Crunch Hype

Amazon is testing an easier way for people to leave product feedback with the launch of one-tap ratings. The change is meant to encourage those who don’t have the time, energy or interest in writing reviews to still share their opinion about the product, which benefits the larger Amazon community of shoppers who are reliant […]

When DoorDash announced changes in its tipping model last month, it was certainly a step in the right direction. Some workers, however, have said it’s not enough. In addition to wanting fair wages, they want back pay. In light of DoorDash’s announcement, labor group Working Washington said a key question remained: “Will they pay workers […]

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. Another high-flying, heavily funded AR headset startup is shutting down In an email obtained by TechCrunch, Daqri — which built enterprise-grade […]

Uber -owned JUMP pulled its bikes and scooters from a handful of markets over the last few months. The latest city affected is San Diego, where JUMP’s bikes and scooters will no longer be available as of September 19, with the exception of two naval bases in the city. “We understand this may have a […]

Sales efficiency is the best way to understand the economics of a business. It answers whether a business can ever scale. The harsh truth is, if it can't scale, investors won’t be interested...

After being courted by seemingly every major entertainment and streaming company, Bad Robot has signed an exclusive deal with WarnerMedia. While the production company — led by Star Wars director J.J. Abrams and his wife/co-CEO Katie McGrath — was already working with Warner Bros. to create shows like “Castle Rock” and “Westworld,” this new deal […]

For decades space has been the playplace for world powers, but the advent of (relatively) cheap and frequent rocket launches has opened it up for new business opportunities. But it's still hard as hell, as early adopters of this orbital economy Tess Hatch of Bessemer Ventures, Swarm's Sara Spangelo, and OneWeb's Adrian Steckel can attest.

YouTube will no longer allow paid views and advertising to influence its YouTube Music Charts, the company announced this morning. Instead, it will calculate its rankings based only on view counts coming from organic plays. In addition, it’s changing its methodology for reporting on 24-hour record debuts to also only count views from organic sources, […]

In November 2020, America will go to the polls to vote in perhaps the most consequential election in a generation. The winner will lead the country amid great social, economic and ecological unrest. The 2020 election will be a referendum on both the current White House and the direction of the country at large. Nearly […]

We here at TechCrunch love a good flashback, like when Sebastian Thrun’s puppy, Charlie, was in the spotlight during Thrun’s fireside chat at Disrupt SF a few years ago. Since then, the serial entrepreneur and inventor seems to have doubled down on his vision of the future of transportation with his current flying car company, […]

Apple is changing how subscriptions work on its App Store. Before, any lapse in payment could cut off the customer from being able to use the app’s subscription-based features — and make it more difficult for the developer to reacquire that customer’s business in the future. Now, Apple says developers will have the option to […]

As biotechnology becomes more central to new innovations in healthcare, material science, and manufacturing, one of the nation’s research hubs is getting a new accelerator called Petri to launch companies focused on the commercialization of new technologies. Backed by the Boston-based venture capital firm, Pillar, Petri has a three-year $15 million commitment to back companies […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Kate and Alex were back to cover a lot of late-stage news, which they rounded up with some early-stage notes towards the end. As a reminder, come check out the show at Disrupt SF if you […]

The best medicine against online disinformation is an informed society that’s thinking critically. The problem is there are no shortcuts to universal education. Enter Finnish Public Broadcasting Company, Yle, which is hoping to harness the engagement power of gamification to accelerate awareness and understanding of troll tactics and help more people spot malicious Internet fakes. […]

While tech giants like Google and Amazon build and invest in a multitude of artificial intelligence applications to grow their businesses, a startup has raised a big round of funding to help those that are not technology businesses by nature also jump into the AI fray. Element AI, the very well-funded, well-connected Canadian startup that […]

UK police have arrested a number of environmental activists affiliated with a group which announced last month that it would use drones to try to ground flights at the country’s busiest airport. The group, which calls itself Heathrow Pause, is protesting against the government decision to green light a third runway at the airport. In […]

OKCredit, a Bangalore-based startup that enables small merchants to digitize their bookkeeping, has raised $67 million in a new financing round to grow its business in the nation. The Series B financing round for the two-year-old startup was led by Lightspeed and Tiger Global. The new round, which follows the Series A in June, climbs […]

While Apple and Microsoft strain to sell augmented reality as the next major computing platform, many of the startups aiming to beat them to the punch are crashing and burning. Daqri, which built enterprise-grade AR headsets, has shuttered its HQ, laid off many of its employees and is selling off assets ahead of a shutdown, […]

Fans of sci-fi and fringe tech may already be familiar with the idea of the "space elevator," which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like — and totally impossible with today's technology. But a pair of scientists think they've found an alternative: a Moon elevator. And it's slightly less insane... technically.

