Crunch Hype

On this edition of the Gillmor Gang, Brent Leary shows off his new wireless adaptor for his live streaming studio. The result is a captivating view of his console as he switches between closeups and incoming feed from the rest of the Gang, all captured in a widescreen cinematic view. The underlying message is that […]

Thanks for reading Startups Weekly. Want the weekly digest in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. This past week, edtech entrepreneurs, investors and analysts congregated at ASU+GSV, a yearly global edtech conference, to reflect on the sector’s newfound spotlight after the massive jolt of COVID-19. Beyond masked excitement to finally meet Twitter friends in […]

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. […]

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter for your weekend enjoyment.

A sexual assault case at Alibaba has sparked a new round of #MeToo reckoning in China. Industry observers believe this is a watershed moment for the fight against China's allegedly misogynist tech industry. Meanwhile, social media operators are still undecided on how to deal with the unprecedented public uproar against the powerful internet giant.

The Apple Card case is a strong example of how current anti-discrimination laws fall short of the fast pace of scientific research in the emerging field of quantifiable fairness.

This week Danny and Alex and Chris took to Twitter Spaces to chat about the current state of the crypto economy, and hang out with friends in a live Twitter Space. We’re doing more of these, so make sure that you are following the show on Twitter. As a small programming note, I forgot to […]

“I like to think of successful brand-building as creating a company that customers would be upset to separate from their identity,” growth marketing expert Julian Shapiro told us earlier this week. “For example, they’d cease to be the man with Slack stickers all over his laptop. Or the woman who no longer wears Nike shoes […]

Thanks very much for reading Extra Crunch this week! Have a great weekend.

Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

To hear more about the strategies that are boosting Indian startups, we interviewed Ayush Srivastava, co-founder of growth marketing group Growth Folks (and a growth marketer at Zynga by day).

Way back in January 2020, Sonos sued Google over patent infringement. Today, the streaming speaker company scored an early victory with the U.S. International Trade Commission. A preliminary ruling penned by ITC chief administrative law judge Charles Bullock finds that Google infringed on five patents. “Today the ALJ has found all five of Sonos’ asserted […]

After teasing its new font in January, Twitter made some major changes to its website and app design this week. But while Twitter framed these updates as making the platform “more accessible,” some accessibility experts say that these changes missed the mark. Most noticeably, tweets now appear in “Chirp,” Twitter’s proprietary typeface, and the display […]

Carta, the nine-year-old, San Francisco-based cap table management and valuation software company, just raised $500 million in its eighth round of funding, at a $7.4 billion valuation. That’s more than double where the company was valued eight months ago when it closed its seventh round of funding at a valuation of $3.1 billion. With so […]

After all the leaks and teases, Lamborghini has finally announced its new hybrid-engine Countach. Thankfully, almost everything you need to know about the car is in its model designation: LPI 800-4.

Brand-building is no longer a one-hit game, but an exercise in repetition: It may take four or five times for a user to see your startup’s name or logo to recognize, remember or Google it.

Employers are at crucial crossroads when it comes to deciding where and how to let employers do their jobs. There are those who will adopt the work-from-anywhere model and those who resist it.

When Salesforce announced its new business video streaming service called Salesforce+ this week, everyone had a reaction. While not all of it was positive, some company watchers also wondered if there was more to this announcement than meets the eye. If you look closely, the new initiative suggests that Salesforce wants to take a bite […]

Kiddom, a platform that offers a digital curriculum that fits the core standards required by states, announced today that it has raised a $35 million Series C round led by Altos Ventures, with participation from Owl Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Outcomes Collective. The financing came nearly three years after Kiddom’s Series B, a $15 million […]

Facebook has extended the option of using end-to-end encryption for Messenger voice calls and video calls. End-to-end encryption (E2EE) — a security feature that prevents third-parties from eavesdropping on calls and chats — has been available for text conversations on Facebook’s flagship messaging service since 2016. Although the company has faced pressure from governments to […]

Audio out-of-home (AOOH) technology does not request the use of personal data to work effectively. Instead, it focuses on the in-store customer experience.

From Instagram’s Reels to Snapchat’s Spotlight, most social media platforms are looking toward the TikTok boom for inspiration. Now, even Reddit, a discussion-based forum, is making short-form video more pronounced on its iOS app. According to Reddit, most iOS users should have a button on their app directly to the right of the search bar […]

Automation will displace 85 million jobs while simultaneously creating 97 million new jobs by 2025, according to the World Economic Forum. Although that sounds like good news, the hard reality is that millions of people will have to retrain in the jobs of the future. A number of startups are addressing these problems of employee […]

Either the neoinsurance companies' long-term models will come to fruition thanks to large cash balances providing runway to prove their point, or Wall Street is correct -- they were always overvalued.

The personal is political, and companies are made up of people, not products.

