Crunch Hype

At KubeCon last week in Barcelona, container security was a hot topic, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Palo Alto Networks announced today that it was buying container security startup Twistlock for $410 million. The company also announced it was buying serverless security startup PureSec. It did not reveal the purchase price for […]

Varjo‘s VR headset was the best VR headset I had ever demoed; its dual display design with a micro-OLED sweet spot enabled insanely high-resolution views without requiring a supercomputer to power it. The company is looking to inject a bit more into the real world with its new developer kit that it announced today at […]

Let’s go beyond the high-level fundraising advice that fills VC blogs. If you have a compelling business and have educated yourself on crafting a pitch deck and getting warm intros to VCs, there are still specific questions about the strategy to follow for your fundraise. How can you make your round “hot” and trigger a […]

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company under Alphabet, is bringing its self-driving trucks back to Arizona. The company’s autonomous Chrysler Pacifica hybrid vehicles, which are used in its Waymo One ride-hailing service, are a common sight on public streets in Chandler and other suburbs of Phoenix . But its self-driving Class 8 big rig trucks haven’t […]

Startups are often associated with the benefits and toys provided in their offices. But what if the future of startups was less about physical office space and more about remote-first work...

Ahead of LGBTQ Pride Month, Lyft is adding gender-neutral pronouns to its rider app. Now, riders can select from the following: They/them/theirs She/her/hers He/him/his My pronoun isn’t listed Prefer not to say Drivers will be able to see your preferred pronoun, but they will not be able to share theirs. Moving forward, you can expect […]

Google Maps is gaining some features previously exclusive to Google’s navigation app, Waze. The company confirmed it’s rolling out the ability for Google Maps users to see speed limits, speed cameras and mobile speed cameras in more than 40 countries worldwide — an expansion of its earlier launch of these features, which were previously limited […]

If robots are really to help us out around the house or care for our injured and elderly, they're going to want two hands... at least. But using two hands is harder than we make it look — so this robotic control system learns from humans before attempting to do the same.

The cybersecurity unicorn plans to trade under the ticker symbol "CRWD."

Usually when it comes to big sums of funding, companies like to boast about them. Online lending startup Social Finance, better known as SoFi, took another tack this morning, quietly announcing in a press release that it has closed half a billion dollars in a single funding round led by Qatar Investment Authority, a Doha, […]

Maveron, a venture capital fund co-founded by Starbucks mastermind Howard Schultz, has closed on another $180 million to invest in early-stage consumer startups. The capital represents the firm’s seventh fundraise and largest to date. To keep the fund from reaching mammoth proportions, the firm’s general partners said they turned away more than $70 million amid […]

The FCC has officially issued this year's Broadband Deployment Report, summarizing the extent to which the agency and industry have closed the digital divide in this country. But one Commissioner is not fooled: "The rosy picture the report paints about the status of broadband deployment is fundamentally at odds with reality," said Geoffrey Starks in a lengthy dissenting statement.

We are very pleased to announce that the new and improved Crunchbase Unicorn Leaderboard re-launched today after nearly a year’s absence from TechCrunch. Venture investors did a lot of handwringing in the past year over rising valuations, but that did not slow the unicorn juggernaut, as 2018 outstripped all previous years in terms of the number […]

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. Uber will start deactivating riders with low ratings Uber drivers have been able to rate their passengers before this, but those […]

Last year, Salesforce chairman Marc Benioff mentioned, perhaps for the first time, his interest in the the blockchain. It was not known at the time if he was seriously interested, or if Salesforce would indeed offer a way to use the blockchain on the Salesforce platform. Today, a little over a year later, the company […]

Most of the buzz about esports focuses on high-profile professional teams and audiences watching live streams of those professionals. What gets ignored is the entire base of amateurs wanting to compete in esports below the professional tier. This is like talking about the NBA and the value of its sponsorships and broadcast rights as if […]

Just ahead of WWDC, Apple has launched a new App Store website in the hopes of better defending itself against recent antitrust and anti-competitive accusations. The website details how Apple runs its App Store, including how apps are curated and reviewed, and what business models are available to developers. It also features a section entitled […]

TC Sessions: Mobility 2019, TechCrunch’s day-long intensive event focused on the current and future state of mobility, takes place in San Jose, Calif. on July 10. More than 1,000 of the industry’s top technologists, founders, investors, engineers and researchers will join us to discuss, explore and demo transformational technologies that will have a profound effect […]

