Crunch Hype

Audi fired Daniel Abt from its Formula E racing team after learning he had a professional sim driver race for him during a virtual competition called the “Race at Home Challenge” held over the weekend. The automaker said in a statement via Formula E that Abt had been suspended from Audi Sport “with immediate effect.” […]

On the heels of a furor over his tweets accusing MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of murder, Twitter has quietly begun to fact-check the president. A new label prompting Twitter users to “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” appeared on a series of tweets in which the president baselessly claimed ballots received through mail-in voting methods […]

YouTube responded to reports that it is automatically deleting comments criticizing the Chinese government, explaining that the seeming censorship is actually an error in its automated moderation systems. As the Verge reported, comments on the platform using the Chinese phrases for “communist bandit” or “50-cent party” — two terms tied to criticisms of the Chinese […]

Choosing a sophisticated CVC who is in the game for the right reasons and has every incentive to see your company win is the most effective way to ensure that the deal gets done on terms that are right for your company.

In this overview, we’ll discuss the types of CVCs, the best way to approach each type and the key things to keep in mind during initial discussions.

Last Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg told Facebook’s 48,000 employees that he expects upwards of 50% of the company will be working remotely within 10 years. After outlining many of the advantages that remote work confers — including to “potentially spread more economic opportunity around the country and potentially around the world” — he added that those […]

Sony has taken aim at the suddenly enormous market of people who want to self-produce high-quality video with a minimum of setup. Its ZV-1 mutates the versatile RX100 series into a selfie video machine, and it could be the all-in-one solution many a vlogger has been searching for. The new camera is very much based […]

President Trump is again testing Twitter’s stomach for misinformation flowing from its most prominent users. In a flurry of recent tweets, Trump floated conspiracy theories about the death of Lori Klausutis, an intern for former Congressman Joe Scarborough who was found dead in his Florida office in 2001 — a freak accident a medical examiner […]

More evidence that Gen Z is switching to chat platforms for just about everything, including banking, emerges today in the news that Zelf, a fintech startup offering neobank-style services, is generating buzz amongst Gen-Zers in Spain and France. Its ability for users to interact solely via messaging has seen the startup hit over 260,000 card […]

Niantic, the game developer behind Pokémon GO, has raised $470 million — most recently at a $4 billion valuation — largely on the promise that it can translate the mainstream success of a breakout mobile game into a full-fledged augmented reality platform that can rival efforts by Facebook and Apple. Today, Niantic shared that it […]

SpaceX is giving astronauts a lift to the International Space Station, a new jailbreak can unlock any iPhone and a startup raises $250 million to reduce food waste. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 26, 2020. 1. NASA and SpaceX confirm SpaceX’s first ever astronaut launch is a ‘go’ SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon […]

Long-distance ridesharing startup BlaBlaCar announced that it is expanding to scooter sharing. But the company isn’t going to operate its own fleet of scooters. Instead, BlaBlaCar is partnering with Voi, a European e-scooter service that has raised $136 million over multiple rounds. Voi operates in dozens of European cities, including Paris, Marseille and Lyon. Over […]

Browser developers love to add small Easter Eggs to their apps to help you while away the hours when your interent is down, for example. Chrome has long had the Dino game, that you can start from the “No internet” error screen, for example. With its surf game, Microsoft’s Edge team built something similar into […]

SpaceX has signed a new agreement with the U.S. Army that will see that defense service test SpaceX’s forthcoming Starlink satellite-based broadband network over the course of three years to evaluate its usefulness in serving their needs. The R&D agreement, as first reported by SpaceNews, is a fairly standard agreement ahead of any actual commercial […]

France's data protection watchdog CNIL has released its second review of StopCovid, the contact-tracing app backed by the French government. The CNIL says there’s no major issue with the technical implementation and legal framework around StopCovid, with some caveats. France isn’t relying on Apple and Google’s contact-tracing API. Instead, a group of research institutes and […]

My spouse’s startup is transferring her to the U.S. to help set up an office there. Will I be able to go with her and work in the U.S.?

