Crunch Hype

Executives from London-based commercial EV company Arrival told investors Thursday the company was on track to meet planned product launch dates, but much will depend on whether or not the company can fulfill orders and turn letters of intent into sales – especially a crucial van order with UPS, which could bring in upwards of […]

Several users from Zambia have taken to Twitter informing the general public that WhatsApp has been restricted in the country amidst ongoing general elections holding today. The president and parliamentary elections culminate in a face-off between current President Edgar Lungu and opposition Hakainde Hichilema. Internet monitoring organization Netblocks further corroborated these reports adding that multiple […]

Pyka appeared out of nowhere in 2019 with an unusual take on electric aircraft: a pilotless crop duster. The success of this first plane led the company to begin developing its next one, the P3: a 9-passenger craft with a totally unique propeller setup aimed at making regional flights cheaper and simpler. It could be […]

Just five months after raising a $100 million Series A, TaxBit announced today it has raised $130 million in a Series B round of funding. The latest financing officially makes the Salt Lake City, Utah-based provider of crypto tax and accounting software a unicorn, with a valuation of $1.33 billion. It also brings the startup’s […]

Chip design is a long slog of trial and error, taking years to bring a design to market. Motivo, a five year old startup from a chip industry veteran is creating software to speed up chip design from years to months using AI. Today the company announced a $12 million Series A. Intel Capital led […]

The company is developing robotic smart mobile assistants that enable frontline workers to perform their jobs more safely and efficiently.

E-commerce roll-up companies are big in the United States, and Wonder Brands wants to be that for Latin America.

Last year, media software maker Plex released Plexamp, a subscriber-only music app whose name was a nod to the classic Winamp player it aimed to replace. Today, the company is upgrading the app with a new feature called Super Sonic, which offers new ways to mix up your playlists — including by matching songs that […]

Earlier this year, Reddit raised $250 million, bringing the 16-year-old site up to around $800 million in total funding. Today, it announced plans for an even more massive windfall, with a Series F led by Fidelity. The company confirmed with TechCrunch that has raised $410 million thus far, with plans to raise up to $700 […]

TikTok today becomes the latest tech company to roll out increased protections for minors on its platform in the wake of increased regulatory scrutiny. The company says it will introduce a series of product changes for teen users aged 13 to 17, aimed at making their TikTok experience more private, safer and less addictive. TikTok’s […]

With the pandemic digitizing every aspect of our lives, the Creator Economy has taken off like never before, with some estimates saying it’s now a $100Bn+ market. And yet, managing your professional life as a model, actor, writer or designer remains a mish-mash of emails, manual booking processes, and dreaded PDFs. Creatives face late payments, […]

Agora, a startup that has built a materials management platform for contractors, has raised $33 million in a Series B round of funding led by Tiger Global Management. 8VC, Tishman Speyer, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, Michael Ovitz, DST, LeFrak and Kevin Hartz also participated in the financing, which brings the startup’s total raised since its […]

Built on Salesforce and Google Cloud platforms, consumer goods companies can use Aforza to digitally transform product distribution and customer engagement.

Talkdesk uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve customer service for mid-market and enterprise businesses.

Nigeria’s less than two-decade-old ecosystem is evolving fast. But behind the funding and legitimate hype, there’s without a doubt plenty of learning that needs to be done in running a startup. In retrospect, founders in Nigeria do tremendous work when you consider the kind of harsh market they operate in. They are deserving of all […]

Twitter has locked the account of Indian National Congress, the South Asian nation’s largest opposition party, for violating its rules. The Indian National Congress wrote about the Twitter episode on Facebook Thursday. “When our leaders were put in jails, we were not scared then why would we be afraid of closing our Twitter accounts now. […]

Mumbai-based Eruditus, which works with top universities globally to offer more than 100 executive-level courses to students in over 80 nations, said on Thursday it has raised $650 million in a new financing round led by Accel and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The new financing round — which includes both primary and secondary transactions — […]

VerSe Innovation, the parent firm of popular news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video app Josh, said on Thursday it has raised over $450 million in a new financing round, just five months after securing $200 million, as the Indian startup looks to expand its offerings to international markets. Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, affiliates of Carlyle […]

AppWorks, the Taipei-based venture capital firm focused on Taiwan and Southeast Asia, announced today it has closed its oversubscribed third fund, raising $150 million. AppWorks Fund III’s limited partners include Taiwan Mobile, Axiom Asia Private Capital, Fubon Life, TransGlobe Life, Hongtai Group, Wistron, Cathay Life, Phison Electronics and Taiwan’s National Development Fund. Many of these […]

Over the last year, Tinder has experimented with creative ways for people to connect beyond just swiping right. Pandemic or not, it’s hard to make the first move — so why not break the ice by weathering a virtual apocalypse with a potential date? Today, Tinder announced that it will launch its second “Swipe Night” […]

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The beleaguered EV startup Lordstown Motors is on track to begin production of its flagship electric truck Endurance, but only select customers will begin to receive vehicles early next year, executives said during a second quarter earnings call. Executives struck a cautious tone in the second-quarter earnings call as they tried to assuage shareholder concerns […]

As part of its earnings call this week, Desktop Metal announced plans to acquire ExOne. The Pennsylvania-based firm creates a variety of different industrial 3D printers for industries like aerospace, automotive, medical and defense. More recently, we wrote about the company’s portable 3D printing factories, which are effectively mobile additive manufacturing stations built inside of […]

I want to extend an offer to an engineer who has been working in the U.S. on an H-1B. Her current employer is sponsoring her for an EB-2 green card. Can we take over her green card process?