When it officially launches on Friday, New York City’s contactless fare pilot will have no shortage of options. Following similar announcements from Google and Apple, Fitbit just announced that its own mobile Pay system will work with the MTA program. Starting Friday, strap hangers sporting a Fitbit Charge 3 Special Edition, Versa Special Edition or […]

Kids gaming platform Roblox has its sights set on China with today’s news that it has entered into a strategic relationship with Chinese tech giant, Tencent. The companies announced a strategic partnership that will initially focus on education — specifically, coding fundamentals, game design, digital citizenship, and entrepreneurial skills. The joint venture — still unnamed […]

For a founder building a consumer-facing business, overseas Chinese students might just be one of the most coveted targets: they’re young, well educated and have access to the ‘bank’ of mom and dad. This is a large addressable audience since millions of Chinese families send their children out West to study every year. It doesn’t […]

The UK’s first 5G consumer mobile network is launching tomorrow in six cities. Mobile network operator EE will switch on the next-gen cellular connectivity in select locations in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Birmingham and Manchester — promising “increased speeds, reliability and connectivity”. Though of course consumers will also need to have a 5G handset and […]

Bose announced a trio of new headphones today. The company used the opportunity to primarily focus on the dryly named Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, which purport to sport “the biggest leap forward in headphones since the iconic QuietComfort.” A big claim, to be sure, especially given how much that line has come to define the […]

Talkspace, the platform that lets patients and therapists communicate online, has today announced the close of a $50 million financing round led by Revolution Growth. Existing investors, such as Norwest Venture Partners, Omura Capital, Spark Capital, and Compound Ventures are also participating in the round. As part of the deal, Revolution Growth’s Patrick Conroy will […]

The city of Paris is doing something I didn’t expect — they’re launching their own data center to host their digital services. The data center is going to be operated by city employees, so Paris plans to control their digital destiny from end to end. I visited the data center yesterday. Located in the north of […]

Google and Facebook are increasingly slurping up every ad dollar on the internet. Their dominant position is upending the business models of traditional and startup media companies alike. The click-driven ad model of yore is leaving a graveyard in its wake, as once high-flying companies like Mic collapse. Learning from the wave of SaaS startups […]

Uber is now requiring the same good behavior from riders that it has long expected from its drivers. Uber riders have always had ratings, but they were never really at risk of deactivation — until now. Starting today, riders in the U.S. and Canada are now at risk of deactivation if their rating falls significantly […]

Google announced this morning a new set of developer policies aimed at providing additional protections for children and families seeking out kid-friendly apps on Google Play. The new policies require that developers ensure their apps are meeting all the necessary policy and regulatory requirements for apps that target children in terms of their content, ads, […]

There’s a huge amount of crossover between the gaming and cosplay communities and InWin’s Alice computer chassis will appeal to many in the middle of that Venn diagram. The company is currently showing off Alice and its other PC cases at Computex in Taipei. Named after the Lewis Carroll character, the mid tower case comes […]

Buried in the this morning’s Echo Show 5 announcement are a couple of new security features worth highlighting. In addition to the inclusion of a built-in camera shutter on the new smart display are a pair of Echo commands that let users delete voice recordings with an Alexa command. “Alexa, delete what I said today” […]

Logz.io announced a $52 million Series D investment today. The round was led by General Catalyst. Other investors participating in the round included OpenView Ventures, 83North, Giza Venture Capital, Vintage Investment Partners, Greenspring Associates and Next47. Today’s investment brings the total raised to nearly $100 million, according to Crunchbase data. Logz.io is a company built […]

Amazon just announced a 5.5-inch Echo Show model with a $90 price tag, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention right out of the gate how much the thing looks like that new Google Assistant-sporting Smart Clock. These things happen, of course. Call it convergent evolution if you will — as a matter of […]

Grace Gould has spent her life thinking about the intersection of retail and tech. She started out in Apple Retail, and then moved on to Index Ventures where she worked on early stage investments. She then worked at PCCH International as the VP of Global Retail Strategy, working with companies and hardware makers to develop, […]

Huawei this morning began the process of challenging the Trump administration’s sweeping ban. The Chinese hardware giant has filed a motion for summary judgement that calls into question the constitutionality of the section of the National Defense Authorization Act used to halt imports. The company’s Chief Legal Officer cited Huawei’s usual arrays of arguments against […]

