Crunch Hype

In earnings reported this week, Alphabet announced that Google Cloud generated a robust $2.61 billion for the quarter, a number that includes revenue from both Google Cloud Platform and G Suite. That puts the division on a nice little run rate of $10.44 billion. It feels like a lot until you consider that Microsoft had a […]

Funko Pops. You’ve probably noticed them at your local GameStop, Hot Topic or spread out all over your co-worker’s desk. These lil’ vinyl figurines and their big ol’ heads have taken over retail shelves in the last few years. You can now find a Funko Pop! (or thirty) for just about every fandom; there are […]

In part two of a survey that asks top VCs about exciting opportunities in open source and dev tools, we dig into responses from 10 leading open-source-focused investors at firms that span early to growth stage across software-specific firms, corporate venture arms and prominent generalist firms. Where top VCs are investing in open source and […]

The once-polarizing world of open-source software has recently become one of the hotter destinations for VCs. As the popularity of open source increases among organizations and developers, startups in the space have reached new heights and monstrous valuations. Over the past several years, we’ve seen surging open-source companies like Databricks reach unicorn status, as well […]

The name Porsche has been synonymous with gas-powered high-performance sports cars and racing for nearly three quarters of a century. Now, the sports car manufacturer that is owned by Volkswagen Group is trying to build a new legacy, starting with its first all-electric vehicle, the Porsche Taycan. Porsche has said that the Taycan, which was […]

Trellis Research, the Los Angeles based startup building out a search and analytics tool for state court data, has raised $4.4 million in a new round of funding, and added Alon Shwartz as a technical co-founder. Shwartz will take over product design as the company’s chief product officer, joining Nicole Clark, who founded the company […]

Superhuman founder and CEO Rahul Vohra and Eventjoy founder Todd Goldberg confirmed Wednesday that they had closed their first fund, which they are very accurately titling, “The Todd & Rahul Angel Fund.” TechCrunch reported back in October that Vohra and Goldberg were shopping a pitch deck around to potential LPs. The $7 million fund is […]

Apple surprised its app developer community today with the official announcement that they’ll soon be able to sell their cross-platform apps as one universal purchase including, for the time, apps that run on macOS. For consumers, a universal purchase option allows them to just pay once for an app that works across devices, including iPhone, […]

Last week, Microsoft announced the latest news in its ongoing “AI for Good” program: a $40M effort to apply data science and AI to difficult and comparatively under-studied conditions like tuberculosis, SIDS and leprosy. How does one responsibly parachute into such complex ecosystems as a tech provider, and what is the process for vetting recipients […]

All it takes to win a gold medal at the Olympics is the best performance on the day of the event. To that end, Nike introduced innovation-led products with proven performance-enhancing results.

Snapchat’s developer platform is blowing up as a gateway to teen social app users. Hoop is the latest Snap Kit blockbuster, rocketing to #2 on the overall App Store charts this month with its Tinder -esque swiping interface for discovering people and asking to message with them over Snapchat. Within a week of going viral, […]

SpaceX has launched a new web-based booking tool for its rideshare Falcon 9 launches, a service it announced last year to expand its addressable market to include small satellite customers who don’t have the budget or need to book a full rocket, which can cost upwards of $60 million. Prices for the rideshare services that […]

Drone startup Wingcopter, working with partners Merck and the Frankfurt University of Applied Science, has completed a first flight of a new drone delivery trial designed to show the benefits of using drones instead of trucks or other road-faring vehicles for moving small cargo between two physically separate office facilities. This first flight covered around […]

YouTube in September announced a $100 million fund to invest in new children’s video content, following its $170 million settlement with the FTC over children’s privacy law violations. The fund was meant to help soften the blow for children’s content creators on YouTube, who are being financially impacted by the changes the FTC required of […]

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Spotify is buying The Ringer to boost its sports podcast content Spotify is doubling down on its podcast strategy with a […]

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Casper, the well-known D2C mattress company, has lowered its IPO price range in a new S-1/A filing made public this morning. The repricing leads to a lower expected valuation for the former startup and a […]

Earlier this week, Google released revenue figures for YouTube for the first time in the product’s history, revealing that the video service pulled in $15.1 billion in advertising revenues in 2019. Growth was 31% year-over-year during the quarter — strong growth for such a late-stage property, but of course, everyone always wants more. The company […]

