Crunch Hype

Cedric Kovacs-Johnson launched Flume Health after watching his own family struggle with payments for his sister’s surgery. “When we looked at who was calling the shots [on prices] it was this litany of service providers that was unknown to us and the cost was unknown to us until we got the bill weeks later,” says […]

FreightHub, the European digital freight forwarder, has raised $30 million in Series B financing. Leading the round is Rider Global — a venture fund said to be founded by logistics experts — along with Maersk Growth, the corporate venture arm of container shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk. Existing investors Northzone, Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital (GFC), […]

Dépêche-toi et ne tarde pas! Roughly translated that means “hurry up and don’t delay!” You can still register to participate in the TC Hackathon at VivaTech to hack for some great prizes. It won’t cost you a thing to join the fun — tickets are free, and they also give you access to all three […]

Plum, the chatbot-based app that helps you manage your money, is disclosing $4.5 million in further funding. The round, which quietly closed in the summer, was led by venture firm VentureFriends and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). It brings total funding for the London and Athens-based fintech to $6.3 million. Founded in […]

The biggest news in a month of weighty African headlines was Jumia listing on the New York Stock Exchange. After filing SEC IPO docs in March, the Pan-African e-commerce company’s shares began trading on the NYSE April 12, opening at $14.50 under ticker symbol JMIA. Jumia stock rose north of 70 percent on its first […]

It’s lucky number seven as the TechCrunch posse returns yet again to Berlin, Europe’s vibrant international hub, to host Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December. We just can’t get enough of this city’s startup spirit and, apparently, neither can you. Our Disrupt Berlin events have attracted participants from more than 50 countries, including European Union […]

LG was once a stalwart of the smartphone industry — remember its collaboration with Facebook back in the day? — but today the company is swiftly descending into irrelevance. The latest proof is LG’s Q1 financials, released this week, which show that its mobile division grossed just KRW 1.51 trillion ($1.34 billion) in sales for […]

Bird and Lime are scooting along, backed by hundreds of millions in venture capital. But there are still plenty of companies hoping to dominate the still-nascent micro mobility market, given the financial opportunity it’s promising. Among them: Bond Mobility, a three-year-old Palo Alto, Calif.- and Zurich, Switzerland-based startup that says its “high-performance” dockless electric bikes […]

In Facebook’s dreams, it’s a clean and private place. People spend their time having thoughtful discussions in “meaningful” Groups, planning offline meetups with Events, or laughing together in a Facebook Watch party. In reality, Facebook is a cluttered mess of features that seem to constantly leak user data. People waste their time viewing inane News […]

Google is opening its Android Automotive operating system up to third-party developers to bring music and other entertainment apps into vehicle infotainment systems, starting with the Polestar 2, an all-electric vehicle developed by Volvo’s standalone electric performance brand. Google announced Wednesday that media app developers will be able to create new entertainment experiences for Android […]

Pluralsight, an online training platform focusing on subjects like web development, IT certification and security training, announced today that it will acquire GitPrime, a dev team productivity tool, for $170 million in cash. GitPrime is like an analytics dashboard for code projects. It watches your team’s code repositories on services like GitHub or Bitbucket, tracking […]

Epic Games is in the process of acquiring the studio behind one of the most popular cross-platform games out there, Rocket League. The studio behind Fortnite is buying Psyonix for an undisclosed sum and bringing its 132 employees onboard. There doesn’t appear to be a ton changing at the San Diego game studio; Epic says […]

You expect to lose money gambling, but you don't really expect to lose it abstaining from gambling. But if you're Fanduel user who hasn't made any bets or deposits for two years, the site will now deduct $3 per month until you put some money on the table. You have to play to win, it seems, but not to lose.

After Square issued weak guidance in Q4, all eyes were on the payments company to see what kind of growth it really had in Q1. Results reported today underscored some of the challenges the company is facing. Square’s adjusted revenues were $489 million, up 59% year-on-year, with adjusted earnings per share of $0.11. Both figures beat analysts’ estimates. […]

Fitbit’s financial rebound continued in the first quarter, as the company generated $271.9 million in revenue, beating Wall Street expectations of $259.7 million. The good news is almost exclusively the domain of the company’s increased focus on smartwatches, which grew 117% year over year. That, in turn, is thanks to this year’s debut of the […]

Live Conference Call: Josh Constine and Frederic Lardinois talk all things F8 in just a bit Facebook’s annual F8 conference is in full swing, with major redesigns of the company’s apps and all sorts of news trickling out of San Jose. We have Josh Constine and Frederic Lardinois on the ground talking to everyone, and […]