Archer Aviation is seeking $1 billion in damages from Wisk Aero, according to court filings Tuesday, significantly escalating the ongoing legal battle between the two air taxi rivals. Wisk “deployed a knowingly false extra-judicial smear campaign that projected stand-alone defamatory statements about Archer to the world,” the filing says. On this basis, Archer claims that […]

Full-size pickup trucks are the meat of the U.S. automotive business; it’s a red-hot category with the Ford F-150 leading the pack in sales and the Chevrolet Silverado and Ram pickups fast followers. But the air is thin at the top. What’s often lost in truck coverage is how fiercely automakers compete to woo discerning […]

If we look at the way the regulatory fabric is being stitched, there are a number of areas that will provide outsized returns. Three stand out in particular.

Amid a year of editorial pivots and employee exits, Medium announced today that it will make significant changes to its Medium Partner Program, which allows writers on the platform to monetize their content. Founded in 2011, Medium launched its Partner Program in 2017. Since then, the platform has paid out $28 million to over 200,000 […]

Did you hear it? FEMA just ran its first nationwide test of the U.S. emergency alert system since the pandemic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, tested both the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which broadcasts an emergency tone and message on televisions and radios, and the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA), a newer system that […]

Orbital manufacturing startup Varda Space Industries is moving fast. Only a few weeks after announcing a $42 million Series A, Varda has signed a deal with launch company Rocket Lab for three Photon spacecraft to support the startup’s initial missions. The first spacecraft will be delivered in the first quarter of 2023, with the second […]

Twitter today is introducing a revamped version of its website, which the company says will make the site more accessible, less cluttered and easier to use. Among the changes, which are also rolling out to iOS and Android, is the implementation of Twitter’s new font, “Chirp,” and changes to various elements that will make them […]

This group of people has been overlooked and underserved by our industry, and it doesn’t have to be that way; older adults are too important to be left behind by technology.

Google has now taken another step toward the public release of the latest version of the Android operating system, Android 12. The company today released the fourth beta of Android 12, whose most notable new feature is that it has achieved the Platform Stability milestone — meaning the changes impacting Android app developers are now […]

If there’s one thing that the ongoing COVID-19 crisis has proven, it’s that the healthcare system in the U.S. is in drastic need of major transformation. One of the biggest issues to be highlighted by the pandemic in particular is the iniquity in access to care, but there are signs that one of the effects […]

While it was one of the less-hyped gadget debuts in recent memory, Samsung blasted out a series of announcements at an Unpacked event bright and early this morning. Too busy to tune in? Still asleep when it all went down? Here’s the slimmed-down version of everything you need to know. Galaxy Watch 4 Samsung is […]

Hydrogen-powered heavy-duty truck company Hyzon Motors said Wednesday it is ramping up operations in the wake of its merger with blank-check firm Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp., including shipping its first trucks to European customers. The company, which reported second-quarter earnings Wednesday, said it is also preparing to start its first customer trials in the United […]

Austin has made headlines over the past year for a number of reasons: It’s home to Oracle’s new headquarters. Tesla is building a massive gigafactory in the Texas capital. And people, mostly tech workers, are leaving the Bay Area in droves to settle in the city, driving up home prices in the process. It’s not […]

Airtable, the makers of the no code relational database, announced its first acquisition today, acquiring Bayes, an early stage visualization startup. The purpose of the purchase is to enhance the data visualizations on the Airtable platform. The companies did not share the purchase price. Much like Airtable, Bayes focuses on a no-code approach and the […]

Doxel, which has developed software that uses computer vision to help track and monitor progress on construction job sites, announced today that it has raised $40 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round, which included participation from existing backers Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Amplo and brings the startup’s total raised to $56.5 […]

The link-in-bio business is heating up as more mobile website builders compete for a coveted slice of real estate on a creator’s TikTok, Instagram or Twitter. Linktree leads the space, securing a recent $45 million Series B raise to build out e-commerce features, but Beacons boasts competitive creator monetization tools with just a $6 million […]

Amazon’s $1.5 billion air cargo hub in Northern Kentucky opened Wednesday, the latest effort by the e-commerce giant to connect a network of 40 sites and control all aspects of delivery as demand for speed and convenience accelerates. The Amazon Air Hub operations, located at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, will be the center of […]

WhatsApp users will finally be able to move their entire chat history between mobile operating systems — something that’s been one of users’ biggest requests to date. The company today introduced a feature that will soon become available to users of both iOS and Android devices, allowing them to move their WhatsApp voice notes, photos, […]

Singapore is home to fewer than six million people, making it one of the smallest ASEAN countries, in terms of population. It is a young country as well — having gained independence in 1963.

Go ahead and add “produce a world-class tech conference” to the long list of items that can complete the expression “It takes a village to…” TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 runs September 21-23, and we’d like to take a moment to give a major shout-out to a vital part of the TechCrunch village — our sponsors. Admin […]

Thanks to Apple loosening App Store restrictions, Weedmaps users can now purchase cannabis within the popular app. This means Weedmaps users can browse, select, and purchase cannabis and have it set for pick-up or delivery — all within the app. Previously, users could only locate and browse menus of local retailers thanks in part to […]

Joby Aviation is now public, twelve years after JoeBen Benvirt founded the company at his ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains. The air taxi developer began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday under the ticker symbol “JOBY,” after completing a merger with special purpose acquisition company Reinvent Technology Partners. As of 10:00 […]

Apple has settled its 2019 lawsuit with Corellium, a company that builds virtual iOS devices used by security researchers to find bugs in iPhones and other iOS devices.

Slightly falling quarterly venture capital totals and a notable decline in unicorn formation does not a startup winter make. So let’s look at what's happened more recently.