Crunch Hype

Quilt Data‘s founders, Kevin Moore and Aneesh Karve, have been hard at work for the last four years building a platform to search for data quickly across vast repositories on AWS S3 storage. The idea is to give data scientists a way to find data in S3 buckets, and then package that data in forms […]

Congratulations Southern California Gelsons store shoppers, you’re getting Impossible Foods on your grocery shelves. The meatless ground meat substitute will be appearing in stores across the Southern California as the first step in a phased nationwide rollout on Friday. With the step into groceries, Impossible Foods moves into direct competition with its bigger, publicly traded […]

Customer experience in they physical world has been getting a major infusion of tech in recent years. We now have systems being built to replace cashiers, sensors in stores and other physical locations to track where customers are walking, and smart mirrors that suggest items you might like to try on. Today, one of the […]

Rocket Lab is nearing completion of its second launch facility – its first in the U.S., located on Wallops Island in Virginia. The company announced that it has finished installing the launchpad at Launch Complex 2, which is set to finish construction as early as the end of this year, with the first launches taking […]

Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce and soon Tumblr, has closed a $300 million funding round at a $3 billion post-money valuation. The Series D round has a single investor, Salesforce Ventures. Funding rounds are something special for Automattic . While the company has been around for nearly 15 years, it hasn’t raised a ton […]

Roku is getting a jump on the holiday shopping season with the arrival of new and updated devices. The company is expanding its media player lineup for the U.S. and abroad with updated versions of both its entry-level and high-end players, the Roku Express and Roku Ultra, respectively. It’s also introducing a new version of […]

Built Robotics, a company aiming to make construction equipment autonomous, is announcing a $33M Series B round this morning. With the construction industry facing a global labor shortage, Built’s aim is to allow one equipment operator to oversee a fleet of vehicles working autonomously in parallel, hopping in the cab only for tasks the […]

When Salesforce launched Force.com in 2007 as a place for developers to build applications on top of Salesforce, it was a pivotal moment for the concept of SaaS platforms. Since then, it’s been said that every enterprise SaaS company wants to be a platform play. Today, New Relic achieved that goal when it announced the […]

Zume first made waves by entering the scene as a robotic pizza company. Since then, however, the SF Bay Area startup has taken pains to demonstrate that it has its sights set on a loftier goal of providing sustainable infrastructure for the restaurant industry. Last April, the company made its Zume Pizza wing a wholly […]

We’re all well aware that Nintendo is a nostalgia hound, capitalizing on its rich history to keep today’s gamers on board with its sometimes derivative but always lovingly crafted offerings. Link’s Awakening is no exception, and this remake of the under-played Game Boy title is a great opportunity to revisit a classic and get your […]

Arch Rao, the former head of product at Tesla who was behind the company’s Powerwall home energy storage is system, is back with a new company pitching energy management and efficiency for homes. SpanIO is looking to upgrade the electrical fusebox for homes with a digital system that integrates into the existing circuit breaker technology […]

Supply chain logistics is a headache and a half across any industry, but the difficulty level goes way up within the world of cannabis. Because of federal laws, FedEx, UPS and USPS are not an option. Distributors need a variety of licenses and must operate within specific regulation. For example, cannabis brands must either become […]

Google said today it is bringing its mobile payments app — Google Pay — to businesses in India as the Android-maker rushes to maintain its payments lead in one of its key overseas markets before its global rival Facebook sets off a similar play in the nation. Even as more than 400 million users in […]

Google Assistant, the digital assistant from the global search giant, is available to users through their smartphones, laptops, and smart speakers. Earlier this year, the company partnered with KaiOS to bring Assistant to some feature phones with internet access. Now Google is going a step further: Bringing its virtual assistant to people who have the […]

French startup Qwant, whose non-tracking search engine has been gaining traction in its home market as a privacy-respecting alternative to Google, has made a change to its senior leadership team as it gears up for the next phase of growth. Former Mozilla Europe president, Tristan Nitot, who joined Qwant last year as VP of advocacy, […]

Indonesia has one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in the world, but the logistics industry there is still very fragmented, creating headaches for both vendors and customers. Shipper is a startup with the ambitious goal of giving online sellers access to “Amazon-level logistics.” The company has raised $5 million in seed funding from Lightspeed Ventures, […]

