Crunch Hype

After winding down its consumer-oriented operations last July, mental health startup Lantern has partnered with larger mental health providers to license its IP. In addition to licensing its IP to Omada Health, Lantern has licensed its tech to Spring Health, Ginger and two others. Spring Health, which offers mental health benefits for large employers, provides personalized, […]

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. Amazon is buying home mesh router startup, Eero It’s a pretty clear fit for Amazon as it pushes to make Alexa […]

French startup Devialet has done it again. The new Phantom Reactor is a smaller, more effective speaker that packs in everything that made Devialet speakers good in the first place. Devialet’s first speaker, the Phantom, attracted rave reviews a few years ago. The egg-shaped speaker promised no background noise, no saturation and no distortion in […]

The battle between Uber and Lyft, which are both expected to go public this year, continues. Today, Lyft announced the hire of Michelle DeBella, formerly Uber’s global head of internal audit, as its own VP of finance strategy. DeBella will be responsible for ensuring Lyft meets its objectives around scaling. She’ll systematically review Lyft’s operations, […]

Mark your calendars startup fans, because Disrupt is returning to the beautiful City by the Bay to host TechCrunch’s flagship event, Disrupt San Francisco 2019, October 2-4 at the Moscone North Convention Center. It may only be February, but it’s never too early to save the date — or save a bundle. Planning pays off and, […]

Medium is seeking to juice up its premium subscription content in its home market with the acquisition of The Bold Italic. The 10-year-old online culture magazine will go behind the $5 per month Medium Membership paywall. The deal will keep The Bold Italic afloat when other San Francisco-local publications have struggled, following the shutdown of […]

Ahoy, it’s doom and gloom for Reddit after the company welcomed investment from Chinese censorship overlord Tencent. Well, not quite. The reality is, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. In recruiting the company behind one of the internet’s largest and vibrant social networks — chat app WeChat — and countless blockbuster games, Reddit has pulled off […]

New technology companies are poised to transform the shipping and freight industry across Latin America. Startups like Liftit, a Colombian provider of trucking services, and Nowports, a Mexican freight shipping startup, are angling to be the next Convoy and Flexport — at a time when shipping and logistics business in Latin America is booming thanks […]

TechCrunch is launching a new format for Extra Crunch members, called the EC-1. Modeled after the Form S-1 filing that late-stage startups submit to the SEC as part of the IPO process, EC-1s are authoritative, deep analyses into growth-stage startups. Through extensive interviews and research, an EC-1 acts as a case study for entrepreneurs and […]

I won’t bury the lede. TechCrunch is launching a subscription product called, appropriately and deliciously, Extra Crunch. Extra Crunch, as it says on the tin, is an additional layer of content, coverage, product and events-based offerings for our most regular and engaged readers. This will consist of articles that go more in-depth on topics in […]

WeWork has made a big name for itself in a short period of time as a global co-working space. In fact, WeWork is now the largest private office tenant in all of Manhattan. But whether the real estate play alone can support its reported $47 billion valuation still remains to be seen. That might explain […]

It’s May 7, 2013 and Jack Conte is, in his own words, “totally exhausted, slash, totally wired, in that really weird in-between zone.” He has spent 18 hours per day for the last 50 days building a replica of the Millennium Falcon set from “Star Wars” and shooting a music video in it. When Conte […]

Patreon is aggressively pursuing a new three-year product vision that is, in the words of SVP of Product Wyatt Jenkins, to build “the world’s best membership SaaS product for creators.” With about 90 engineers and product managers, the company sees an opportunity to own a particular niche that’s not well served by other B2B software […]

Patreon provides business infrastructure to independent content creators: people making videos, music, podcasts, paintings, comics, games, magazines and other forms of media for fans online. It helps them turn the small subset of superfans within their broader fan base into paying monthly patrons and manage relationships with those patrons across the web. Patreon is angling […]

Amazon Lockers are coming to a new location: Coachella. The retailer says it will make its storage lockers available to festival-goers, allowing them to order both in advance and same-day to have items like sunscreen, hats, phone chargers and more delivered to an on-site locker at the event at no extra charge during the festival […]

The founders of Glide, a member of the Y Combinator Winter 2019 class, had a notion that building mobile apps in the enterprise was too hard. They decided to simplify the process by starting with a spreadsheet, and automatically turning the contents into a slick mobile app. David Siegel, CEO and co-founder at Glide, was […]

Biomanufacturing technologies — taking modified versions of existing organisms and bending them to the will of humans — has moved from the world of science fiction to becoming a new reality. Across the startup landscape companies are launching to make synthetic spider silk, or make leather substitutes, or meat substitutes, or novel chemicals and pharmaceuticals. […]

