Crunch Hype

Ajit Pai has long signaled that he would approve a T-Mobile/Sprint merger, but today the FCC Chairman made it official. In spite of widespread opposition suggesting that the combining of the country’s third and fourth largest carriers would reduce competition in the marketplace, Pai takes the stance that such a move would actual promote competition. […]

Indian budget hotel booking startup Oyo will invest 300 million euros ($335 million) in its vacation home rental business, it said Wednesday, as it looks to expand its footprint in Europe and possibly closely compete with global giant Airbnb, one of its investors. The Gurgaon-based startup, which acquired Amsterdam-based holiday rental company Leisure in May […]

WeWork’s S-1 misses these three key points After much discussion, WeWork finally dropped its S-1 filing with the SEC today as it makes preparations for its IPO. While the company has been producing sizable revenues the past few years, the company didn’t disclose everything I think it needed to in order for investors to make […]

Slack has been working to beef up the product recently for its larger customers. A couple of weeks ago that involved more sophisticated security tools. Today, it was the admins’ turn to get a couple of new tools that help make it easier to manage Slack in larger settings. For starters, Slack has created an […]

Skip is beginning to test the first electric scooter that the startup built entirely in-house. They’re not quite ready for primetime, but Skip expects to deploy them in San Francisco this October. That’s notably when San Francisco plans to allow service providers to deploy electric scooters as part of the city’s first permanent permitting program. […]

No startup is as polarizing as WeWork, and for good reason. The company, whose relentless growth has seen it open 528 locations across 111 cities in just about nine years, has never been entirely forthcoming on exactly how the unit economics add up at its locations. And so we have had a beautiful Rorschach test […]

Facebook is launching two new ad units designed to help movie studios promote their latest releases. The first unit is called a movie reminder ad, and it does exactly that —since studios usually start marketing their titles months or even years before release, they can now include an Interested button in their Facebook ads, allowing […]

It’s almost certainly no coincidence that Misfit’s new smartwatch bears more than a passing resemblance to the Fossil devices announced a week or two back. The one-time modular fitness startup has been part of the Fossil family since 2015, introducing its first full-on smartwatch two years later. The lines have continued to blur between the […]

Obviously, not everyone owns their boat, and boat ownership is far more unique than car ownership – which makes it maybe an ideal category for peer-to-peer marketplace rentals. P2P boat rental startup Boatsetter recognized this opportunity, and is now announcing a $10 million Series A “extension” funding round to help it grow its business, with […]

Starsky Robotics has been building its self-driving — and human-driven — truck business for three years now. And it’s finally ready to show off its first product. It’s not, as one might presume, a self-driving truck. This product, called Hutch, offers what in Starsky’s view is far more valuable: automatic access to its trucking capacity, […]

Enterprise carpooling startup Scoop just closed a $60 million round led by Activate Capital with participation from Goldman Sachs, NGP Capital, Total Group, BNP Capital and others.to fuel its expansion and growth. This round brings Scoop’s total funding to $106 million. Scoop, which launched back in 2015, is a corporate carpooling service that works with […]

Today, Procore, a construction software company, announced Procore BIM (Building Information Modeling), a new tool that takes advantage of Apple hardware advances to bring the 3D construction model to iOS. Dave McCool, senior product manager at Procore, says that architects and engineers have been working with 3D models of complex buildings for years on desktop […]

A team of computer scientists has built a new app that can wirelessly detect credit card skimmers, often found discreetly placed on gas pumps and bank ATMs. Gone are the days where entire card skimmers would take over the front facade of an entire cash machine. Credit card skimmers are tiny, almost invisible — and […]

California-based kayak maker Oru has built a great brand on the strength of its origami-inspired folding kayaks, and now it’s launching its lightest and most portable model yet with a new Kickstarter project. The Oru Inlet miraculously packs up to the size of a suitcase, weights less than 20 lbs, and can unfold and be […]

Just a couple of months after disclosing a $15 million round of funding, vCita, the business management SaaS for SMEs, has made an acquisition: It’s acquiring WiseStamp, a veteran of the Israeli startup scene that launched its email marketing tool a decade ago. Unsurprisingly, terms of the deal remain undisclosed. However, I understand that vCita […]

WeWork is expected to go public as soon as next month.

