Crunch Hype

Fintech startup Bnext has raised a $25 million funding round. The Spanish company is building a banking product and has managed to attract 300,000 active users. DN Capital, Redalpine and Speedinvest are leading today’s funding round. Existing investors Founders Future and Cometa are also participating. Other investors include Enern, USM and Conexo. When you open […]

Berlin-based recruitment chatbot startup Jobpal has closed a €2.5 million (~$2.7M) seed round of funding from InReach Ventures and Acadian Ventures. The company, which was founded back in 2016, has built a cross-platform chatbot to automate candidate support and increase efficiency around hiring by applying machine learning and natural language processing for what it dubs […]

Adam Neumann’s fall from grace was astonishingly swift once his company, WeWork, filed to go public in August. Even while his spending was fairly well-documented across time (as were his apparent conflicts of interest), he was humiliated for enriching himself, then ultimately kicked out of the corner office before the company, in the least surprising […]

Even as tens of millions of Indians have come online for the first time in recent years, most businesses in the nation remain offline. They continue to rely on long notebooks to keep a log of their financial transactions. A nine-month old startup that is helping them digitize their bookkeeping and accept online payments just […]

You may know Max Deutsch from Month to Master, his yearlong self-improvement program where he tried to master one “expert-level” skill each month — such as solving a Rubik’s Cube in 20 seconds, holding a 30-minute conversation in a foreign language and even challenging world champion Magnus Carlsen to a game of chess (Deustch lost). Now, […]

Twitter is rolling out its spam and abuse filter for Direct Messages, a month and a half after the company announced it had started testing the feature. The filter will be available on Twitter’s iOS, Android and Web apps. The filter adds a new view to the Additional Messages inbox, where DMs from people you […]

Two years after the Los Angeles-based fintech startup Dave launched with a suite of money management tools to save consumers from overdraft fees, the company is now worth $1 billion thanks to a nascent banking practice that had investors lining up. The company used its overdraft protection service and money management display to shift customers’ […]

New Zealand-based launch provider Rocket Lab has announced its next commercial mission, "As The Crow Flies," taking an Astro Digital satellite to orbit in October. Interestingly, this launch originally had a different payload, but was switched out on fairly short notice — not exactly a common practice in this business.

AWS has a lot going on, and it’s not always easy for customers to deal with the breadth of its service offerings on its own. Today, the company announced a new service called AWS IQ that is designed to connect customers with certified service providers. “Today I would like to tell you about AWS IQ, […]

After CEO Elon Musk shared new details about its in-development Starship spacecraft on Saturday, SpaceX has updated its website with a new section dedicated to the fully reusable cargo and passenger vehicle. The new Starship website also provides a bunch of info about Super Heavy, the first-stage booster that will propel Starship to orbital altitudes […]

Project A, the Berlin-based VC, just raised a new $200 million fund (€180 million) to continue backing European startups at Seed and Series A stage. In addition, the firm — whose investments include WorldRemit, Catawiki, Voi and Uberall — announced it will now have a presence in London and Stockholm in order to put people […]

Earlier this summer, Microsoft introduced an extra layer of security to its Dropbox competitor, OneDrive. The security features, called OneDrive Personal Vault, allow users to protect their files with two-step verification, like a fingerprint or facial recognition, PIN code or a one-time code sent through email, SMS or Microsoft Authenticator. At the time of launch, […]

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. Not all is predictable on Facebook’s social Horizon Last week, Facebook unveiled Horizon, a massively multiplayer VR world that’s scheduled to […]

After raising $100 million, virtual reality content startup Jaunt has been in a precarious position for a few years now. It seems like the saga has finally come to a close as the startup announced that Verizon has purchased the company’s technology. The studio rode the wave of VR hype following Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus, […]

Back in 2015, Google’s ATAP team demoed a new kind of wearable tech at Google I/O that used functional fabrics and conductive yarns to allow you to interact with your clothing and, by extension, the phone in your pocket. The company then released a jacket with Levi’s in 2017, but that was expensive, at $350, […]

“Stranger Things 4” got its first teaser today, courtesy of the official Stranger Things Twitter account. The Netflix series, which is in its fourth season (although the creators, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, maintain that each installment isn’t really a “season” in the traditional TV sense, but rather more like a movie broken up across […]

Hyundai Motor Group has launched a new air mobility division aimed at developing technology for the commercialization of flying cars, the latest company to dive into the emerging industry. The division will be led by Dr. Jaiwon Shin, an aeronautics engineer who most recently led the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate at NASA. While at NASA, […]

