Crunch Hype

Ferrari has finally cracked open the door for electrification. The Italian supercar manufacturer unveiled the SF90 Stradale, its first plug-in hybrid. Purists might turn their noses up to Stradale’s mere 15.5 miles of all electric range. But it’s a milestone for Ferrari nonetheless, and marks a shift in the company’s views and portfolio. Now, some […]

Audi just completed a trial with Israeli company Fleetonomy as part of a potential wider rollout of the Israeli company’s fleet monitoring and management services designed to improve utilization. Using Fleetonomy’s tools that provide predictive analytics of fleet utilization, Audi was able to improve the overall efficiency and utilization of its on-demand services. “Audi has […]

On Wednesday, Google rolled out new policies around kids’ apps on Google Play following an FTC complaint claiming a lack of attention to app’s compliance with children’s privacy laws, and other rules around content. However, kids’ apps weren’t the only area being addressed this week. As it turns out, Google also cracked down on loot […]

How a whimsical online game became an enterprise software giant.

Pre-orders begin June 12.

Disney has been cranking out live action remakes of its animated library for the past few years — in fact, Tim Burton’s “Dumbo” just left theaters, and Guy Ritchie’s take on “Aladdin” is currently at the top of the box office. But these distinctions get tricky with the growing reliance on computer generated visual effects. […]

Google today announced two major changes to how it expects Chrome extension developers to protect their users’ privacy. Starting this summer, extension developers are required to only request access to the data they need to implement their features — and nothing more. In addition, the company is expanding the number of extension developers who will […]

Ready to squeeze every bit of opportunity out of TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019? TechCrunch’s flagship event returns to the Moscone North Convention Center on October 2-4 and — with more than 10,000 attendees — the networking opportunities are infinite. Your time, however, is not. Don’t worry, though. We’ve got your back — with CrunchMatch. […]

Written in its company’s handbook, there’s one rule for working at Dragos. “Don’t be an asshole.” “The first key to our success is our people and that we hire good people,” said Robert Lee, the company’s founder and chief executive, in an interview with TechCrunch. “I think building a successful team is about having a […]

Chinese tech giant Alibaba is doubling down on India’s burgeoning video market, looking to fight back local rival ByteDance, Google, and Disney to gain its foothold in the nation. The company said today that it is pumping $100 million into Vmate, a three-year-old social video app owned by subsidiary UC Web. Vmate was launched as […]

Password manager maker Dashlane has raised $110 million in its latest round of funding, the company said Thursday. The company said Sequoia Capital led the Series D round, with partner Jim Goetz joining the board. Dashlane also said Lyft executive Joy Howard was appointed as its new chief marketing officer and will start in August. […]

OpenAI’s co-founders Greg Brockman and Sam Altman aren’t afraid of Terminator robots. At TechCrunch Disrupt SF in October, they’ll tell our audience why it’s the more subtle repercussions of artificial general intelligence like its impact on employment, cyberwarfare, and concentration of power that shake the duo. But the epic potential for the technology to generate […]

XFactor, the pre-seed and seed-stage VC out of FlyBridge Capital, has today announced that it has raised a second fund of $8.5 million. XFactor first came on the scene in 2017 with $3 million. FlyBridge Capital partner Chuck Hazard started the fund alongside several female founders who were interested in getting into investment. The idea […]

Entering into the world of Anthemis is a bit like stepping into the frame of a Wes Anderson film. Eclectic, offbeat people situated in colorful interiors? Check. A muse in the form of a renowned British-Venezuelan economist? Check. A design-forward media platform to provoke deep thought? Check. An annual summer retreat ensconced in the French […]

The Valley’s rocky history with clean tech investing has been well-documented. Startups focused on non-emitting generation resources were once lauded as the next big cash cow, but the sector’s hype quickly got away from reality. Complex underlying science, severe capital intensity, slow-moving customers, and high-cost business models outside the comfort zones of typical venture capital, […]

Google Maps want to help restaurant diners know what to order. The company today is rolling out an update to Google Maps on Android, with iOS to follow, which will highlight the restaurant’s most popular dishes. The feature itself is using machine learning to uncover these dish suggestions based on the restaurants’ reviews and photos. […]

Firefly, a startup that allows ridehail drivers to make money from advertising, has raised $30 million in Series A funding. The company is about to launch in New York City, where it’s also acquiring the digital operations of advertising company Strong Outdoor. Co-founder and CEO Kaan Gunay said this will allow Firefly to start working […]