Mode, a five-year-old collaborative analytics platform based in San Francisco, has raised $23 million in Series C funding led by Valor Equity Partners. Foundation Capital and REV Venture Partners, who led Mode’s Series A and B financing rounds, respectively, also joined the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $50 million altogether. In some […]

As tech companies continue their race to control the smart home, a promising energy startup has raised a round of funding from traditionally-tech and strategic investors, for a geothermal solution to heat and cool houses. Dandelion Energy, a spinout from Alphabet X, has raised $16 million in a Series A round of funding, with strategic […]

Walmart in 2016 said it would begin testing last-mile delivery using services like Uber, Lyft, and Deliv to bring customers’ orders, including groceries, to their homes. Last year, Walmart ended its grocery delivery deal with Uber and Lyft, and today it’s ending the deal with Deliv as well, according to a report from Reuters. Deliv […]

Datadog, the popular monitoring and analytics platform, today announced that it has acquired Madumbo, an AI-based application testing platform. “We’re excited to have the Madumbo team join Datadog,” said Olivier Pomel, Datadog’s CEO. “They’ve built a sophisticated AI platform that can quickly determine if a web application is behaving correctly. We see their core technology […]

In case you hadn’t seen, Amazon is buying router maker Eero. And in case you hadn’t heard, people are pretty angry. Deluged in a swarm of angry tweets and social media posts, many have taken to reading tea leaves to try to understand what the acquisition means for ordinary privacy-minded folks like you and me. […]

InVision, the design company valued at $1.9 billion, has today announced the acquisition of Australia-based Trunk. Trunk is focused wholly on file versioning for designers. In the world of engineering, GitHub has provided a way for developers to keep versions organized — developers can track changes, create a separate branch to experiment, and collaborate more […]

Vijay Pande Contributor Share on Twitter Vijay Pande, PhD, is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, as well as an Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University, where he continues to advise the Pande Lab -- focused on tackling challenging problems in chemical biology, biophysics, and biomedicine. Everything we do in the $3 trillion healthcare […]

A law change that comes into force in the UK today makes the highly intrusive practice of ‘upskirting’ illegal. The government said it wants the new law to send a clear message that such behaviour is criminal and will not be tolerated. Perpetrators in England and Wales face up to two years in prison under the […]

With the help of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, the U.S. Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Maxar Technologies, SAIC and the Israel Aerospace Industries company, Techstars and Starburst Aerospace are launching an accelerator focused on the space industry in Los Angeles. Already a major hub for the space and aerospace startup industry, with companies like SpaceX, Relativity […]

One of China’s top smartphone brands Vivo appears to have joined its fellows Oppo, Huawei and Xiaomi in setting up a new sub-brand as a softening market and heightened competition at home drive players to venture upon their original reach. A new smartphone brand called iQoo made its debut on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, on […]

BeliMobilGue, a used car sales platform in Indonesia, has fueled up with a $10 million Series round for the race to dominate the automotive market in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. The company was started in 2017 as a joint venture between Europe’s Frontier Car Group (FCG) and Intudo Ventures, a VC firm focused on Indonesia. BeliMobilGue said […]

The recruitment market is big business — worth some $554 billion annually according to the most recent report from the World Employment Confederation. In the tech world, that translates into a big opportunity to build tools to make a recruiter’s work easier, faster and more likely of success in finding the right people for the […]

SumUp, the London-based fintech company that enables small businesses to take card payments via its device and online, has acquired “multi-channel” e-commerce platform Shoplo. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, while SumUp says the acquisition will enable it to expand its product suite to give SumUp merchants access to various online marketplaces, such as […]

Swiggy, the Indian food delivery service, has made its much anticipated moved into general deliveries today after it announced its new ‘stores’ product. The move has been speculated since as early as 2017, but recent developments have taken the company closer towards the expansion. Last September, Swiggy picked up delivery service SuprDaily in an acquisition […]

Virtuo, the Paris-headquartered car rentals startup, has raised €20 million in Series B funding. The round is backed by Iris Capital, Balderton Capital and Raise Ventures, and will be used to continue expanding across the U.K. and other European countries. Originally founded in France and available in 19 French and 2 Belgium locations, Virtuo launched […]

Y Combinator has been steadily ushering in more and more startups into its classes, but this year the poll position accelerator is having to make some major logistical adjustments to accommodate just how massive its group of startups has become. YC has more than 200 startups in their winter 2019 batch (!!) By comparison, the […]

