Crunch Hype

As consumer tech companies come under fire for how they handle voice data from consumers, Facebook is announcing changes to how users can manage recordings and transcriptions that are stored on Facebook’s services. At a press event announcing Facebook’s new line of Portal hardware, exec Andrew Bosworth told reporters that the company would be adding […]

Revolution Ventures raises another $215 million to invest outside of the hotbeds.

The boom in popularity for podcasting has given a new voice to the world of spoken word content that had been largely left for dead with the decline of broadcast radio. Now riding the wave of that growth, a startup called Descript that’s building tools to make the art of creating podcasts — or any […]

When you hear the name Acronis, chances are you’re thinking about products like its disk cloning tool True Image or maybe its backup services. The company, though, wants you to think about cyber protection and all of its products (and their marketing) are now focused on this direction. To expand on this vision, the company […]

Cyber security solutions provider Acronis announced today that it has raised $147 million in funding led by Goldman Sachs, bringing it to unicorn status. The company did not disclose its valuation, but founder and CEO Serguei Beloussov told TechCrunch that it is between $1 billion and $2 billion. Founded in Singapore as a data backup […]

Apple’s iPhones numbers may have suffered in recent years, but when it comes to smartwatches, the company remains utterly dominant. Recent figures from Counterpoint put Apple Watch growth at 48% year over year for the first quarter, commanding more than a third of the total global smartwatch market. Samsung’s myriad different models, meanwhile, put the […]

Normative, a startup that lets companies automate their carbon reporting — and in turn help them decrease their environmental footprint — has picked up $2.1 million in seed funding. Backing the Stockholm-based company is ByFounders, with participation from Soundcloud co-founder Eric Wahlforss, Luminar Ventures, and Wave Ventures. The modest injection of capital will be used […]

Only about 10% of India’s 1.3 billion people know English. Yet, that is the only language Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa, which was launched in India two years ago, understands in the nation. That is changing today. At a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, the e-commerce giant said Alexa now supports Hindi, a language […]

Festicket, the U.K.-headquartered festival booking platform, is launching a new feature that allows users to pay for festival tickets as a group. Described as removing the the pain of being the lead booker, “Pay with Friends” lets a single user reserve tickets for a whole group while only having to pay for part of the […]

If you haven’t heard much about litigation finance, that may change soon. The practice dates back decades, though it’s been picking up momentum since 2006, when Credit Suisse Securities founded a litigation risk strategies unit that it later spun off. What is litigation finance? In a nutshell, the idea is to fund plaintiffs and law […]

Alice Lloyd George Contributor Share on Twitter Alice Lloyd George is an early stage investor based in New York and the host of Flux, a series of podcast conversations with leaders in frontier technology. More posts by this contributor Matt Cauble on changing consumption with Soylent and Kin Elysium and the quest to bottle the […]

Automating agriculture is a complex proposition given the number and variety of tasks involved, but a number of robotics and autonomy companies are giving it their best shot. FarmWise seems to have impressed someone — it just raised $14.5 million to continue development of its autonomous weeding vehicle.

GoCardless, the London fintech that aims to become the one-stop shop globally for businesses that want to let customers pay via recurring bank payments, has launched a U.S. debit solution. The company has also opened an office across the pond in San Francisco’s financial district, headed up by Andrew Gilboy, general manager, North America, who […]

We face two major threats today: one to the health of our planet and the other to our own. Fortunately, biology and technology are creating fixes for the planet as well as for the human body.

Clark, the tutor management business-in-a-box service, has been acquired by the New York-based education startup Noodle for an undisclosed amount, TechCrunch has learned. Founded by John Katzman, the serial entrepreneur behind education technology giants including The Princeton Review and 2U, Noodle offers education search services to help people apply to the right programs that meet […]

Lyft is facing another lawsuit pertaining to its handling of alleged sexual assaults at the hands of drivers on its platform. In a suit filed today in the San Francisco Superior Court, Alison Turkos accuses Lyft of 11 counts, including general negligence, vicarious liability for assault with a deadly weapon, sexual assault, sexual battery and […]

GoDaddy’s website-building product GoCentral is getting an upgrade today — and along with new features, there’s a new name: Websites+Marketing. As you can probably guess, Websites+Marketing isn’t just a website builder. After all, as Senior Director of Product Management Heidi Gibson put it, a small business website is now part of a “a whole ecosystem […]

