Crunch Hype

Sprint this morning announced that it will be the first network to get its hands on OnePlus’s long-promised 5G handset [not pictured]. The Shenzhen-based manufacturer announced late last year that it was targeting 2019 for the device, bucking the trend of being slightly behind the curve on the latest smartphone technologies. Sprint’s not offering much […]

Your customers don’t really want to cancel. At least, not all of them. Between 15 and 30 percent of customers leave for reasons that are within your control. Tapping into these customers...

Self-driving startup Optimus Ride will become the first to operate a commercial self-driving service in the state of New York – in Brooklyn. But don’t expect these things to be contending with pedestrians, bike riders, taxis and cars on New York’s busiest roads; instead, they’ll be offering shuttle services within Brooklyn Navy Yards, a 300-acre […]

DeepCode, a Swiss startup that’s using machine learning to automate code reviews, has closed a $4M seed round, led by European VC firm Earlybird, with participation from 3VC and existing investor btov Partners. The founders described the platform as a sort of ‘Grammarly for coders’ when we chatted to them early last year. At the […]

TickPick was founded back in 2011, but it never raised any institutional funding — until now, with the announcement of a $40 million investment from PWP Growth Equity. Brett Goldberg and Chris O’Brien (who were college roommates before founding TickPick together and serving as co-CEOs) said they created the site as a marketplace where users […]

Cockroach Labs, makers of CockroachDB, sits in a tough position in the database market. On one side, it has traditional database vendors like Oracle, and on the other there’s AWS and its family of databases. It takes some good technology and serious dollars to compete with those companies. Cockroach took care of the latter with […]

India’s e-commerce giant Flipkart said on Tuesday that it is revamping its shopping app to add support for Hindi language, a video streaming service, and an audio-visual assistant, the latest in a series of recent efforts to expand its reach in the country. The e-commerce firm, which sold majority stake to Walmart for $16 billion […]

Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, is looking to add some cash to its coffers via a new proposed private offering of $1 billion in convertible senior notes, with a due date for maturation of August 1, 2026. The debt offering will be used to cover the cost of general operating expenditures involved in running […]

SpaceX is launching a Falcon 9 rocket with a huge communications satellite as payload, with launch window opening at 6:53 PM EDT (3:53 PM PDT) today. The window extends to 8:21 PM EDT, so there’s a possibility of a launch anytime in between there, should weather conditions or anything impact the ability to launch. The […]

Why CEO Esther Crawford is rewriting the playbook for social startups

Apple Card is getting its first group of public test users today. A limited amount of customers that signed up to be notified about the release of Apple Card are getting the ability to apply for the card in their Wallet app today — as well as the option to order their physical Apple Card. […]

Facebook has failed to clean up the brisk trade in fake product reviews taking place on its platform, an investigation by the consumer association Which? has found. In June both Facebook and eBay were warned by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) they needed to do more to tackle the sale of fake product […]

It’s official — applications are now open for TC Top Picks at Disrupt Berlin 2019, which takes place on 11-12 December. This pre-conference competition is your chance to experience Disrupt Berlin VIP-style and exhibit your early-stage startup to some of the world’s most influential tech leaders, investors and media outlets across Europe, Asia and beyond […]

Spaceflow, a startup founded out of Prague that offers a “tenant experience platform” to help landlords provide a better service, has raised $1.8 million in funding. Leading the round is Credo Ventures, with participation from Day One Capital, and UP21. The company, which also has an office in New York, says it will use the […]

Penta, the business banking provider for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that was recently acquired by fintech company builder Finleap, has raised “over” €8 million in new funding. The round is led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures. Also participating is Finleap, alongside Fabrick, the Italian platform for open banking and fintech services, which is another […]

The Federal Reserve Bank announced today that it is developing a new service called FedNow that will allow all banks in the United States to offer 24/7 real-time payment services every day of the week. FedNow is expected to be available by 2023 or 2024 and will initially support transfers of up to $25,000. FedNow […]

Cybereason, which uses machine learning to increase the number of endpoints a single analyst can manage across a network of distributed resources, has raised $200 million in new financing from SoftBank Group and its affiliates. It’s a sign of the belief that SoftBank has in the technology, since the Japanese investment firm is basically doubling […]

Experian, one of the largest credit reporting bureaus in the United States, announced today that it has invested in CompareAsiaGroup, the financial services marketplace. Experian led the initial closing of a $20 million B1 round. In addition to new funding, the investment also gives Hong Kong-based CompareAsiaGroup access to Experian’s technology, including Experian One, a […]

