Crunch Hype

We believe that the next generation of transformative cloud companies will emerge even faster as a result of the new normal created by COVID-19.

Austin-based company Homeward was founded by a former real estate agent with a deceptively simple premise. Homeward, which has just raised $20 million in equity funding from Adams Street Partners and another $85 million in debt from undisclosed lenders, pitches a plan where the company will loan money to would-be homebuyers equal to the amount […]

Google Cloud today announced the next step in its partnership with VMware: the Google Cloud VMware Engine. This fully managed service provides businesses with a full VMware Cloud Foundation stack on Google Cloud to help businesses easily migrate their existing VMware-based environments to Google’s infrastructure. Cloud Foundation is VMware’s stack for hybrid and private cloud […]

NVIDIA announced today that its NVIDIA A100, the first of its GPUs based on its Ampere architecture, is now in full production and has begun shipping to its customers globally. Ampere is a big generational jump in NVIDIA’s GPU architecture design, providing what the company says is the “largest leap in performance to date” across […]

As COVID-19 swept across the globe, no sector lay untouched, but perhaps no industry was more disrupted than transportation. Airlines slashed routes, public transit use plummeted, ridership on Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing platforms dropped and shared scooter companies pulled products from city streets. Meanwhile, e-bike sales bloomed and on-demand delivery, including services using autonomous […]

Global satellite operator Intelsat has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company announced late on Wednesday. Intelsat has attempted to position this as a positive moment that sees it embark on a “financial restructuring” project to enable its future growth, but a bankruptcy filing is seldom cause for celebration. The company cites a […]

San Mateo-based startup Xona Space Systems has raised a $1 million “pre-seed” round led by 1517, and including participation from Seraphim Capital, Trucks Venture Capital and Stellar Solutions. The company is focused on developing a Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) satellite service that it believes can supersede Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), providing big benefits […]

Porsche Cars North America has launched a new online platform called Porsche Finder that lets customers search for used vehicles across its dealership network, the latest step by the automaker to create an online marketplace. The new platform, which was developed by the automaker’s Porsche Digital subsidiary and PCNA, enables customers to search by vehicle […]

Last December, when CRM startup Kustomer was announcing its latest round of funding — a $60 million round led by Coatue — its co-founder and CEO Brad Birnbaum said it would use some of the money to build more RPA-style automations into its platform to expand KustomerIQ, its AI-based product that helps understand and respond to […]

Facebook, and a group of telecom companies including China Mobile International, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, and Vodafone, are collaborating to build the “most comprehensive” subsea cable to serve the African continent and Middle East region where nearly a billion people are still offline. The project, called 2Africa, will see the companies lay cables that will stretch […]

GoodWork, a Philippines-based booking platform for home services, has raised a $1.6 million seed round it will use to expand into new Southeast Asian markets. The funding was led by Chaac Ventures, a firm that backs Princeton alumni (GoodWork co-founder and CEO Andrew Koger earned his bachelor of arts at the university), and includes participation […]

African startups have another $100 million in VC to pitch for after Novastar Ventures’ latest raise. The Nairobi and Lagos based investment group announced it has closed $108 million in new commitments to launch its Africa Fund II, which brings Novastar’s total capital to $200 million. With the additional resources, the firm plans to make […]

Workvivo, an employee communications platform founded only three years ago, has raised $16 million in a Series A funding, in a round led by Tiger Global which is best know for large growth-oriented rounds. Also participating is Frontline Ventures and Enterprise Ireland, previous investors. The Series A round follows on from a seed round late […]

Dathena, a Singapore-based company that provides AI-based data protection and privacy solutions, announced it has raised a $12 million Series A. Part of the funding will be used to expand Dathena’s co-sell partnership with Microsoft in the United States, which is targeted to Azure Cloud and Microsoft 365 customers who need to comply with new […]

As the U.S. waits for the great reopening of its hallowed national pastimes in an era of pandemic-enforced social distancing, sports teams are increasingly turning to a new wave of digital tools like social media and video games to connect with a new generation of fans. The Los Angeles Rams are the latest team to […]

Small and medium businesses and sole-traders account for the vast majority of businesses globally, 99.9% of all enterprises in the U.K. alone. And while the existence of millions of separate companies, with their individual demands, speaks of a fragmented market, together they still represent a lot of opportunity. Today, a U.K. fintech startup looking to […]

