Crunch Hype

A new challenger has emerged in the gaming hardware category. Game distribution giant Valve today announced the launch of Steam Deck, a $399 gaming portable designed to take PC games on the go. The handheld (which has echoes of several portable gaming rigs of years past) features a seven-inch screen and runs on a quad-core […]

DeepMind stunned the biology world late last year when its AlphaFold2 AI model predicted the structure of proteins (a common and very difficult problem) so accurately that many declared the decades-old problem “solved.” Now researchers claim to have leapfrogged DeepMind the way DeepMind leapfrogged the rest of the world, with RoseTTAFold, a system that does […]

In our review last year, we called the Freewrite Traveler “outstanding, but expensive.” The latest version of Astrohaus’ distraction-free word processing hardware tool does little to address the latter concern. In fact, the Ernest Hemingway Freewrite Signature Edition comes in at a full $300 more than its predecessor. But the latest edition of the hardware […]

American Express is branching out into financial planning, with a little help from a seven-person startup called BodesWell. This week, the credit card giant launched a pilot of its first self-service digital financial planning tool, dubbed “My Financial Plan (MFP).” The six-month pilot kicked off on July 11 with about 25,000 select Amex cardmembers. American […]

The General Services Administration has denied a senator’s request to review documents Zoom submitted to have its software approved for use in the federal government. The denial was in response to a letter sent by Democratic senator Ron Wyden to the GSA in May, expressing concern that the agency cleared Zoom for use by federal […]

More details are beginning to emerge on Houston-based Axiom Space’s ambitious project to build and operate the world’s first commercial space station. Thales Alenia Space, a European aerospace manufacturer, will develop the two pressurized modules of the Axiom Space Station. The two elements, which are scheduled to launch in 2024 and 2025, will dock to […]

GM and its new EV business unit BrightDrop are launching a fleet charging service as the automaker aims to ramp up its bet on connected and electric commercial vehicles. The service, branded Ultium Charge 360 fleet charging service in a nod to GM’s new electric architecture and batteries that will be the foundation of its […]

It's not super stupid to value Revolut far more richly with massively improved gross margins, profitability and more proven revenue growth.

Shortly after the first Sight Tech Global event, in December last year, Apple and Microsoft announced remarkable new features for mobile phones. Anyone could point the phone camera at a scene and request a “scene description.” In a flash, a cloud-based, computer vision AI determined what was in the scene and a machine-voice read the […]

The overlapping in job roles is uncanny: The best investors and founders have to find focus through the noise, understand the weight of due diligence and pitch others with conviction.

The need for more affordable housing has never been more urgent as a shortage in the U.S. housing market persists. Startups attempting to help address the shortage in a variety of ways abound. One such startup, Abodu, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Previous backer Initialized […]

Alt-Bionics made waves back in late 2019 when the brand new startup competed at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Tech Symposium. The company finished second to 3BM’s infrared paint-curing system, but Alt went on to capture national and international headlines on the strength of promising technology and a great story. A writeup […]

Database technology can change the world, but the world in these parts changes very, very slowly. That’s made building a startup in the sector a tough equation.

There is an art to engineering and sometimes engineering can transform art. For Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis, the two worlds collided when they created the open-source graphics program, GIMP.

It seems like everything is being pushed online now, but network procurement stubbornly has remained an in-person or phone-based negotiation. Lightyear, an early stage New York City startup decided to change that last year, and the company announced a $13.1 million Series A today. The round was led by Ridge Ventures with participation from Zigg […]

The mystery of who will occupy the final seat on Blue Origin’s debut human spaceflight next week is a mystery no longer: The company revealed today that the winning bidder who forked over $28 million for the privilege is actually going to fly on a later mission, and instead the final seat on the debut […]

Aurora Innovation, the autonomous vehicle startup that acquired Uber’s self-driving unit in December, is going public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company Reinvent Technology Partners Y. The deal announced Thursday confirms TechCrunch’s reporting in June that the startup was in final talks with the SPAC launched by LinkedIn co-founder and investor Reid Hoffman, […]

Doug Landis joined the TechCrunch Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising event to discuss the value of storytelling for startups -- and how to do it.

Zūm, the startup that provides child transportation for school districts and families, is aiming to use its fleet of electric school buses to deliver power back to grid when it’s needed most. The company is partnering with AutoGrid, which provides energy management and distribution software, to transform Zūm’s fleet of electric school buses into one […]

Daloopa will continue developing its data extraction technology for financial institutions, which is now being expanded globally.

Walking into an auto repair shop can sometimes feel like taking a step into the past. The handwritten notes and receipts, the clunky point-of-sales system and scheduling tools — if those are even there — can make customers feel like they’re in the 1990s, not the 21st century. Shopmonkey is trying to change that. “It’s […]

Facebook’s lead regulator in the European Union must “swiftly” investigate the legality of data-sharing related to a controversial WhatsApp policy update, following an order by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB). We’ve reached out to the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) for a response. (Update: See below for their statement.) Updated terms had been set to […]

Netradyne, a startup that uses cameras and edge computing to improve commercial driver safety, has scored $150 million in Series C funding. The fresh cash will help the company double down on its current product, Driveri, according to Avneesh Agrawal, CEO and co-founder. Agrawal told TechCrunch the company is very confident in its product, which […]

The gamification of payments is not a new concept. A number of companies are attempting to combine gamification and payments in creative ways. And today, one such company, Play2Pay, has raised $13 million in a Series A round of funding. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based startup has a straightforward mission. It wants to give consumers a […]

Leap, a platform for people over 55 to learn via social interaction, has raised $3.1M funding in a seed round led by European early-stage investor Creandum, and SF-based South Park Commons. Also participating was Learn Start/Learn Capital, alongside angels Michelle Kennedy (Peanut founder), Sahil Lavingia, and Tim Tuttle. Leap members gather online to collectively “learn, […]

