Crunch Hype

A significant changing of the guard is underway at GoFundMe, the popular charitable and causes-based online giving platform that has generated $9 billion from 120 million donations globally to date. The company is announcing that Rob Solomon, who has been the CEO of GoFundMe for the last five years, is stepping down from the role […]

“We’re trying to shift cryptocurrency from this speculative asset class to driving real-world utility,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tells me. How? Through commerce and micropayments. But now Coinbase has the who to build it. Today the startup announced it has hired away former head of Product for Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart and Google Shopping VP […]

When the topics of Microsoft and global health overlap, one tends to think about the Gates Foundation, but the company itself is doing good work along these lines as well. The latest such effort is AI for Health, an $40M, five year outgrowth of Microsoft's AI for Good program that aims to help apply the benefits of AI with an eye to bettering the health of the less fortunate worldwide.

Lincoln Motor’s first all-electric vehicle is coming from Rivian . Lincoln, the luxury brand under Ford, said Wednesday the two companies will work together to develop an “all-new” electric vehicle. This electric vehicle, or at least the intent to build it, was announced in April as part of Ford’s $500 million investment in Rivian . […]

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. Apple shares rise after company reports better-than-expected revenue of $91.8B Apple has worked in recent years to lessen its dependence on […]

Aurora has been given permission by California regulators to transport passengers in its self-driving vehicles, TechCrunch has learned. The California Public Utilities Commission granted Aurora a permit, which was posted on its website Wednesday, to participate in the state’s Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service pilot. Aurora confirmed the approval. “This permit lets us give rides powered by the […]

AT&T’s revenue took a hit in the fourth quarter as the company gears up for the launch of WarnerMedia’s new streaming service, HBO Max, due to arrive this May. The WarnerMedia division, which includes HBO as well as Turner and Warner Bros., saw revenue decline 3.3% to $8.92 billion — a drop that was in […]

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. It’s been a busy decade in the venture capital world. Ten years ago there were fewer than 20 known unicorns in the United States. That figure has risen to more than 200 in the intervening […]

The latest project to emerge from Google’s in-house incubator, Area 120, takes the newfound interest in short-form video and focuses it on the DIY space. The company today is launching a short video platform called Tangi, initially on the web and iOS, that allows creative types to share how-to videos on subjects like crafting, painting, […]

Just two days stand between you and serious savings on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020. This annual day-long event draws the most innovative and visionary technologists, researchers and investors from two game-changing industries — last year we hosted 1,500 attendees. Make a smart investment. Buy an early-bird ticket before prices go up on January […]

The U.S. Department of the Interior has confirmed it has grounded its fleet of non-emergency drones amid concerns over cybersecurity. In a brief statement, the department said the move will help to ensure that “the technology used for these operations is such that it will not compromise our national security interests.” Interior spokesperson Carol Danko […]

Early Stage SF is around the corner, and we are more than excited for this brand new event. The intimate gathering of founders, VCs, operators and tech industry experts is all about giving founders the tools they need to find success, no matter the challenge ahead of them. Struggling to understand the legal aspects of […]

SpaceX is one step closer to an even more re-usable launch system today, after it successfully recovered one fo the halves of the fairing used on its Starlink satellite launch today. The fairing half was caught by its ‘Ms. Tree’ vessel, a ship at sea in the Atlantic strung with a large net specifically for […]

In the streaming era, data on a show’s viewership and popularity is harder to come by. It’s no longer as simple as setting up a Nielsen box to get data on a show being watched across TVs, phones, tablets, and the web. One company solving this problem for content owners, broadcasters and streamers alike is […]

Last year, when co-founders Danny Steiner and Krista Berlincourt first debuted Kenshō Health, their directory and information service for holistic medicine, Berlincourt called it “the antithesis of Goop”. While Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand startup serves up a heady mix of unverified pseudo-scientific claims alongside long-standing holistic practices, Steiner and Berlincourt focused on the verified and […]

Flexibits, the company behind popular calendar app Fantastical, is releasing Fantastical 3.0 on all platforms today — macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS. New features include event proposals, interesting calendars, new calendar views and weather forecasts. I’ve been using the app on my Mac, iPhone and iPad for a week. The main difference with Fantastical 2 […]

