Crunch Hype

More doesn’t necessarily mean better — and that’s a lesson for life and for tech. To focus on the latter, the startup ecosystem is experiencing a boggling influx of capital right now. However, the increase in dollars isn’t being evenly distributed to all founders. For the vast majority of people, especially women and nonbinary entrepreneurs, […]

It’s not too late to enjoy an epic pitch-off of global proportion. The Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) Global Finals start today, July 22 at 9:00 am (PT). Register here for free, get instant access and tune in to see seven phenomenal startups — each one tackling some of the world’s most daunting social and environmental […]

Microsoft has acquired identity and access management (IAM) startup CloudKnox Security, the tech giant’s fourth cybersecurity acquisition this year. The deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, is the latest cybersecurity acquisition by Microsoft, which just last week announced that it’s buying threat intelligence startup RiskIQ. The firm also recently acquired IoT security startups […]

Uber Freight, the logistics business spun out of Uber in 2018, has acquired Transplace for about $2.25 billion from private equity group TPG Capital, according to regulatory filings. The deal announced Thursday will involve $750 million in Uber stock with the remainder in cash. The acquisition of Transplace marks a ramping up of Uber Freight’s […]

Conventional wisdom holds that one ought let sleeping does lie. But no one says you’re barred from tracking them while they do. New York-based smart collar maker Fi announced today that it’s adding sleep to the list of the device’s tracking. The added feature uses the collar’s on-board motion sensing to monitor your best friend’s […]

If you can’t say it with words, say it with an emoji. Facebook is announcing a few minor updates today to its Messenger platform, which make it easier than ever to find the exact emoji you’re looking for when reacting to a friend’s message (let’s be real, there’s a big difference between the “crying laughing” […]

Magic, a San Francisco-based startup that builds “plug and play” passwordless authentication technology, has raised $27 million in Series A funding. The round, led by Northzone and with participation from Tiger Global, Volt Capital, Digital Currency Group and CoinFund, comes just over a year after Magic launched from stealth, rebranding from its previous name Formatic. […]

Index Ventures has closed a trio of new funds: a $900 million early-stage fund, a $2 billion growth-stage fund and a previously announced $200 million seed-stage fund. The close gives Index $3 billion in new capital, its largest tranche yet, to deploy into emerging startups and existing portfolio companies, which include the likes of Plaid, […]

Obé Fitness’ co-founders/co-CEOs Mark Mullett and Ashley Mills toss around the word “entertrainment” a lot. For the record, it’s not a reference to the Butler County, Ohio-based amusement park that serves as the home of the “world’s largest train display,” but rather one of those industry portmanteaus like infotainment or webinar. Here it’s meant to […]

The world of venture capital investing is a relatively small one, and family offices and accredited investors are eager to get involved, but find it difficult to access fund managers.

A year and a half after Currencycloud raised $80 million in a round that included Visa, the London-based developer of APIs that powered remittance and currency exchange services is getting even closer to the financial services giant. Today, Visa announced that it would acquire CurrencyCloud in a deal valued at $963 million (£700 million). This […]

Tailor Brands, a startup that automates parts of the branding and marketing process for small businesses, announced Thursday it has raised $50 million in Series C funding.

Sorry Mr. Putin, but there’s a race on for Russian and Eastern European founders. And right now, those awful capitalists in the corrupt West are starting to out-gun the opposition! But seriously… only the other day a $100 million fund aimed at Russian speaking entrepreneurs appeared, and others are proliferating. Now, London-based Untitled Ventures plans […]

Slack set the standard in many ways for what knowledge workers want and expect out of a workplace collaboration app these days, but a lot has been left on the table when it comes to frontline workers. Today, one of the software companies that has built a popular app for that frontline crowd to become […]

With the pandemic forcing people online, social media use exploded, for obvious reasons. And with that, the opportunity to reach audiences and push messaging. More brand-oriented platforms such as Sprinkler, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite have obviously risen in use, but so did traffic to Oktopost, a much more B2B-oriented proposition. Founded in 2013, Oktopost has only […]

India’s trucking system has a big inefficiency problem that continues to drag the economy. BlackBuck, one of the handful of startups that is digitizing the freight and logistics across India, has just attained the unicorn status after securing new funds. Tribe Capital, IFC Emerging Asia Fund and VEF led the $67 million Series E financing round […]