During a state legislature hearing today, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said it is “mission critical” that Amazon build HQ2 in Long Island City. De Blasio’s remarks come a few days after a report that widespread outcry from residents and local politicians alike have prompted Amazon to reconsider the move, which the company […]

Over the last 20 years, smart home gadgets have evolved from fantasy to commodity. Walk into Best Buy and there are dozens of products that take just a few minutes to set up. It’s wonderful. Even better, it’s easy. There are lights and locks and screens from big and small companies alike. And therein lies […]

Amazon’s acquisition of mesh router company Eero is a smart play that adds a number of cards to its hand in the rapidly evolving smart home market. Why shouldn’t every router be an Echo, and every Echo be a router? Consolidating the two makes for powerful synergies and significant leverage against stubborn competition. It’s no […]

If you’re looking for the next unicorn in Southeast Asia, Zilingo might just be it. The 3.5-year-old e-commerce company announced today that it has raised a Series D round worth $226 million to go after the opportunity to digitize Asia’s fashion supply chain. This new round takes Zilingo to $308 million from investors since its […]

InReach Ventures, the so-called “AI-powered” venture capital firm based in London, is announcing the first closing of a new €53 million fund targeting early-stage European technology companies — surpassing the original fund target of €50 million, apparently. Founded by former Balderton Capital General Partner Roberto Bonanzinga, along with Ben Smith (former U.K. Engineering Director at […]

Four new animated Marvel series, plus a crossover special, are coming to Hulu. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Hulu has greenlit “MODOK,” “Hit-Monkey,” “Tigra & Dazzler Show” and “Howard the Duck.” The characters will then come together in a special titled “The Offenders.” These aren’t exactly A-list, or even B-list, Marvel characters. Howard the Duck […]

Jobvite, the company that was once an early mover in leveraging social networks to help source job opportunities and find interesting candidates for openings, is today announcing two big moves to double down on its ambition to build a bigger platform for recruitment and applicant tracking. The company has picked up an investment of over […]

Bevy announced today that it has acquired CMX, which it describes as “the world’s largest community for community professionals.” In other words, CMX is trying to connect and support the people whose job is to build communities around their companies. To do that, it organizes the CMX Summit and also offers membership to a private […]

Just days after Postmates filed confidential paperwork for an initial public offering, the latest news in the on-demand delivery space is that competitor DoorDash is in the process of raising a $500 million round, The Wall Street Journal reports. The round would reportedly value DoorDash at more than $6 billion and possibly up to $7 […]

Amazon is about to expand its smart home offerings in a big way. The company just announced its intention to acquire Bay Area-based home mesh router startup, Eero. It’s a pretty clear fit for the online retailer as it pushes to make Alexa a feature in the connected home. The move also makes sense for […]

I think most of us have had this experience, especially when you’re in a big city: you step off of public transit, take a peek at Google Maps to figure out which way you’re supposed to go… and then somehow proceed to walk two blocks in the wrong direction. Maybe the little blue dot wasn’t […]

Lyft is donating $700,000 to TransForm, an organization focused on improving access to transportation in underserved areas throughout California. In partnership with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Lyft and TransForm will invest in a free bike library and community parklets in Oakland, Calif. Lyft will also offer free rides to low-income residents of Oakland. “At Lyft, […]

Lenovo’s Watch X was widely panned as “absolutely terrible.” As it turns out, so was its security. The low-end $50 smartwatch was one of Lenovo’s cheapest smartwatches. Available only for the China market, anyone who wants one has to buy one directly from the mainland. Lucky for Erez Yalon, head of security research at Checkmarx, an […]

Apple’s push to get developers to build subscription-based apps is now having a notable impact on App Store revenues. According to a new report from Sensor Tower due out later this week, revenue generated per U.S. iPhone grew 36 percent, from $58 in 2017 to $79 last year. As is typical, much of that increase […]

LinkedIn — the social network for the working world with close to 600 million users globally — says that video is the fastest-growing format on its platform alongside original written work, shared news and other content. Now it’s taking its next step in the medium in earnest. This week, the company is launching live video, […]

As a cyber-defensive measure, the Russian government will reportedly perform a trial run of a measure that would effectively cut off the country from the rest of the world’s web. Last year, Russia introduced its Digital Economy National Program, a plan that would require Russian internet providers to remain functional in the event the country […]

The ability to quickly and automatically translate anything you see using a web service is a powerful one, yet few expect much from it other than a tolerable version of a foreign article, menu, or street sign. Shouldn't this amazing tool be put to better use? It can be, and a company called Lilt is quietly doing so — but crucially, it isn't even trying to leave the human element behind.