Crunch Hype

Honda said Wednesday it will shutter all of its North American factories for six days due to an expected decline in the market related to the economic fallout from the spread of COVID-19, a disease caused by coronavirus. The stoppage will affect about 27,600 Honda employees in North America, all of whom will continue to […]

The U.S./Canada border has remained open despite measures by both countries to block and limit international flights and mobility in light of the coronavirus pandemic, but that is changing today as the two countries have agreed, “by mutual consent,” to suspend any movement between the two beyond “essential traffic” and “trade,” as first revealed via […]

The rollercoaster ride of equity markets continues as all of the major stock indexes opened sharply lower one day after President Donald Trump announced the intention to push through a sweeping aid package — including the potential for a direct payout to most American workers. Domestic indexes had risen sharply on Tuesday, but market volatility […]

Many of you are probably looking for ways to support the restaurants and small businesses that are being hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, going out to your favorite restaurant right now is a real risk to public health — and that’s assuming it’s still open. A new website called Help Main […]

While successful in its primary mission, the latest SpaceX launch wasn’t without unexpected issues: The secondary mission of recovering the Falcon 9 booster with a controlled landing failed, for the second launch in a row, and SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk also confirmed that one of the rocket’s engines shut down early during the […]

It is too early to say that Airbnb will not float in 2020, but it's not too early to say that a public listing in the first half of the year is out. Let's explore why.

As part of its $300 million News Initiative, Google is teaming up with the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, local news association LION Publishers and consultant Douglas K. Smith to launch a new initiative called Project Oasis. In a blog post for Google, UNC CISLM […]

When Slack first launched in 2013, the product was quickly embraced by developers, and the early product reflected that. To get at advanced tools, you used a slash (/) command, but the company recognizes that as it moves deeper into the enterprise, it needed to simplify the interface. Today, the company introduced a newly designed […]

Apple just dumped a bunch of hardware news online via press release. That’s just the world we live in right now. We’ll probably be seeing a whole lot of this in the coming weeks and months, as companies adjust to the new online reality. Along with with a new MacBook Air and update to the […]

Apple just offered up a new version of the the MacBook Air with some souped up internals, including a 10th-generation Intel processor and double the storage. Honestly, the big news here for many is probably the updated keyboard, doing away with a couple of generations of misfires on that front. Starting at $999 (or $899 […]

Last year Lynk — then called Ubiquitilink — showed that from now on, every phone can be a satellite phone. But they’ve spent the last year honing the product and have just demonstrated the real thing: Sending a plain old text message from a “cell tower in space” to a normal phone on the surface. […]

Japanese-made flu drug favipiravir (also known as Avigan) has been shown to be effective in both reducing the duration of the COVID-19 virus in patients, and to have improved the lung conditions of those who received treatment with the drug, based on results of clinical trials conducted with affected patients in both Wuhan and Shenzhen […]

WhatsApp has long grappled with its platform being used to spread misinformation. In the latest move, today it announced two initiatives to fight specifically against fake news and other misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Facebook -owned instant messaging service announced the WhatsApp Coronavirus Information Hub — in partnership with the WHO, UNICEF, and […]

SpaceX is launching its latest Starlink mission today, with a takeoff time of 8:16 AM EDT (5:16 AM PDT) currently scheduled to take place at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch will carry 60 more Starlink broadband internet satellites to their low Earth orbit destination, using a Falcon 9 rocket with a booster that […]

Deepgram, a startup focused on high-quality, real-time speech recognition, announced a $12 million Series A this morning. The startup, founded a half decade ago, according to Crunchbase data, with just a few million in raised capital, is interesting, as its success to date was founded on two consecutive experiments. The first dealing with its technology, […]

Israel has passed an emergency law to use mobile phone data for tracking people infected with COVID-19 including to identify and quarantine others they have come into contact with and may have infected. The BBC reports that the emergency law was passed during an overnight sitting of the cabinet, bypassing parliamentary approval. Israel also said […]

The 2019 Turing Award, one of the highest honors in computing, was today awarded to Pat Hanrahan and Ed Catmull, founding members of Pixar who helped shape the future of computer graphics. The two will share a $1M prize and of course the satisfaction of receiving this prestigious award for doing something they clearly love. […]

