Crunch Hype

If you’ve been experiencing “502 Bad Gateway” notices all morning, for better or worse, you’re not alone. Cloudflare has been experiencing some major outages this morning, leaving many sites reeling in its wake. In fact, the company’s System Status page, which collects global incidents, reads like a laundry list of every major city across the […]

New advances in genetic mapping and manipulation hold the promise of reshaping medical treatments in the 21st century, but thanks to a lack of sufficient infrastructure and apparent scientific disregard, an entire continent is at risk of being left out. Only 2% of genetic material used for pharmaceutical research comes from the African continent, while […]

No, drinking bleach is not a miracle cure for diseases and other conditions — but that’s the sort of bogus health claim that’s floating around the web these days, getting blocked by sites like Amazon and YouTube. Now you can add Facebook to that list of sites taking action — well, kind of! The social network […]

When is a smart home not so smart? When it can be hacked. That’s exactly what security researchers Chase Dardaman and Jason Wheeler did with one of the Zipato smart hubs. In new research published Tuesday and shared with TechCrunch, Dardaman and Wheeler found three security flaws which when chained together could be abused to […]

Alphabet’s Loon is gearing up for its first big commercial trial later this year, but it’s also breaking records in terms of pure performance. The company announced today that it just retrieved P-496, one of its balloon flight systems that earned the notable distinction of breaking the record for longest time spent continuously in the […]

Samsung has quietly discontinued an app that it built specifically for India, one of its largest markets and where it houses a humongous research and development team. The AI-powered Android app, called Samsung Mall, was positioned to help users identify objects around them and locate it on shopping sites to make the purchase. The company […]

Nvidia made a somewhat unusual announcement today: it’s launching a set of updated GPUs that will come in at the same price points as the existing GeForce RTC 2060, 2070 and 2080 GPUs with ‘Super’ variants that offer better performance at the same price and with the same power consumption specs. Prices for the GeForce […]

In enterprise security, there’s been a slow but steady move toward implementing zero trust security models and moving away from trusting anybody solely based on the fact that they have access to the company VPN, for example. That, to some degree, shifts the line of defense to the authentication service, which has to ensure that […]

Google spinout and now fellow member of the Alphabet family of companies Loon will get a big test in the coming months, as it begins its first commercial trial in Kenya in partnership with Telkom Kenya . Loon’s entire mission is to provide internet connectivity to areas that are typically underserved, using high-altitude balloons with […]

Kabbage, the AI-based small business loans platform backed by Softbank and others, is adding more firepower to its lending machine: the Atlanta-based startup has secured an additional $200 million in the form of a revolving credit facility from an unnamed subsidiary of a large life insurance company, managed and administered by 20 Gates Management, and […]

NASA has completed a key test in preparing for its planned crewed space mission to return to the Moon, successfully testing the Launch Abort System (LAS for short) for its Orion spacecraft. This is the first full stress test of the LAS, which involved launching both an Orion test craft and the full LAS system […]

Currencycloud, the provider of an API and service for cross-boarder payments that is used by a host of fintechs and larger companies, including most recently Visa, has closed the first part in Series E funding. According to sources, the over 10 year old London headquartered company announced internally that it was closing in on new […]

Sweet Escape, a startup founded in Indonesia that helps connect photographers with customers, is all smiles today after it announced a $6 million Series A round. The company — which was profiled by TechCrunch last year — said that the investment was led by Singapore-based funds Openspace Ventures and Jungle Ventures with participation from Burda […]

Disrupt Berlin 2019, which takes place on 11-12 December, attracts an international community more than 3,000 people from over 50 countries. This two-day, program-packed event, focused on early-stage startups across Europe and beyond, represents an ocean of opportunity. We want to make that ocean available and affordable to as many people as possible, so we are […]

Competition in Africa’s two-wheel ride-hail market is accelerating. Nigerian motorcycle transit startup MAX.ng was the latest startup to add funding, raising a $7 million funding round in June with participation of Japanese manufacturer Yamaha. Based in Lagos, the company’s app-based platform coordinates motorcycle taxi and delivery services for individuals and businesses. With the Series A […]

India’s Ola is further widening its lead over Uber in the nation — and getting the help it needs from their mutual investor. Ola Electric has raised $250 million from SoftBank as India’s largest ride hailing firm pushes to scale its electric vehicles business in the country. The Series B financing round, details of which […]