With a fresh commitment of $5 million for its on-demand staffing and care management service for at-home health care and nursing facilities, Los Angeles-based Gento is looking to grow. The new financing came from Palisades Growth Capital, and the company said it would use the money to expand nationally and invest more capital in research and […]

Uber Advanced Technologies Group has been issued a permit that would allow the company to put its autonomous vehicles back on public roads in California nearly two years after the company scaled back its testing program following a fatal crash in Arizona that killed a pedestrian. Uber doesn’t have immediate plans to put its autonomous […]

Major change ahead for LinkedIn, the social network for the working world, now with 675 million members. Jeff Weiner, who has been leading the company as CEO for the past 11 years, is stepping down on June 1, 2020. His new role will be executive chairman. Ryan Roslansky, who is currently head of product, will […]

Founders – it’s time to shoot for the stars. For the first time ever, TechCrunch is hosting a brand new event TC Sessions: Space on June 25th in Los Angeles. But that’s not all, because on June 24th TechCrunch will host a Pitch Night exclusively for early stage space startups. Yep, that’s right. On top […]

The growing ubiquity of open source software has been a big theme in the evolution of enterprise IT. But behind that facade of popularity lies another kind of truth: companies may be interested in using more open-source technology, but since there is a learning curve with taking on an source project, not all of them […]

Clear is an early stage startup with a big ambition. It wants to build a blockchain for high-volume transaction systems like payments between telcos. Today it announced a $13 million Series A investment. The round was led by Eight Roads with participation from Telefónica Innovation Ventures, Telekom Innovation Pool of Deutsche Telekom, HKT and Singtel […]

Hulu will finally expand outside of the U.S., likely as soon as next year. This tidbit of news was confirmed by Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger on this week’s earnings call with investors. Disney now has full operational control of Hulu, following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox and subsequent deal with NBCU. That’s given it the […]

"I need to stay in the United States because my wife has her own H-1B and a great job that she loves, we have a U.S. citizen baby and we bought a house last year."

Amidst the staggering rise of on-demand delivery services, the convenience store has been left relatively untouched. Until very recently. Foxtrot, founded in 2013, is looking to reimagine the corner convenience store, offering customers the option to buy in store or order online for delivery. The company today announced the close of a $17 million growth […]

Spanish startup Bnext is expanding beyond its home country. The company is currently rolling out its product in Mexico. 170,000 people had previously signed up to a waiting list. Bnext is going to invite those 170,000 potential users first before opening signups to everyone. Bnext is building an alternative to traditional bank accounts. Customers can […]

Deliverr doesn’t own a warehouse or a delivery truck, but the startup is helping e-commerce companies not named Amazon achieve Amazon-like two-day shipping. The startup does it with intelligent algorithms, and today it announced a $40 million Series C investment. Activant Capital led the round. Other investors in the company include 8VC, GLP and Flexport […]

This morning The Zebra, an Austin-based insurance marketplace startup, announced it has closed a $38.5 million Series C. Accel led the funding event, which was participated in by prior investors Silverton Partners, Ballast Point Ventures, and the company’s CEO Keith Melnick. Floodgate and Weatherford Capital also invested in the round. According to Melnick, the company […]

Streaming music now accounts for more than 80% of all music consumption in key markets like the US, and one of the big leaders in the field is reaping some of the rewards. Spotify reported its Q4 results today, which noted that the company now has 271 million subscribers, up 31% on a year ago, […]

Early stage European VC firm, Blossom Capital, is fresh from closing a $185M fund— a big jump up on its prior close. The firm makes just a handful of investments per year, mostly at the Series A stage, working very closely with founders in its portfolio — a strategy it refers to as “high conviction” […]

Following Tier Mobility’s $60 million Series B late last year, the e-scooter rentals startup has been busy bolstering its C-suite. The Berlin-based company is announcing that Moritz Werner has joined as chief commercial officer (CCO), and Roger Hassan has joined as chief operational officer (COO). Werner will be responsible for revenue related activities across all […]

VC firm TLcom Capital has closed its Tide Africa Fund at $71 million with plans to make up to 12 startup investments over the next 18 months. The group — with offices in London, Lagos, and Nairobi — is looking for tech enabled, revenue driven ventures in Africa from seed-stage to Series B, according to […]

Instamojo, a Bangalore-based startup that helps merchants and small businesses accept digital payments, establish presence and sell on the web, has acquired Times Internet-owned Gurgaon-based startup GetMeAShop. The deal is worth $5 million and includes conglomerate Times Internet making an investment in Instamojo, Sampad Swain, co-founder and chief executive of the Bangalore-based startup, told TechCrunch […]