GM’s high-end brand unveiled Thursday the 2020 Cadillac CT4, a sporty and small sedan that is designed and priced to attract younger buyers looking to enter the luxury car market. The vehicle’s debut also marks an important expansion for GM’s hands-free driver assistance system, Super Cruise. The hands-free driving system has been lauded for its capabilities; […]

Felicis Ventures has, in its roughly 13 years of existence, established a reputation in venture circles as a smart early-stage investment firm that’s willing to make bets almost anywhere in the world. Founded by ex-Googler Aydin Senkut, the San Francisco-based firm has also demonstrated a knack for attracting talented investors into the fold, including another […]

People win prestigious prizes in tech all the time, but there is something different about The Bold Prize. Unless you’ve been living under a literal or proverbial rock, you’ve probably heard something about the late Jeffrey Epstein, a notorious child molester and human trafficker who also happened to be a billionaire philanthropist and managed to […]

In 2014, I got in on the ground floor of what I thought was a rocket ship. We had all the money and time in the world -- right up until we didn’t.

Ready to squeeze every bit of opportunity out of Disrupt SF this October 2-4? With more than 10,000 attendees, networking might seem like quite the daunting task. Which is why we’ve got your back with TechCrunch’s attendee networking platform, CrunchMatch, that helps you zero in on the people and connections that matter most to your […]

Vudu, the streaming service owned by Walmart, announced a new feature today that will make it easier for viewers to avoid sex and violence in movies. Anyone who’s watched an R-rated movie on broadcast television or on an airplane is probably familiar with films that have been “edited for content,” but Vudu’s new Family Play […]

Paul Brest didn’t set out to transform philanthropy. A constitutional law scholar who clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Harlan and is credited with coining the term “originalism,” Brest spent twelve years as dean of Stanford Law School. But when he was named president of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the country’s […]

Fintech investment is expected to reach new highs in 2019.

Voyage, the autonomous vehicle startup that spun out of Udacity, announced Thursday it has raised $31 million in a round led by Franklin Templeton. Khosla Ventures, Jaguar Land Rover’s InMotion Ventures and Chevron Technology Ventures also participated in the round. The company, which operates a ride-hailing service in retirement communities using self-driving cars supported by […]

Anti-fraud startup Shape Security has tipped over the $1 billion valuation mark following its latest Series F round of $51 million. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company announced the fundraise Thursday, bringing the total amount of outside investment to $173 million since the company debuted in 2011. C5 Capital led the round along with several other […]

Nintendo has been at the crossroads of video games and fitness since the famous Power Pad for the NES, and the Switch is the latest to receive a game powered by physical activity: Ring Fit Adventure. And it actually looks fun!

Replica, the data-gathering tool created within Sidewalk Labs that maps the movement of people in cities, is now a company. The newly formed company, which is headed by Nick Bowden, also announced Thursday it has raised $11 million in a Series A funding round from investors Innovation Endeavors, Firebrand Ventures, and Revolution’s Rise of the […]

Patreon, the platform for independent content creators to operate membership businesses for their core fans, announced it is selling the assets of Kit.com to localized affiliate link service GeniusLink. Founded in 2015, Kit is a social-shopping platform where influencers curate bundles of products (“kits”) they recommend. When their fans buy products they featured in a […]

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. Uber plans to keep defending independent contractor model for drivers Despite California lawmakers passing a bill designed to turn gig workers […]

SmileDirectClub rang the opening bell earlier today, marking its first day of trading as a public company. The teeth-straightening company is now trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol “SDC.” Already, the stock is trading down 11% at $20.36 per share. SmileDirectClub kicked off its IPO hoping to raise up to $1.3 billion at an […]

