Crunch Hype

As the pandemic surged and companies moved from offices to working at home, they needed tools to ensure the continuity of their business operations. SaaS companies have always been focused on allowing work from anywhere there’s access to a computer and internet connection, and while the economy is reeling from COVID-19 fallout, modern software companies […]

Snapchat is the latest social media company to take on the president, Fitbit gets approval for its emergency ventilator and we review the new Sonos soundbar. Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 4, 2020. 1. Snapchat is no longer promoting Trump’s posts Snap announced that it will not be promoting content from President Donald Trump’s […]

Facebook’s photo transfer tool is now available globally half a year on from an initial rollout in Europe, the company said today. The data portability feature enables users of the social network to directly port a copy of their photos to Google’s eponymous photo storage service via encrypted transfer, rather than needing to download and […]

Electric-bike maker Cowboy has released a new iteration of its bike, the Cowboy 3. It’s a relatively small update that should make the experience better for newcomers. The first orders will be delivered at the end of July and the Cowboy 3 is now slightly more expensive at €2,290 or £1,990 ($2,500). The bike still […]

The significant increases in TV watching and streaming services that were seen during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the U.S. may represent the new normal, new data from Nielsen suggests. During the height of the lockdowns, the weekly time spent watching connected TVs grew alongside overall media use, rising by over a billion hours in the […]

Security researchers have discovered a new kind of ransomware that uses a little-known Java file format to make it more difficult to detect before it detonates its file-encrypting payload. Consulting giant KPMG’s incident response unit was called in to run the recovery effort at an unnamed European educational institute hit by a ransomware attack. BlackBerry’s […]

Another troubling report for the smartphone industry this week. This time the numbers come from IDC, which puts shipments at an 11.9% year-over-year decline for 2020. The number reflects a steep drop off in Q1, followed by what what will likely be continued struggles for companies to regain footing. In fact, the report goes on […]

It was perhaps not until the COVID-19 pandemic hit the planet that most of us had ever heard or uttered the phrase “supply chain”. But in a global economy that had become drunk and lazy on ‘just in time ordering’ and similar, the threat to supply chains of things like, oh, food, from that pesky […]

The coronavirus pandemic is, without doubt, the greatest challenge the world has faced in a generation. But the wheels of the world keep turning, albeit slower than during normal times. But where the world has faced challenges, the cybersecurity industry remains largely unscathed. In fact, some cybersecurity businesses are doing better than ever because cybersecurity […]

My read of this odd deal is that it demonstrates that the IPO window is reasonably open, even today.

Sonos has been releasing new hardware at a remarkably consistent and frequent pace the past couple of years, and what’s even more impressive is that these new releases are consistently excellent performers. The new Sonos Arc soundbar definitely fits that pattern, delivering the company’s best ever home theater sound device with performance that should convert […]

Searchable.ai is an early-stage startup in the alpha phase of testing its initial product, but it has an idea compelling enough to attract investment, even during a pandemic. Today the company announced an additional $4 million in seed capital to continue building its AI-driven search solution. Susquehanna International Group and Omicron Media co-led the round […]

Fitbit has secured an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Fitbit Flow emergency ventilator. The ventilator hardware is low-cost, and doesn’t require very much training or expertise to use, making it a good solution for deployment in scenarios where healthcare systems are overwhelmed by resource strain stemming […]

A lot of the attention in medical technology today has been focused on tools and innovations that might help the world better fight the COVID-19 global health pandemic. Today comes news of another startup that is taking on some funding for a disruptive innovation that has the potential to make both COVID-19 as well as […]

Amazon .com may follow its American peer Facebook’s footsteps in securing a slice of India’s booming telecom market. The e-commerce giant, which has invested over $6.5 billion in India, is in early-stage talks to buy a 5% stake worth at least $2 billion in Bharti Airtel, the third-largest telecom operator in India, according to unnamed […]

Well the votes from the public and the judges are in and we can finally reveal the shortlist for The Europas Awards 2020 to find the hottest European tech startups! The entries were sorted and sifted by journalists to compile an editorially-driven ‘long list’ of some of Europe’s most exciting startups and investors. The list […]