Ducky, known for its popular mechanical keyboards, is based in Taiwan and today at Computex it showed off its tribute to the country’s culture: the limited-edition “Year of the Pig” 65 percent keyboard. The latest of Ducky’s yearly Zodiac releases, the keyboard was created in collaboration with metalwork artist Kulele Ruladen, the keyboard pays tribute […]

A public body that advises the UK government on immigration policy has recommended including more programming and software development jobs on the shortages occupation list which would make it easier for employers to bring in skilled tech talent from outside the European Union . In a review of the Shortage Occupation List (SOL) published today […]

The San Diego-based software developer eSub Construction Software has raised $12 million in a new round of financing for its project management platform for contractors. The company’s funding was led by Catalyst Investors with participation from previous investor Revolution Ventures. Software for the construction industry is becoming a big business and attracting more capital from […]

In 2016, former World Bank analyst Eka Pamitra teamed up with five friends to start a business that would help farmers in their native Indonesia. Today their company — TaniGroup — closed a $10 million Series A round that’s aimed at expanding its service nationwide with the support of the government. TaniGroup works for more […]

Away from the limelight of urban cities, where an increasingly growing number of firms are fighting for a piece of India’s digital payments market, a South Korean startup’s app is quietly helping millions of Indians pay digitally and enjoy many financial services for the first time. The app, called True Balance, began its life as […]

Even before Computex officially started yesterday in Taipei, Lian Li’s combination chassis and standing workstations were already turning heads as attendees got to take a look at their interiors before the glass tops were installed. The insides of the DK-05 were clearly visible, looking like miniature water parks with a labyrinthine arrangement of tubes and […]

On the heels of customer service company Zendesk announcing an acquisition to expand its omni-channel offering, one of the upstarts nipping at its heels has announced a round of funding to continue growing its own platform. Kustomer, a customer service startup that calls in data from multiple external channels and the software and apps that a […]

Last year during Computex, ASUS introduced the ZenBook Pro 14 and 15, with a touchscreen in place of a regular touchpad. This year in Taipei, it took the concept of a built-in second screen and went much further with it, unveiling new versions of the ZenBook with even larger second screens. Instead of just replacing […]

If you frequent the New York City subway’s 4, 5, 6 line, you’ve probably seen the new terminals at a variety of stations like Union Square and Grand Central. Located between turnstiles, they’ve all been sporting a curious “Test Phase/Coming Soon” screen. That finally changes this week. Google already announced its mobile pay solution would […]

Roger, an accounting automation tool that runs on top of accounting software to automate various processes, has raised $7.35 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is QED Investors, with participation from 9Yards, Silicon Valley Bank, Financial Venture Studio, and BootstrapLabs. A number of individual investors, including Dan Wernikoff, the former GM of QuickBooks […]

Twaice, a Munich-based startup developing “predictive analytics” software to help with battery management in electric vehicles and other devices, has raised €2 million in additional seed funding. The round is led by Berlin’s Cherry Ventures, with participation by existing investors UVC Partners and Speedinvest. It brings the total raised at seed stage by the nine […]

DHL is expanding its DHL Africa eShop business to 9 additional markets, upping the presence of the global shipping company’s e-commerce platform to 20 African countries. DHL went live with the digital retail app in April, bringing more than 200 U.S. and U.K. sellers — from Neiman Marcus to Carters — online to African consumers. […]

Uxin, a Chinese second-hand car dealer with Leonardo DiCaprio as its latest brand ambassador, is tipped to get a bag of new funding less than a year after it raised $225 million from its public offering on the Nasdaq. The company announced on Wednesday that it’s selling $230 million worth of convertible notes to 58.com — […]

Some spring cleaning news from iRobot . The Bedford, Mass.-based company just unveiled a pair of new robots designed to tag-team dirty floors. The Roomba s9+ and Braava Jet m6 both sport iRobot’s mapping technology, coupled with Imprint Link, which lets to two devices communicate in order to take turns on the floor. The s9+ […]

Social sharing site and news aggregator Flipboard has reset millions of user passwords after hackers gained access to its systems several times over a nine-month period The company confirmed in a notice Tuesday that the hacks took place between June 2, 2018 and March 23, 2019 and a second time on April 21-22, 2019, but […]

Ignoring calls that it’s creepy, Facebook is forging onward with its Portal smart display. Today Facebook quietly launched iOS and Android Portal apps that let owners show off photos on the screen without sharing them to the social network, and video call their home while they’re out. The app isn’t likely to move the needle […]