Elon Musk’s tunneling and transportation startup The Boring Company is ramping up hiring about six weeks after landing a $48.7 million commercial contract to build and operate an underground “people mover” in Las Vegas. The company’s website has posted more than a dozen new job openings in Las Vegas as well another 15 at its […]

Equinix, one of the world’s largest data center companies, announced that it will form a $1 billion joint venture with GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. The partnership will focus on building xScale data centers in Europe. Instead of targeting the wholesale market, Equinix is developing xScale data centers to handle the demands of of the […]

It’s official. Samsung just sent out invites for the next Unpacked event. The big show kicks off at 4PM ET August 7, right here in New York. The timing lines up with rumors that have been floating around for few weeks — not to mention last year’s big event. And in case there was any […]

Even as much of the world is digitizing its governance, in small towns and villages of India, data about its citizens is still being largely logged on long and thick notebooks. Have they received the subsidized cooking gas cylinders? How frequent are the power cuts in the village? If these data points exist at all, […]

Susa Ventures, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based, seed-stage venture firm, has closed on two new funds, a $90 million early-stage fund — its third flagship fund — along with its first opportunity fund, to which investors committed $50 million. Though young, Susa has some very fast-growing companies in its portfolio, which surely smoothed the fundraising process. […]

Tim Cook doesn’t seem to be particularly happy with The Wall Street Journal. A day after an in-depth report describing Jony Ive’s cooling departure from Apple and the degrading nature of the design team at Apple, Cook made the rare move of responding directly to the report in an email sent to a reporter at […]

Virginia has expanded a revenge porn law to include “deepfakes,” the fabricated or manipulated videos and images of people made using machine learning that have begun popping up with increasing regularity. The law, which went into effect Monday, now makes it illegal to share nude photos of videos of someone without their permission — whether […]

More than three years ago, we told you about Call9, a young, Palo Alto, Calif.-based telemedicine startup that wanted to reduce unnecessary visits to emergency rooms by those who call 911 most frequently, which is people in nursing homes. The company’s co-founders — Celina Tenev, a radiology postdoctoral fellow from Stanford, and Timothy Peck, who […]

Bird strikes are a very real danger to planes in flight, and consequently aircraft are required to undergo bird strike testing — but what about drones? With UAV interference at airports on the rise, drone strike testing may soon be likewise mandatory, and if it's anything like what these German researchers are doing, it'll involve shooting the craft out of air cannons at high speed.

Startups look to new technologies to protect against gun violence.

In a meeting with a group of journalists in South Korea, Samsung Electronics CEO DJ Koh candidly addressed the company’s latest hardware mishap. “It was embarrassing,” he told reporters, as quoted by The Independent. “I pushed it through before it was ready.” That last bit no one can debate, really. After years of preamble, Samsung […]

Meditation app unicorn Calm wants you to doze off to the dulcet tones of actor Matthew McConaughey’s southern drawl or writer Stephen Fry’s English accent. Calm’s Sleep Stories feature that launched last year is a hit, with more than 150 million listens from its 2 million paid subscribers and 50 million downloads. While lots of […]

You may not be familiar with Kaltura‘s name, but chances are you’ve used the company’s video platform at some point or another, given that it offers a variety of video services for enterprises, educational institutions and video-on-demand platforms, including HBO, Phillips, SAP, Stanford and others. Today, the company announced the launch of an advanced analytics […]

At a time when immigration and border issues are foremost on Americans' minds, the integrity of the men and women who enforce those policies is similarly important. Unfortunately, a private Facebook group for Border Patrol officers shows extremely troubling conduct — and shows the limits of such groups for those wishing to engage in bad behavior online.

It was more than 10 years ago when Freada Kapor Klein published her book “Giving Notice” about hidden biases. Fast forward to today, and it’s sometimes hard to say that anything has changed. Kapor Klein, a long-time advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the tech industry, is the co-founding partner at Kapor Capital and […]

Sony’s PlayStation Vue live TV streaming service is joining its rivals with the roll out of another price increase. The company announced today it will be upping the price for all its plans by $5 per month each. The change is live as of today for new subscribers, and will kick in for current customers […]

Lucid Motors, the electric vehicle startup backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, has hired Peter Hochholdinger to head up manufacturing operations just a week after news leaked the automotive executive had left a similar post at Tesla. Hochholdinger was an executive at Audi for more than two decades before joining Tesla as its top […]

Just as the Bluetooth headset ushered in an era of hands-free calling, AR startups are trying to convince manufacturing startups that AR headsets will bring new efficiencies with hands-free computing. As Magic Leap and Microsoft have dropped hundreds of millions trying to spend their way into new tech modalities for enterprise customers, smaller players are […]