GudangAda, a Jakarta-based marketplace that brings wholesalers closer to retail stores and other buyers, announced it has closed a Series B of more than $100 million. The company says the round was oversubscribed, passing its initial target of $75 million. The funding was led by Asia Partners and Falcon Edge, with participation from Sequoia Capital […]

When Aruna’s founders first met at university, they wanted to find a way to use their studies in information technology to help family members who were running small fisheries. Indonesia is one of the world’s largest fisheries producers, but the industry is very fragmented. This means fisheries, especially small ones, deal with fluctuations in demand […]

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Rivian electric vehicle charging stations are coming to yet another state park system. The EV startup said it would install its so-called “waypoint” chargers at all of Tennessee’s 56 state parks, just four months after announcing a similar agreement with the state of Colorado. It’s the next step in Rivian’s plans to build out its […]

As longtime TechCrunch readers know well, Michael Arrington co-founded TechCrunch and Crunchbase, as well as the venture fund CrunchFund, which was later renamed Tuesday Capital. But In 2017, Arrington announced that he was shifting gears and becoming a full-time crypto investor, and despite a volatile ride since, he isn’t looking back, seemingly. As he said […]

As phones and other consumer devices have gained feature after feature, they have also declined in how easily they can be repaired, with Apple at the head of this ignoble pack. The FTC has taken note, admitting that the agency has been lax on this front but that going forward it will prioritize what could […]

DraftKings is charging into the NFT game, announcing a marketplace aimed at curating sports and entertainment-themed digital collectibles for its audience of enthusiasts. The platform is “debuting later this summer,” and showcases another potentially lucrative expansion for the fantasy sports betting company. DraftKings is entering a market that is both crowded and sparse — with […]

Tesla will ‘most likely’ resume accepting bitcoin as a form of payment once the mining rate for the cryptocurrency reaches 50% renewables, CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday at a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Crypto Council for Innovation, remarks that are in line with statements he made last month on Twitter. Tesla started accepting […]

If you want to get the most value out of attending TC Sessions: SaaS 2021, a day-long deep dive into the rapidly changing and expanding world of software as a service, don’t go it alone — take your team. It’s a smart way to cover more ground on October 27, make more connections and increase […]

Twitter will test the use of Reddit-like upvote and downvote buttons as a way to better highlight the more interesting and relevant replies in a longer conversation thread. The company announced this afternoon it would begin what it’s calling a “small research experiment” that will add upvote and downvote buttons to replies, or even replace […]

Finding go-to-market fit (GTM) is a pivotal moment for a startup. It means you’ve found a repeatable formula for finding and winning lead that can be written into a repeatable GTM playbook.

If you’re looking to succeed with paid social marketing, you need a creative testing framework.

While direct-to-consumer growth has exploded in the past year, some brands are finding there’s still plenty of room to forge ahead in building a more direct relationship with their customers. Sydney-based Okendo has made a splash in this world by building out a popular customer reviews systems for Shopify sellers, but it’s aiming to expand […]

"Many have employees on OPT or STEM OPT who didn’t get selected in this year's H-1B lottery. Should we look to Canada?"

One year later, Clubhouse is finally out of beta. The company announced Wednesday that it would end its waitlist and invite system, opening up to everybody. Now, anybody can follow Clubhouse links, hop into a creator’s community or join any public event. Clubhouse is also introducing a real logo that will look familiar — it’s […]

Accessibility isn’t, like many believe, kryptonite for profits. It is a moneymaker. Remember this: The cost of noncompliance is about three times higher than that of complying.