Boeing reported its fourth quarter results this morning, and they included a $410 million charge specifically earmarked to cover the cost of an additional Commercial Crew mission, should NASA determine that another uncrewed launch is required after the first one didn’t go as planned last December. The pre-tax charge was said to account for a […]

GoDaddy has reached an agreement to acquire Over, the startup behind an app that helps businesses create the photos and videos they need for social media. Justin Tsai, GoDaddy’s vice president of growth and product, said this acquisition is about acknowledging “a world of entrepreneurs who may never have a website.” He told me, “Over’s […]

SpaceX has launched yet another batch of 60 Starlink satellites – its third production batch of the orbital communication spacecraft, and its second batch this year alone. The launch took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida this morning at 9:06 AM EST, using a Falcon 9 rocket whose booster stage had already […]

Beyond Meat, the publicly traded producer of plant-based protein replacements for meat, is currently giving other companies in the alternative meat space an education in just how finicky appealing to consumer tastes can be. On the same day that the Canadian Tim Horton’s restaurant chain is dropping Beyond Meat products from its menus, the company […]

SpaceX is set to launch another batch of its Starlink broadband internet satellites this morning, after weather conditions shut down its last two attempts earlier this week. SpaceX is being especially picky about not just launch conditions – but also weather in the recovery area where it hopes to catch the fairing protecting the satellite […]

Y Combinator graduate OpenPhone is raising a $2 million funding round led by Slow Ventures. The company is working on an app that lets you seamlessly get a business phone number without a second phone or a second SIM card. Y Combinator, Kindred Ventures, Garage Capital, 122WEST Ventures and others are also participating in today’s […]

French startup Bankin’ has introduced Bridge Pay this week, an API that lets you initiate payments using bank transfers from your app. Think about it as a sort of Stripe, but for bank transfers. The API currently covers 12 major French banks, which represent around 90% of retail bank accounts in France. Bankin’ is both […]

Perdoo, a Berlin-based OKR-focused software startup, has decided to make its basic service free, potentially shaking up its growing, and somewhat crowded, market. “Objectives and Key Results,” a planning and management technique usually shortened to “OKRs,” is a hot space for software startups, with several raising in recent months. WorkBoard and Gtmhub, for example, each […]

Looking for fellow travelers to join in on its mission to transform the beverage business, the Los Angeles-based startup Bev has taken on fresh capital from a slew of strategic investors. The company has added Erin and Sara Foster, creative heads of Bumble BFF and Bumble Biz, to their investor and creative talent pool along with […]

Africa’s logistics startup space has gained another multi-million dollar round with global backing. Kenyan company Sendy — with an on-demand platform that connects clients to drivers and vehicles for goods delivery — has raised a $20 million Series B led by Atlantica Ventures. Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a trade and investment arm of Japanese automotive company […]

Apple’s much-awaited online store in India will be operational starting Q3 this year, a little longer than previously expected, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The iPhone-maker said in August last year that it was “eager to serve [customers of India] online and in-store with the same experience and care that Apple customers […]

Match Group, home to Tinder, Match, OkCupid, PoF and a host of other online dating apps, announced today that CEO Mandy Ginsberg would be stepping down from her position after 14 years with the company. She’s served in the CEO role since her appointment in 2017. Related to this, Ginsberg will also resign from Match’s […]

Research presented at the ACM FAT 2020 conference in Barcelona today supports the notion that YouTube’s platform is playing a role in radicalizing users via exposure to far-right ideologies. The study, carried out by researchers at Switzerland’s Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, found evidence that users […]

The team behind Product Hunt is launching a new social network called YourStack, a platform aiming to connect people that are passionate about products and help them discover what things their friends love. “It’s super simple, you just search through and create a stack of products you love,” Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover tells TechCrunch. […]

Apple’s increasing focus on its services business seems to be paying off, with the company reporting a record $12.7 billion in services net sales during the first quarter of its fiscal year — a year-over-year increase of roughly 17%. Services includes existing offerings like iCloud and Apple Music, as well as a number of new […]

Today after the bell, Apple reported the results of the first quarter of its fiscal 2020. The company’s revenue totaled $91.8 billion, far ahead of expectations of $88.43 billion. At the same time, the company’s per-share profit of $4.99 was greater than the market-anticipated figure of $4.54 per share. In immediate trading following the news, […]

