Crunch Hype

Seven months ago, TechCrunch’s Steve O’Hear reported that LocalGlobe had begun the fundraising process for two separate funds. The London-based seed-stage venture firm was raising yet another seed-stage venture fund, O’Hear said at the time; he also noted that LocalGlobe was also expect to raise its first opportunities fund. Fast-forward and today, the firm, founded […]

Editor’s Note: New feedback buttons You might have noticed at the top and bottom of this newsletter that we have added new feedback buttons. These are a quick way to express your happiness (or unhappiness, as it were) about this Extra Crunch Roundup newsletter. What do you like, and what do you don’t? All feedback […]

The quest to create a social auditorium in virtual reality has eaten many VC dollars over the years. While plenty of contenders have emerged, it’s likely Against Gravity’s Rec Room has been the most creative in its approach to capturing a niche market while plotting how to build a sustainable business based on users in […]

People and robots working together has tremendous potential for factory and construction site settings, but robots are also potentially incredibly dangerous to people, especially when they’re large and powerful, which is typically the case for industrial robots. There are plenty of efforts to make “corobotics” a reality, including production machines like the YuMi produced by […]

Simpo is a startup with a simple idea. It wants to help project managers at large companies get software into the hands of its employee users faster. Today, the company announced a $4.5 million seed investment. The round was led by Redpoint Ventures with participation from Janvest, UpWest, Seedcamp, Elad Gil and other unnamed investors. […]

The future of gaming is streaming. If that wasn’t painfully obvious to you a week ago, it certainly ought to be now. Google got ahead of E3 late last week by finally shedding light on Stadia, a streaming service that promises a hardware agnostic gaming future. It’s still very early days, of course. We got […]

The super early-bird season for serious savings on passes to Disrupt San Francisco 2019 — on October 2-4 — comes to an end next week. Right now, you can save up to $1,800, but that deep discount disappears on June 21 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Don’t miss your chance to attend TechCrunch’s flagship Disrupt event […]

Bird is acquiring electric scooter and moped startup Scoot, confirming TechCrunch’s previous report that the two companies were in acquisition talks. “We are thrilled to welcome Scoot to the Bird ecosystem and look forward to working with the Scoot team as we further scale our complementary missions – to replace car trips with micro-mobility options […]

Background noise on calls could be a thing of the past if Krisp has anything to do with it. The app, now available on Windows and Macs after a long beta, uses machine learning to silence the bustle of a home, shared office, or coffee shop so your voice and the voices of others comes through clearly.

Private equity firms get a bad rap — and not without reason. In the prototypical example, a bunch of men in suits (and these folks always seem to be men for some reason) swoop in from Manhattan with Excel spreadsheets and pink slips, slashing and burning through an organization while ladening the balance sheet with […]

RealityEngines.AI, a research startup that wants to help enterprises make better use of AI, even when they only have incomplete data, today announced that it has raised a $5.25 million seed funding round. The round was led by former Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt and Google founding board member Ram Shriram. Khosla Ventures, Paul […]

Building a company is fueled by highs and lows, but one of the few moments of potential ecstasy (or perhaps for grizzled veterans, deep annoyance) is the VC outreach email. You are building your startup on deforming IKEA desks eating frozen dinners when out of nowhere, a major VC firm reaches out and wants to […]

We can’t talk cybersecurity without hearing from the government. We’re thrilled to announce Homeland Security Assistant Director Jeanette Manfra, a senior executive at the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), will be at Disrupt SF. Manfra is one of the federal government’s most experienced cybersecurity civil servants. She currently leads CISA’s cybersecurity efforts in […]

With 200X the range of WiFi at 1/1000th of the cost of a cellular modem, Helium’s “LongFi” wireless network debuts today. Its transmitters can help track stolen scooters, find missing dogs via IoT collars, and collect data from infrastructure sensors. The catch is that Helium’s tiny, extremely low-power transmission chips rely on connecting to P2P […]

Apollo, a San Francisco-based startup that provides a number of developer and operator tools and services around the GraphQL query language, today announced that it has raised a $22 million growth funding round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Matrix Partners. Existing investors Trinity Ventures and Webb Investment Network also participated in this round. Today, Apollo […]

Group travel, it’s something you either love or hate, but Stride, which describes itself as a marketplace for “experiential multi-day and multi-destination packaged trips planned by experts,” wants to change this perception. The service, which was co-founded by former Starwood Hotels and Viator executive Gavin Delany, today announced that it has raised a $2.2 million […]