Amazon is giving its Alexa voice platform a shot in the arm after seeing further declines in skill growth over the past year, indicating lagging interest from third-party voice app developers. At the company’s Alexa Live developer event today, the company announced a slew of new features and tools for the developer community — its […]

Fintech startup Upgrade is launching a new credit card today. The Upgrade Bitcoin Rewards Card is a classic Visa credit card that works across the Visa network. But you get 1.5% in bitcoin rewards when you make payments. Upgrade isn’t the first company to announce a credit card with bitcoin rewards — but it’s the […]

The payments space – amazingly – remains up for grabs for startups. Yes dear reader, despite the success of Stripe, there seems to be a new payments startup virtually every other day. It’s a mess out there! The accelerated growth of e-commerce due to the pandemic means payments are now a booming space. And here […]

Outbound sales managers typically rely on high volumes of inquiries to find customers, but this means that their revenue is often in proportion to the size of their team. Outplay helps them scale more easily with tools that automate campaigns, identifies the likeliest prospects and uses data to decide the right time to send pitches. […]

One thing seems certain: The past year-and-a-half has fundamentally transformed the world of live events. The pandemic left plenty of venues scrambling for alternative revenue streams and, in many cases, shutting down for good. On the flip side, it’s been a massive driver for those companies working to expand the reach of in-person events. Take […]

Get ready for a startup throwdown of global proportions (literally). We’re the proud hosts of the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) Global Finals, and the pitch competition action starts tomorrow, July 22 at 9:00 am (PT). Pro housekeeping tip: Attending this virtual pitch fest is 100 percent free, but you need to register here first. Not […]

Safe Security, a Silicon Valley cyber risk management startup, has secured a $33 million investment from U.K. telco BT. Founded in 2012, Safe Security — formerly known as Lucideus — helps organizations to measure and mitigate enterprise-wide cyber risk using its security assessment framework for enterprises (SAFE) platform. The service, which is used by a […]

French startup Spendesk has announced earlier today that it has raised a $118 million funding round (€100 million) led by General Atlantic. Overall, the company has raised $189 million (€160 million) since its inception. Existing investors Index Ventures and Eight Road Ventures participated once again in today’s funding round. Spendesk, as the name suggests, focuses […]

As Twitter launches Super Follows, YouTube adds new monetization tools, and Instagram embraces e-commerce, the social media sphere is heating up with new ways for creators to make a living. Now, Tumblr is joining the fray with Post+, the platform’s first attempt at allowing users to monetize their content. Post+ is debuting today in limited […]

YouTube will begin pilot testing a new feature that will allow viewers to shop for products directly from livestream videos. The feature will initially launch with just a handful of creators and brands, the company says, and is an expansion of the integrated shopping experience YouTube began beta testing earlier this year. That feature was […]

A new voice-based social app that cites Clubhouse as its biggest inspiration offers a playful new way to stay in touch with close friends and family. Zebra leaves video out of the equation altogether, inviting users to snap on-the-fly photos and send them off paired with casual voice updates. Zebra focuses on asynchronous sharing, but it […]

Not every startup wants to raise venture capital. And then there are those that do want to raise VC money but don’t want to use it for specific things. In recent years, a number of firms have emerged looking to meet the credit needs of such venture-backed and growth startups: i80 Group is one of […]

New York-based startup Sketchfab has been acquired by Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine. Sketchfab has been building a platform to upload, download, view, share, sell and buy 3D assets. Essentially, it is the leading repository for 3D files on the web. Epic Games isn’t disclosing the terms of the deal. Sketchfab […]

Space propulsion developer Accion Systems has closed its most significant funding round yet. The company raised $42 million in a Series C led by Tracker Capital, bringing its valuation to $83.5 million. Along with the investment, Tracker Capital also acquired a majority stake in the company. This latest injection of capital will facilitate the development […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Natasha took a trip down memory lane to the great WeWork saga. We had WSJ reporter and author Eliot Brown on the show to chat about his new book, The Cult of We, written […]

Loop Returns, a software company looking to handle the costly and inefficient process of retail/ecommerce returns, has announced the close of a $65 million Series B financing round. The round was led by CRV, with participation from Shopify, Renegade Partners, as well as existing investors FirstMark Capital, Ridge Ventures, Peterson Ventures, and Lerer Hippeau. The […]

Coding is not just for engineers and computer programmers anymore: the pace of technology and its growing ubiquity mean that even non-tech roles will require workers to have some degree of knowledge to do their jobs in the future. Today a company called Sololearn — which has built a popular mobile-first education platform to meet […]

Micromobility vendors are keen to follow other industries into the subscription model for a few reasons: ease of scaling, return on investment and cost-per-mile to operate.