Magecart hackers have struck again, this time targeting the NutriBullet website. According to new research by security firm RiskIQ, hackers broke into the blender maker’s website several times over the past two months, injected malicious credit card-skimming malware on its payment pages and siphoned off the credit card numbers and other personal data — like […]

Africa’s largest innovation incubator, CcHub, will offer funding and engineering support to tech projects aimed at curbing COVID-19 and its social and economic impact. The Lagos and Nairobi based organization posted an open application on its website this week, CcHub CEO Bosun Tijani told TechCrunch on a call. CcHub will provide $5000 to $100,000 funding […]

Salesforce, the global giant in CRM, said on Wednesday that former banker Arundhati Bhattacharya will be joining the company on April 20 as chairperson and chief executive of its India division. The San Francisco-headquartered firm said Bhattacharya, who served as the chairperson of the state-run State Bank of India for nearly four decades and oversees […]

The world is vulnerable to a new type of trolling as people turn to Zoom video calls to feel connected amidst quarantines. Jerks are using Zoom’s screensharing feature to blast other viewers with the most awful videos from across the internet, from violence to shocking pornography. That’s just what happened today on the WFH Happy […]

Tesla is not an essential business according to the Alameda County Sheriff, a declaration that could force the automaker to shutter some of its operations in the county under a shelter in-place directive that was ordered because of the global spread of COVID-19, a disease caused by coronavirus. The county, which includes Fremont, where Tesla’s […]

If you didn’t know that Reno 911! is coming back, no one could really blame you. There’ve been rumblings about it since early December, but… well, things have been a little bananas since then. But sure enough: eleven years after the end of its original run on Comedy Central, Reno 911! is coming back by […]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that SoftBank Group is using regulatory investigations as a way to back out of its commitment to buy $3 billion in shares from existing WeWork shareholders. WeWork’s spectacular train wreck of an initial public offering was an early harbinger that the good times might be over for a cohort […]

Revolut is introducing a new product specifically targeted toward kids aged 7-17 years old — Revolut Junior. Revolut Junior is a new app and service that integrates directly with the main Revolut app on the parent’s side. Parents or legal gardians who are also Revolut users can create a Revolut Junior account for their kid. After […]

Facebook suffered from a massive bug in its News Feed spam filter, causing URLs to legitimate websites including Medium, Buzzfeed, and USA Today to be blocked from being shared as posts or comments. The issue blocked shares of some but not all coronavirus-related content, while some unrelated links are allowed through and others are not. […]

While few things may me feel more like social distancing than suiting up in a haptic feedback suit and strapping a computer to your face, location-based virtual reality startups have begun closing up shop alongside a host of other entertainment businesses. The closures came quickly Monday as city governments began announcing far-reaching measures. Disney-backed VR […]

In another example for the farreaching effects of the coronavirus outbreak, the FAA today said that it is temporarily closing the tower at Midway Airport, the second largest airport in the Chicago area. In a statement, the FAA says that that several technicians at the facility tested positive for COVID-19. For a while, there was […]

The novel coronavirus pandemic has rapidly moved companies into a remote-first world. Nearly all of the world’s largest events have been canceled, put on pause or pivoted to online-only. In the tech world, event cancellations thus far have included SXSW, GDC, Mobile World Congress, Google I/O, Facebook F8, E3 and others. As more and more […]

Hello TechCrunch friends and family, tomorrow morning at 9 am Pacific Time we’re gathering on Zoom for an in-depth chat about our favorite startups from the latest Y Combinator Demo Day. This year’s installment of the twice-yearly startup event happened yesterday, a week early and online only. Like many other things, Demo Day was adapted […]

This is totally manageable, it’s just another small piece to consider. Take a look at your situation and get the support you need so your team can continue to be productive.

