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Monique Villa Contributor Share on Twitter Monique Villa is an investor at Mucker Capital, a seed and “pre-seed” stage fund investing in companies powering a software-enabled world. She is also the Founder of Nashville-based ModernCapital, a community of startup founders and ecosystem partners committed to company building in the Southeast (#BuildInSE). We are witnessing the […]

The Boring Company’s Loop transit system that aims to shuttle people in autonomous electric vehicles between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. fails to meet several key national safety standards, a review of its proposal reveals. The underground system appears to lack sufficient emergency exits, ignore the latest engineering practices and proposes passenger escape ladders that one […]

Bars lose 20 percent of their alcohol to overpours and “free” drinks for friends. That amounts to $50 billion per year in booze that mysteriously disappears, making life tough for every pub and restaurant. Nectar wants to solve that mystery with its ultrasound depth sensing bottle caps that measure how much liquid is left in […]

Working at an Amazon fulfillment center is tough and tedious. Stories of problematic working conditions have plagued the company for years now, and pressure has likely only increased as the retail giant is pushing to get packages out even faster. To give the company some credit, it has worked to improve conditions, including the addition […]

Tech ethics can mean a lot of different things, but surely one of the most critical, unavoidable, and yet somehow still controversial propositions in the emerging field of ethics in technology is that tech should promote gender equality. But does it? And to the extent it does not, what (and who) needs to change? In […]

Remember the OUYA? As a cheap Android-powered game console, it was pitched as being able to “open the last closed platform: the TV”. It was one of the first huge Kickstarter campaigns, raising nearly 9 million dollars on the site in 2012. Even half a decade later, it remains one of the biggest campaigns Kickstarter […]

U.S. consumers are still embracing subscriptions. More than a third (34%) of Americans say they believe they’ll increase the number of subscription services they use over the next two years, according to a new report from eMarketer. This is following an increase to 3 subscription services on average, up from 2.4 services five years ago. […]

To become a global fintech player, locate your company in San Francisco and Africa. That’s the approach of payments company Flutterwave, digital lending startup Mines, and mobile-money venture Chipper Cash—Africa-founded ventures that maintain headquarters in San Francisco and operations in Africa to tap the best of both worlds in VC, developers, clients, and the frontier […]

Google’s lead data regulator in Europe has opened a formal investigation into its processing of personal data in the context of its online Ad Exchange, TechCrunch has learnt. This follows a privacy complaint pertaining to adtech’s real-timing bidding (RTB) system filed under Europe’s GDPR framework last year. The statutory inquiry into Google’s adtech that’s being […]

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. Apple announces new MacBook Pros with a keyboard fix, oh, and more powerful processors Apple says it’s taking three steps to […]

Amazon shareholders have rejected two proposals that would have requested the company not to sell its facial recognition technology to government customers. The breakdown of the votes is not immediately known. A filing with the vote tally is expected later this week. The first proposal would have requested Amazon to limit the sale of its […]

2019 is the year Facebook announced a ‘pivot to privacy’. At the same time, Google is trying to claim that privacy means letting it exclusively store and data-mine everything you do online. So what better time to sit down at Disrupt for a chat about what privacy really means with DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel […]

Apple’s WWDC keynote invites just went out, with only a couple of weeks to spare. The company’s graphic designers appear to be having some fun this time out, with a mind-blown rainbow unicorn, losing the Apple, Swift and App Store icons among others. iOS 13, watchOS 6 and macOS 10.15 are no doubt on the […]

Early-stage startup ingenuity is one of the driving forces shaping the rapid, radical changes taking place in mobility and transportation. Come July 10, TechCrunch will host more than 1,000 movers, shakers and makers in San Jose for TC Sessions: Mobility 2019 for a day-long exploration of the technologies and challenges upending both industries. Talk about […]

Fintech startup N26 received an order from BaFin, the German banking regulator. According to the regulator, N26 hasn’t been doing enough when it comes to money laundering and terrorist financing. The company has a specific period of time to implement changes and rectify its internal processes. “Today, BaFin published an order for N26 Bank GmbH. […]

Google today unveiled a new look for its mobile search results which gives sites a way to showcase their own branding, instead of looking like every other blue link. Before, the search results were blue and the source — a publisher’s site, for example — would appear below in a smaller, green font. Now, it’s […]

