Crunch Hype

The mobile version of Nintendo's iconic racing franchise, Mario Kart Tour, will soon support multiplayer races, bringing the game closer to its competitive roots. A limited beta test is planned for December, just in time for holiday laziness, but only for paying subscribers — the rest of us will have to wait.

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. Google is acquiring Fitbit for $2.1 billion Google will pay $7.35 per share for the wearables company — an all-cash deal […]

Climate risk, including extreme events and the related pressures our environment, are fundamentally affecting the way businesses and governments operate — both tactically and strategically. Increasing climate volatility is causing food supply disruptions and increasing pressure on Enterprises (including financial institutions, insurers and producers) to disclose what’s going on. The trouble is, while there is […]

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has come up with a clever way for its small cube-like robots, which can move on their own, to communicate and coordinate with one another for self-assembly. The behavior is described by MIT researchers as somewhat “hive-like;” in the video above you can see what they mean by […]

Perhaps best known for a career-making seed investment in Snapchat, Lightspeed partner Jeremy Liew is a leading investor across media and entertainment, making bets on startups like Cheddar, Giphy, HQ, SpecialGuest, Mic, Beme, Playdom, Duta and Flixster. I spoke to him earlier this week about how he assesses the market for media startups, which led […]

We’ve known for a while now that Google was bringing the “Incognito mode” concept to Maps, allowing you to run searches and find routes without them automatically being tied to your account history. If you’ve been digging around trying to find the option without any luck, you weren’t just missing it. Though first mentioned back […]

Waymo, the Google self-driving-project-turned-Alphabet unit, has given demos of its autonomous vehicles before. More than a dozen journalists experienced driverless rides in 2017 on a closed course at Waymo's testing facility in Castle; and Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, took a driverless ride in the company's Firefly prototype on Austin's city streets way back in 2015.

As we move from a world dominated by virtual machines to one of serverless, it changes the nature of monitoring, and vendors like New Relic certainly recognize that. This morning the company announced it was acquiring IOpipe, a Seattle-based early-stage serverless monitoring startup, to help beef up its serverless monitoring chops. Terms of the deal […]

It's almost certain that an angel will play a role in your startup’s journey, but like everything else in a startup’s life, you need to watch out for potential problems. If you don’t manage them properly, these early backers could get in the way of your startup’s success.

Slowly but surely, smart speakers are taking over. As Amazon builds Alexa into everything from tiny clocks to microwaves and Google wraps Assistant into just about anything it can, it feels like it’ll be no time before the rooms that don’t have some sort of voice-powered device are the exception. But most people and businesses […]

Just days after it was reported that Google was close to buying Fitbit, Google and Fitbit today confirmed the purchase: Google will pay $7.35 per share for the wearables company in an all-cash deal that values Fitbit at $2.1 billion. Relatively speaking, this is a great landing for Fitbit . The company’s price has fluctuated […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

Chinese autonomous air mobility company EHang has filed with the SEC the paperwork required to go public in the U.S. on the NASDAQ exchange, with a $100 million initial public offering. The company, which has been flying demonstration flights with passengers on board for a while now, is gearing up to launch its first commercial […]

Apple has launched its streaming video subscription service, making available a varied and sizeable library of content immediately for subscribers. To access the service, you do need to sign up for a $4.99 per month subscription, but if you’ve purchased any new iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV or Mac since the beginning of September, […]

Calling all tech-minded students, nonprofit and government employees — this is your moment. Come and join us at Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December at a price you can afford — because great ideas and innovation come from every sector. Apply for our discounted Innovator passes for students and nonprofit or government employees and enjoy […]

Accusonus, the Greece and U.S.-based AI company helping content creators improve the audio in their videos, has raised $3.3 million in Series A funding. The round is led by Athens-based Venture Friends, with participation from Big Pi, IQBility, PJ Tech, along with a syndicate of U.S.-based investors led by Michael Tzannes, who is actually the […]

Forecast, a Denmark-based startup that has developed “AI-powered” project management software, has raised $5.5 million in new funding. The round is led by Crane Venture Partners, with participation from existing backers SEED Capital and Heartcore. Forecast has raised $10 million in total funding to date. Founded in late 2016, Forecast describes itself as an AI-powered […]

Facing increasing scrutiny from international and domestic regulators, the Altria Group has decided to write down its investment into the e-cigarette company JUUL by $4.5 billion. That’s roughly one-third of the $12.8 billion that the tobacco giant had invested into JUUL a little less than one year ago. Juul Labs gets $12.8 billion investment from […]

