Crunch Hype

Samsung is set to introduce a whole bunch of new products, starting today at 7 AM PT/10 AM ET. I wrote a whole bunch of words about what to expect from the company’s latest Unpacked event. It’s a long list and a kind of return to the pre-pandemic days, back before companies started taking liberties […]

Trust wants to give smaller businesses the same advantages that large enterprises have when marketing on digital and social media platforms.

Impossible sent me a tube of its plant-based sausage to try ahead of today’s news. As an aside, the big box with several frozen packs inside was maybe not the most efficient way to send it, but I don’t know, maybe there’s no great way to send frozen foodstuffs. Someone feel free to disrupt that […]

The company provides software, services and infrastructure to small businesses so they can scale online.

The company's remote hiring technology enable restaurants to fill last-minute drive-thru or cashier shifts.

Most people probably don’t realize just how much our devices are time driven, whether it’s your phone, your laptop or a network server. For the most part, time keeping has been an esoteric chore, taken care of by a limited number of hardware manufacturers. While these devices served their purpose, a couple of Facebook engineers […]

US cybersecurity firm NortonLifeLock has confirmed it is acquiring British rival Avast in order to create a global consumer security powerhouse. The agreement, which comes just weeks after both companies confirmed they were in advanced discussions regarding a possible combination of the two brands, will see Avast stockholders receive cash and shares that value the deal at […]

Students around the country are about to return to school after the summer holiday, and they’re doing so at a time when both coronavirus transmission and the effects of climate change are mounting. Last year, HopSkipDrive, a rideshare platform for kids, had to let go much of its staff amid school lockdowns. Now, the company […]

ChargePoint has made its second acquisition since going public in March, purchasing European electric fleet management company ViriCiti for €75 million ($88 million) in cash. The news comes just a few weeks after the EV charging network operator announced the purchase of European charging software company has·to·be. Like the has·to·be buy, this newer deal will […]

As fintech Acorns plans to go public later this year, it has named former Twitter and DreamWorks animation exec Rich Sullivan to serve as its new chief financial officer. Irvine, California-based Acorns announced in May its intent to go public by merging with publicly traded special purpose acquisition company Pioneer Merger Corp. The SPAC values […]

For sales representatives, commissions are source of motivation—and frustration, too. Commission structures are often complex, and become even more labyrinthine as companies grow. “There is a standard fee, then there’s an implementation fee, there could be a multiplier bonus, there could be accelerators when you reach your quota and get higher quota numbers,” explained Siva […]

As Baby Boomers (aged 57-75 at this point) and Gen X (aged 41-56) head into their dotage, they are no longer the “senior citizens” of yore, being still active and, often, healthy. But leaving work means they lose about half of their social network, which has a negative impact on wellbeing. Plus, the pandemic increased […]

Small and medium-sized construction businesses in Europe and the US tend not to be run on digital platforms, leaving a $1.6 trillion industry relatively untouched. publicly-listed Procore (NYSE: PCOR) is the go-to platform for large general contractors, but newer startups are going for this SMB construction market such as Sitemax, Sitemate, Fieldlens and Fieldwire. Now, […]

Singapore-headquartered Parcel Perform, which connects merchants with e-commerce carriers and provides shipment tracking features, said on Wednesday it has raised $20 million in a new financing round as it scales its business in several parts of the world. Cambridge Capital led the logistics tech startup’s Series A financing round, while SoftBank Ventures Asia and existing […]

When adding text code from a 3rd party source into a platform, the process is an unavoidable and time-consuming chore. Developers currently spend a large part of their day reviewing things like “NPM” packages, and such. There are developer libraries and text code platforms like JetBrains and Visual Studio, but these don’t entirely solve the […]

Instagram today is rolling out a set of new features aimed at helping people protect their accounts from abuse, including offensive and unwanted comments and messages. The company will introduce tools for filtering abusive direct message (DM) requests as well as a way for users to limit other people from posting comments or sending DMs […]

Today, in a new report about “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on its platform, Facebook states that it last month removed hundreds of accounts across its Facebook and Instagram platforms that were tied to anti-vaccination disinformation campaigns operated from Russia. In one campaign, says the company, a newly banned network “posted memes and comments claiming that the […]

Pave, a San Francisco-based startup that helps companies benchmark, plan and communicate compensation to their employees, has raised a $46 million Series B. YC Continuity led the round, which also saw participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners. The round comes eight months after Pave closed a $16 million Series A round. Today’s financing […]

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Before you hire a marketing consultant who doesn't understand your products or commit to a CMO who has several years of experience — but none in your sector — consider influencer marketing.

Starship Technologies, an autonomous delivery services company, announced that it will begin delivery service on four additional college campuses this fall, adding to the 20 campuses on which it already operates. The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), the University of Kentucky (UK), the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach, Florida […]

After the bell today, Coinbase reported another period of impressive results in its second quarter earnings report. During the quarter, Coinbase’s total revenue reached $2.23 billion, which helped the company generate net income of $1.61 billion in the three-month period. The company benefited from a one-time line item worth $737.5 million, which stemmed from what […]

Every entrepreneur must understand how to properly form a view of their company's proper adjusted EBITDA and adjusted revenue.

The encrypted chat app Signal is adding a few new options for users looking to lock down their messages. The app will now allow anyone to turn on a default timer for disappearing messages, automatically applying the settings to any newly initiated conversations. Signal’s disappearing messages option deletes chats for both the sender and receiver […]

Blue Origin and Dynetics are still steaming over NASA’s decision to award only one contract — to SpaceX — to build a Human Landing System for the Artemis program. Their protest of the decision was recently rejected, and now the Government Accountability Office’s arguments, which Blue Origin publicly questioned, are available for all to read. […]

Unity, the company behind the super popular 2D/3D engine of the same name, is today announcing plans to make its biggest acquisition to date. Unity says it will acquire Parsec, a remote desktop tool for developers and creatives, for $320 million in cash. Parsec’s pitch has long been remote desktop access without compromise. Tuned for […]

To understand why retailers will capture more ad spend, it’s important to evaluate what modern marketing has become. Is it bus stop advertisements? Bidding on Google keywords or a Clubhouse session?