Ladders, one of the most popular job recruitment sites in the U.S. specializing in high-end jobs, has exposed more than 13.7 million user records following a security lapse. The New York-based company left an Amazon -hosted Elasticsearch database exposed without a password, allowing anyone to access the data. Sanyam Jain, a security researcher and a […]

We’ve captured much of Niantic’s ongoing story in the first three parts of our EC-1, from its beginnings as an “entrepreneurial lab” within Google, to its spin-out as an independent company and the launch of Pokémon GO, to its ongoing focus on becoming a platform for others to build augmented reality products upon. The Niantic […]

Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group has long been one of the most prominent early-stage funds in the backyard of Amazon and Microsoft. Now, however, the firm is starting to look beyond the Pacific Northwest with the launch of its $100 million Acceleration Fund, which will expand its geographic reach to the entire U.S. and give it […]

The family of Walter Huang, an Apple engineer who died after his Tesla Model X with Autopilot engaged crashed into a highway median, is suing Tesla. The State of California Department of Transportation is also named in the lawsuit. The wrongful death lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court, County of Santa Clara, alleges that errors […]

The 11th mission for Blue Origin's New Shepard launch vehicle is slated for takeoff Tuesday morning. The craft will be carrying 38 (!) experimental payloads from NASA, students, and research organizations around the world. You'll be able to watch the launch live tomorrow at about 6 AM Pacific time.

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’s stock jumps 5 percent after beating expectations Apple released earnings for its fiscal second quarter yesterday, reporting revenue of $58 […]

Walmart -owned streaming service Vudu announced today that it will be launching new interactive shows later this year, created through the company’s joint venture with interactive content startup Eko. This confirms a Bloomberg report that Walmart plans to debut several interactive new shows produced with Eko, along with shoppable ads. We’d hoped that the company would […]

During last year’s F8 developer conference, Facebook announced the 1.0 launch of PyTorch, the company’s open-source deep learning platform. At this year’s F8, the company launched version 1.1. The small increase in version numbers belies the importance of this release, which focuses on making the tool more appropriate for production usage, including improvements to how […]

At its F8 developer conference, Facebook today launched Ax and BoTorch, two new open-source AI tools. BoTorch, which, as the name implies, is based on PyTorch, is a library for Bayesian optimization. That’s a pretty specialized tool. Ax, on the other hand, is the more interesting launch, as it’s a general-purpose platform for managing, deploying […]

It’s no secret that unless you are very careful about what you opt-in to, Google keeps a very detailed record of your location history and a log of the web sites you visit in Chrome and apps you use. There have always been ways to fully opt out of this or to painstakingly delete these […]

Twitter has faced a barrage of awkward questions from the U.K. parliament over its ongoing failure to tackle violent abuse targeted at women. Katy Minshall, the social media platform’s head of U.K. government public policy, admitted it needs to do more to safeguard women users — but claimed the company is “acutely aware” of the […]

Google is combining several technologies including virtual phone numbers, audio transcriptions, automated reporting and analytics, in a new effort to help small business owners better manage their inbound phone calls. The company’s latest project from its in-house incubator is CallJoy, launching today. Aimed at the U.S.’s 30.2 million small business owners, the system offers a […]

While we haven’t achieved Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the transporter beam (yet), mobility and transportation — and the tech that drives both — are undergoing a huge and rapid evolution. There’s no better place to see, share and learn about these revolutionary advances than at TC Sessions: Mobility 2019, a day-long conference that takes a […]

The smartphone industry is in rough shape. Sundar Pichai used the word “headwinds” to discuss the company’s difficulties moving Pixel 3 units, but Canalys’ latest report is far more blunt, describing the situation as a “freefall.” Things are pretty ugly in the Q1 report, as smartphone shipments declined for the sixth quarter in a row. […]

The U.K. government is proposing new legislation aimed at improving security of Internet of Things devices. Digital minister Margot James MP revealed the draft law on Wednesday as part of the government’s efforts to protect millions of internet-connected devices from cyberattacks. The law will mandate that internet-connected devices, like smart thermostats, appliances and webcams, must […]

Netflix this morning announced a new feature for its streaming service focused on offering viewers better sound. The company is rolling out “high-quality audio,” or an audio experience that features a higher bitrate for TV devices that support either 5.1 or Dolby Atmos. Depending on the device and the customer’s bandwidth capabilities, the actual bitrate […]