Paidy, a Japanese financial tech startup that provides instant credit to consumers in Japan, announced today that it has raised a total of $143 million in new financing. This includes a $83 million Series C extension from investors including PayPal Ventures and debt financing of $60 million. The funding will be used to advance Paidy’s […]

Just around 9:45 a.m. Pacific Time on February 28, 2017, websites like Slack, Business Insider, Quora and other well-known destinations became inaccessible. For millions of people, the internet itself seemed broken. It turned out that Amazon Web Services was having a massive outage involving S3 storage in its Northern Virginia datacenter, a problem that created […]

Using a computer and modern software can be a chore to begin with for the visually impaired, but fundamentally visual tasks like 3D design are even harder. This Stanford team is working on a way to display 3D information, like in a CAD or modeling program, using a "2.5D" display made up of steel pins that be raised or lowered as sort of tactile pixels. Taxels!

The world of phone-based AR has involved a lot of promises, but the future that’s developed has so far been more iterative and less platform shift-y. For startups exclusively focused on mobile AR, there’s been some soul-searching to find ways to bring more lightweight experiences to life that don’t require as much friction or commitment […]

Kepler Communications, the Toronto-based startup that’s focused on developing and deploying shoebox-sized satellites to provide telecommunications services, is opening up registration for those interested in getting their first developer kits. These developer kits, designed to help potential commercial customers take advantage of its Internet of Things (IoT) narrowband connectivity deploying next year, will then be […]

Facebook today announced it has filed suit in California against domain registrar OnlineNIC and its proxy service ID Shield for registering domain names that pretend to be associated with Facebook, like www-facebook-login.com or facebook-mails.com, for example. Facebook says these domains are intentionally designed to mislead and confuse end users, who believe they’re interacting with Facebook. […]

Motorcycle racing series Supercross isn’t quite ready to add an EV class. The sport — where riders race high-performance machines on jump-filled stadium tracks — currently fields only gas-powered two-wheelers. Supercross was poised to launch an all-electric class this month, by converting its junior program to a new e-moto manufactured by KTM — Supercross Director […]

In the two years since Sidewalk Labs pitched its vision for a grand smart city development — encompassing an entire neighborhood on the Toronto waterfront — the project has been beset by controversy and criticism. On one hand, the 12-acre project in Toronto’s Quayside district promised to be a proving ground for the latest thinking […]

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. Jack Dorsey says Twitter will ban all political ads Arguing that “internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse,” […]

Album VC, a Lehi, Utah-based early-stage venture firm that’s been known until now as Peak Ventures, just gathered up $75 million in capital commitments for its third early-stage fund. The development shows investor confidence in Album’s young team, which came together in 2014 after the founder of Zinch — a site connecting colleges and students […]

A security researcher has found several vulnerabilities in the popular open-source Horde web email software that allow hackers to near-invisibly steal the contents of a victim’s inbox. Horde is one of the most popular free and open-source web email systems available. It’s built and maintained by a core team of developers, with contributions from the […]

Here’s a horror scenario for you: You’re flying in a small plane and suddenly the single pilot who knows how to fly passes out. In the movies, somebody would probably talk one of the passengers through safely landing the plane. In reality, that’s unlikely. Flying planes is hard. Now, however, planes outfitted with the Garmin […]

At the heart of TechCrunch is our community. We want TechCrunch.com to feel like a home base for founders, investors and anyone who comes to us for breaking news and analysis of major tech giants and startups. That includes engaging with our community. We’re excited to introduce TechCrunch readers to our new commenting system, which […]

The rise of the internet has given every company the chance to be a global company. But as a founder, growing from your garage to the worldwide markets can be tricky business. That’s why we’ve assembled a panel of top-tier experts to talk through the peaks and pitfalls of scaling strategies at Disrupt Berlin in […]

All is not lost for smartphone manufacturers. On the heels of two years’ of global stagnation, the category is finally showing some signs of life. Much of the bounce back comes as manufacturers are working to correct for dulled consumer interest. I wouldn’t put too much weight in the numbers right now, as they’re little […]

Qoo10, a Singapore-based e-commerce firm has acquired India’s online marketplace ShopClues in an all-stock deal, the two companies said Thursday. The deal, which per two people familiar with the matter valued ShopClues between $50 million and $80 million, ends years-long struggle at once thriving Indian “unicorn” to find a new home. ShopClues will be merged […]