Anyfin, the Stockholm-based startup that enables consumers to refinance their existing loans, has raised $30 million in funding. Leading the Series B round is EQT Ventures, with participation from existing investors Accel, Northzone and Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital (GFC). Anyfin says it will use the investment to “drive product innovation,” launch additional offerings and […]

Furloughed Tesla employees who are called back to work could lose unemployment benefits if they choose to stay at home due to COVID-19 concerns, the company’s head of human resources Valerie Workman wrote in an email sent to workers Wednesday. The internal email, which was viewed by TechCrunch, suggested that the loss of benefits was […]

Houseparty, the video chat app that’s seen a surge of growth during quarantine, is preparing to expand its service in a new direction: co-watching live video with friends. The company on Friday will launch its first experiential event series called In the House, which will feature more than 40 celebrities who will dance, talk, cook, […]

Your life probably involves a lot more videoconferencing now than it did a few weeks ago – even if it already did involve a lot. That’s not likely going to change anytime soon, so why not make the most of it? The average MacBook webcam can technically get the job done, but it’s far from […]

Uber is rolling out a series of changes to its ride-hailing and on-demand food delivery apps, beginning Monday, as cities and states lift stay-at-home orders prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes, which includes an online checklist for all users, limits on the number of passengers in vehicles and a face mask verification feature for […]

Senators have narrowly rejected a bipartisan amendment that would have required the government first obtain a warrant before accessing Americans’ web browsing data. The amendment brought by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Steve Daines (R-MT) — just seven lines in length — would have forced the government to first establish probable cause — or reasonable suspicion […]

Amazon has received a fair amount of criticism for perceived inaction against seller price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the retail giant has made efforts to rein in the opportunist activity (pulling some half a million offending listings), critics have pointed to the company’s slow response, along with continued problems with a number of […]

So, an eight-year product veteran from Facebook and an internationally renowned barista walk into a coffee bar… It’s not a joke. It’s the origin story for Taika, a new startup that’s aiming to bring natural stimulants to the masses through its juiced-up coffee beverages. The two co-founders, Michael Sharon, an eight-year veteran of Facebook’s mobile […]

Key Pixel team members Marc Levoy and Mario Queiroz are out at Google. The departures, first reported by The Information, have been confirmed on the pages of the former Distinguished Engineer and Pixel General Manager, respectively. Both members were key players on Google’s smartphone hardware team before exiting earlier this year. Levoy was a key […]

The global trade crisis is a setback, but also an opportunity for logistics startups to show the value of digital platforms in an analog industry.

In week one of a16z’s Crypto Startup School, the firm addresses “Crypto Networks and Why They Matter” and “Blockchain Primitives: Cryptography and Consensus.”

Jessica Jackley, co-founder of nonprofit microlending platform Kiva, has become a general partner at SparkLabs Global Ventures. Jackley was previously a venture partner at the firm, which focuses on seed-stage investments in the United States, Asia and Europe. Jackley is also the chief impact officer at Aspiration, an online financial services firm that lets customers […]

Eugene Kaspersky made a name for himself in cybersecurity as CEO of Kaspersky Labs, but the Russian security expert has a new passion project: he’s funding an online accelerator that aims to support entrepreneurs who are building travel and tourism startups. Businesses that apply must have a focus on Russia, though the accelerator is open […]

As with just about any big gathering, the traditional approach to Demo Day — in which a startup incubator debuts all of its latest companies to a huge room full of investors — has been put on hold until further notice. Instead, more and more accelerators are taking Demo Day fully digital. The latest to […]

Google Chrome is rolling out a new feature to help you better manage all your open tabs. The company announced today the launch of “tab groups” for the beta version of its web browser, which will allow you to organize, label and even color-code your tabs for easy access. The feature will make its way […]

French research institute Inria has released a small portion of the source code that is going to power France’s contact-tracing app, StopCovid. It is available on several GitLab repositories under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. While the French government announced that everything would be open source, it’s going to be bit a more complicated than […]

Uber says it has committed $50 million to procure and provide safety supplies to drivers. Those supplies will include things like face masks, sanitizer, gloves and disinfectant, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced on a press call today. Uber says it has secured more than 23 million masks for drivers and delivery people throughout the world. […]

Now here’s an interesting GDPR complaint: Is Google illegally tracking Android users in Europe via a unique, device-assigned advertising ID? First, what is the Android advertising ID? Per Google’s description to developers building apps for its smartphone platform it’s — [emphasis added by us] The advertising ID is a unique, user-resettable ID for advertising, provided by […]