Google will now allow iPhone and iPad owners to use their Android security key to verify sign-ins, the company said Wednesday. Last month, the search and mobile giant said it developed a new Bluetooth-based protocol that will allow modern Android 7.0 devices and later to act as a security key for two-factor authentication. Since then, […]

City navigation and public transit app Citymapper is ending the program it called ‘Citymapper Ride,’ which has gone through a number of incarnations since its introduction back in 2017. Since then, the company has gone from running bus one route in London designed to supplement a need for customers that wasn’t currently well-addressed by existing […]

Welcome to this week’s transcribed edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley. We’re running an experiment for Extra Crunch members that puts This is Your Life in Silicon Valley in words – so you can read from wherever you are. This is your Life in Silicon Valley was originally started by Sunil Rajaraman and Jascha […]

You might not have known about KnowBe4 before, but you should now because this morning, the company announced a massive $300 million investment led by private equity firm KKR. The deal is based on a billion valuation. Existing investors Elephant and TenEleven Ventures also participated in the round. The massive influx of cash comes on […]

SpaceX’s launch today from California’s Vandenberg Air Force base went off today without a hitch, bringing three satellites that make up the RADARSAT constellation to be used for observation by the Canadian Government. The launch today included use of a Falcon 9 first stage that flew a mission only a few months ago in March, […]

Facebook today is expanding its set of features focused on blood donations. The company since 2017 has been working with blood donation centers worldwide who have been able to use the platform to reach potential donors and then reach out to them in times of need. Now, Facebook is bringing its Blood Donations feature to […]

What does a gaming company do after raising $1.25 billion? Acquisitions seem like a pretty good place to start. Epic Games — of Unreal Engine and the ridiculously successful Fortnite phenomenon — has has just picked up Houseparty. The social video app announced the news via blog post this morning. The deal seems like a […]

In this second of my two-part conversation on the ethics of technology with Jessica Powell, the former head of PR at Google turned author of the wonderful satirical novel, The Big Disruption: A Totally Fictional But Essentially True Silicon Valley Story, we discuss the meaning of “genius” in the tech world; why Silicon Valley multi-millionaires […]

Slack’s rapid rise and upcoming IPO are clear signs of the ripe opportunity to be had in the field of enterprise messaging. Today, a startup that’s built a messaging product specifically for the financial services vertical is also proving that out. Symphony, which offers secure messaging and other collaboration tools for bankers and those who […]

Zomato, one of India’s largest food delivery firms, may have figured out a faster way to crawl through dense populated routes: going air with drones. The company, which has expanded its restaurant listing and booking service to about two-dozen markets in recent years, said today it has successfully tested a payload delivery from a hybrid […]

Orca Security, a startup based in Israel, announced a healthy $6.5 million seed round today led by YL Ventures, a firm that makes a living investing in Israeli security startups. That’s a lot of money for a seed round, but the company, which is led by two former Check Point Security executives, is trying to […]

Buying a car is painful. Dealerships are the worst, and the options are endless. The rise of the Internet produced powerful tools for shoppers, but in the end, most buyers still have to trudge down to a car lot. For this series of articles, TechCrunch spoke with several founders and investors attempting to rethink car […]

Uber is gearing up to start testing drone delivery for Uber Eats in dense urban environments. This comes after the Federal Aviation Administration awarded Uber and San Diego, Calif. the right to test commercial food delivery via drone. This comes shortly after Amazon announced it would begin drone deliveries “within months.” Uber completed the initial […]

Announced in April of last year, the Echo Dot Kids Edition got something of a mixed reception, primarily due to privacy concerns surrounding the broader smart speaker category. Amazon is back with a version of the $70 device. Design-wise, the product looks like a lot more like the latest version of the Dot, swapping the […]

Recently, Spotify was spotted testing a new personalized playlist called “Your Daily Drive,” that included both music and podcasts. Today, the company is officially launching this playlist in the U.S. in an effort to better cater to commuters who spend 70 billion collective hours behind the wheel, the company says. The playlist includes the music […]

Argo AI, the Pittsburgh-based autonomous vehicle startup that Ford invested $1 billion in 2017, has expanded its testing to downtown Detroit with a new third-generation self-driving car. Argo AI is developing the virtual driver system and high-definition maps designed for Ford’s self-driving vehicles. The third-generation self-driving vehicle is still based on a Ford Fusion Hybrid […]

Lightspeed Venture Partners has led BetterUp's Series C financing.

