the European Commission’s latest assessment of the non-legally binding agreement lauds “overall positive” results — with 90% of flagged content assessed within 24 hours and 71% of the content deemed to […]

Sparrow Exchange, a Bitcoin and Ethereum options trading platform based in Singapore, announced today it has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by HDR Group, the owner of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, with participation from Signum Capital, Du Capital and FinLab EOS VC. The funding will be used to develop Sparrow’s […]

French startup Swile, the startup formerly known as Lunchr, raised a $78.7 million (€70 million) Series C round a few months ago. The startup wants to manage all your corporate benefits and improve team building in general. Index Ventures is leading the round, Bpifrance and Idinvest are also participating. Index Ventures already led the company’s […]

Horizon Quantum is part of a new crop of startups that focus on building new tools for building software for quantum computers. The Singapore-based company, which is hardware-agnostic but also launched a close partnership with Rigetti Computing in 2018, today announced that it has raised a $3.23 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital India. […]

Apple has announced an upcoming change to App Store rules that could mark a major shift in how the marketplace operates. Developers will soon be able to challenge not just the rejection of an app, but the rule that prompted that rejection. Bug fixes will also no longer be held up by rule violations. In […]

A growing group of more than 1,666 Google employees is demanding Google stop selling its technology to police departments, TechCrunch has learned. “We’re disappointed to know that Google is still selling to police forces, and advertises its connection with police forces as somehow progressive, and seeks more expansive sales rather than severing ties with police […]

President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily halting work visas like the H-1B visa program for highly-skilled workers, cutting off a critical source of foreign labor for tech companies already complaining about tech talent shortages. Visa-holders already in the U.S. and those applicants who have already received a visa are exempt from the ban. […]

The New York Stock Exchange filed an amendment today with the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow for more direct listings. Direct listings offer a more streamlined method for companies to go public and raise capital than traditional IPOs — which entail a lengthy roadshow process and involvement of underwriters to determine valuations and share-prices. […]

Facebook has been on a game studio acquisition spree over the past year, buying up developers behind some of the most popular VR titles. That trend continued today with the company’s acquisition of Ready at Dawn Studios, the developer behind the Lone Echo games, one of Oculus’s most successful series. The studio has been working […]

As corporations fall over themselves to perform their mostly abrupt commitments to racial justice, a few companies are seizing the moment to call out Facebook for its own failings. A handful of the biggest names in outdoor gear have suspended ads across Facebook and Instagram for the month of July as part of #StopHateforProfit, an […]

Apple will roll out a range of new features and improvements that are aimed at users in India, China and other international markets with its yearly updates to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS operating systems, it unveiled today. iOS 14, which is rolling out to developers today and will reach general users later this year, introduces new […]

Apple’s iMessage platform is getting a notable update with the release of iOS 14 and macOS’s Big Sur. At its virtual Worldwide Developer Conference keynote this morning, Apple announced the next version of iMessage will support a number of popular features found in rival messaging apps like Slack or even Facebook’s Messenger, among others. This […]

Apple has added a routing feature to Maps that’s designed for electric vehicle owners. The EV routing feature, which will be available in the newest version of iOS, is one of several improvements that Apple is making to Maps. Apple unveiled the new feature Monday at a virtual version of WWDC 2020, the company’s annual […]

It’s no AirPods Studio, but Apple’s got a pretty exciting update to last year’s AirPods Pro. The bluetooth headphones are getting spatial audio (or 3D audio, depending on who you ask). The addition of the feature gives audio a sense of locational awareness, with sound originating from different points. It’s a nice addition that should […]

Today’s WWDC keynote has been much more Memoji-centric than usual. The invite art featured them and they were all over the intro. They also got a significant amount of face time during today’s iOS 14 Messages break down. According to the company the the messaging app has experienced a 40% year-over-year increase. The biggest updates […]

Today at Apple’s annual developer’s conference — held virtually because of COVID — the company announced the ability to control a car with an iPhone. With an upcoming software update, the iPhone can soon unlock and start a car like a standard key. If your car supports it, that is. Details at still slim at […]