GoWork, a Gurgaon-based startup that runs a co-working spaces business in India, said on Tuesday it has raised $53 million in a debt round to scale its business in the country as competition in the market, including from recent entrant Oyo Rooms, intensifies. The debt round for the two-year-old startup — not to be confused […]

Carro, an automotive marketplace and car financing startup based in Singapore, said it has raised $30 million to extend and close its $90 million Series B financing round and acquired Indonesia-based marketplace Jualo as it looks to further scale its business in Southeast Asia. The Series B round, for which Carro raised $60 million last […]

Big artificial intelligence companies are promising an automated future but many of their products rely on the labeled training data coming from Scale AI, a startup that highlights machine learning’s intimate bond between human contractors and algorithms. The three-year-old startup announced Monday that it had closed a $100 million Series C round of financing led […]

The U.S. Treasury has just taken the extraordinary step of designating China as a currency manipulator, something no administration has done since the days of Bill Clinton. With the action, the trade war between the U.S. and China has entered a new phase that will likely see both countries stepping up both their rhetoric and […]

Electric scooters are inundating cities, and for good reason. They’re relatively easy to use, accessible, cheap and even a fun means of traveling short distances. And yet, scooters aren’t infallible. For one, it’s nearly impossible to use hand signals, a problem that jacks up the danger factor of these increasingly popular devices. Audi introduced an […]

While The Inside already offers a range of made-to-order furniture like beds, headboards, chairs and ottomans, it’s aiming for the center of your living room today with the launch of its first sofa collection. Founded by CEO Christiane Lemieux (who previously founded Dwell Studio and sold it to Wayfair) and COO Britt Bunn (who previously […]

Google is shutting down its Trips app for mobile phones, but is incorporating much of the functionality from the service into its Maps app and Search features, according to a statement from the company. Support for the Trips app ends today, but information like notes and saved places will be available in Search as long […]

All U.S. stock markets were down severely today, and tech stocks were hit especially hard, as China retaliated to increasing U.S. tariffs by halting imports on U.S. agricultural goods and finally acceded to market pressures by letting the yuan slide in value against the dollar. At one point, the Dow was down nearly 900 points […]

“The OA” is ending after two seasons on Netflix . The series premiered in December 2016 with eight “chapters” that veered pretty far from traditional TV storytelling — the opening credits didn’t roll until nearly the end of the first episode, and episode length varied from 30 minutes to one hour and 10 minutes. Then, […]

There are few topics as hot right now in the enterprise as customer experience management, that ability to collect detailed data about your customers, then deliver customized experiences based on what you have learned about them. To help understand the challenges companies face building this kind of experience, we are bringing Segment CEO Peter Reinhardt […]

Indifi, a Gurgaon-based startup that offers loans to small and medium-sized businesses and also operates an online lending marketplace, has raised 1,450 million Indian rupees ($20.4 million) in a new financing round to expand its business in the country. The Series C round for the four-year-old startup was led by CDC Group, a U.K.-government-owned VC […]

Our French startup Digicoop is a remote-first worker cooperative. The goal was simple: make good products that will have a positive impact on companies. The road to funding, not so simple...

Privacy commissioners from the Americas, Europe, Africa and Australasia have put their names to a joint statement raising concerns about a lack of clarity from Facebook over how data protection safeguards will be baked into its planned cryptocurrency project, Libra. Facebook officially unveiled its big bet to build a global digital currency using blockchain technology […]

The bottom-feeding forum 8chan, which grew popular by embracing fringe hateful internet cultures, is having trouble staying online. After Cloudflare dropped its protection of the site yesterday, 8chan adopted the services of Bitmitigate, but soon lost that too as the company providing Bitmitigate with services dropped them. Deplatforming works, but it can be complicated, so here's a quick explanation of what these pieces are and why we're witnessing this hot-potato act in the wake of the latest tragic mass shootings.