Cannalysis, a testing company for cannabis, has raised $22.6 million in a new round of financing as it prepares to bring a new test for vaping additives to the market. The test, which the company is preparing to unveil later this week, will test for the presence and amount of Vitamin E acetate, a chemical […]

Netflix is today a company whose valuation hovers around $130 billion, but it was, of course, once a little startup, and in his new book “That Will Never Work,” Netflix’s cofounder and its first CEO Marc Randolph takes readers on a fun and surprisingly vivid journey through the streaming giant’s earliest days. It’s also instructive, […]

It’s getting down to the wire for your opportunity to show off your early-stage startup in Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt SF this October 2-4. There’s simply no better way to place your ideas and technology in front of influential change agents that can help you propel your business forward and set the stage for future success. […]

Brands often act like the person who searches for their keys under the streetlight simply because that is where the light is better. However, when brand marketers focus only on engaging with...

There are apps out there that help you find friends, find dates and find your distant family histories, but when it comes to “growing your professional network,” the options are shockingly bad, we’re talking LinkedIn here. Lunchclub is a startup that’s looking to help users navigate finding new connections inside specific industries. The company has […]

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law gig worker protections bill AB-5. This comes shortly after AB-5 passed in the California State Assembly and Senate. “Today, we are disrupting the status quo and taking a bold step forward to rebuild our middle class and reshape the future of workers as we know it,” bill […]

For new brands, growing awareness and gaining consumer trust are two of the most important yet challenging marketing objectives. But startups don’t have the budget to activate mega-influencers...

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. Facebook launches Portal TV, a $149 video chat set-top box The Portal TV lets you hang out with friends using your […]

Full Disrupt SF agenda posted We have an amazing slate of speakers stopping by TechCrunch Disrupt SF this year, including two full days scheduled for the debut of our Extra Crunch stage, which will focus on how founders can overcome the challenges they face through discussions of tactics with some of the most successful founders […]

Microsoft’s GitHub today announced that it has acquired Semmle, a code analysis tool that helps developers and security researchers discover potential vulnerabilities in their code. Semmle takes a lot of the manual work out of security testing and instead offers a query language that allows researchers to test their code, using the service’s analysis engine. […]

After 13 years at the helm of video advertising company Eyeview, founder Oren Harnevo is stepping down as CEO. The company’s new chief executive is Rob Deichert, who was most recently COO at digital advertising company 33Across. The company is also announcing two other new hires — Sean Simon as senior vice president of sales […]

Startup founders are hard-pressed to find the right investors — not only to fund their businesses but to help their businesses grow. These days, investors represent a variety of backgrounds and industries — traditional venture capital, Hollywood even the NBA. When Golden State Warriors point guard and two-time MVP Stephen Curry isn’t playing basketball, he’s […]

Google’s parental control software, Family Link, is getting a noteworthy update today with the addition of new features that will allow parents to limit screen time per app, instead of the device as a whole, as well as let them more easily extend screen time as needed. The features were first announced at Google’s I/O […]

At Greta Thunberg heads back to Europe from the US after radicalizing a generation, entrepreneurs are quickly realizing that there is a zeitgeist to be gotten hold of here. With food production a major contributor to climate change, tt’s no surprise then that on-demand food startups are appearing to cater to this new audience. Simple […]

Plex has added a new content partner for its soon-to-launch ad-supported video service. The company announced this morning its service will now also include movies from Lionsgate, which will join Plex’s existing partner Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, in helping to fill out the forthcoming video-on-demand library. However, unlike with Warner Bros., whose videos will […]

Nothing can get built without talented people with the right skillsets, which is why startups hitting their growth phases have to go from hiring a smattering of employees to building systems that can hire dozens to hundreds of people per year. How can startups double and triple headcount year after year in a sustainable way, […]

Walmart is partnering with Capital One to launch a new credit card program, which rolls on September 24, and includes both co-branded and private-label cards. The former, the Capital One Walmart Mastercard, includes 5% back on purchases made on Walmart.com or paid for in-store using Walmart Pay (the latter for the first 12 months.) The […]

In the last year alone, nine new funds have closed on an aggregate $200 million to invest in pre-seed startups.