Audacious. Bold. Innovative. If those adjectives describe your early-stage startup, if you’re champing at the bit to launch your company to the world — we want you! Apply to compete in Startup Battlefield at Disrupt Berlin 2019. Our premier pitch competition takes place on 11-12 December, and a select cohort of startups will compete for bragging […]

Facebook’s lead privacy regulator in Europe is now asking the company for detailed information about the operation of a voice-to-text feature in Facebook’s Messenger app and how it complies with EU law. Yesterday Bloomberg reported that Facebook uses human contractors to transcribe app users’ audio messages — yet its privacy policy makes no clear mention […]

We love Berlin’s electric, evolving, early-startup ecosystem. Let’s be perfectly blunt: Whether you’re a startup founder, investor, hacker or tech leader, you can’t afford to miss Disrupt Berlin 2019, which takes place on 11-12 December. Get your super early-bird passes here. TechCrunch honors its Silicon Valley roots, and we pack that ethic in our carry-on […]

Nigerian freight logistics startup Kobo360 has raised a $20 million Series A round led by Goldman Sachs and $10 million in working capital financing from Nigerian commercial banks. The company — with an Uber -like app that connects truckers and companies to delivery services — will use the funds to upgrade its platform and expand […]

Binks is a custom clothing startup created after co-founder and CEO Aamna Khan realized how frustrating it is to find well-fitting women’s workwear in Indian cities. Currently participating in Y Combinator’s accelerator program, Binks solves the problem by using computer vision and machine learning to provide customers with clothing sewn to their measurements, shipped in […]

Holy hardware, startup founders! You have only 24 hours left to apply to the Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen on November 11-12. This hardware-only pitch competition, cousin to TechCrunch’s world-renown Startup Battlefield, is a real game-changer. Got hardware? Want to launch on a world stage? Do. Not. Delay. Apply to compete in TC Hardware Battlefield 2019 […]

President Donald Trump and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative have issued technology companies some temporary tariff relief. Citing an unwillingness to hit consumers with higher prices on things like computers, mobile phones, laptops, video game consoles, computer monitors, clothes and shoes before the holidays, the President and his trade reps are holding off […]

At a press event in San Francisco, Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour talked about a number of product changes coming to the company’s service, he also addressed the oft-memed user request for an edit button. Long story, short, you shouldn’t expect to see the button anytime soon. “Honestly, it’s a feature that I think we […]

As part of new efforts towards accessibility, Google announced Project Euphonia at I/O in May: An attempt to make speech recognition capable of understanding people with non-standard speaking voices or impediments. The company has just published a post and its paper explaining some of the AI work enabling the new capability.

You may soon be able to organize Twitter’s web of hashtags and handles in a smarter way — that is, if the company can pull off its ambitious new rethinking of the app’s timelines. The company isn’t getting rid of the process of following users, but at a press event in SF, company execs announced […]

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

Recharge, a startup that tried convincing hotels to let its customers rent their rooms by the hour and even minute, has revamped and rebranded. Now Globe, the company is hoping to convince guests to sign up for short stays instead in people’s homes so that they can kick back between other commitments, and, if the […]

A group of tech leaders has banded together to speak out against white supremacy and rampant hate speech on tech platforms. The group, Build Tech We Trust, refers to itself as a collective of tech CEOs, activists, changemakers and workers who are committed to countering hate and terrorism. In a public letter published today, Project […]

Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg has unveiled his plan to address the broadband gap in this country: an $80 billion "Internet For All" initiative and set of related reforms. It echoes Senator Elizabeth Warren's (D-MA) announcement last week, which is generally speaking a good thing.

No matter if you have a million dollars or a billion dollars to burn, it’s confidence, not capital, that should be the currency of acceleration at a startup.

Y Combinator has kept an eye on cannabis startups over the years, but it’s their latest investment that’s sure to attract the attention of both marijuana users and law enforcement. SannTek Labs, which is launching with new funding out of Y Combinator’s latest jumbo class of startups, is building a new kind of breathalyzer that […]

Xiaomi has now been India’s top smartphone seller for eight straight quarters. The company has become a constant headache for Samsung in the world’s second largest smartphone market as sales have slowed pretty much everywhere else in the world. The Chinese electronics giant shipped 10.4 million handsets in the quarter that ended in June, commanding […]

“The future is private.” Clearly, Facebook still has a way to go. Facebook has become the latest tech giant to face scrutiny over its handling of users’ data, following a report that said the social media giant collected audio data and recordings from its users and transcribed it using third-party contractors. The report came from […]