Instagram deployed a new tool today that should help it continue to build a more viable alternative to YouTube for individual creators looking to try a different platform. It’s a dedicated account called @creators, which will deliver tips and tricks for people hoping to become more active on the platform. Based on the pinned FAQ […]

Since launching in the United States five years ago, SmartNews, the news aggregation app that recently hit unicorn status, has quietly built a reputation for presenting reliable information from a wide range of publishers. The company straddles two very different markets: the U.S. and its home country of Japan, where it is one of the […]

Microsoft today announced that Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), its Azure-based system for virtualizing the Windows and Office user experience it announced last September, is now generally available. Using WVD, enterprises can give their employees access to virtualized applications and remote desktops, including the ability to provide multi-session Windows 10 experiences, something that sets Microsoft’s own […]

The People’s Bank of China has approved PayPal’s acquisition of a 70% equity state in GoPay (Guofubao Information Technology Co. [GoPay], Ltd.), which will make PayPal the first foreign payment platform to provide online payment services in China. GoPay has licenses for online and mobile transactions, and mainly provides payment products for industries including e-commerce, […]

WeWork’s parent organization The We Company just announced that it’s withdrawing the S-1 filing for its IPO. The co-working company has had a turbulent month since the filing went public, around both the general state of its finances and the behavior of co-founder/CEO Adam Neumann. As a result, Neumann stepped down down as CEO last week (he […]

When Confluent launched a cloud service in 2017, it was trying to reduce some of the complexity related to running a Kafka streaming data application. Today, it introduced a free tier to that cloud service. The company hopes to expand its market beyond large technology company customers, and the free tier should make it easier […]

The U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions against two Russian nationals accused of working for a notorious disinformation unit. In a statement, the Treasury said Igor Nesterov, 34, and Denis Kuzmin, 28, worked for the so-called Internet Research Agency, a secretive organization tasked with spreading disinformation and false news. The IRA was critical to the Russian […]

Earlier this year, Google and Amazon reached an agreement to bring their streaming video apps to each other’s platforms, following years of anti-competitive, anti-consumer behavior on both of their parts. Initially, the official YouTube app launched on Fire TV devices, while Prime Video launched on Chromecast and Android TV. Today, YouTube TV has also now […]

McDonald’s first foray into the plant-based protein patty market in North America is launching today in Canada. The company’s “P.L.T.” (plant, lettuce, and tomato) sandwich, which uses patties from Beyond Meat, is now on sale at several locations in Canada. This isn’t the first new vegetarian sandwich to launch at a “Golden Arches” location this […]

Spotify this morning announced a new feature that will allow users to add their podcasts to playlists. With the addition, users can create their own custom playlists of their favorite podcasts, or even those that combine music and audio — similar to Spotify’s own newly-launched “Your Daily Drive.” With “Your Daily Drive,” Spotify put its […]

Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent is taking a 29% stake to become the largest shareholder in Oslo-based Funcom. The indie games developer is responsible for multiple adaptations involving the Conan the Barbarian franchise, such as Age of Conan and Conan Exiles, as well as a number of other multiplayer titles — including a […]

Amboss, the Berlin-based ‘medtech’ startup that originally offered a learning app for students but has since pivoted to a knowledge platform for medical professionals, has raised €30 million in Series B funding. The round is led by Partech’s growth fund, with Target Global acting as a co-investor. Existing investors, Cherry Ventures, Wellington Partners and Holtzbrinck […]

Chinese mobile-phone and device maker Transsion has listed in an IPO on Shanghai’s STAR Market, a Transsion spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch. Headquartered in Shenzhen, Transsion is a top-seller of smartphones in Africa under its Tecno brand. The company has also started to support venture funding of African startups. Transsion issued 80 million A-shares at an opening […]

The Delta EcoFlow is a new battery generator available on Kickstarter with incredible claimed features. Most are true, some are not. Device like the Delta offer incredible battery storage capacity. Designed for more than just recharging phones and tablets, these can run refrigerators, pumps, power tools and medical equipment. They’re great for emergencies, camping and […]

According to Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, 80% of the product’s users rely on it, at least partially, for work. It makes sense, then, that the company is refocusing to try and cement its spot in the workplace; to shed its image as “just” a file storage company (in a time when just about every big […]

What’s the lesson of WeWork? Here’s a startup that has been a darling of Silicon Valley investors for years, whose offices and CEO have been stunningly painted across the covers of major trade magazines and strategically deployed across major tech conference stages, including our very own. At its peak, the company commanded a valuation of […]

