Crunch Hype

Ethiopia is flexing its ambitions to become Africa’s next startup hub. The country of 105 million with the continent’s seventh largest economy is revamping government policies, firing up angel networks, and rallying digital entrepreneurs. Ethiopia currently lags the continent’s tech standouts—like Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa—that have become focal points for startup formation, VC, and […]

After a Wall Street Journal investigation concluded that there are millions of fake business listings on Google Maps, the company has issued a response detailing the measures it takes to combat the problem. According to estimates from online advertising experts surveyed by the WSJ, there are “roughly 11 million falsely listed businesses on any given […]

Automakers like Audi, BMW, GM’s Cadillac, Nissan and Tesla have advanced driver assistance systems that are robust enough to take the sting out of that daily highway commute by handling some driving tasks. The problem: Drivers don’t understand the limitations of these systems, according to two new studies released Thursday by Insurance Institute for Highway […]

Just shy of three years ago, Pokémon GO took over the world. Players filled the sidewalks, and crowds of trainers flooded parks and landmarks. Anywhere you looked, people were throwing Pokéballs and chasing Snorlax. As the game grew, so did the company behind it. Niantic had started its life as an experimental “lab” within Google […]

The writing has been on the slate for some time now. Roughly this time last year, we reported that Google had wiped all tablet sales off its site. Turns out that was just a bug, but it seemed like an ominous portent of things to come. Google still went ahead and launched the Pixel Slate […]

NASA’s very own free-floating Companion Cube equivalent took its own first tentative “steps” in space today, demonstrating its ability to rotate on its own in zero gravity inside the International Space Station. The robot, called “Bumble” and one of a series of Astrobee robots that NASA developed to work along with astronauts on the ISS, […]

It was a historic day for Slack (NYSE: WORK). The workplace communication software juggernaut debuted on the New York Stock Exchange up 48% at $38.50 per share after reports emerged Wednesday night that the business had agreed to a reference price of $26 per share. Slack, founded in 2009 as Tiny Speck, closed up 48.5% […]

The number of seed-stage funding deals in the U.S. declined for the fourth straight year in 2018. Yet there continues to be a huge surplus of available capital, with more funds out there than ever.

In a world where the enterprise market hovers around $500 billion in annual sales, is it any wonder that hundreds of enterprise startups launch into that fiercely competitive arena every year? It’s a thrilling, roller-coaster ride that’s seen it all: serious success, wild wealth and rapid failure. That’s why we’re excited to host our inaugural […]

The online behavioural advertising industry is illegally profiling internet users. That’s the damning assessment of the U.K.’s data protection regulator in an update report published today, in which it sets out major concerns about the programmatic advertising process known as real-time bidding (RTB), which makes up a large chunk of online advertising. In what sounds […]

While mirrorless cameras accelerate into the future, medium format models are hearkening unto the past — and Hasselblad chief among them. Its new digital back fits lenses going back to the '50s, and the tiny 907X camera body is about as lovely a throwback as one can imagine.

“Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda will be making his debut as a feature film director on Netflix . Variety reports that Netflix won the rights to Miranda’s film adaptation of “Tick Tick … Boom!” following “a heated bidding war,” with Andrew Garfield (who played Eduardo Saverin in “The Social Network” and recently won a Tony for […]

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. Welcome to this transcribed edition of The Operators. TechCrunch is beginning to publish podcasts from industry […]

Prosthetic limbs are getting better, but not as quickly as you'd think. They're not as smart as our real limbs, which (directed by the brain) do things like automatically stretch out to catch ourselves when we fall. This particular "stumble reflex" was the subject of an interesting study at Vanderbilt that required its subjects to fall down... a lot.

Netflix Hack Day, the company’s internal hackathon, has a habit of producing some amazing gems — like a brain-controlled interface, a Fitbit hack that shuts off Netflix when you fall asleep, a Netflix app for the original NES and a way to navigate the Netflix app with Face ID and ARKit, to name a few. […]

Carnegie Mellon researchers working with peers from the University of Minnesota have made a big breakthrough in brain-computer interface (BCI) and robotic technology: They’ve developed a way for a person to control a robot arm with their minds — with no surgery or invasive procedures required to make it possible. The mind-controlled robot in this […]

