Crunch Hype

This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. After years of prototypes, the age of foldables has finally arrived. They’re here. I’ve seen them, and even, briefly, touched one. And that’s about as far as it goes, to be honest. A week after Samsung kicked off its S10 event with an in-depth look at the […]

Horizon Robotics, a three-year-old Chinese startup backed by Intel Capital, just raised a mega-round of fundings from domestic and overseas backers as it competes for global supremacy in developing AI solutions and chips aimed at autonomous vehicles, smart retail stores, surveillance equipment and other devices for everyday scenarios. The Beijing-based company announced Wednesday in a […]

The Federal Trade Commission announced on Tuesday evening that it has brought its first case against using fake reviews to sell products online. The Commission said it will settle with defendant Cure Encapsulations Inc., a New York City-based company, and owner Naftula Jacobwitz, who it accused of making false claims about a weight loss supplement […]

Lightstream, a Chicago-based company which develops tools to augment livestreams, has raised $8 million in new funding as it looks to add monitoring, management, and monetization services to its suite of editing technologies. Last year, the company inked a partnership with Microsoft‘s live-streaming Twitch competitor, Mixer, to let streamers on the platform add professional flourishes […]

It's already tomorrow in Australia, seemingly in more ways than one. It's the 27th already, yes, but they're also working in putting together AI-flown companion jets for their fighters. Why didn't we think of that? It's a Boeing Australia joint, but maybe they'll contract out to the U.S. facilities and we can snake one off the line. I know a guy.

Researchers have created a prosthetic hand that offers its users the ability to feel where it is and how the fingers are positioned — a sense known as proprioception. The headline may be in jest, but the advance is real and may help amputees more effectively and naturally use their prostheses.

For more than 15 years, Steam has been the dominant digital distribution platform for PC video games. While its success has spawned several competitors, including some online stores from game publishers, none have made a significant dent in its vice-like grip on the market. Cracks, though, are seemingly starting to appear in Steam’s armor, and […]

Rotten Tomatoes is making a couple of changes designed to prevent trolls from attacking films before they’re even released. The review aggregator (owned by Fandango) recently announced that it will no longer allow users to post comments about a movie before the movie actually comes out. This seems like a no-brainer, and it comes less […]

The metrics you use to measure your company’s performance should be clear, comparable and few in number.

Welcome to the latest episode of TechCrunch Mixtape with Megan Rose Dickey and myself. This week we talk about mental illness within the homeless population, specifically how people can help situations that are typically addressed by police. Neil Shah, CEO of Concrn, joined us in the studio to talk about the ups, downs and ups […]

Porsche plans to turn its best-selling U.S. vehicle, the Macan SUV, into an electric vehicle following the introduction of its first EVs, the Taycan and its crossover cousin, the Cross Tourismo. Production of the next-generation all-electric Porsche Macan will begin early in the next decade, the company announced Tuesday. It will be produced in Leipzig, […]

Zone7, the company using data and analytics to identify the potential for injuries with athletes, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding. The company monitors athletes’ performance to determine when they need to be rested to avoid the potential for career-threatening injuries. The company’s technology has managed to attract investors including Resolute Ventures, UpWest, Amicus Capital, […]

GV (formerly Google Ventures) is partnering with TechCrunch Include to host Office Hours for underserved and underrepresented founders on March 5th. From 10:30am – 12:30pm, GV investors Dave Munichiello, Graham Spencer, Laura Melahn, Brian Bendett and Barkha Gvalani will meet for one-on-one sessions with founders. Apply here. In 2014, TechCrunch launched the Include program, which […]

Polis founder Kendall Tucker began her professional life as a campaign organizer in local Democratic politics, but — seeing an opportunity in her one-on-one conversations with everyday folks — has built a business taking that shoe leather approach to political campaigns to the business world. Now the company she founded to test her thesis that […]

Spotify has reportedly launched for some users in India today, with plans to officially launch on Wednesday to everyone, Variety, citing sources with knowledge of Spotify’s plans, reports. For the first 30 days, Spotify’s premium service will be free and then cost 119 rupees (about $1.67) per month. There are also single-day, weekly, monthly, three-month, […]

We are not quite ready to announce the agenda for TechCunch’s April 18 robotics and AI show at UC Berkeley, but anyone who has been watching the speaker announcements is bound to be just a bit excited. Here’s a quick sneak peek at the soon-to-be-announced agenda. Robotics & AI investor panel For founders eager to […]