Pandora today is launching a desktop app for Windows users following its debut of a native Mac app earlier this year. On Mac, Pandora offers a variety of features for desktop users like on-screen notifications, keyboard controls, and a way to select listening “modes” and more. It didn’t, however, include support for streaming podcasts. The […]

Homeownership has long been touted as the American dream. But rising rates of mortgage debt, student loan debt, or otherwise are making the pursuit of homeownership a nightmare. Debt burdened individuals or those with inconsistent or tight cash flow can not only struggle to get credit loan approval when buying a home but also struggle […]

Google says it’s taking new steps to ensure that original reporting gets prioritized in its search results. In other words, articles that kick off a major news cycle should have a prominent in search results for a longer time, rather than getting buried under more recent coverage (some of which may just summarize the original […]

Andreessen Horowitz has led a $15 million Series A in US-based job matching platform for nursing vacancies, Incredible Health. Other investors in the funding round include NFX, Obvious Ventures, Precursor Ventures and Gingerbread Capital. To date the recruitment startup has raised a total of $17M. The California startup’s pitch to nursing professionals and hospitals is […]

Google Photos is getting its own version of Stories. But instead of focusing on what you’re doing now, as Stories on other platforms like Instagram and Snapchat offer, Google Photos is adopting the format to help you take a trip down memory lane. The feature is one of several updates coming to the photo-sharing service […]

After years of back and forth with tax authorities in France, Google has settled a fiscal fraud probe, as the financial prosecutor’s office told Reuters and AFP. Overall, Google will pay a $549 million fine as well as $510 million in back taxes (€500 million and €465 million respectively). This is a settlement, which means […]

Y Combinator has become its own economy since its founding in 2005, as the formative seed-stage venture fund has nurtured leading startups across industries. Today, you’ll often see newer YC startups get started by providing services to larger YC companies — and then become the larger companies themselves (Stripe and Gusto are two of the […]

In December, Amazon launched a crowdsourced Q&A platform into beta with the goal of improving Alexa’s ability to answer questions. That feature, Alexa Answers, is now live to all. Amazon says the feature was well-received by the early community of invite-only participants, who have since contributed hundreds of thousands of answers that have been shared […]

Originally announced in June, changes to Apple’s App Store policies on its Sign in with Apple service and the rules around children’s app categories are being tweaked. New apps must comply right away with the tweaked terms, but existing apps will have until early 2020 to comply with the new rules. The changes announced at […]

Fair, the $1.2 billion startup backed by SoftBank that has built a smartphone-based car leasing platform that lets people takes cars for as little as one month, is making another acquisition in the ongoing consolidation of the short-term car rental market. It’s picking up Canvas, another platform for leasing cars, from its owner Ford Motor […]

Bryn Mooser, co-founder of virtual and augmented reality studio RYOT, said he’s “hanging up my VR and AR hats to really focus on more, shall we say, traditional nonfiction storytelling.” Back in 2016, Mooser sold RYOT to The Huffington Post and AOL (TechCrunch’s parent company, now known as Verizon Media), and he left RYOT at the […]

Ola, the largest ride-hailing service in India, said today its two-wheeler service — Ola Bike — is now operational in 150 Indian cities and towns and it intends to grow this business by three times in the next one year. The eight-year-old SoftBank -backed firm said Ola Bike is enabling it to reach the “hinterlands […]

It’s easy to think about mainframes as some technology dinosaur, but the fact is these machines remain a key component of many large organization’s computing strategies. Today, IBM announced the latest in their line of mainframe computers, the Z15. For starters, as you would probably expect, these are big and powerful machines capable of handling […]

Veo, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based startup that offers an “AI camera” to make it easier for amateur soccer clubs to video and stream matches, has raised $6 million in Series A funding. Backing the round is U.S.-based Courtside Manager, France’s Ventech Capital, and Danish VC Seed Capital. Veo says the new capital will be used to […]

With a new feature called Yelp Connect, Yelp is allowing users to go beyond customer reviews and see “what the restaurants have to say for themselves.” That’s according to Devon Wright, Yelp’s general manager of restaurant marketplaces. He explained that with Yelp Connect, restaurants will be able to post updates about things like recent additions […]

Middesk helps financial entities identify business and regulatory risk in their customer base.