At Apple’s all-virtual Worldwide Developers Conference, the company introduced several new iOS features designed to help you clean up the mess of icons on your iPhone’s homescreen. With iOS 14, users can opt to have iPhone’s software organize their apps for them instead of manually moving them around into folders. The feature will benefit those […]

Translation is an everyday smartphone task for millions of people, but outside a few minor features, Apple has generally ceded the capability to its rivals. That changes today with a new first-party iOS app called, naturally, Translate, which works with 11 languages, no internet connection required. The app is intended for use with speech or […]

During the virtual keynote of WWDC, Apple shares the first details about iOS 14, the next major version of iOS that is going to be released later this year. The most visual change is that the home screen is getting widgets. “This year, we spent time rethinking the iconic experience of the iPhone,” SVP of […]

Our inaugural TC Early Stage 2020 event takes place July 21-22, and we’re here to remind you to take advantage of early-bird savings while you still can. The price goes up on June 26, and that means you have just five days left to buy your ticket and keep $50 in your wallet. We created […]

While we await a fresh IPO filing from heavily backed insurtech startup Lemonade, let’s talk a little more about its public offering. Since our first dig into its S-1 filing, TechCrunch has spoken to a number of investors and operators in Lemonade’s space to find out if our initial read was off — were we […]

Apple is holding a keynote today on the first day of its developer conference, and the company is expected to talk about a ton of software updates. WWDC is a virtual event this year, but you can expect the same amount of news, in a different format. At 10 AM PT (1 PM in New […]

To truly protect our country, revitalize our economy, and create opportunity for all, we would be wise to open our borders wider, not slam them shut.

A new startup called Capsule has launched a new way for brands to create original video content with their community in the form of Q&As. But unlike a simple Instagram Stories’ Q&A session, Capsule provides a full platform for designing the Q&A session, branding the content, curating the responses from users and tracking the resulting […]

Hasura is an open-source engine that can connect to PostgreSQL databases and microservices across hybrid- and multi-cloud environments and then automatically build a GraphQL API backend for them, making it easier for developers to then build their own data-driven applications on top of this unified API . For a while now, the San Francisco-based startup […]

This WWDC is going to be one to remember — if not because of the news it makes, then certainly the show itself. As with the rest of the industry (and world, for that matter), Apple’s been first to go entirely virtual for the first — and possibly last — time. Beyond that, there’s bound […]

It’s time to shift focus from delivering software to delighting customers. Welcome to a new era of modern software delivery.

Microsoft acquires a security startup, Canva raises $60 million and Apple kicks off a virtual WWDC. Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 22, 2020. 1. Microsoft confirms acquisition of CyberX to boost security in its Azure IoT business Microsoft announced today that it’s acquiring CyberX, a security startup that focuses on detecting, stopping and predicting […]

It's important to remember that giving unsolicited advice (especially advice regarding things that have yet to happen) is scary and a huge gamble.

A high-profile spat between Apple and Basecamp over the latter’s hosted email service, Hey, has ended in a temporary truce — just hours before the iOS maker’s annual developer shindig, WWDC, kicks off. In a blog post today Basecamp confirmed a pending bug fix update was approved late Friday — quoting an email Apple sent […]

Whatever you do, don’t take your finger off your phone screen. MSHCF, a company striving to build a flashy brand by creating viral moments, is taking the wraps off of their next stunt, an internet-wide competition with as much as $25,000 on the line. How do you win the cash? Open up their new app, […]

Overwolf, the in-game app development toolkit and marketplace, has acquired Twitch’s CurseForge assets to provide a marketplace for modifications to compliment its app development business. Since its launch in 2009, developers have used Overwolf to build in-game applications for things like highlight clips, game performance monitoring and metrics, and strategic analysis. Some of these developers […]

Spotify is testing a new, more interactive ad format designed for podcasts: the in-app offer. Instead of prompting listeners to remember a coupon code or visit a specific website address, the in-app offer allows users to redeem an offer at a time that’s convenient for them. This is done by way of a visual reminder […]

Now is the time to consider bold and creative ideas that not only enable remote working, but that reimagine the workplace as driver of culture, ideas, and innovation

In the rush to “help now,” we cannot throw responsible AI out the window. In fact, in the age of COVID-19 is more important than ever before to understand the unintended consequences and long term effects of the AI systems we create.