Space bus company Momentus has signed a new contract that will see it provide in-space transportation and deployment for Sen, the U.K. company that’s building a 4K real-time video streaming service providing live, high-quality views of Earth, both free for individuals and via an open source data platform for developers and service creators. Santa Clara-based […]

Despite the economic disruptions associated with the coronavirus pandemic, cloud vendors are holding up well as many client companies and their employees work from home. With stores closed, it’s natural that e-commerce would also perform strongly — after all, it’s also cloud-based, and folks working from home are shifting their shopping from brick-and-mortar to digital. […]

After eight years of Unreal Engine 4, Epic Games is finally ready to talk about Unreal Engine 5, which they’re announcing will launch in preview early next year with a wider launch by the year’s end. Unreal Engine 5 is all about harnessing the performance of next-generation consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series […]

Having a holistic picture of your health might not mean just wearing a device like an Apple Watch that can monitor your biometrics – researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) have developed a new system that can figure out when and where in-home appliances like hair dryers, stoves, microwaves and washing […]

The Extra Crunch Live series rolls along next week with something special: My old boss is taking part. Let me explain. Alexia Bonatsos was once co-editor of TechCrunch and was part of my interview circuit when I first joined the publication. She taught me more than I can write down; Alexia is one of my […]

Facebook strikes a deal to compensate content moderators with PTSD, Tesla might reopen its factory next week and Twitter says some employees can work from home indefinitely. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 13, 2020. 1. Facebook to pay $52M to content moderators suffering from PTSD Facebook employs thousands of content moderators to sift through […]

While the world feels paused, in some respects, new startups are still cropping up like usual. Today, 13 companies are graduating from the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, based in NY, with $100,000 each in funding from the accelerator. This is ERA’s 14th class, with the accelerator having launched more than 200 companies since its inception, which […]

Amazon’s Fire TV platform now has its own rival to Roku’s popular free movies and TV hub, The Roku Channel. Today, Amazon introduced a new “free” section on Fire TV that makes it easier for customers to find free movies, TV shows, news and other content, across its apps — including IMDb TV and Twitch […]

Over the last few weeks all eyes in the crypto world have been glued to the halvening, a nigh-religious moment in the blockchain realm. Every once in a while, the amount of new bitcoin mined — distributed to miners, the folks with fleets of computers powering bitcoin’s database, or blockchain — is cut in half. […]

As Harley Davidson rounds year one on its electric debut, we’re still riding in the fog on how to evaluate the company’s EV pivot. The American symbol of gas, chrome, and steel released its first production electric motorcycle, the LiveWire last fall. The $29,799 machine is the first in a future line-up of EVs planned […]

Around two-thirds of the way through “Beautiful the World,” a voice declaratively whispers, “The music of the Earth has arrived.” Created by the fittingly-named Uncanny Valley, the three-and-a-half minute track bombards the listener with fragments of relentless optimism, coupled with nearly comprehensible inspirational phrases like, “Dreams Still Live in the Wings of Happiness.” If that […]

VMware announced today that it intends to buy early-stage Kubernetes security startup, Octarine and fold it into Carbon Black, a security company it bought last year for $2.1 billion. The company did not reveal the price of today’s acquisition. According to a blog post announcing the deal from Patrick Morley, general manager and senior vice […]

Facebook’s Avatars feature, which lets you customize a virtual lookalike of yourself for use as stickers in comments and Messenger chats, is today launching in the U.S. Essentially Facebook’s version of Snap’s Bitmoji, Avatars were first introduced last year and have been since made available in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Canada. Based on early feedback, […]

In a rare joint public statement, the FBI and Homeland Security’s cybersecurity advisory unit CISA have accused top Chinese hackers of trying to steal U.S. research related to the coronavirus strain, known as COVID-19. The statement, published today, said that Chinese hackers “have been observed attempting to identify and illicitly obtain valuable intellectual property and […]

A new small study out of Harvard and Boston University is targeting the use of soft robotic exosuits among stroke survivors. The aim is to demonstrate how such technologies could impact the rehabilitation of patients suffering hemiparesis, a kind of paralysis that impacts muscles and limbs on one side of the body. The results so […]

FeaturePeek’s founders graduated from Y Combinator in Summer 2019, which for an early stage startup must seem like a million years ago right now. Despite the current conditions though, the company announced a $1.8 million seed investment today. The round was led by Matrix Partners with some unnamed Angel investors also participating. The startup has […]