A real check to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s control is finally coming in the form of an 11 to 40-member Oversight Board that will review appeals to its policy decisions, like content takedowns, and make recommendations for changes. Today Facebook released the charter establishing the theoretically independent Oversight Board, with Zuckerberg explaining that when it […]

Amazon-owned Twitch has made a small but strategic acquisition designed to improve its search capabilities and better direct viewers to exactly the right content. The company is acquiring IGDB, the Internet Games Database (no relation to Amazon’s IMDb), a website dedicated to combining all the relevant information about games into a comprehensive resource for gamers […]

Colorcon, a 58-year-old company that develops, supplies and supports specialty products for the pharmaceutical industry — think food colorants, nutritional coatings, the film on time-release medications — is getting into the business of funding startups. It isn’t bringing aboard any traditional venture investors or taping off a corner of its Harleysville, Pa., offices so a […]

French president Emmanuel Macron announced in a speech ahead of France Digitale Day that the French government has convinced institutional investors to invest more heavily in late-stage VC funds and asset managers in one way or another. Institutional investors have committed to investing $5.5 billion (€5 billion). “We’ll have €2 billion that will go in […]

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. Review: The iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 do Disneyland after dark Matthew Panzarino continues his tradition of testing out the […]

The latest research from OpenAI put its machine learning agents in a simple game of hide-and-seek, where they pursued an arms race of ingenuity, using objects in unexpected ways to achieve their goal of seeing or being seen. This type of self-taught AI could prove useful in the real world as well.

Google today announced an update to how it handles videos in search results. Instead of just listing relevant videos on the search results page, Google will now also highlight the most relevant parts of longer videos, based on timestamps provided by the video creators. That’s especially useful for how-to videos or documentaries. “Videos aren’t skimmable […]

Bharat Vasan is no longer the Chief Executive Officer at Pax Labs, the consumer tech company that makes cannabis vaporizers. A source familiar with the situation said that the board of directors made the decision to remove Vasan from the CEO role. His last day was Friday. We’ve reached out to Vasan for comment. Pax […]

When it opened in 2006, Apple’s Fifth Avenue flagship quickly became a top destination for New York City residents and tourists, alike. The big, glass cube was a radical departure from prior electronics stores, serving as the entrance to a 24-hour subterranean retail location. Location didn’t hurt either, with the company planting its flag across […]

Consumers are rejecting traditional advertising in favor of transparent and authentic communications. Now, more marketers are leveraging user-generated content in marketing and e-commerce strategies.

Here’s a fun thing to look forward to next month. Simone Giertz, she of the shitty robots fame, will be appearing onstage at Disrupt SF (October 2-4) at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The U.S.-based Swedish inventor has built a massive online following (currently at 1.92 million YouTube subscribers) with DIY videos that examine […]

AT&T faked the numbers for its DirecTV Now streaming service ahead of the company’s Time Warner merger, according to a lawsuit filed by investors, Bloomberg reported. The suit alleges the media giant pressured employees to boost DirecTV Now’s numbers by secretly adding the product to existing customers’ accounts. It also claims the company touted DirecTV […]

Arc, a platform that wants to simplify the process of hiring developers who work remotely, is launching officially today. The new company grew out of Techstars-backed Codementor, an online education platform for software developers. Codementor will continue to operate as a standalone product under Arc. While there are already many freelancing platforms, Weiting Liu, the […]

For the longest time, Google Fi didn’t play the unlimited calls, text and data game and instead focused on offering pretty affordable and flexible plans with a price cap of $80 (before taxes and government fees). Today, however, Google is introducing Fi Unlimited, which, as you’ve probably figured out from the name, is more akin […]

Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly large role in enterprise software, and Boston’s DataRobot has been helping companies build, manage and deploy machine learning models for some time now. Today, the company announced a $206 million Series E investment led by Sapphire Ventures. Other participants in this round included new investors Tiger Global Management, World […]

When you watch a commercial for one of the major stock exchanges, you are welcomed into a world of fast-moving, slick images full of glistening buildings, lush crops and happy people. They are typically interspersed with shots of intrepid executives veering out over the horizon as if to say, “I’ve got a long-term vision, and […]

‘Friends’ is getting some new neighbors at HBO Max. The streaming service from AT&T’s WarnerMedia has signed a big deal, reportedly worth over $1 billion, for the exclusive streaming and syndication rights for ‘The Big Bang Theory’ over the next five years. The deal comes as streaming media services look to shore up their original […]