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 civil rights audit says white supremacy policy is ‘too narrow’ Over the last six months, Facebook has made changes around […]

Girlboss is the multi-media brand for women founded by serial entrepreneur Sophia Amoruso, whose last company, Nasty Gal, presaged the direct to consumer trend before collapsing under the weight of its own ambition. Now, Amoruso is back with yet another iteration on Girlboss, the media site launched off the strength of her podcast, in what […]

Berlin-based Spark Networks, the owner of niche dating app brands like Christian Mingle, Jdate, LDSsingles, Silver Singles, Jswipe, and others, today announced it has acquired Match.com competitor Zoosk for a combination of cash and stock. The deal values Zoosk at approximately $258 million. Spark says it will issue 12,980,000 American Depositary Shares (ADS) to former […]

Tim Hsia & Neil Devani Contributor Share on Twitter Tim Hsia is the CEO of Media Mobilize and a Venture Partner at Digital Garage. Neil Devani is an angel investor and venture capitalist focused on companies solving hard problems. More posts by this contributor ‘The Operators’: Acceleprise partner Whitney Sales and Docsend CEO Russ Heddleston […]

Fintech startup Revolut wants to make it easier to donate to charities. Using a new feature, you can now round up card payments to the nearest whole number and donate a little amount to a charity. Over time, those donations might add up. The startup already has some features to put some money aside and […]

Esteemed venture investor-turned-professional coach Jerry Colonna has worked with a long list of top CEOs and renowned executive teams. In his new book, Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up (available now), Jerry explores the tension between traditional leadership practices and personal happiness that faces many founders today. Jerry discusses how strong leadership and […]

Female founders, what questions would you ask if you could spend 30 minutes picking the brain of a leading female VC? Your opportunity to find out awaits at Disrupt SF 2019 on October 2-4. We’ve partnered with All Raise — a startup nonprofit with a mission to accelerate your success — to host a day-long […]

SEO has been around for decades, but it’s still one of the most important growth channels for early-stage startups. Factorial Digital is a growth marketing agency based in NYC that specializes in search and startups. Co-founder Corey Eulas shares his philosophy for growth marketing and how his distributed team collaborates with companies across a variety […]

You can’t go to an enterprise conference these days without talking containers — and specifically the Kubernetes container management system. It’s no surprise then, that we’ll do the same at our inaugural TC Sessions: Enterprise event on September 5 in San Francisco. As we already announced last week, Kubernetes co-founder Craig McLuckie and Aparna Sinha, […]

Uber is taking another step to more fully integrate micromobility into its core services. Today, Uber is now showing JUMP bikes, scooters and Lime scooters in the main map you see when you first open the Uber app in Atlanta, Ga. and San Diego, Calif. This is the first time Uber has so prominently displayed […]

Oh, Bixby. Samsung made big promises and some key acquisitions ahead of its launch. But the company’s smart assistant got off to a rocky start and has had trouble making a name for itself in amongst a sea of competitors ever since. Third-party integration has long been one of the categories in which Samsung has […]

Spotify is shutting down a program that allowed indie artists to upload their own music to the streaming service, the company announced today. The new upload tool was first introduced in beta testing in September 2018, offering U.S. artists an easy way to add tracks and their accompanying metadata to Spotify with just a few […]

After raising $21 million in 2017 for a late-stage pivot from mobile TV to set-top-box-free IPTV services for the home, MobiTV is announcing another large growth round. The company — an early mover in building services to stream broadcast TV on mobile devices (it was established in 1999) — has raised $50 million more to […]

All startup founders want to steer the business they started to a success outcome. Sometimes, the goal is an initial public offering. Sometimes, it’s an acquisition. Though acquisitions often represent a kind of finish line for entrepreneurs, they aren’t easy to line up, and even when an offer is on the table, it often comes […]

In addition to expanding Prime Day to a two-day long sale event, taking place on July 15-16, Amazon today announced it’s kicking things off with early Prime Day sales across a range of devices and services. The pre-sale includes discounts on the Fire TV Recast, Ring Video Doorbell, and Echo Dot — the latter a […]

After years of buildup, 5G is finally here — albeit more as a trickle than a deluge. These things take time, of course. Carriers are adding coverage, city by city, promising dozens by years end. And as for hardware, early adopters have somewhere between one and three handsets to chose from, carrier dependent. 5G is […]