Anti-phishing startup Inky has raised $20 million in its Series B round of funding, led by Insight Partners . The funding will help the company push for greater enterprise adoption and expand to international markets including Europe, Asia and Latin America. Inky started out a decade ago with a bold mission to reinvent email with […]

Automation is the name of the game in enterprise IT at the moment: we now have a plethora of solutions on the market to speed up your workflow, simplify a process, and perform more repetitive tasks without humans getting involved. Now, a startup that is helping non-technical people get more directly involved in how to […]

Amazon announced today it has added 12 new cargo aircraft to Amazon Air, bringing its total fleet to more than 80 aircraft, in part because of increased demand for shipments during the COVID-19 pandemic. The converted Boeing 767-300 were leased from the Air Transport Services Group. Amazon said one of the planes will begin transporting […]

Homage, the Singapore-based startup that matches families and caregivers, has launched a new service that provides home medical visits, telehealth consultations and medication delivery. Called Homage Health, the service was already being developed before the COVID-19 pandemic, but co-founder and CEO Gillian Tee told TechCrunch that its launch was accelerated because many of the company’s […]

South Korean prosecutors said on Thursday that they have filed an arrest warrant for Samsung Group’s anointed heir Jay Y. Lee and two other former company executives as part of a sprawling investigation into an alleged accounting fraud and a controversial merger that shook the country. In May, Lee appeared before prosecutors to be questioned […]

SpaceX launched its second Falcon 9 rocket in the span of just four days on Wednesday at 9:25 PM EDT (6:25 PM PDT). This one was carrying 60 more satellites for its Starlink constellation, which will bring the total currently in operation on orbit to 480. The launch took off from Florida, where SpaceX launched […]

In India, it’s Google and Walmart-owned PhonePe that are racing neck-and-neck to be the top player in the mobile payments market, while Facebook remains mired in a regulatory maze for WhatsApp Pay’s rollout. Google Pay had more than 75 million transacting users last month, ahead of PhonePe’s 60 million users, people familiar with the companies’ figures […]

RiskIQ, a startup providing application security, risk assessment and vulnerability management services, has added National Grid Partners as a strategic investor. The funding from the investment arm of National Grid, a multinational energy provider, is part of a $15 million new round of financing designed to take the company’s technology into critical industrial infrastructure — […]

For developers looking to quickly build identity management into their platforms, the most readily available options don’t stray far from the internet’s biggest, most data-hungry platforms. Magic, a small SF startup building a decentralized blockchain-based identity solution, wants to create a seamless experience that feels similar to login workflows from apps like Slack and Medium […]

As protests continue across the U.S. and beyond, there has been chatter this week in Silicon Valley and the venture industry more broadly about race and which venture firms have done a better job of diversifying their ranks and founder bets. There have been mea culpas, promises by firms to hold themselves more accountable, vows […]

Remote work has changed the tools offices need for communicating asynchronously across meetings and chat, but not all collaboration takes place in neat little chat bubbles. Anvil is a San Francisco startup that’s aiming to transform how businesses collaborate around the humble PDF. Anvil’s automation platform levels up Google Forms and allows customers to digitize […]

While we are seeing lower valuations, we believe certain B2B technology companies may be uniquely poised to thrive, and are pursuing investment opportunities in this space with a renewed focus.

Andreessen Horowitz announced today in a blog post that it is launching a fund designed to invest in underrepresented and underserved founders. The Talent x Opportunity (TxO) fund, which a16z says was in the works for six months, starts with $2.2 million in donations from the firm’s partners. TxO will be invested in a small […]

When Spotinst rebranded to Spot in March, it seemed big changes were afoot for the startup, which originally helped companies find and manage cheap infrastructure known as spot instances (hence its original name). We had no idea how big at the time. Today, NetApp announced plans to acquire the startup. The companies did not share […]

If you want to capture investor attention, you need a killer pitch. And that’s under normal circumstances. You’ve probably noticed that circumstances are anything but normal. With a global pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis, you’ll need to up your pitching game and get ready to bring the heat. We can help. Register today for […]

Mobile banking startup Varo Money has raised an additional $241 million in Series D funding, the company announced today. The investment was co-led by new investor Gallatin Point Capital and existing investor The Rise Fund, co-founded by TPG. Also participating in the round were Bono (yes, that one), along with entrepreneur, impact investor and movie […]