In today’s noisy, fast-paced world, finding a way to let clients and potential customers know that they are top of mind can be a major challenge for companies. Enter Sendoso, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online-to-offline startup that promises to source, store, ship anything a business ever needs to send — and track its return on […]

Facebook will drive a hard bargain with influencers and artists judging by the terms of service for the social network’s Patreon-like Fan Subscriptions feature that lets people pay a monthly fee for access to a creator’s exclusive content. The policy document attained by TechCrunch shows Facebook plans to take up to a 30 percent cut […]

This is the future you asked for. When people read smartphone reviews, one of the first things they want to know is whether the battery life is going to be sufficient for their use cases. Well, what if the battery life was the only stat that mattered? At MWC in Barcelona, phone maker Avenir Telecom […]

Earlier this week, at MWC Barcelona, BMW announced its newest in-car AI initiative: BMW Natural Interaction. The idea here is to use cameras, microphones and other sensors in the car to allow you to have more natural interactions with the car, either through voice or gestures. The marquee feature here is the ability to point […]

Few countries have more entrepreneurial potential than India. It’s home not just to the wave of IT offshoring firms of the 1990s and early 2000s, but also to some of the most interesting unicorn tech startups in the world, including Freshworks, Paytm, Oyo and of course Flipkart, which sold to Walmart last year for $16 […]

The field of technology and the business practices within it tend to advance faster than regulators can keep up. But the FTC is making a concerted effort with a new 17-lawyer tech task force dedicated to ensuring "free and fair competition" and watching for anticompetitive conduct among technology companies.

News media company theSkimm is delving further into podcasting, with the launch of its first daily news podcast called Skimm This, set to launch on March 4. Similar to how theSkimm’s morning newsletter helps people keep up with the latest goings-on in the world, the new podcast also aims to help readers quickly understand the […]

Sapling, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose employee management and onboarding software is being adopted by a small but growing number of mid-size companies with far-flung workforces, is announcing today that it has raised $4 million in funding from Gradient Ventures, which is Google’s AI fund, and Tuesday Capital, formerly known as CrunchFund. It quietly […]

TechCrunch is gearing up for another epic celebration of early-stage tech startups by offering equally epic savings to our flagship event, Disrupt San Francisco 2019, which takes place October 2-4 at Moscone North Convention Center. How’d you like to trim a cool $500 off the price of your Disrupt SF pass? Keep reading. Simply sign […]

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. Huawei’s folding Mate X: a closer look Brian Heater got to check out the foldable phone (with a Huawei rep driving […]

Botify, a search engine optimization company that works with customers like Expedia and Nike, announced today that it has raised $20 million in Series B funding. Co-founder and CEO Adrien Menard said that the opportunity in SEO is “even bigger now than in the past,” and that the problem is a much broader problem than […]

If you’ve searched the App Store for an app to get a second phone number, chances are you found dozens of apps with very little differences. A handful of companies are spamming the App Store with duplicated apps. This strategy is against Apple’s rules. The App Store Review Guidelines are detailed rules that define what […]

Google today announced that its new machine learning-powered grammar checker is now live in Google Docs for G Suite users. The company first introduced this new feature at Cloud Next 2018, but it lingered in early access ever since. Grammar checkers are nothing new, of course, and even Docs itself has long had one. What’s […]

Google today launched version 1.2 of its Flutter cross-platform UI framework at MWC Barcelona. With this, Flutter now features support for Android App Bundles, Google’s latest technology for packaging Android apps more efficiently and for creating instant apps, too. In addition, the framework lays the groundwork for helping developers accept in-app payments and adds a […]

In a bid to increase market share, the ride-hailing giants are offering discounts to riders ahead of their IPOs.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has until March 11 to explain why he should not be held in contempt for violating a settlement agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC asked a judge Monday to hold Musk in contempt for violating the settlement agreement reached with the agency last year. Reuters was the […]

Facebook is expanding its efforts around premium video advertising with a new program called Facebook Showcase. This follows the announcement last fall of what the company calls In-Stream Reserve advertising — video ads with a curated list of hundreds of publishers, at a set price, with Nielsen-verified audiences. In fact, Facebook said at a press […]