A NYC-based startup that developed technology that extracts carbon dioxide from the air and combines it with water to create vodka has redirected its entire production capacity toward producing hand sanitizer, every bottle of which will be donated through collaboration with NYC officials, and potentially to local restaurants who employ delivery personnel providing critical service […]

Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle has received Category 1 certification from NASA, meaning it is authorized for use on more important missions, opening up a whole new revenue stream for the growing launch provider. The certification was largely based on the success of “This One’s for Pickering” in late 2018, the company’s fourth commercial launch, […]

Lime is pausing its electric scooter operations in California and Washington, as well as throughout the countries of Italy, France and Spain to help keep riders safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Like you, we are worried about the cities we love and call home, the people we serve, and our colleagues on the ground,” Lime […]

With the explosive popularity of B2B services startups, it was only natural that a B2B startup would come along that’s offering a service to help startups become enterprise services themselves. WorkOS, which is launching out of stealth with seed funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and others, is building a toolkit to help startups meet the […]

Yesterday, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a lockdown for six Bay Area Counties: San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda. The public health order marks a big step to help reduce movement, potential transmission of COVID-19, of the nearly 7 million people within the Bay Area. It is important to […]

U.S. government officials are currently in discussion with a number of tech companies, including Facebook and Google, around how data from cell phones might provide methods for combatting the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to a new Washington Post report. The talks also include health experts tracking the pandemic and its transmission, and one possible way […]

Earlier today, TechCrunch caught up with Chris Sugden, a managing partner at Edison Partners, to talk about the current fundraising market, what’s next for SaaS startups and if there’s any good news to be found in today’s market. As the stock market continues to gyrate (more up than down), and the unicorn exit market looks […]

As a way to try to ease some of the pressure and low ratings gig workers may face from panicked customers, Instacart has made some changes to its app. The first is that shopper ratings won’t affect their access to orders during the pandemic. Instacart will also forgive all ratings under five stars. Instacart, in […]

It has only been nine days since I wrote an overview of the state of VC investing during the rise of the novel coronavirus pandemic. And what a week it has been: The markets have triggered circuit breakers for an unprecedented third time, a global economic depression seems in the offing and the Trump administration […]

As China continues to handle the fallout of the novel coronavirus that first originated in Wuhan in Hubei province in early-to-mid December, the Chinese Communist Party announced today that it would rescind the press credentials for certain journalists working at The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and would further […]

The U.S. government is moving to lift restrictions on telemedicine services and expand coverage to all Americans, even as many providers say they’re struggling to meet existing demand. The expansion covers roughly 62 million Medicare beneficiaries who are among the most vulnerable to the novel coronavirus. “This action is a part of our broader effort […]

I know, I know, don’t start a podcast just because you’re bored. Let’s be real though, the COVID-19 situation is going to be the event that launches a million podcasts, as we’re all stuck at home with hours to prattle on about things into the void. Zencastr, one of the better tools for remote podcasters, […]

Waymo said Tuesday it is pausing operations of Waymo One, a service in the Phoenix area that allows the public to hail rides in self-driving vehicles with trained human safety operators behind the wheel, in in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Waymo is also halting testing on public roads in California. However, Waymo will keep […]

Regardless of how COVID-19 pandemic plays out in the coming weeks and months, it’s already been brutal for small businesses, with some of them forced close for public safety, while others are taking a big hit in both revenue and access to credit . So Facebook announced today that it’s creating a $100 million grant […]

With U.S. consumers asked to refrain from social gatherings and shelter-in-place at home due to COVID-19, media consumption is prepared to boom. Based on Nielsen data from prior major crises in recent U.S. history that forced consumers to stay home, total TV usage increased by nearly 60%. We’re not there yet, but consumption is starting […]

Movies Anywhere, the digital locker service that lets you access your purchased movies from across services including iTunes, Vudu, Prime Video, YouTube, Xfinity, and others, is preparing to launch a new movie sharing option. According to a report from CNET, the service today will begin testing a new “Screen Pass” feature that allows users to […]

Extra Crunch is excited to announce a new community perk from Startup Battlefield alum Osano. Starting today, annual and two-year members of Extra Crunch can receive 60% off their data privacy management software for six months. You must be new to Osano to claim this offer. This coupon is only applicable to Osano’s self-service plans. […]

Japanese telecom conglomerate SoftBank Group has faced a litany of bad news in recent weeks, including reported revelations from the Wall Street Journal that the head of its Vision Fund was using corporate espionage firms to sabotage his corporate peers and that activist hedge fund investor Elliott Management had invested in the company to try […]

As investors struggle to price the stock market as economic and political news continues to break, the private market is entering a rough period.