Facebook’s internal R&D group, NPE Team, has today launched a new app called CatchUp that makes it easier for friends and family in the U.S. to coordinate phone calls or set up group calls with up to 8 people. While there are a number of group chat apps available to users today, what makes CatchUp […]

Even though it’s a vast sector in the midst of transformation, manufacturing is often overlooked by early-stage investors. We surveyed top VCs in the industry to gather their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities facing manufacturing. Traditionally, manufacturing companies are capital-intensive and can be slow to implement new technology and processes. The investors in the […]

When Facebook unveiled Libra, its cryptocurrency project, there were two distinct entities — the Libra Association, a not-for-profit that oversees all things Libra, and Calibra, a Facebook subsidiary that is building a Libra-based wallet with integrations in WhatsApp and Messenger. Today, Facebook announced that Calibra has a new name, Novi. By rebranding Calibra to Novi, Facebook […]

When Looking Glass Factory showed of its first holographic display way back on August 2018, it felt more like a proof of concept than anything — though it was immediately an impressive concept. In November of last year, the Brooklyn-based startup showed off an 8K display that used its holographic tech. The feeling wasn’t quite […]

In the ‘Age of Corona’ – as some like to call it, the roboticization of industry and business has been super-charged by the pandemic. So while companies using messaging platforms to drive customers towards purchases was always on a long term trend, the sheer volume of people staying online 24/7 during global lockdowns has led […]

Spotify announced this morning it’s removing the content cap on the app’s “Your Library,” allowing users to now save an unlimited number of songs, albums, and podcasts to their collection of favorites. The change addresses a top user complaint since 2014 which, to date, had received over 12,500 votes on Spotify’s Community Ideas Exchange forum. […]

Spero Ventures, the venture capital firm backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, has gone to Mexico City for its latest investment, backing the identity verification technology developer Mati. Launched in San Francisco, the two co-founders Filip Victor and Amaury Soviche, decided to relocate to Mexico because of its proximity to big, untapped markets in Mexico, Brazil, […]

Apple has now resolved the bug that was plaguing iPhone and iPad apps over the weekend, causing some apps to not launch at all. The issue was related to a bug with Apple’s Family Sharing system, it appears, as users reported error messages which said “This app is no longer shared with you,” and directed […]

India said it will publicly release the source code of its contact tracing app, Aarogya Setu, in a relief to privacy and security experts who have been advocating for this ever since the app launched in early April. Ajay Prakash Sawhney, secretary in the ministry of electronics and information technology, made the announcement on Tuesday, […]

As the leader of a publicly traded corporation with 135,000 employees, Verizon Communications CEO Hans Vestberg has a unique perspective on the state of the world. When he appears today on Extra Crunch Live, our virtual speaker series for Extra Crunch members, we’ll ask him about this extraordinary moment in history and his plans for […]

Baton, an early-stage startup that wants to help customers organize the post-sales implementation process, emerged from stealth today with a $10 million Series A investment. Activant Capital led the round with help from Global Founders Capital and Hybris founder Carsten Thoma. Like so many startups, the idea for Baton stemmed from a pain point that […]

Good morning and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a brief jumpstart for your week. This is a messed-up edition, because we are both hosting Equity Monday on Tuesday (because that makes sense) and our normal host Alex Wilhelm is on vacation, leaving (editor’s note: poor and massively underpaid) managing editor Danny Crichton to wake […]

New numbers from Gartner show a sizable — if not unexpected — decline in device shipments for 2020. According to the analyst firm, the category (including phones, tablets and PCs) is currently on track to decline 13.6% for the year. An already struggling smartphone market takes a big hit from COVID-19 COVID-19 is, naturally, largely […]

Food waste and the pressures on the global food supply chain wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic have captured headlines around the world, and one small startup based in the coastal California city of Santa Barbara has just announced $250 million in financing to provide a solution. The company is called Apeel Sciences and over the […]

Tax-advantaged benefits, like flexible spending accounts, can save employees in the United States thousands of dollars annually, and reduce the amount of payroll taxes companies pay. But those benefits are often underutilized, simply because they can be confusing to navigate. Benepass wants to make the process easier with a mobile app that centralizes all of […]

As more online brands look for ways to move beyond third-party cookies as a way of gaining more direct insights about their users and customers, a startup that has developed a platform to help them has raised a big round of funding. Bluecore, a marketing technology firm that uses data gained from direct marketing like […]

Security researchers have found a major vulnerability in almost every version of Android, which lets malware imitate legitimate apps to steal app passwords and other sensitive data. The vulnerability, dubbed Strandhogg 2.0 (named after the Norse term for a hostile takeover) affects all devices running Android 9.0 and earlier. It’s the “evil twin” to an earlier […]