Foot Locker is taking a stake in the subscription-based shopping service, Rockets of Awesome – a startup that’s something of a “StitchFix for kids,” in that it sends out a personalized selection of children’s apparel in seasonal boxes, shipped to customers’ homes. The companies announced today that Foot Locker has made a $12.5 million minority […]

Google’s Gradient Ventures, the search giant’s dedicated AI fund, is casting its eye to Asia after it led a $7 million Series A round for Elsa, a startup that operates an app for English language learners. The deal is Gradient’s first in Asia, and it includes participation from existing investors Monk’s Hill Ventures and SOSV. […]

VMware announced a new Kubernetes product today called VMware Essential PKS, which has been created from its acquisition of Heptio for $550 million at the end of last year. VMware already had two flavors of Kubernetes, a fully managed cloud product and an enterprise version with all of the components such as registry and network […]

This year’s MWC has been very much the beginning of a new phase for Light. Until now, the Palo Alto startup has been best known for its 16-lens DSLR competitor, an utterly fascinating, if not particularly practical device. At this week’s show, however, we’re seeing a wholly different side of the company, one focused on […]

When the government comes for your data, tech companies can’t always tell you. But thanks to a legal loophole, companies can say if they haven’t had a visit yet That’s opened up an interesting clause that allows companies to silently warn customers when the government turns up to secretly raid its stash of customer data […]

Tinder, the dating app company which, as of late, has been more fully embracing its status as the preferred hook-up app of choice for the younger generation, is today launching a new feature designed for its college-aged Tinder U users: Spring Break mode. The feature will allow students to swipe through potential matches before heading […]

Today at MWC Barcelona OnePlus CEO Pete Lau unveiled an initiative to spur apps for 5G networks. The timing is right, too. With 5G launching around the world this year, carriers, phone makers and consumers alike have yet to develop a killer app for the massive increase of speed provided by 5G. Basically, OnePlus is […]

In a joint press conference, NASA and SpaceX officials said that SpaceX has been approved to conduct the first orbital launch of the Crew Dragon. The launch could come as early as March 2, and would be the last and most important hurdle to cross before SpaceX can send actual human astronauts to the International […]

In an effort to one-up Spotify and Apple Music, Pandora this morning announced the launch of a new marketing tool for artists, called Pandora Stories. The feature allows artists to build music playlists combined with voice tracks, where they can add a narrative and deeper insights – explaining, for example, what a song means for […]

Dipsea, a mobile platform for erotic audio stories, is backed by Bedrock Capital and Thrive Capital

There has been a wave of fintech startups emerging that make different kinds of investing more accessible to a wider pool of people, and today one of them has raised a substantial round of money to help fill out its mission. YieldStreet — which provides a platform for making alternative investments in areas like real […]

Yesterday gave us a closer view of the Samsung Galaxy Fold. Of course, there were still a plate of glass, a security rope and a few feet between us and the device. Huawei, thankfully, was a bit more willing to grant us access to their own foldable, the Mate X at a closed door meeting […]

Facebook has taken the decision to remove the Facebook page and Instagram profile of far right activist, Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Twitter permanently banned the founder of the far right English Defence League almost a year ago. In a blog post announcing the decision Facebook says Yaxley-Lennon repeatedly broke its community […]

Attentive, a Techstars Boulder alumnus, closing of a $1.2M Seed round co-led by Lisbon based Indico Capital Partners and Luxembourg based Mangrove Capital Partners. This also marks Mangrove’s first ever investment into a Portugal-based start-up. The southern-European country has surged as a European startup destination with the launch of new funds like Indico, acting as […]

Direct-to-consumer startups — making products that leverage the internet to bypass third-party marketplaces and retailers to engage with and sell directly to their customers — have been one of the biggest categories of growth in the world of e-commerce, and today one of the startups that helped create and prove the model is announcing a […]

Continuing its quest to become the Amazon Web Services for biomanufacturing, Ginkgo Bioworks has launched a new spinoff called Motif Ingredients with $90 million in funding to develop proteins that can serve as meat and dairy replacements. It’s the second spinout for Ginkgo since late 2017 when the company partnered with Bayer to launch Joyn […]

Huawei’s rotating chairman Guo Ping kicked off a keynote speech this morning at the world’s biggest mobile industry tradeshow with a wry joke. “There has never been more interest in Huawei,” he told delegates at Mobile World Congress. “We must be doing something right!” The Chinese company is seeking to dispel suspicion around the security […]