Influencer marketing is one of the fastest-growing and one of the most impactful media channels today. There’s a growing ad-blocking movement and key demographics are spending less time in front of TVs. Marketers have now realized that their customers trust the recommendations of people they relate with. However, despite this being an impactful channel, brand […]

The global social market is rapidly growing. With over 1.25 million online social sellers in Egypt alone, the Egyptian social e-commerce market is forecast to be worth more than $14.8 billion by 2024. One of its players, Taager, is a social e-commerce platform enabling online merchants with end-to-end logistics. Today, it is announcing that it […]

The exoskeleton/exosuit category has been heating up over the past few years. It makes sense, really. There are two giant — and dramatically different — potential customer bases. On one end are those sorts of jobs that could benefit from some wearable assistance. On the other are people with mobility issues for whom such technology […]

New funding boosts Butlr's ability to apply real-time people-sensing technology beyond real estate and retail uses to monitor falls and other movements for active seniors who are aging in place.

The fintech funding continues to roll in at a rapid pace, a result of the huge shift underway in how consumers spend and manage their money. In the latest development, Revolut — the London-based financial “superapp” that provides banking, investing, currency transfer and other money management services to some 16 million users globally — this […]

Indian startup Inshorts, which operates an eponymous news aggregator service, has raised $60 million in a new financing round as its two-year-old bet — launch of a new social media app called Public — continues to impress, the startup confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. Vy Capital led the new round in Inshorts, which has raised […]

First created to give supply chain merchants a streamlined way to communicate with buyers, Tinvio is now preparing to launch financial services, including financing and credit card issuing. The Singapore-based startup announced today it has raised a $12 million Series A to build out its B2B transactions platform. The round was led by AppWorks Ventures, […]

Easy Eat AI, a Singapore-based startup that wants to “transform restaurants into technology companies,” announced today it has raised $5 million in funding. Easy Eat AI offers an operating system for restaurants that lets them digitize all parts of their business, from inventory and customer orders to delivery, and gain AI-based data analytics to improve […]

Part of Y Combinator’s current batch, Deskimo wants to make finding coworking spaces easier. Its on-demand booking app is currently available in Singapore and Hong Kong, with plans to enter more markets after Demo Day. Its founders are former Rocket Internet executives who say that their main competition aren’t spaces like WeWork or other hot […]

Chevrolet Bolts are back in the news — this time for another consumer alert issued by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, less than a year after the agency issued a recall for a similar issue. NHTSA is recommending owners of Model Year 2017-2019 park their Bolts away from homes due to the risk […]

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It's so critical to frame the problem from your perspective. And I also think that this is a really great opportunity to introduce emotion to really build a more compelling story.

We knew DMs were on the way to Clubhouse and today the new feature landed, spicing up the audio-only app with a text-based chat feature. Clubhouse’s new direct messaging system, called “Backchannel,” gives users an oft-requested way to start conversations behind the scenes on the social audio app. Backchannel offers both one-on-one messaging as well […]

When Microsoft announced this morning that it was releasing a cloud PC service called Windows 365, it got me thinking. While Windows 365 is about packaging a virtual Windows business desktop in a cloud context, if you think about the announcement in a different way, perhaps it could herald the beginning of a lightweight, cloud-based […]

The United States has fallen behind China and Europe in the production and adoption of electric vehicles, especially from 2017 to 2020, according to a study by the International Council on Clean Transportation. One important piece of the puzzle that the U.S. does have supremacy in, however, is the production of semiconductors, which are used […]

As it promised last month, Amazon has launched its serialized fiction Kindle Vella store that lets you unlock episodic, self-published stories via in-app purchases. The new platform is a way for readers to discover new fiction and a new way for authors to generate revenue from the Kindle Direct Publishing service.

While retail investors grew more comfortable buying cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2021, the decentralized application world still has a lot of work to do when it comes to onboarding a mainstream user base. Phantom is part of a new class of crypto startups looking to build infrastructure that streamlines blockchain-based applications and provides […]

WhatsApp is finally pushing an improvement to a key feature that even the Facebook-owned instant messaging service acknowledges has been a top request from users for years. On Wednesday, WhatsApp said it is rolling out a limited public beta test for its improved multidevice capability. The update enables WhatsApp users for the first time to […]

Off the Grid is a mainstay of the San Francisco culinary scene. The event company, founded by Matt Cohen in 2010, created neighborhood pop-up festivals centered around entrepreneurial food trucks. It was part of the vanguard in the food truck movement, designed to open a path to restaurants for a new generation of ambitious and […]

Facebook just announced plans to pay content creators more than $1 billion by the end of next year through new bonus programs designed to keep creatives plugged into its app ecosystem. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg first announced the new funding to “reward creators for great content” on his Facebook page. The company will […]

Facebook has joined Amazon in a show of alarm at the sudden rise of antitrust hawk Lina Khan to the position of FTC Chair by asking that she be recused from all decisions relating to the company. The argument, more or less identical to Amazon’s, is that before her appointment, Khan was too outspoken about […]

It’s been fascinating to watch the development of Eventtus, a startup I came across many years ago on my travels in the Middle East, finding them at the Rise-Up Summit in Cairo in 2012. Then, it was two young women who’d taken the Silicon Valley startup culture to heart and created their own take on […]

M&As can provide a bright future for the company, but the process can be stressful. Talent is your most valuable asset, so make sure you give employees what they need to weather the changes.

Stories that disappear after a period of time are where the action is on social platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook. But when it comes to Twitter, it looks the product itself is going to be going away in a matter of days. Twitter has confirmed that Fleets — its own take on ephemeral […]