Orchata's mobile app enables consumers in Mexico to get groceries delivered in 15 minutes with no substitutes and at supermarket prices.

ThirdAI is building tools to speed up deep learning technology without the need for hardware like graphics processing units.

Manish Maheshwari, the head of Twitter India, has taken a new role at the company and is relocating to the U.S., the latest in a series of developments for the American social giant after a tense stand-off with New Delhi this year. Maheshwari is moving on from the high-profile position, a role he assumed in […]

A group of senators sent new Amazon CEO Andy Jassy a letter Friday pressing the company for more information about how it scans and stores customer palm prints for use in some of its retail stores. The company rolled out the palm print scanners through a program it calls Amazon One, encouraging people to make […]

Food delivery apps offer convenience for customers, but a host of headaches for restaurants, like commissions as high as 40% and very few tools to build customer loyalty. Based in Singapore, Tablevibe wants to help restaurants reduce their reliance on third-party delivery apps and help them get more direct orders and returning customers. The startup […]

Disney’s streaming service is seeing improved growth, after initially seeing slower numbers of subscriber additions in Q2 as COVID lockdowns and mask mandates came to an end. Today, Disney+ beat analyst expectations for subscriber growth in Disney’s blowout third quarter, reaching 116 million paid subscribers — above the 114.5 million Wall Street had expected — […]

Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

Both companies were heavily impacted by the onset of COVID-19: Airbnb saw its revenues collapse in 2020, while DoorDash managed a simply incredible 2020 as folks stayed home and ordered in.

Earlier this year, Nothing launched the Ear (1) with a grand idea: earbuds as fashion accessories. Sure, the company talked a lot about the non-invasiveness of transparent design, but at the end of the day, the product’s launch on StockX betrayed a focus on the fashion forward. In that respect, Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds 2 […]

Operating in the cloud is soon going to be a reality for many businesses whether they like it or not. Points of contention with this shift often arise from unfamiliarity with cloud operations.

Medal.tv, a short-form video clipping service and social network for gamers, is entering the livestreaming market with the acquisition of Rawa.tv, a Twitch rival based in Dubai, which had raised around $1 million to date. The seven-figure, all-cash deal will see two of Rawa’s founders, Raya Dadah and Phil Jammal, now joining Medal, and further […]

The unprecedented liquidity entering the venture market in the past year has spurred trends that require VCs to adapt to an environment where startup founders have far more leverage than they used to.

Lowercarbon Capital, a climate-tech focused fund founded by longtime investor Chris Sacca and his wife Crystal Sacca, has closed on $800 million in capital, Sacca announced today in a post on the firm’s site. According to Sacca, the commitments came exceedingly fast — in “just a few days.” Writes Sacca: “It turns out that raising […]

With two giants calling the shots and collecting whatever tolls they see fit, mobile software makers have long complained that app stores take an unfair cut of the cash that should be flowing directly to developers. Hearing those concerns, a group of senators introduced a new bill this week that, if passed, would greatly diminish […]

Box has been in an ongoing dispute with activist investors Starboard Value over control of the board, an argument that is expected to come to a head on September 9th at the annual shareholder meeting. In an effort to show shareholders that the numbers are continuing to improve under the current leadership, Box took the […]

VCs need to stop engaging in self-delusion about why a valuation that is too high might be OK. Here are three common lies investors tell themselves to rationalize an undisciplined valuation decision.

Starbucks offers an integrated wallet and payments within its app, and Lyft offers its drivers a debit card. But that doesn’t make them fintech companies.

If you’ve ever sold a house, you know what a pain it is to go through the process of listing, showing and negotiating the sale of your home. It’s so much of a pain that many people put it off as long as possible because they don’t want to deal with it. The result is […]

Foxconn is getting more serious about its electric vehicle ambitions. The company told investors during an earnings call that it plans to build EV factories in the US and Thailand in 2022.

TechCrunch is thrilled to announce Seth Rogen is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt this September. The movie-star-turned-pot-businessman is speaking on his latest venture: Houseplant, his privately funded entrée into the cannabis business. Houseplant made a big splash when it launched in 2021, and it continues to get a lot of attention in the noisy world of […]

All told there were 22 venture rounds for New York City enterprise startups worth $100 million or more in H1 2021. How did they raise so much?

When someone mentioned to me that Xiaomi was launching its own “robot dog,” my mind immediately went to Sony’s Aibo. And honestly, it would have been difficult to be more wrong. Now that the news has been out for a few days, the company’s heard all of your bad Black Mirror jokes, don’t worry. And, […]

If you’re a current student or a recent grad with a burning passion for data, software and artificial intelligence, we want you to join us on October 27 for TC Sessions: SaaS 2021. The software-as-a-service sector keeps growing rapidly — both in size and sophistication, and it’s going to require a deep bench of thinkers, […]