SpaceX is expanding its launch offerings with a new, more affordable and consistent option for small satellite operators looking to put lighter payloads into orbit. The new service offering is designed to work for customers who can take advantage of a “rideshare” launch, sharing space on a Falcon 9 with other small satellites being sent […]

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. StockX was hacked, exposing millions of customers’ data It looks like StockX wasn’t being entirely honest when it sent out a […]

A recent validation study conducted by the David Geffen School of Medicine indicates that virtual reality could provide significant benefits to surgical training. The study, which was financed by the virtual reality surgical training startup Osso VR, indicates that participants who used the company’s training methods improved their overall surgical performance by 230%. That’s a […]

There’s nothing like having a pair of fresh, unique sneakers. Limited-release culture facilitates some of that, but The Custom Movement hopes to make originality and self-expression via sneakers more accessible to the masses. The Custom Movement, a custom sneaker startup backed by Y Combinator, enables independent artists to sell their one-of-a-kind sneaker designs to those […]

We’re just one month away from TC Sessions: Enterprise, which takes place on September 5 at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco. But you have only four days left to score an early-bird ticket and save yourself $100. Right now, you pay $249, but once the clock strikes 11:59 p.m. (PT) on August 9, […]

Airbnb has today announced the acquisition of Urbandoor, a platform that offers extended stays to corporate clients. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Urbandoor was founded in 2015, according to Crunchbase. One of the big differentiators between Urbandoor and Airbnb was not only its focus on business travelers, relocation, etc., but also that […]

Impossible Foods is having quite the year. In the past seven months, the company has signed a nationwide deal with Burger King, weathered a demand surge that saw supplies dwindle and stocks of its signature Impossible burger sell out across the country, and raised fears among players in the $98 billion meat market that they […]

Fair, the vehicle subscription startup backed by SoftBank, is loading its executive team with veterans in the tech, venture and automotive industries as it seeks to build out its Uber leasing program and expand beyond North America. Fair.com today announced three key hires to lead the development of its car subscription app, financing department and […]

AT&T is sweetening the deal on its Unlimited & More Premium plan this week, with the addition of free Spotify Premium. That amounts to a $10-a-month savings for those paying the $80 a month for the wireless service. The plan offers one of seven free partner services, including HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz, VRV, Pandora and […]

The online campaigning activities of the UK’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, have already caught the eye of the country’s data protection watchdog. Responding to concerns about the scope of data processing set out in the Conservative Party’s Privacy Policy being flagged to it by a Twitter user, the Information Commissioner’s Office replied that: “This […]

Huawei has almost certainly been working on a software contingency plan for some time now, prepping for a worst-case scenario. When the U.S. announced that it was blacklisting the Chinese hardware giant earlier this year, those plans were likely accelerated. One of the things that’s still unclear, however, is what role the company’s Hongmeng OS […]

Wear OS’s struggles have not been the result of a lack of trying from all parties. Google’s been trying in earnest to break into the wearables game for several years, and in spite of some high profile hardware partners, the company has failed to make a dent. At this point it’s honestly tough to get […]

I didn’t hide my disappointment very well when I saw that Samsung had killed the mechanical spinning bezel for the original Watch Active. Samsung’s watches have been pretty solid in recent years, providing one of the stronger Apple Watch alternatives, especially in the days before Fitbit launched the Versa. And while I’ve preferred their more […]

Monzo, the fast-growing challenger U.K. challenger bank that recently soft-launched in the U.S., is disclosing a potential, albeit relatively limited, security oversight that saw customer PINs stored incorrectly within the company’s internal systems. Discovered on Friday, the “bug” has now been squashed after being spotted by one of Monzo’s security engineers, co-founder and CEO Tom […]

Mesosphere was born as the commercial face of the open source Mesos project. It was surely a clever solution to make virtual machines run much more efficiently, but times change and companies change. Today the company announced it was changing its name to Day2IQ or D2IQ for short, and fixing its sights on Kubernetes and […]

The boards of Just Eat and Takeaway.com have reached agreement to combine their two European food delivery businesses. The pair of publicly listed companies announced they were in talks to combine their businesses a week ago, saying then that talks were at an advanced stage. Today they said their boards have reached agreement on the […]

Sonderangebot! That sounds like a super-cool robotics startup you’d find at Disrupt Berlin 2019, right? But it’s German for special offer — and that’s super cool, too. Our premier tech conference takes place on 11-12 December, and we want to make attending Disrupt Berlin as easy on the budget as possible. Hence, our buy-now-pay-later Sonderangebot! […]

Fever, a startup that uses proprietary algorithms to help companies plan events, announced today that it has raised $35 million led by Rakuten Capital, the investment arm of Japanese internet giant Rakuten . Other investors in the round, which brings Fever’s total raised to $70 million, included Atresmedia, Accel and Michael Zeisser, the former chairman […]