Berlin rose as one of Europe’s leading startup hubs over the last decade, featuring unicorns N26, Delivery Hero, HelloFresh, and Auto1 Group. Berlin attracts developers from Eastern Europe and elsewhere into an international hub where English is the linga franca among startups and costs are noticeably lower than in London or Paris. Rocket Internet, while […]

It’s not quite an “Apple Prime” subscription, but it’s compelling. Apple on Wednesday introduced a new program that will allow Apple Card users to finance their iPhone purchases for 24 months, without paying interest. The program aims to appeal to consumers who frequently upgrade their iPhone to the latest model, but often turn to their […]

One of the world’s most static technologies may be the humble mug, but startup Ember decided it was time for a change when they introduced their temperature-controlled smart mug to the market in 2016. Now, the company has launched its Ember Mug 2 – a follow-up that keeps the concept and design intact, but that […]

Modus raises $12.5 million Series A co-led by NFX’s Pete Flint and Niki Pezeshki of Felicis Ventures.

The internet and search engines like Google have made the world our oyster when it comes to sourcing information, but in the world of business, there remains a persistent need for more targeted market intelligence, a way to get reliable data quickly to get on with your work. Today, one of the startups hoping to […]

An American giant may have figured out a way to simplify the tedious procedure of issuing driver’s licenses. And an early sneak peek of this solution is now live in parts of India. Hundreds of people who have taken the driver’s license test in Dehradun, the capital of Indian state Uttarakhand near the Himalayan foothills, […]

Namogoo, the Herzliya, Israel-based company that has developed a solution for e-commerce and other online enterprises to prevent “customer journey hijacking,” has raised $40 million in Series C funding. The round is led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from existing backers GreatPoint Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Hanaco Ventures. It brings total raised by Namogoo to […]

Berlin-based femtech startup Inne is coming out of stealth to announce an €8 million (~$8.8M) Series A and give the first glimpse of a hormone-tracking subscription product for fertility-tracking and natural contraception that’s slated for launch in Q1 next year. The Series A is led by led by Blossom Capital, with early Inne backer Monkfish […]

Freetrade, the U.K. challenger stockbroker that offers commission-free investing, has closed $15 million in Series A funding. The round includes a $7.5 million investment from Draper Esprit, the U.K. publicly-listed venture capital firm, along with previously announced equity crowdfunding via Crowdcube. The funding will be used by Freetrade for further growth and product development, including […]

With CcHub‘s acquisition of iHub in September, Nigerian Bosun Tijani is at the helm of (arguably) the largest tech network in Africa. He is now CEO of both organizations, including their robust membership rosters, startup incubation programs, global partnerships, and VC activities from Nigeria to Kenya . One could conclude Tijani has become one of […]

Writers Laura Wagner, Kelsey McKinney, Tom Ley, Lauren Theisen, Patrick Redford, Albert Burneko and Chris Thompson all tweeted today that they have resigned from Deadspin, the sports-focused site owned by G/O Media. A quick refresher: G/O Media was formerly known as Gizmodo Media Group, and before that as Gawker Media. It took on its current […]

We’ve aggregated the world’s best growth marketers into one community. Twice a month, we ask them to share their most effective growth tactics, and we compile them into this Growth Report.

Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey announced abruptly — though the timing was certainly not accidental — that the platform would soon disallow any and all political advertising. This is the right thing to do, but it's also going to be hard as hell for a lot of reasons. As usual in tech and politics, no good deed goes unpunished.

As Jack Dorsey announced his company Twitter would drop all political ads, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg doubled-down on his policy of refusing to fact check politicians’ ads. “At times of social tension there has often been an urge to pull back on free expression . . . We will be best served over the long term […]

Apple’s iPhone sales still make up over half of its quarterly revenues, but they are slowly shrinking in importance as other divisions in the company pick up speed. Apple’s stock remained largely unchanged after-hours following the release of its Q4 earnings. The company delivered earnings per share of $3.03 versus the street’s estimate of $2.84 […]

Brazil continued to churn out unicorns this month, with Curitiba-based Ebanx becoming the first startup from the southern part of the country to top a $1 billion valuation. U.S.-based FTV Capital provided the investment but did not disclose the amount invested nor the exact valuation of Ebanx after the investment.