Hotstar, a lesser-known Disney-owned service which has earned a name for itself setting global streaming records, is about to have a very busy next few months. Disney plans to bring its on-demand streaming service Plus in India through Hotstar on March 29, a little sooner than expected, the company said Tuesday. In an earnings call with […]

This story has been edited to reflect a new statement by ZTE that it will attend MWC as planned. LG Electronics has cancelled its plan to participate in MWC later this month in Barcelona, Spain, because of coronavirus-related concerns, while a Xiaomi has cancelled its trip for Chinese media, but will still attend the event. […]

Life sciences is big business in venture capital land and firms are raising big dollars to find the companies that will lead the next healthcare revolution. Chief among them is Andreessen Horowitz, which announced its third life sciences fund with a $750 million final close earlier today. Andreessen went back to market less than than […]

The floodgates are open once again for capital investing in renewable energy projects and technology. Generate Capital, the renewable energy infrastructure investor, has raised more than $1 billion for new projects from a group of investors focused on infrastructure — including AustralianSuper, QIC, Railways Pension, among others. The new financing fuels project development for sustainable […]

Fearing weak fundraising options in the wake of the WeWork implosion, late stage startups are tightening their belts. The latest is another Softbank-funded company, joining Zume Pizza (80% of staff laid off), Wag (80%+), Fair (40%), Getaround (25%), Rappi (6%), and Oyo (5%) that have all cut staff to slow their burn rate and reduce […]

The cameras on our phones are getting good enough that it's becoming hard to justify having a dedicated picture-taking device. Fujifilm's X100 series has always made one of the strongest cases for it, however, and the latest iteration makes it more convincing than ever.

Every once in a while, an organization implodes so fantastically that it’s hard in retrospect to understand why another outcome once seemed possible. With every passing day, SoftBank — which shook up the investing world with the largest investment fund ever pooled, then seemed to use its capital as a weapon — looks to become […]

Everyone wants to lend to small businesses, as the fintech boom continues to bring constituent players closer together in feature-terms. Thinking broadly, the rising focus on small-business lending amongst B2B fintech and finservices companies feels directionally similar to the rise of consumer-oriented fintech startups adding banking-like features last year. This week, several stories underscored the […]

The Walt Disney Company just announced that its streaming service Disney+ has 26.5 million paying subscribers — ahead of the already impressive 25 million predicted by Wall Street analysts. Disney+ launched on November 12 and is not yet available globally. The day after the launch, the company said the service already had more than 10 million […]

KKR, the multibillion-dollar multistrategy investment firm, is beefing up its technology practice with the appointment of Rob Salvagno as a co-head of its technology growth equity business in the U.S. It’s a sign that KKR is taking the tech industry seriously as it looks for new acquisition and investment opportunities. Salvagno, the former vice president […]

Snapchat still isn’t profitable nearly two years after its IPO. In Q4 2019, Snap lost $241 million on $560.8 million in revenue; that’s up 44% year-over-year and an EPS of $0.03. That comes from adding 8 million daily users to reach a total of 218 million up 3.8% this quarter from 210 million and 17% […]

Twitter today is announcing the official version of its “deepfake” and manipulated media policy, which largely involves labeling tweets and warning users of manipulated, deceptively altered or fabricated media — not, in most cases, removing them. Tweets containing manipulated or synthetic media will only be removed if they’re likely to cause harm, the company says. […]

Homie has made an impression among younger, first-time home buyers in the Utah and Arizona markets for cutting out the traditional closing costs, 6% real estate commissions and arduous paperwork associated with traditional home sales. It now plans to explore opening up in three new markets and will begin a Vegas launch in March with […]

Tech companies are getting so large that Russia is fast-tracking laws aimed at developing "digital sovereignty." How will these regulations affect tech companies looking to do business in the country?

A smartphone app designed to help announce the results of the Iowa caucus ended up crapping out and causing a massive delay by almost an entire day. The Iowa caucus traditionally uses gatherings of people in counties across the state to determine which candidates they want to back for the presidential nomination. They use a […]

Google Glass was ahead of its time. That’s not to say that the people who wore it out in public didn’t look like giant dorks, of course, but in hindsight it seems safe to say that the world just wasn’t ready for wearable augmented reality. The phenomenon has, however, seen a resurgence among enterprise applications, […]