Monzo, the U.K. challenger bank, continues to be faced with tough decisions linked to the coronavirus crisis and resulting economic downturn. Following the shuttering of its Las Vegas-based customer support office and almost 300 staff being furloughed in U.K., the company has announced internally that up to 120 U.K. staff are being made redundant. Reuters […]

Snap announced this morning that it will not be promoting content from President Trump’s Snapchat account in its Discover tab following statements from Trump last week on Twitter, which threatened that protestors could be met with “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons.” The move is notable for many reasons, but is particularly interesting because social media […]

If the pandemic forces school closings for the long-run, students will have to deal with more than a semester with an easier course load.

Gaining millions of followers on social media is really hard for people and brands. It’s time-consuming, it requires sacrifice and it sucks in the beginning.

Zoom’s latest earnings report was even better than expected, SoftBank announces a new fund to invest in founders of color and Google pulls a trending app that targets apps from China. Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 3, 2020. 1. Remote work helps Zoom grow 169% in one year, posting $328.2M in Q1 revenue Zoom’s […]

Using micro-location robotics, this MIT spinout is tracking five miles of New York subway, showing the transportation authority where six of its trains are — down to the centimeter.

SpaceX just executed its most important and historic launch ever this past weekend, flying NASA astronauts for the first time. On Wednesday, it’s set to follow that up with a less significant Falcon 9 rocket launch, but one that’s still vital to the company’s future. This mission is the latest of SpaceX’s Starlink launches, which […]

As a tumultuous week of protests draws broad attention to America’s open wounds of racist police violence, a coalition of Black founders, advocates, investors and other leaders are issuing a call to action for those in the tech industry to stand against the systemic forces that continue to claim Black lives. The effort, called “Black […]

CES 2020 barely made it in under the wire, before COVID-19 gripped the world. The following month, Barcelona’s MWC was ultimately shut down, as the pandemic began to move across Europe. That was the first of many dominoes to fall, as events were either taken online or canceled altogether. Seems CES won’t miss a beat, […]

Kitty Hawk is shutting down its Flyer program, the aviation startup’s inaugural moonshot to develop an ultralight electric flying car designed for anyone to use. The company, backed by Google co-founder Larry Page and led by Sebastian Thrun, said it’s now focused on scaling up Heaviside, a sleeker, more capable (once secret) electric aircraft that […]

Snap today announced the global expansion of its new advertising product, Dynamic Ads. The ad product first introduced last fall allows advertisers to automatically create ads in real-time, using the brand’s extensive product catalogs. Snap provides a variety of mobile-ready templates for advertisers to choose from, then serves the ads to Snapchat’s 229 million daily […]

Last May, New York City’s Metro Transit Authority opened out the first contactless payment systems at select subway station turnstiles. The systemwide rollout was set to be completed at all subway stops and buses this October. Like so many things in this life, however, COVID-19 put a damper on those plans. OMNY — One Metro […]

Apple’s rewards-based credit card, Apple Card, is offering its first sign-up bonus in partnership with Walgreens. On Monday, June 1, Apple and Walgreens introduced a new offer that will pay consumers $50 in Daily Cash when they get a new Apple Card and spend $50 or more at Walgreens within their first 30 days of […]

While VC interest took a dive in March, the last two weeks have shown unseasonably high interest.

There is just as much capital ready to deploy, and just as much investor interest, as there was earlier this year, but founders are still adjusting to new market conditions.

Growth in the wearable sector has taken a hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to other hardware categories like smartphones and PCs, however, the space actually fared reasonable well. According to new projections from ABI Research, device shipments are expected to be up 5% year-over-year in 2020. Global PC shipments set to drop 7% […]

Orbital spacecraft sustainability startup Astroscale has acquired the IP, most assets and staff of a an Isreali company called Effective Space Solutions in order to broaden its service offering to include servicing geostationary (GEO) satellites, as well as low Earth orbit (LEO) debris removal. Astroscale, founded in Japan in 2013 with a mission of addressing […]

In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. Launch too early and the market or underlying tech may not be ready to support your idea. Launch too late and the opportunity may have already been conceded to competitors. For Endlesss, the music-making app from Tim Exile, the timing feels just right. Launched on March 31st, just as the […]