Netflix has released a new teaser trailer for its collaboration with The Jim Henson Company on “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance,” and wow, is it a doozy. For a certain generation of moviegoer (including this author), “The Dark Crystal” was an eye-opening introduction to the darker, explicitly fantastic side of Jim Henson’s genius. Long-known […]

Google and its partners today announced that the 5,600-miles-long INDIGO subsea cable, which connects Sydney and Perth with Jakarta and Singapore, is now ready for service. To build the cable, which will significantly strengthen the connectivity between Australia and Southeast Asia, Google partnered with AARnet, Indosat, Singtel, SubPartners and Telstra. The cable, which features about […]

Businesses need to keep the content flowing on social media, so a startup called soona says it’s developed a new way to provide those photos and video. The company was founded by CEO Elizabeth Giorgi and Chief Creative Officer Hayley Anderson. Giorgi told me they both worked in production (Anderson as an animator, Giorgi as […]

NBC’s new digital streaming news network, NBC News Now, has officially launched. The service offers viewers 8 hours of continuous daily programming from 3 PM to 11 PM on weekdays. Its goal is to capture the attention of younger news consumers — those who don’t necessarily subscribe to pay TV or watch television in a […]

For more than 25 years the founders of Thrive Earlier Detection have been researching ways to improve the accuracy of liquid biopsy tests. The fruits of that labor from Dr. Bert Vogelstein, Dr. Kenneth Kinzler and Dr. Nickolas Papadopoulos — all professors and researchers at Johns Hopkins University — is CancerSEEK, a liquid biopsy test […]

Weights & Biases, a startup building development tools for machine learning, has raised $15 million in its second round of funding. The company was started by CrowdFlower founders Lukas Biewald and Chris van Pelt, along with former Google engineer Shawn Lewis. (Under its new name Figure Eight, CrowdFlower was acquired by Appen for up to […]

A new startup aims to help you get your student loans under control. Today, an app called Pillar, backed by $5.5 million in seed funding led by Kleiner Perkins, is launching a simpler way for consumers to better understand their student loan debt — and even pay it off early. To do so, the app […]

This morning’s Moto Z4 news was good cause to go back and reassess the state of the modular phone. Three years after the line launched, the concept hasn’t exactly ignited the market — in fact there are really just a handful of scattered competitors to show for it. Essential is among the most prominent with […]

Northwestern Mutual is setting aside $150 million for a second venture fund. “We’re committed to transforming the client experience to drive change within the financial services industry,” said Souheil Badran, executive vice president and chief innovation officer, in a statement. “This additional capital will allow us to build on the success of Northwestern Mutual Future […]

Millions of photos taken by Theta camera owners — some private and unlisted — were left exposed after security researchers found an open database without a password. Noam Rotem and Ran Locar found the leaky database and reported the exposure to Ricoh, which secured the database within a day. The printing tech giant has sold […]

If you haven’t noticed, security companies are a pretty hot commodity these days. Just yesterday, Palo Alto Networks bought two security startups. Earlier this week, FireEye bought Verodin for $250 million, and today, private equity firm Insight Partners announced it was buying threat intelligence vendor Recorded Future for $780 million. What Insight is buying is […]

The pace of malicious hacks and security breaches is showing no signs of slowing down, and spend among enterprises to guard against that is set to reach $124 billion this year. That’s also having a knock-on effect on the most innovative cybersecurity startups, which continue to raise big money to grow and meet that demand. In […]

For the past nineteen years, Ioannis Tarnanas, the founder and chief scientific officer at Altoida, has been developing virtual and augmented reality tools to offer predictions about the onset of mental illness in older patients. The company, whose tools have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for predicting Alzheimer’s, claims that it can […]

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and the first lunar landing is approaching, and there will be no shortage of fanfare — so why shouldn't LEGO get in on the fun? This Lunar Lander set looks like a great way to celebrate the missions of the space program's past, while the space station and launch sets celebrate its present and future.