Facebook’s internal “Supreme Court” can’t set precedents, can’t make decisions about Facebook Dating or Marketplace, and can’t oversee WhatsApp, Oculus, or any messaging feature, according to the bylaws Facebook proposed today for its Oversight Board. It’s designed to provide an independent appeals process for content moderation rulings. But it will only be able to challenge […]

Jeff Bezos’ phone was hacked. And if the richest person in the world is vulnerable, chances are good that your startup could get hacked, too. The good news is that, as a tiny company, you’re not a big target. But as soon as you hire your first employee, it’s time to think about adopting basic […]

A little-known payments processor, which bills itself as a Christian-friendly company that does “not process credit card transactions for morally objectionable businesses,” left a database containing years’ worth of customer payment transactions online. The database contained 6.7 million records since 2013, and was updating by the day. But the database was not protected with a […]

TechCrunch’s fourth Robotics and AI show is coming up on March 3 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. If past experience is any guide, the show is sure to draw a big crowd (cheap student rates here!) but there’s still time to grab a pass. If you’re wondering why you want to take a day out […]

Growing up with blindness or low vision can be difficult for kids, not just because they can’t read the same books or play the same games as their sighted peers; Vision is also a big part of social interaction and conversation. This Microsoft research project uses augmented reality to help kids with vision impairment “see” […]

Last year saw global smartphone sales decline for the first time since analysts started tracking such things. In Gartner’s case, that comprises a full 11 years, as figures dropped 2% for 2019. Following on last week’s global device forecast, the firm is drilling down on smartphone figures with some slightly rosier results. According to the […]

Labor markets, particularly those in the tech industry, are incredibly lopsided against employees. Companies screen, interview, and negotiate with thousands of candidates per year, while employees may only go through recruiting a handful of times in their lives. Inevitably, they can select the wrong positions, pick the wrong managers to work with, and end up […]

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. All users can now access Facebook’s tool for controlling which apps and sites can share data for ad-targeting Facebook is making […]

If parties came with an alert system, this post would qualify as Def Con 4. Now hear this — we just released the final batch of tickets to our 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize, which heats up on February 7 in San Francisco. If you want to be there with more than 1,000 of Silicon […]

I need a new phone. A big chunk of my time on the iPhone was spent taking pictures, so I’m heavily basing the next smartphone on its camera capabilities. After playing around with the Pixel 4 for Brian’s review, I’m […]

GM has improved its hands-free driving assistance system Super Cruise, adding a feature that will automatically change lanes for drivers of certain Cadillac models, including the upcoming 2021 Escalade. This enhanced version of Super Cruise, which will include better steering and speed control, puts it back in competition with Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system (specifically […]

Small satellite launch company Virgin Orbit is teaming up with Israel’s ImageSat International (ISI) to develop a launch services that would be able to deliver small satellite-based Earth observation on remarkably short notice, basically anywhere in the world. This is a service aimed specifically at national security and intelligence customers, and combines the benefits of […]

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. While the IPO cycle reprices former unicorns and concern imbues the private market with profit warnings, it turns out that there is still appetite for scooter startups. Even more, there’s hunger for both combinations in […]

Securiti.ai, a San Jose startup, is working to bring a modern twist to data governance and security. Today the company announced a $50 million Series B led by General Catalyst with participation from Mayfield. The company, which only launched in 2019, reports it has already raised $81 million. What is attracting all of this investment […]

RealityEngines.AI, an AI and machine learning startup founded by a number of former Google executives and engineers, is coming out of stealth today and announcing its first set of products. When the company first announced its $5.25 million seed round last year, CEO Bindu Reddy wasn’t quite ready to disclose RealityEngines’ mission beyond saying that […]

Facebook is making its “Off-Facebook Activity” tool, which allows users to manage and delete the data that third-party websites and apps share with Facebook, available to all users worldwide. The feature was first introduced in 2018 at Facebook’s annual developer conference, but only launched to users in select geographies last year. When the tool was […]

ServiceNow announced this morning that it has acquired Passage AI, a startup that helps customers build chatbots in multiple languages, something that should come in handy as ServiceNow continues to modernize its digital service platform. The companies did not share terms of the deal. With Passage AI, ServiceNow gets a bushel of AI talent, which […]

Chatbots have had a patchy track record world of tech, where early efforts not only failed to deliver on the magical idea of a computer producing the exact answers you were looking for in a chat-based-Q&A, they even produced surprising (and not in a good way) results instead. Things have moved along, though, and today […]