Thousands of TP-Link routers are vulnerable to a bug that can be used to remotely take control the device, but it took over a year for the company to publish the patches on its website. The vulnerability allows any low-skilled attacker to remotely gain full access to an affected router. The exploit relies on the […]

Facebook’s former teen-in-residence Michael Sayman, now at Google, is back today with the launch of a new game: Emojishot, an emoji-based guessing game for iOS, built over the past ten weeks within Google’s in-house incubator, Area 120. The game, which is basically a version of charades using emoji characters, is notable because of its creator. […]

At an event in Washington D.C. today, DJI unveiled plans to help avoid potentially life-threatening drone disasters. At the top of the list is the company’s promise to add AirSense technology to all of its models weighing more than 250 grams (~half a pound), which goes into effect January 1 of next year. The feature […]

The dominoes continue to fall for Huawei in the wake of a Trump-led U.S. trade ban. An internal memo from ARM lays out the chip giant’s decision to hit pause on “all active contracts, support entitlements, and any pending engagements,” per the BBC. While based in Cambridge, England, the company believes itself to be impacted […]

Projector, the brainchild of two Twitter alums, is emerging from stealth with $13 million to reimagine visual communication.

While Android and iOS have locked up the market for smartphone operating systems, a feature phone platform that has the distinction of being the world’s third biggest mobile OS is announcing a hefty round of funding to continue its expansion. KaiOS, which makes the OS that powers devices like Nokia’s feature phones and Jio’s devices […]

Roku has been getting more serious about its ad business, and today it’s launching a new tool designed to make advertisers comfortable with moving their spending over from traditional TV. Alison Levin, Roku’s vice president of ad sales and strategy, pointed to data from Magna Global estimating that while over-the-top viewing accounts for 29 percent […]

For years, the web has been largely free thanks to online ads. The problem is that nobody likes them. When they’re not obnoxiously taking over your entire screen or autoplaying, they’re tracking you everywhere you go online. Ads can track where you go and which sites you visit and can be used to build up […]

Don't worry, it's encrypted.

One of the bigger developments in customer services has been the impact of social media — both as a place to vent frustration or praise (mostly frustration), and — especially over messaging apps — as a place for businesses to connect with their users. Now, customer support specialist Zendesk has made an acquisition so that […]

Loot, the digital current account aimed at students and millennials, has called in administrators after appearing to have run out of cash. According to sources, the U.K. fintech was unable to raise additional funding in time after a potential sale to banking giant RBS fell through. Intriguingly, Royal Bank of Scotland Group indirectly owned a […]

Transport for London will roll out default wi-fi device tracking on the London Underground this summer, following a trial back in 2016. In a press release announcing the move, TfL writes that “secure, privacy-protected data collection will begin on July 8” — while touting additional services, such as improved alerts about delays and congestion, which […]

Artemis, the ag-tech startup formerly known as Agrilyst, today announced that it has raised an $8 million Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Astanor Ventures and Talis Capital, with participation from iSelect Fund and New York State’s Empire State Development Fund. With this, the company, which won our 2015 Disrupt SF Battlefield […]

Indonesia is the latest nation to hit the hammer on social media after the government restricted the use of WhatsApp and Instagram following deadly riots yesterday. Numerous Indonesia-based users are today reporting difficulties sending multimedia messages via WhatsApp, which is one of the country’s most popular chat apps, and posting content to Facebook, while the […]

A multi-month hunt for political disinformation spreading on Facebook in Europe suggests there are concerted efforts to use the platform to spread bogus far right propaganda to millions of voters ahead of a key EU vote which kicks off tomorrow. Following the independent investigation, Facebook has taken down a total of 77 pages and 230 […]

On Tuesday, Tencent’s usually low-profile founder and CEO Pony Ma made rare comments to weigh in on escalating tensions between the United States and China, calling domestic tech companies to build more self-reliance in a bid to stay competitive. “China has come to the forefront of development. There is less and less room for taking […]

Autonomous vehicles might someday be able to navigate bustling city streets to deliver groceries, pizzas, and other packages without a human behind the wheel. But that doesn’t solve what Ford Motor CTO Ken Washington describes as the last 50-foot problem. Ford and startup Agility Robotics are partnering in a research project that will test how […]