NBCUniversal is sharing a few more details about its new streaming service, due to launch in April 2020, including the service’s name and content lineup. In a nod to the NBC logo, the service will be called “Peacock,” (yes, really), and will offer subscribers over 15,000 of content, including both film and TV, plus original […]

SpaceX is making progress assembling its Starship orbital spacecraft prototype, as seen in new photos shared by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk . This full-scale testing version of the Starship will take over for the StarHopper, which was a scaled down version used to test the Raptor engine initially with low-altitude ‘hop’ flights. The Starship Mk […]

Remagine Ventures is a relatively new European VC fund which focuses on investments in entertainment tech, including AI, gaming, sports & eSports, AR/VR, consumer and commerce. It’s now completed $35 million in funding from a number of entertainment and media corporations, including Axel Springer and ProsiebenSat1, Japanese Adways and American Liontree LLC. Last year global […]

Amazon has a new, high-quality streaming tier of its music service called Amazon Music HD. It’s priced at $12.99 per moth for Prime members ($14.99 per month for everyone else) and you can add it to your existing Amazon Music subscription for an additional $5 per month, whether you’re an individual or family plan subscriber. […]

Maybe a network will be the thing that replaces the single streaming media star. VENN, a new company launching with $17 million in funding from some of the biggest names in gaming is hoping to harness the power of streaming media’s online celebrities and funnel them into a channel that can command the kind of […]

LinkedIn, the social networking service for the working world, is today taking the wraps off its latest effort to provide its users with better tools for presenting their professional selves, and to make the process of recruitment on the platform more effective. It will now offer a new feature called Skills Assessments: short, multiple-choice tests […]

Ironclad, a startup that makes it easier for legal teams to manage their contracts workflow, today announced that it has raised a $50 million Series C round led by Y Combinator Continuity, with participation from Emergence Captial, as well as existing investors including Access and Sequoia Capital. This round brings Ironclad’s total funding to $83 […]

That’s right: Mattress startup Casper is launching its own version of CBD-infused gummies, created in partnership with edibles company Plus. This is just the latest in Casper’s efforts to expand beyond mattresses with the addition of sheets, pillows, dog beds, portable lamps and more. In a recent New York Times profile, the company said its […]

GitLab is a company that doesn’t pull any punches or try to be coy. It actually has had a page on its website for sometime stating it intends to go public on November 18, 2020. You don’t see that level of transparency from late-stage startups all that often. Today, the company announced a huge $268 […]

Sony’s latest advanced compact camera is the highly pocketable RX100 VII, the seventh iteration of the RX100. Since its debut, this line of cameras has proven a very popular option among enthusiasts looking for a great travel camera, vloggers, and even pros who want a compact backup option just in case. The RX100 VII should […]

As part of Apple’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund, Apple is investing $250 million in Corning, a supplier that has been working on glass for the iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad. Apple had previously invested $200 million in May 2017. The company says that the new investment will support research and development for precision glass processes. While […]

The newest version of Snap’s Spectacles already has a 3D feature that lets you see the world with immersive filter effects, and now the company’s flagship app Snapchat is levelling up. Today the company announced a new 3D Camera Mode that will let users make and share images with diorama-like depth effects that move when […]

Cloudian, a company that enables businesses to store and manage massive amounts of data, announced today the launch of Edgematrix, a new unit focused on edge analytics for large data sets. Edgematrix, a majority-owned subsidiary of Cloudian, will first be available in Japan, where both companies are based. It has raised a $9 million Series […]

Fintech startup FairMoney is building a challenger bank in Nigeria. The company first started offering microcredit and now plans to expand to current accounts and savings. FairMoney just raised an $11 million Series A round (€10 million) led by Flourish, DST Global partners and existing partners Newfund, Speedinvest and Le Studio VC. FairMoney lets you […]

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: iPhone 11’s Night Mode is great. It works, it compares extremely well to other low-light cameras and the exposure and color rendition is best in class, period. If that does it for you, you can stop right here. If you want to know more about […]

Self-driving truck startup TuSimple has added another $120 million to a Series D funding round led by Sina, operator of China’s biggest microblogging site Weibo, bringing the total haul to $215 million as it seeks to expand. The company, which launched in 2015 and has operations in China, San Diego and Tucson, Arizona, hit unicorn […]