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. Verizon is selling Tumblr to WordPress.com parent, Automattic It’s been six years since Yahoo acquired the popular blogging platform for more […]

In a widely anticipated move, CBS and Viacom have agreed to reunite. The two media giants split back in 2006, although the Redstone family maintained control through National Amusements, a privately held holding company. Now they’re coming back together in an all-stock merger, creating a new entity with the straightforward-but-ungainly name ViacomCBS. The move is, […]

AT&T’s live TV streaming service, DirecTV Now, is getting a new name. The company in July announced that the service would soon be rebranded to AT&T TV NOW at some point later in the summer. The company today confirmed that change is officially rolling out. The company teased the rebrand’s launch on its Twitter account […]

Advice on content marketing always talks about getting people to your blog. But, what about once they’re there — how do you get them to then buy from you?

Portable consoles are hardly new, and thanks to the Switch, they’re basically the most popular gaming devices in the world. But ClockworkPi’s GameShell is something totally unique, and entirely refreshing when it comes to gaming on the go. This clever DIY console kit provides everything you need to assemble your own pocket gaming machine at […]

Coca-Cola’s Dasani brand is the latest company pitching bottled water to go the aluminum can route. It’s part of a broader rejiggering of the water brand’s plans to use mostly recycled material for their water bottles by 2030. The company is debuting a hybrid bottle that’s made from half renewable and recycled PET plastic in […]

Facebook spent billions on Oculus in 2014, and in the years since the organization has been absorbed deeper into Facebook while the startup’s co-founders have stepped back in prominence. Today, the final Oculus co-founder remaining at Facebook, Nate Mitchell, announced in an internal memo sent to employees that he was leaving the company. The news […]

Domino’s will start using custom electric bikes for pizza delivery through a partnership with Rad Power Bikes, as it aims to become more competitive with on-demand apps like DoorDash, GrubHub and UberEats. Hundreds of e-bikes will be deployed across corporate-owned stores later this year in Baltimore, Houston, Miami and Salt Lake City, the company said Tuesday. […]

TechCrunch’s flagship tech conference — Disrupt San Francisco 2019 — takes place on October 2-4. Disrupt is the OG of tech startup conferences, and it rolls old school in keeping with the feisty, do-what-it-takes spirit of Silicon Valley. Disrupt is the intersection of now and future tech. It’s where startuppers of every stripe gather to learn, […]

Cray has been commissioned by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to create a supercomputer head and shoulders above all the rest, with the contract valued at some $600 million. Disappointingly, El Capitan, as the system will be called, will be more or less solely dedicated to redesigning our nuclear armament.

Google today announced that it is bringing a new font to Docs, Sheets and Slides that was explicitly designed to improve reading speeds. The new font, Lexend, was developed by Thomas Jockin, who is probably best known for his Quicksand font. While Google stresses how this will benefit students, most of us could probably benefit […]

Allbirds is now selling socks. The shoe brand that’s de rigueur for investors, entrepreneurs and aspirants in Silicon Valley has been bitten by the sock bug. But, because this is Allbirds (and Silicon Valley), the company didn’t just launch a new line of socks. They’re using a “brand new material” called Trino that uses a […]

Oregon this week became the 15th state (plus the District of Columbia) to sign onto a lawsuit seeking to stop a T-Mobile/Sprint merger. The suit, co-signed by 16 attorneys general, argues that a merger between the country’s third and fourth largest carriers would greatly reduce competition in the wireless industry. “It’s important that Oregon join […]

Over the past 15 years, I’ve seen a pernicious disease infect a number of marketplace startups. I call it Marketplace Paralysis. The root cause of the disease is quite innocent and seemingly harmless.

Brick & Mortar Ventures, a young, San Francisco-based venture firm that’s focused on startups innovating in or around architecture, engineering, construction, and facilities management, has closed with $97.2 million in capital commitments. The fund is one in a sea or debut funds that have swung open their doors in recent years, though it’s also interesting […]

Not one to let Face App and Snapchat steal its spotlight, Facebook announced today that it’s opening its closed beta of Spark AR on Instagram, letting any developer build and share an augmented reality filter on the platform. The company announced this change was coming at its F8 keynote earlier this year. Phone-based AR isn’t […]