Many roles inside of startups and tech companies are clear: marketers market, salespeople sell, engineers engineer. Then there are the roles like “product manager” that seem obvious on the surface (product managers “product,” right?) but in reality are very fuzzy roles that can be highly variable across different companies. A few weeks ago, TechCrunch editor […]

Apple this morning announced a “voluntary” recall of MacBook Pro batteries due to potential overheating and safety risk. The recall only applies to mid-2015 15-inch MacBook Pros with Retina displays. As the company notes in a press release, these models were primarily sold between September 2015 and February 2017. Concerned users can see if their […]

We’re nearing the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing (on July 24) and, to celebrate, there’s an interactive augmented reality app called 321 LAUNCH that will bring a faithful recreation of the launch to your mobile device — and any surface you happen to have at hand. Their are actually two AR experiences […]

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. Slack prices IPO at $26 per share Slack is debuting on the New York Stock Exchange today. Trading hasn’t opened yet […]

You surely know the whole deal about carts and horses by now. When Samsung’s first 5G handset, the Galaxy S10 5G, arrives on Sprint tomorrow, users will be able to get those blazing fast mobile speeds in all of four markets: Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Kansas City. Those all launched last week, after the arrival […]

Fintech startup Brex went from 0 to a valuation of $1 billion in less than two years. It is a fascinating company, and so is Brex’s co-founder and CEO Henrique Dubugras. He’s coming to TechCrunch Disrupt SF to tell us more about the company’s explosive growth. Brex started with a corporate card for startups. Compared […]

Machine learning is the holy grail of data analysis, but unfortunately, that holy grail oftentimes requires a PhD in Computer Science just to get started. Despite the incredible attention that machine learning and artificial intelligence get from the press, the reality is that there is a massive gap between the needs of companies to solve […]

Google has been steadily updating its tools for businesses looking to reach more customers across Google’s platforms, including Search and Google Maps. Last year, the company took on Facebook Pages with a feature that let users “follow” and message businesses directly, as well as be updated about promotions, sales, and other events. Today, Google is […]

Slack, the workplace messaging platform that has helped define a key category of enterprise IT, made its debut as a public company today with a pop. Trading as “WORK” on the New York Stock Exchange, it opened at $38.50 after setting a reference price last night of $26, valuing it at $15.7 billion, and then […]

Law firms have little incentive to build or buy software that will save their lawyers time since they often bill clients by the hour. Tasks like tracking down legal documents, extracting key information, and drawing up hiring offers or funding term sheet add up to make lawyers expensive even if they’re constantly repeating mindless busy […]

After spending years working for in-house design teams and well-known brand agencies such as Nike, Google, and Pentagram, Joe and Leslie Stitzlein, who are also husband and wife, decided to launch their own branding studio. You’ve seen their work in many places; from launching the identities for Netflix, Mac OS X, Nike Flyknit, dwell and […]

When Plaid acquired Quovo earlier this year, it was clear the company wanted to move beyond checking and savings data to a broader view of investments. Today, the company announced Investments, an API based on Quovo, that enables customers to pull in investment data into their apps. Lowell Putnam, head of partnerships at Plaid and […]

After a busy year, Facebook’s VR arm is returning to San Jose, Calif. on September 25 and 26 for the sixth annual Oculus Connect. Oculus has had a transformative year with the release of its Quest and Rift S headsets, turning the high-end gaming company into one more focused on meeting the needs of mainstream […]

Earlier this week, Niantic announced that Harry Potter: Wizards Unite — the company’s Potter-themed followup to Pokémon GO — would start rolling out to the world on June 21st. Looks like they decided to get the ball rolling a bit early, though. The game just went live on the iOS and Android app stores in […]

Hopper, the handy travel app that uses A.I. to predict airfare pricing, is today expanding its service to include hotels. Like airfare, hotel pricing is also dynamic — it can fluctuate with traveler demand. During busy times, prices are higher. And when a hotel has rooms to fill, the prices drop. Now, Hopper is bringing […]

When Armoire first emerged from MIT’s accelerator program back in 2016, the company’s vision was already fully formed — combine StitchFix and Rent the Runway to give women a low-cost, sustainable way to get a high-fashion, high-functioning wardrobe for every day. Ambika Singh, the Seattle-based company’s chief executive set out to solve two problems, the […]

Frugal founders and savvy shoppers take heed. Disrupt San Francisco 2019, which takes place October 2-4, can be a serious boon to your business. But our super-early-bird pricing disappears in a cloud of ruffled feathers on June 21 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). That’s just 48 hours left to save. Whether you’re on a shoestring budget […]