Patricia Nakache Contributor Patricia Nakache is a general partner at Trinity Ventures. More posts by this contributor The next frontier in real estate technology Defensible strategies for food tech entrepreneurs facing the Amazon juggernaut Across the political, social and economic stage, women’s issues are finally receiving heightened attention and priority. There are more women than ever […]

Let us connect some dots. Five years ago, Facebook acquired VR pioneers Oculus for $2 billion. This week, it snapped up neural-interface pioneers CTRL-Labs for somewhere north of $500 million, and announced that its own massively multiplayer VR shared universe Horizon will launch early next year. Oculus became (somewhat creepily named) Facebook Reality Labs, headed […]

Hey everyone. This is Week-in-Review, where I give a heavy amount of analysis and/or rambling thoughts on one story while scouring the rest of the hundreds of stories that emerged on TechCrunch this week to surface my favorites for your reading pleasure. Last week, I talked about how streaming networks were undoing their advantages and […]

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk delivered an update about Starship, the company’s nest generation spacecraft, which is being designed for full, “rapid reusability.” Musk discussed the technology behind the design of Starship, which has evolved somewhat through testing and development after its original introduction in 2017. Among the updates detailed, Musk articulated how Starship will be […]

The right advice at the right time can make all the difference for your company. So this year at Disrupt SF (Oct. 2-4), we’re going to try to help startup founders get an extra level of insight. We’re hosting a set of workshops with experts in fundraising, growth and hiring, where attendees can submit questions […]

Where does tech end and media begin? It can be hard to find the dividing line, particularly as tech companies move into the media business, and as big Hollywood blockbusters are increasingly created on computers. So even though TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF event (happening next week!!) is ostensibly a tech conference, we’ll have plenty of big […]

EC Editorial Announcements TechCrunch Disrupt SF is this week: join us on the Extra Crunch stage TechCrunch’s biggest event of the year is happening this coming week at the brand-new Moscone North convention center in SF. We have wall-to-wall programming on our inaugural Extra Crunch stage, where audience members can ask questions to our panelists […]

SpaceX is all set to deliver an update on the status of its Starship program, courtesy of CEO Elon Musk. Musk will provide new info about “the design and development of Starship” at 8 PM CDT (9 PM EDT/6 PM PDT) tonight, live from the company’s Boca Chica rocket assembly facility in South Texas. The […]

SpaceX is set to show off its Starship Mk1, an orbital-scale prototype of the spacecraft it eventually plans to use to attain its goal of fully reusable commercial spaceflight. Starship is the key ingredient not only to fully reusable launch and cargo vehicles for serving commercial clients; it’s also the next most important step in […]

“Between Two Ferns: The Movie” is based on the comically confrontational web interview series starring Zach Galifianakis. In fact, some of us assumed that the film might be nothing more than one interview after another. The movie does indeed have plenty of celebrity interviews, but they’re connected by a loose narrative thread in which Galifianakis […]

The app industry shows no signs of slowing down, with 194 billion downloads in 2018 and over $100 billion in consumer spending. People spend 90% of their mobile time in apps and more time using their mobile devices than watching TV. In other words, apps aren’t just a way to spend idle hours — they’re […]

Cars might still reign supreme, but things they are a changin’. And companies are lining up to provide new ways — and some recycled ones — for people to get from Point A to Point B. The past several years have seen an explosion in startups, automakers and tech companies launching and testing products from […]

In this week's newsletter: Peloton's stock market debut, Bodega's rebrand and Kapwing's Series A.

When Dieter Döpfer, the founder of music instrument manufacturer Doepfer, decided to launch a brand new modular synthesiser system in 1995, no one could have predicted what would follow. Today, his “Eurorack” format supports an ecosystem of hundreds of manufacturers that have collectively produced thousands of compatible modules used by famous musicians, such as Radiohead, […]

Tesla broke national labor laws when it unfairly prevented workers from unionizing, an administrative law judge in California ruled Friday. The ruling, which will likely be appealed, was first reported by Bloomberg. Tesla has not responded to a request for comment. TechCrunch will update the article if Tesla responds. The automaker and CEO Elon Musk […]

At least a dozen people have died of an acute lung condition related to vaping, and while officials aren't ready to pin it on any one chemical or brand, they are warning that many of the patients reported buying THC cartridges from "informal sources" — which is to say off the street or online.

Of the various channels available to growth marketers, podcast is among the most misunderstood. Brands like Dollar Shave Club, Squarespace, and ZipRecruiter have deployed podcast advertising for...