Abacus Insights, an early stage startup that wants to help coordinate healthcare information across systems, announced a $12.7 million Series A investment today led by CRV. Existing investors 406 Ventures and Echo Health Ventures also participated in the round. The company is trying to make it easier for health insurance companies to share data with […]

When it arrived in 2016, the Moto Z felt revolutionary — or, at the very least, novel. Motorola soon announced it was making the Moto Z its flagship device. In the intervening three years, the line has yet to set the world on fire. It’s seemingly been a decent seller for the company, but with […]

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has published a new joint report and stat-fest on Internet attitudes and usage with the national data protection watchdog, the ICO — a quantitative study to be published annually which they’re calling the Online Nation report. The new structure hints at the direction of travel for online regulation in the UK, […]

Synthesia is a London-based startup which recently achieved notoriety after powering the technology behind the recent global campaign showing Malaria survivors speaking through David Beckham to help raise awareness around the Malaria Must Die initiative. That is, at least now, well known. What was less well known until today was that to achieve this, Synthesia […]

Augmented reality is coming to the operating room theater sooner than anyone may have predicted. Medivis, which launched its product suite earlier this year, has now received approvals from the Food and Drug Administration and will begin rolling out its service in hospitals around the country. The SurgicalAR platform is a visualization tool that guides […]

In a previous life, John Underkoffler spent his days in Los Angeles dreaming up all of the possible ways men and machines would interact as a science adviser on films like Minority Report. Now, he designs those systems for the real world through his company Oblong Industries, which has labored to create a full stack […]

Yapily, a London fintech startup that offers an Open Banking-based API platform to enable financial services providers and other types of enterprises, such as merchants, to connect to banks, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding. Leading the round is HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and LocalGlobe. Investors also include Taavet Hinrikus (TransferWise Chairman and co-founder), Ott […]

An international coalition of civic society organizations, security and policy experts and tech companies — including Apple, Google, Microsoft and WhatsApp — has penned a critical slap-down to a surveillance proposal made last year by the UK’s intelligence agency, warning it would undermine trust and security and threaten fundamental rights. “The GCHQ’s ghost protocol creates […]

If Shrek saw Matebot, no amount of sad-eyes could win him back to Puss in Boots’ side. Created by Shenzhen-based robotics company Ekasbo, Matebot looks like a black and white cartoon cat and responds to your touch by wiggling its ears, changing the expression in its big LED eyes and tilting its head. Built with […]

Tired of home security cameras that add nothing to your home (besides, well, surveillance)? The Ulo, created by Luxembourg-based Mu Design, adds a touch of whimsy. The owl-shaped surveillance camera has two big interactive LCD eyes that follow your movements, and its two lenses—a HD camera and motion sensor camera—discreetly hidden in its beak, made […]

Kurly, a startup that operates a grocery delivery service in Korea, said today that it has closed an upsized Series D round that reached a total of $113 million. The company announced the round in April when it was $88 million led by investors that include Sequoia China, however it has now increased by $25 […]

East Ventures has long been known as one of Indonesia’s longest-serving and most active seed-stage investors, but now it has officially moved up the food chain after it announced a final close of its growth fund at $200 million. Called EV Growth, the fund is a joint venture between East Ventures, SMDV — the VC […]

The IEEE’s ban on Huawei following new trade restrictions in the United States has sent shock waves through the global academic circles. The organization responded saying the impact of the trade policy will have limited effects on its members, but it’s hard at this point to appease those who have long hailed it as an open […]

In a week where AMD, Intel and Qualcomm have already made major announcements, Microsoft’s keynote yesterday at Computex in Taipei was relatively lowkey. Instead of revealing new products, the company hinted at what it wants in a modernized operating system. Intriguingly, Microsoft’s blog post about the keynote does not mention Windows, lending credence to speculation […]

Revel Transit has released 1,000 of its shared electric mopeds onto the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, following the end of a nine-month pilot program in the area. The New York-based startup pulled the original 68 mopeds it used in its limited pilot and has replaced them with new models (and hundreds more of them) […]

After visiting Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge several months ago to report on how it was built, I came back on the eve of it opening to the public to try out its first marquee attraction: flying the Millennium Falcon. Well, I flew it, and it was good. Real good. This ride is for everyone […]

Kleiner Perkins is leading the round for Brex.

Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos said the streaming service (which is spending billions of dollars on an ever-growing catalog of original content) will “rethink [its] whole investment in Georgia” if a recently signed abortion law goes into effect. Sarandos’ statement was first published in Variety. The industry publication said it reached out to the major […]

Fundraising 101: How to trigger FOMO among VCs Our media columnist Eric Peckham talked to a variety of successful founders on how they generate FOMO (i.e. fear of missing out) among VCs during their fundraises. While having a great deck and story is key to startup success, clearly there is also a bit of the […]