Feedr, the food tech startup that delivers personalised meals to office workers as an alternative to companies setting up their own canteens, has been acquired by Compass Group, the publicly-listed foodservice company. The price is described as “in the region” of $24 million, while I understand the the deal between the two companies was completed […]

Enterprise barcode scanner company Scandit has closed an $80 million Series C round, led by Silicon Valley VC firm G2VP. Atomico, GV, Kreos, NGP Capital, Salesforce Ventures and Swisscom Ventures also participated in the round — which brings its total raised to date to $123M. The Zurich-based firm offers a platform that combines computer vision […]

Bolt, a rival to Uber and others providing on-demand ridesharing, scooters and other transportation services across some 150 cities in Europe and Africa, is today announcing another capital raise as it weathers a difficult market climate where, because of COVID-19, many are staying in place and avoiding modes of transport that put them into contact […]

Medwing, a German startup with an ambition to tackle Europe’s shortage of healthcare workers, said on Tuesday that it has secured €28 million ($30 million) in a Series B financing round. Global venture capital firm Cathay Innovation led the round, marking its first investment in a German company. Other participating investors include Northzone, Cherry Ventures […]

Meituan’s shares hit a record high on Tuesday, bringing its valuation to over $100 billion. The Hong Kong-listed giant, which focuses on food delivery with smaller segments in travel and transportation, is the third Chinese firm to reach the landmark valuation. Tencent and Alibaba respectively topped the number back in 2013 and 2014. Tencent-backed Meituan […]

Uber is cutting 600 jobs in India, or 25% of its workforce in the country, it said on Tuesday as it looks to cut costs to steer through the coronavirus pandemic. The job cuts, which affect teams across customer and driver support, business development, legal, policy, marketing, and finance, are part of the company’s global […]

NASA and SpaceX are closer than ever to a moment both have been preparing for since the beginning of the Commercial Crew program in 2010. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon spacecraft are now set to fly with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken onboard, making a trip to the International Space Station, and […]

On Monday, Virgin Orbit attempted the first full flight of its orbital payload launch system, which includes a modified Boeing 747 called ‘Cosmic Girl’ that acts as a carrier aircraft for its air-launched rocket LauncherOne. While Virgin Orbit has flown Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne previously for different tests and demonstrations, this was the first end-to-end […]

Serial entrepreneur Rohit Nadhani, who last sold his Newton email app to Essential in 2018— an app so popular it’s been saved from shutting down multiple times — is today launching a new startup, Kubera. The service aims to offer an alternative to using a spreadsheet to keep track of your assets, investments, cryptocurrencies, debts, […]

This week could be the biggest week to date for private spaceflight, with landmark launch attempts coming from both Virgin Orbit and SpaceX . Virgin Orbit is looking to join the elite club of private launch companies that have actually made it to space, with a full flight test of its combined Cosmic Girl and […]

Technology improvements over the past few years mean that most fully wireless earbuds are a lot better than they used to be. That has led to something of a narrowing of the field among competitors in this arena, but some of the players still stand out – and Jabra have definitely delivered a standout performer […]

China’s space program will launch a Mars mission in July, according to its current plans. This will include deploying an orbital probe to study the red planet, and a robotic, remotely-controlled rover for surface exploration. The U.S. has also been planning another robotic rover mission for Mars, and it’s set to take off this summer, […]

Notion, the fast-growing work collaboration tool that recently hit a $2 billion valuation, said on Twitter Monday that its service was blocked in China. The productivity app has attracted waves of startups and tech workers around the world — including those in China — to adopt its all-in-one platform that blends notes, wikis, to-dos, and […]

Thailand’s largest cell network AIS has pulled a database offline that was spilling billions of real-time internet records on millions of Thai internet users. Security researcher Justin Paine said in a blog post that he found the database, containing DNS queries and Netflow data, on the internet without a password. With access to this database, Paine […]

Fashion is having its moment in the metaverse. A riot of luxury labels, music, and games are vying for attention in the virtual world. And as physical events and the entertainment industry that depends on them shuts down, virtual things have come to epitomize the popular culture of the pandemic. It’s creating an environment where […]

I see far more research articles than I could possibly write up. This column collects the most interesting of those papers and advances, along with notes on why they may prove important in the world of tech and startups. In this edition: a new type of laser emitter that uses metamaterials, robot-trained dogs, a breakthrough […]

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. It’s been a tumultuous week for Chinese tech firms abroad: Huawei’s mounting pressure from the U.S., a big blow to U.S.-listed Chinese firms, and TikTok’s […]