Like the rest of the world, China is getting more glued to smartphones that can perform an endless list of tasks, from talking to workmates, shopping for groceries, all the way to getting a dose of dopamine through games. Chinese internet users now spend an average of 4.7 hours on their handsets a day just […]

Uber has unveiled a new model of its JUMP electric scooters, featuring a bigger frame and hand brakes. Uber plans to deploy these scooters in the U.S. on June 24 and in Europe later this summer. Uber first deployed electric scooters last October in Santa Monica, Calif. At launch, JUMP relied on Xiaomi Ninebot scooters, […]

SpaceX has a launch scheduled today from California’s Vandenberg Air Force base, currently targeting a launch window of 14 minutes that opens at 7:17 AM PT (10:17 AM ET). The RADARSAT Constellation mission will carry a constellation of three satellites to low-Earth orbit, built by MDA for use by the Government of Canada in observing […]

Go-Jek may be based in Southeast Asia, but the multi-billion-dollar ride-hailing firm continues to tap India for engineering talent. The Indonesia-headquartered firm announced today that it has acquired AirCTO, a recruitment platform based in Gurgaon. The acquisition, the price of which has not been disclosed, is a talent grab. AirCTO’s platform uses a mix of […]

Shared e-scooters aren’t just gaining popularity in the United States; they’re hitting the streets of China, too. Recognizing the possibility that some people just don’t want to pedal that last mile, China’s transportation startup Hellobike is setting up a 1 billion yuan ($145 million) joint venture with Alibaba’s financial affiliate Ant Financial and battery maker […]

Spanish soccer’s premier league, LaLiga, has netted itself a €250,000 (~$280k) fine for privacy violations of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) related to its official app. As we reported a year ago, users of the LaLiga app were outraged to discover the smartphone software does rather more than show minute-by-minute commentary of football matches […]

With most small grocery stores in India yet to get online, startups racing to digitize them continue to see promising backing from investors. Jumbotail, an online wholesale marketplace for grocery and food items, today said it has raised $12.7 million to scale its operations. The Series B financing round for the Bangalore-based startup was led […]

IBM launched its Quantum computer program in Africa today, announcing a partnership with South Africa’s Wits University that will extend to 15 additional universities across 9 countries. Quantum—or IBM Q, as the U.S. based company calls it—is a computer that uses quantum bits (or qubits) to top the capabilities of even the most advanced supercomputers. […]

This year’s edition of Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report, released earlier today, once again included a section on China prepared by Hillhouse Capital. There are now 3.8 billion Internet users globally, more than half of the world’s population, but growth is slowing (as demonstrated by declining smartphone shipments). Internet leaders in China can continue helping […]

Bux, the Amsterdam-based trading app that wants to make investing fun, has picked up an additional $12.5 million in new funding. Venture capital firms Velocity Capital and Holtzbrinck Ventures led the round, which also includes debt financing from Kreos Capital. It brings total funding to $35 million since being founded over five years ago. The […]

Funderbeam, the funding and trading platform for private companies founded by Kaidi Ruusalepp, who was previously CEO of the Nasdaq Tallinn stock exchange, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding. The round is led by U.K.-based Accelerated Digital Ventures (ADV), and includes new investors such as GK-Plug and Play Indonesia, and Pandan Ventures. Existing […]

Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up” might be ringing through your ears once again. “Russian Doll,” co-created by and starring Natasha Lyonne, has been picked up for a second season by Netflix. A release date hasn’t been confirmed yet, but the new season will have eight episodes. The renewal was announced today by Lyonne and Netflix […]

Startups in East Africa have a new source for investment and mentorship. Sweden’s Norrsken Foundation—a coworking space and investment fund based in Stockholm—opened its tech fund and entrepreneurship hub in Rwanda today to support ventures across the region. Norrsken’s Kigali center is located on the former École Belge campus and will begin with seed investments of […]

A partnership between Volkswagen and self-driving vehicle startup Aurora has ended, according to a report by the Financial Times, citing three people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson from VW confirmed the news, telling TechCrunch that “activities under our partnership have been concluded.” VW did not provide any further details. Aurora didn’t provide any details […]

A little less than a month ago, DJI branched out from the world of gimbals and drones with the release of the Osmo Action, a new action camera that put GoPro firmly in the company’s sites. Now it’s back with another new category: educational fighting robots. The RoboMaster S1 seems like an odd fit at […]