North’s Focals smart glasses are the first in the category to even approach mainstream appeal, but to date, the only way to get a pair has been to go into a physical North showroom and get a custom fitting, and then return once they’re ready for a pick-up and final adjustment. Now, North has released […]

Julo, a peer-to-peer lending platform in Indonesia, said on Wednesday it has extended its $5 million Series A raise to $15 million as it looks to scale its business in the key Southeast Asian market. The $10 million Series A2 round for the Jakarta-headquartered startup was led by Quona Capital, with Skystar, East Ventures, Provident, […]

Tableau was acquired by Salesforce earlier this year for $15.7 billion, but long before that, the company had been working on its Fall update, and today it announced several new tools including a new feature called ‘Explain Data’ that uses AI to get to insight quickly. “What Explain Data does is it moves users from […]

Robin Healthcare, a new startup founded by serial entrepreneurs Noah Auerhahn and Emilio Galan, is hoping to harness the power of personal assistants to make the business of healthcare easier for the physicians who practice it The company’s technology, which works much the same way as a Google Home or Amazon Alexa or Echo, is […]

PlayVS, the platform that allows high school students to compete on varsity esports teams through their school, has today announced the close of a $50 million Series C led by existing investor NEA. Battery Ventures, Dick Costolo and Adam Bain of 01 Advisors, Sapphire Sport, Michael Zeisser, Dennis Phelps of IVP and cofounder of CAA […]

It’s still early days for quantum computing, but we’re nonetheless seeing an interesting group of startups emerging that are helping the world take advantage of the new technology now. Aliro Technologies, a Harvard startup that has built a platform for developers to code more easily for quantum environments — “write once, run anywhere” is one […]

Enterprise search tools have always suffered from the success of Google. Users wanted to find the content they needed internally in the same way they found it on the web. Enterprise search has never been able to meet those lofty expectations, but today Salesforce announced Einstein Search, an AI-powered search tool for Salesforce users that […]

India’s government has announced an immediate ban on e-cigarettes — citing youth-focused public health concerns. In a news statement following a cabinet meeting today finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the ban covers production, manufacturing, import, export, transport, sale, distribution, storage and advertising of e-cigarettes. Sitharaman suggested India’s youth are viewing e-cigarettes as a “style statement”, […]

Amazon is making it easier for customers to pay with cash for their online purchases. The retailer today announced the U.S. arrival of Amazon PayCode, a new checkout option that will allow online shoppers to pay for Amazon.com purchases at one of 15,000 Western Union locations. Separately from this, Amazon said that its Amazon Cash […]

In cities across Russia, large boxes in locked rooms are directly connected to the networks of some of the country’s largest phone and internet companies. These unsuspecting boxes, some the size of a washing machine, house equipment that gives the Russian security services access to the calls and messages of millions of citizens. This government […]

Sonos has released their first ever portable speaker with a built-in battery: The $399 Sonos Move, which starts shipping to customers on September 24. After spending a few days with the Move, I can confidently say that it offers everything that’s great about the Sonos wireless audio system, but with all the added advantages of […]

Anyone who wants to download the podcast app Pocket Casts can now do so for free. Previously, you had to pay a one-time fee of $3.99 to access the Android or iOS apps, but CEO Owen Grover said this approach seemed increasingly at odds with Pocket Casts’ goals, and with the vision of the public […]

Salesforce has always tried to be a socially responsible company, encouraging employees to work in the community, giving 1% of its profits to different causes and building and productizing the 1-1-1 philanthropic model. The company now wants to help other organizations be more sustainable to reduce their carbon footprint, and today it announced it is […]

Facebook wants to take over your television with a clip-on camera for video calling, AR gaming, and content co-watching. If you can get past the creepiness, the new Portal TV let you hang out with friends on your home’s biggest screen. It’s a fresh product category that could give the social network a unique foothold […]

Sure, you could take Apple’s word for it that the new iPhone’s cameras are amazing — or you could let some obsessive pixel-peepers perform some (mostly) objective tests and really get into the nitty-gritty. Pixel peepers in extraordinary DxOMark are here to help, with new tests focused on evaluating the latest gadgets’ night modes and […]

IBM continues to push its quantum computing efforts forward and today announced that it will soon make a 53-qubit quantum computer available to clients of its IBM Q Network. The new system, which is scheduled to go online in the middle of next month, will be the largest universal quantum computer available for external use […]