The encrypted instant messenger Telegram said on Monday it’s ramping up efforts to develop anti-censorship technologies serving users in countries where it is banned or partially blocked, including China and Iran. “Over the course of the last two years, we had to regularly upgrade our ‘unblocking’ technology to stay ahead of the censors… We don’t […]

Sydney-based Canva, the design platform for non-designers, has today announced the close of a $60 million funding round, bringing its valuation to $6 billion, according to the company. The startup has raised a total of more than $300 million, including this latest round of financing, from investors like Bond, General Catalyst, Sequoia, Felicis Ventures, and […]

Embodying the tensions that cities across the world face as they wrestle with controlling a pandemic in dense, urban environments, Urban-X, the accelerator for technology startups focused on the problems cities face, has launched its eighth, fully remote, cohort. While the accelerator program backed by the BMW-owned Mini Cooper automaker and the venture capital firm […]

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 short-form week-starter in which we go over the weekend, look to the week ahead, talk about some neat funding rounds and dig into what is stuck on our minds. This morning, here’s what […]

With more companies moving workers home, making sure your systems are up and running has become more important than ever. ServiceNow, which includes an IT Help Desk component in its product catalogue recognizes that help desks have been bombarded during the pandemic. To help stop configuration problems before they start, the company acquired Sweagle today, […]

Another big acquisition out of Israel this week points to how bigger tech companies are using the economic slowdown to focus on their longer-term strategies and shore up assets to support that. Today Microsoft announced that it would be acquiring CyberX, a security startup that focuses specifically on detecting, stopping, and predicting security breaches on […]

Fresh off chats with distinguished founders such as Eventbrite’s Julia Hartz, Superhuman’s Rahul Vohra, and Plaid’s Zach Perret, Extra Crunch Live is turning the table around with Alexa von Tobel of Inspired Capital. Next Thursday at 2 p.m. EST/11 a.m. PST/6 p.m. GMT, TechCrunch’s Natasha Mascarenhas and Jordan Crook will bring von Tobel to the […]

E-commerce has been on a growth tear in the past few months, a result of more people opting to shop and pay for goods online to adhere to COVID-19 social distancing rules. To underscore the surge of business, a company that provides services to online merchants to help run and manage their transactions is today […]

HashiCorp is well known in the developer community for offering a slew of open source tools to help build and manage modern applications. Today the company announced a new cloud platform and plans to eventually offer managed versions of those tools, starting with Consul a tool for connecting and securing services across platforms. HashiCorp CEO […]

Space tourism company Virgin Galactic has just revealed a novel extension of their business mode, through a new agreement signed with NASA enabled by the Space Act Agreement. The arrangement will see Virgin Galactic purchase seats on spacecraft bound for the orbiting International Space Station, as well as provide training and supplies and resources for […]

TikTok is the latest platform to sign up the European Union’s Code of Practice on disinformation, agreeing to a set of voluntary steps aimed at combating the spread of damaging fakes and falsehoods online. The short video sharing platform, which is developed by Beijing based ByteDance and topped 2BN downloads earlier this year, is hugely […]

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been hyping a potential battery day for quite a while now, and it looks like we should see it happen within the next few months – Musk said on Twitter that September 15 is the “tentative date” for the “Tesla Shareholder Meeting & Battery Day,” which will include the usual […]

Deep01, a Taiwanese startup that develops software to help doctors interpret CT brain scans more quickly, announced today that it has raised $2.7 million. The funding was led by PC maker ASUSTek. Deep01’s product has obtained clearance from both Taiwan and the United States’ Food and Drug Administrations, and the company received its first purchase […]