A year after Amazon opened up in-skill purchasing to all Alexa developers in the U.S., the company is launching the service internationally. Initially, the capability will roll out to developers in the U.K., Germany and Japan, and then developers elsewhere in the world. With in-skill purchasing, developers are able to generate revenue from voice apps […]

Google announced an interesting new Wear OS feature today that makes a number of highly used features more easily available. Google calls this feature ’tiles’ and it makes both information like the local weather forecast, headlines, your next calendar event, goals and your heart rate, as well as tools like the Wear OS built-in timer […]

Ticketing startup SeatGeek has a new CTO. Brian Murphy previously held the same position at Tumblr (which, like TechCrunch, is owned by Verizon Media) and has also served as vice president of engineering at The New York Times and senior director of technology at Condé Nast. “Brian is an incredible leader and team-builder who has […]

Andreessen Horowitz, the storied venture capital firm with investments in Airbnb, Buzzfeed and Coinbase, has reportedly closed on $2.75 billion for two new funds.

Causes grew to a jaw-dropping 200 million users as one of the first ten Facebook platform apps. Started by Facebook co-founder Sean Parker, it was meant to turn a generation into activists and philanthropists. Causes acquired Votizen to augment shallow clicktivism with a way to remind friends to vote. But after Facebook went mobile and […]

Good news for European startups with a health or wellness bent. Joyance Partners, a $20M US VC firm that invests in early-stage startups in the health and ‘better living’ space is launching into the European market with a dedicated European partner. The move could be seen as taking advantage of leaps in the capability of […]

Hulu has now grown over 28 million U.S. customers, including 26.8 million monthly paid subscribers and 1.3 million promotional accounts, the company announced this morning as part of its annual presentation at the digital Newfronts in New York. In January, Hulu had 25 million total users, including both paid and promo accounts, and 20 million […]

When hackers want to make a quick buck, mining cryptocurrency seems to be the way to go. New research out Wednesday by Boston-based security firm Threat Stack shared exclusively with TechCrunch reveals a new variant of the Shellbot malware is taking a leaf out of the other cryptocurrency mining by breaking into computers and using […]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been jailed for 50 weeks for violating his U.K. bail conditions in 2012 at a sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court today. A spokeswoman for the court confirmed the almost-year long custodial sentence via email — which falls just short of the 12-month maximum carried by the offence. In a […]

BenevolentAI, is an AI company where AI actually means something. Founded in 2013, it focuses on ‘accelerating the journey from data to medicines.’ To achieve that, it’s raised a whopping $202 million to look at early drug discovery to late-stage clinical development and has a research facility in Cambridge, UK where there is plenty of […]

India’s trucking system has a big inefficiency problem that continues to drag the economy. BlackBuck, one of the handful logistics startups that is trying to overhaul this system, just raised $150 million in Series D round to further pursue its mission. The new round was led by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners and Accel at a […]

OYO, the fast-growing budget hotel startup out of India that’s backed by Airbnb, SoftBank, Grab and Didi, has made an acquisition to expand its footprint into Europe, specifically around self-catering home rentals. The company has picked up @Leisure Group from Axel Springer for about $415 million (€369.5 million). Axel Springer had a 51 percent share of […]

The changes continue to roll at Honestbee. Fresh from pausing operations in four countries and announcing plans to lay off 10 percent of staff, the Singapore-based online grocery startup has let CEO Joel Sng go, two sources with knowledge of his exit told TechCrunch. Sng, who co-founded Honestbee back in 2015 and previously served as […]

Samsung Ventures, the VC arm of the Korean electronics giant, has made its first investment in Southeast Asia after it backed HR startup Swingvy. Singapore-based Swingy’s service provides HR services, payroll and insurance for SMEs on a freemium basis. The company announced this week that it raised $7 million that was led by the Samsung […]

The rescue of a boys soccer team from caves in Thailand captivated the world last year, and now a mini-series chronically the incredible scenes is headed to Netflix . The streaming giant announced this week that it has secured the rights from 13 Thumluang Company, which represents the boys and their coach, “to tell the […]

The aggressive push by Silicon Valley companies and Chinese firms to win India, one of the last great growth markets, has decimated many local businesses in recent years. With each passing day, Amazon is closing in on Walmart-owned Flipkart’s lead on the e-commerce space. Uber is fighting with Ola for the tentpole position of the […]

After announcing that they were launching a managed blockchain service late last year, Amazon Web Services is now opening that service up for general availability. It was only about five months ago that AWS chief executive Andy Jassy announced that the company was reversing course on its previous dismissal of blockchain technologies and laid out […]