What’s the cord-cutting equivalent to ditching your kitchen? Uber’s upcoming subscription to unlimited free food delivery. Uber is preparing to launch the $9.99 per month Uber Eats Pass, according to code hidden in Uber’s Android app. The subscription would waive Uber’s service fee that’s typically 15 percent of your order cost. Given that’s often $5 […]

A little under a year ago, Valve released a big overhaul for the chat features built into its Steam game store/launcher. Focusing on modern day chat conveniences like better group chats and embedded media (GIFs!), some saw it as a move to hopefully keep a few more users from heading for Discord — which, […]

India’s Ola, which has expanded to select international markets and set ambitious goals for its electric vehicles business, is struggling with selling food. So it is making major changes to its food business. The ride-hailing giant is pivoting Foodpanda, the Indian business of the food delivery startup it acquired in late 2017, to focus on […]

TransferWise, the London-headquartered international money transfer service, is disclosing a new $292 million secondary round that sees investors value the company at $3.5 billion. That’s more than double the valuation TransferWise achieved in late 2017 at the time of its $280 million Series E round. The new secondly funding — with no new cash entering […]

Starting next month, Google will enforce new policies for ads related to abortion in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland. Google will now require advertisers that want to run ads with abortion-related keywords to apply for certification as an organization that does, or does not, provide abortions. If their ads are approved, they will […]

At just 26, Waiz Rahim is supposed to be involved in the family business, having returned home in 2016 with an engineering degree from the University of Southern California. Instead, the young entrepreneur is plotting to build the Amazon of Bangladesh. Deligram, Rahim’s vision of what e-commerce looks like in Bangladesh, a country of nearly […]

It’s harvest season for Southeast Asia’s full-stack food delivery startups. Following on from Singapore’s Grain raising $10 million, so Malaysia-based Dahmakan today announced a $5 million financing round of its own. The money takes the startup to $10 million raised to date — its last round as $2.6 million last year — and it comes […]

Daphne Koller doesn’t mind hard work. She joined Stanford University’s computer science department in 1995, spending the next 18 years there in a full-time capacity before cofounding the online education giant Coursera, where she spent the following four years and remained co-chairman until last month. Koller then spent a little less than two years at […]

Tired of noisy music venues where you can hardly see the stage? Sofar Sounds puts on concerts in people’s living rooms where fans pay $15 to $30 to sit silently on the floor and truly listen. Nearly 1 million guests have attended Sofar’s more than 20,000 gigs. Having attended a half dozen of the shows, […]

Google says a small number of its enterprise customers mistakenly had their passwords stored on its systems in plaintext. The search giant disclosed the exposure Tuesday but declined to say exactly how many enterprise customers were affected. “We recently notified a subset of our enterprise G Suite customers that some passwords were stored in our […]

Even techies might agree that server rooms aren’t the most romantic places to fall in love — but it happens. And with foreign-born workers making up nearly three-quarters of Silicon Valley’s labor...

An untapped market in the Middle East is the solution to crypto’s slowdown.

Phone sales have been trending downward for some time now. There are a number of reasons for this — many of which you can read about in this piece I published last week. The creeping cost of premium handsets is pretty high on that list, with flagships now routinely topping $1,000 from many of the […]

Udacity and Mercedes-Benz’s North American R&D lab have developed curriculum for a sensor fusion nanodegree, the latest effort by the online education startup to meet high demand for skills related to autonomous vehicles and to duplicate the success it has had with its self-driving car engineer program. Enrollment for the sensor fusion degree opened up […]

DefinedCrowd, the Startup Battlefield alumnus that produces and refines data for AI-training purposes, has just debuted iOS and Android apps for its army of human annotators. It should help speed up a process that the company already touts as one of the fastest in the industry.

Biofourmis, a Singapore-based startup pioneering a distinctly tech-based approach to the treatment of chronic conditions, has raised a $35 million Series B round for expansion. The round was led by Sequoia India and MassMutual Ventures, the VC fund from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. Other investors who put in include EDBI, the corporate investment arm […]

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. Millions of Instagram influencers had their private contact data scraped and exposed A massive database containing contact information for millions of […]