The pro-focused photo editing tool Lightroom is now available on the Mac App Store, marking the first major Adobe app to be available through the revamped version of the platform. The title joins the more lightweight Photoshop Elements, but is the sole pro app currently available through the venue. Unlike Element’s flat $70 a month […]

File ice cream vans under ‘things I never thought posed a significant risk to the environment but might actually.’ Nissan has developed a new concept vehicle that addresses the problem of all the emissions generated by conventional ice cream vans, and older models in particular, which pump out a lot of greenhouse gases while idling […]

It started with a hashtag. Amande de Cadenet, photographer, author, and TV host, was spending time with her sister, a director and photographer in her own right, when an ACLU study on the lack of diversity among directors was published in the NYT Magazine, with de Cadenet’s sister an interviewee in the cover story. “It’s […]

The UK government has delayed the introduction of mandatory age verification for accessing online pornography — blaming an administrative cock-up. The controversial scheme had been due to launch on July 15, after an earlier implementation date also came and went. Although in this instance it does not appear the policy has been derailed by the […]

As businesses continue to move more of their computing and data to the cloud, one of the startups that has made a name for itself as a provider of cloud-based solutions to protect and manage those IT assets has raised a big round of funding to build its business. Druva, which provides software-as-a-service-based data protection, […]

In a bid to expand its educational offerings, iRobot has acquired local Massachusetts-based startup, Root Robotics. The company is the creator of the eponymous coding robot, a two-wheeled device designed to draw on whiteboards and other surfaces, scanning colors, playing music and otherwise playing out coding instructions. We had the company at our CES stage […]

Dawn Capital has made a name for itself over the last several years for having a sharp eye when it comes to spotting interesting B2B startups in Europe before they become big, with companies like iZettle (acquired by PayPal last year for $2.2 billion), Mimecast (IPO’d and now worth $2.8 billion), Collibra and Showpad among […]

Nigerian motorcycle transit startup MAX.ng has raised a $7 million funding round led by Novastar Ventures, 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. Six-million of the investment is in Series A capital followed by $1 million in grants. MAX […]

Waymo has locked in an exclusive partnership with Renault and Nissan to research how commercial autonomous vehicles might work for passengers and packages in France and Japan. This exclusive partnership has a deadline — the public announcement says it will last for “an initial period.” Waymo nor the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance provided details on when it […]

China’s driverless cars are coming for passengers in the United States. AutoX and Pony.ai just became the first Chinese companies allowed to offer self-driving robotaxis in the state of California, according to notices posted on the website of the California Public Utilities Commission this week. Started in 2016 by Princeton University professor Jianxiong Xiao, called […]

After London and Johannesburg, startup accelerator and incubator Founders Factory is launching a third city — Paris. Once again, the company is partnering with a corporate backer. And this time, insurance company Aviva France is backing Founders Factory Paris. Albin Serviant is heading the team in Paris and the plan is to hire 50 people. […]

Live sports streaming service fuboTV is expanding further into non-sports content with today’s news that it’s inked a new multi-year deal with Discovery, Inc. that will bring 13 Discovery television networks to its service over the weeks ahead. The new additions will include Discovery Channel, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network and […]

Argo AI is releasing curated data along with high-definition maps to researchers for free, the latest company in the autonomous vehicle industry to open-source some of the information it has captured while developing and testing self-driving cars. The aim, the Ford Motor-backed company says, is to give academic researchers the ability to study the impact […]

Slack’s public debut is happening Thursday on the NYSE and the company has set a reference price of $26 per share for its direct listing, according to WSJ, which would value the company at around $15.7 billion. The company’s stock is expected to pop at open, according to the WSJ’s sources. Slack is pursuing a direct […]

Tesla will start charging $1,000 for its once-standard black paint color next month, according to a tweet Wednesday by CEO Elon Musk, the latest pricing adjustment by the automaker as it aims for profitability. Basic white will become the new (and only) free standard paint color, Musk added in a followup tweet. Musk didn’t explain […]

From the venue and the flashy event website, Waterloo, Ontario’s True North conference (in its second year) doesn’t seem all that distinct from a laundry list of other major tech events that take place each year across North America. But from the moment its main stage programming kicked off on the first day, it was […]