Traditional MBA programs can be costly, lengthy, and often lack the application of real world skills. Meanwhile, big global brands and companies who need Product Managers to grow their businesses can’t sit around waiting for people to graduate. And the EdTech space hasn’t traditionally catered for this sector. This is perhaps why Product School, says […]

Zomato’s losses more than tripled in its first quarterly earnings report since its listing last month as the company’s expenses grew and the pandemic hit the firm’s dining-out business. The Gurgaon-headquartered firm reported (PDF) a net loss of $48 million in the quarter that ended in June, up from about $13.5 million during the same period […]

At times, Kubernetes can feel like a superpower, but with all of the benefits of scalability and agility comes immense complexity. The truth is, few developers understand how Kubernetes works.

Twitter temporarily suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday after the Georgia Republican posted a tweet that claimed vaccines don’t reduce the spread of Covid-19. “These vaccines are failing & do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks,” Greene tweeted, contradicting the scientific community and calling for the FDA to refuse […]

OpenAI has already made some big changes to Codex, the AI-powered coding assistant the company announced last month. The system now accepts commands in plain English and outputs live, working code, letting someone build a game or web app without so much as naming a variable. A few lucky coders (and, one assumes, non-coders) will […]

Reducing global greenhouse gas emissions is an important goal, but another challenge awaits: lowering the levels of CO2 and other substances already in the atmosphere. One promising approach turns the gas into an ordinary mineral through entirely natural processes; 44.01 hopes to perform this process at scale using vast deposits of precursor materials and a […]

From vaccine distribution plans to fire trackers to bar crawls for your best friend’s birthday, maps help people visualize space and express impact. And Felt, a new Oakland-based startup co-founded by Sam Hashemi and Can Duruk, is on a mission to make the medium more mainstream. Felt is a collaborative software company that wants to […]

Kiwibot, the robotic sidewalk delivery startup, has announced a partnership with food services and facilities management giant Sodexo to bring its robots to U.S. college campuses. As of this month, students and faculty at New Mexico State University, Loyola Marymount University and Gonzaga University should have the option to order fresh meals via cute little […]

This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its major sixth assessment report on the physical science of climate change. The details are grim, if getting more precise as better and more comprehensive data becomes available. As my colleague Mike Butcher summarized yesterday, it’s “stern and blunt in its conclusions.” UN’s IPCC report on […]

Salesforce just closed a $28 billion mega-deal to buy Slack, generating significant debt along the way, but it’s not through spending big money. Today the CRM giant announced it was taking a leap into streaming media with Salesforce+, a forthcoming digital media network with a focus on video that, in the words of the company, […]

"Signal is more important than frequency in an era where we're overloaded with content."

Amazon today is making a significant change to its returns policy, known as the A-to-Z guarantee, to address issues with defective products sold through Amazon’s marketplace of third-party sellers. In the past, Amazon directed consumers to the sellers in the case where a defective product caused property damage or personal injury. Now, Amazon says it […]

Last week, Apple announced a series of new features targeted at child safety on its devices. Though not live yet, the features will arrive later this year for users. Though the goals of these features are universally accepted to be good ones — the protection of minors and the limit of the spread of Child […]

Just months after raising $28 million, Jerry announced today that it has raised $75 million in a Series C round that values the company at $450 million. Existing backer Goodwater Capital doubled down on its investment in Jerry, leading the “oversubscribed” round. Bow Capital, Kamerra, Highland Capital Partners and Park West Asset Management also participated […]

Motional, the autonomous vehicle company born out of a $4 billion joint venture with Aptiv and Hyundai, is expanding its presence in California by opening a new operations facility in Los Angeles to support testing on public roads, hiring more engineers and adding an office in Silicon Valley. The investment into the area follows a […]

Xiaomi just announced the CyberDog, an open-source quadruped robot intended for developers to create applications for. The machine resembles a beefier version of Boston Dynamics’ infamous Spot.

We deserve meaningful privacy protections that no company can afford to omit from their products. We deserve a both/and approach: Privacy that is both meaningful and widely available.

The deal is notable because it is Robinhood's first major purchase since going public in July, and because it illustrates where Robinhood may look to invest some of its newly liquid equity wealth.

African e-commerce giant Jumia today reported its second-quarter financial performance. In the wake of its earnings reports, Jumia’s shares climbed 3.38% to $21.99 per share with a market cap of $2.168 billion. Before we get into the company’s results, Jumia historically reported in its financial data in Euros. This was the case until April 1, […]

In celebration of Coinbase's earnings report today, investors poured a mountain of cash into one of the company's global competitors.

OwnBackup, the late stage startup that helps companies in the Salesforce ecosystem back up their data, announced a $240 million Series E today at a $3.35 billion valuation. The latter is up from $1.4 billion in January when the company announced a $167.5 million Series D. Alkeon Capital and B Capital Group co-led today’s investment, […]

Scotts Miracle-Gro knows how to make plants grow, and now the company is looking to cannabis companies to grow its balance sheet. The company today announced an investment entity specifically for cannabis. Called The Hawthorne Collective, the entity is said to be pursuing minority investments in companies not currently being pursued by ScottsMiracle-Gro’s cannabis subsidiary, […]

Merchants use Upscribe’s technology to drive subscriber growth, reduce churn and enable personalized subscription experiences, like skipping shipments and swapping out products.