Crunch Hype

Google’s annual Year in Search is more than a digital record of the events, stories and phenomena that captured our attention over 12 months. It’s a reckoning, or computation, on what mattered to society in any given year — and sometimes even signal where it’s headed. And 2018 showed a world transfixed on one sporting […]

Nvidia is a company that has reached the highest highs and the lowest lows, all in the span of a couple of weeks. TechCrunch is experimenting with new content forms. This is a rough draft of something new – provide your feedback directly to the author (Danny at danny@techcrunch.com) if you like or hate something […]

Americans are regularly checking a second screen while watching TV, according to a new report from Nielsen which examined the media consumption habits of U.S. adults in the second quarter of 2018. Today, 28 percent of adults say they “sometimes” use a digital device, like a phone or tablet, when watching TV. A much larger […]

Guru, the enterprise-focused information-sharing platform, has today announced the close of a $25 million Series B funding led by Thrive Capital, with participation from existing investors Emergence Capital, FirstMark Capital, Slack Fund and Michael Dell’s MSD Capital. Guru came on to the scene in 2013 with the premise that organizations are not so great at […]

Workers in a recently opened Staten Island Amazon warehouse have announced their intention to unionize. The news comes at a less than ideal time for the retail giant, which is in the midst of opening one of two “HQ2” locations in nearby Long Island City, Queens. The push also arrives as Amazon has faced increased […]

Walker & Company Brands, a startup making health and beauty products for people of color, has been acquired by consumer giant Procter & Gamble. The company was founded five years ago by Tristan Walker, who previously led business development for Foursquare, and who aimed to create products that would better serve the needs of people […]

If you’ve been browsing the App Store for long enough, chances are you’ve seen djay at some point. Algoriddim, the company behind djay, currently has eight apps in the App Store. Today, the company is releasing a brand new version that is going to replace all previous apps at once. The reason why this new […]

In my never-ending quest to wrap everything in brown leather, I’m pleased with this AirPod case from Nomad. It’s simple: just a plastic case covered with brown (or black) leather. But I like it. This will be short. The Nomad AirPod Rugged Case adds a little character to the sterile AirPod housing. Instead of medical-grade […]

Facebook today announced a redesign of its “Life Events” feature, which allows people to share significant milestones in their life, like an engagement, graduation, a new job, a move to a new city, and more. The feature has existed since the launch of Timeline, but has to date offered a fairly nondescript type of post. […]

China’s online youth entertainment platform Bilibili said it has agreed to buy major assets from the comics arm of gaming giant NetEase, which helped introduce Marvel’s first batch of Chinese superheroes in May. The deal announced on Wednesday will see Bilibili acquire the copyrights of a large number of popular storylines from NetEase to beef up […]

Hello, Las Vegas! We are all heading to LV for CES next month and instead of spending all our cash on a booth we’ll be wandering the halls and want to meet you as far away from the Convention Center as possible without ending up in the Grand Canyon. And we need your help. While […]

AtScale, the startup that helps companies move massive amounts of data into business intelligence and analytics tools, announced a $50 million Series D round today. Morgan Stanley led the round with previous investors Storm Ventures and Atlantic Bridge joining in. New investor Wells Fargo also participated. The funding comes almost exactly a year after the […]

According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple is thinking about multiple scenarios when it comes to tariffs and iPhone production. Right now, iPhones are not affected directly by the trade war between China and the U.S. But if U.S. President Donald Trump decides to raise tariffs on smartphones, it could be a big deal […]

After raising $55 million in October at a $500 million valuation, business software marketplace G2 Crowd is making its first-ever acquisition to bring more features to its platform. It is acquiring Siftery, a startup that has built its own database of business software not on user reviews, but by providing a service to businesses where it […]

I’m heading back to Europe to hang out in Wroclaw and Warsaw, Poland. Are you ready? I’ll be at a Wroclaw event, called In-Ference, which is happening on December 17 and you can submit to pitch here. The team will notify you if you have been chosen. The winner will receive a table at TC Disrupt in […]

This is the Echo I’ve been waiting for. Throughout my house, I have Amazon Echo Dots connected to stereo systems. In my office, I have a Dot connected to an Onkyo receiver and amp. In my basement, I have one hooked up to a small bookshelf system. Outside on the deck, a Dot serves audio […]

Juniper Square, which operates an enterprise software platform for commercial real estate investment firms, raised the funds from Ribbit Capital.

Audi has a new CEO. Bram Schot was just named the car company’s chief executive after serving in that role on an interim basis since June. He was appointed to the spot after then-CEO Rupert Stadler was arrested in Germany on charges surrounding the emissions scandal. The CEO appointment takes effect on January 1, 2019. Schot […]

Luckin, a startup that vows to topple Starbucks’ dominance in China, announced on Wednesday that it’s lifted its valuation to $2.2 billion after raising $200 million in a series B funding round. That came only five months after the coffee upstart, which soft-launched in January, picked up $200 million in investment. Luckin has been on a spending spree […]

As companies compete for talent, a startup that has built a platform to help ensure that the talent — once it’s working for you — doesn’t get bogged down by IT frustration, has raised a significant round of funding. Lausanne, Switzerland-based Nexthink has nailed down $85 million in funding led by Index Ventures (which has […]

India has 22 official languages, which often presents a challenge for businesses that want to scale across the entire country. Video-sharing app Roposo, however, uses that to its advantage by offering content in several different regional languages. Based in Gurgaon, Roposo announced today that it has raised a $10 million Series C from returning investors […]

Tencent Music, China’s largest streaming company, has raised $1.1 billion in a U.S. IPO after it priced its shares at $13 a piece ahead of a listing on the NYSE today. That makes it one of the largest tech listings of the year, but the pricing is at the bottom end of its $13-$15 range […]

Indonesia-based e-commerce firm Tokopedia is the latest startup to enter the Vision Fund after it raised $1.1 billion Series G round led by the SoftBank megafund and Alibaba. SoftBank and Alibaba are existing investors in the business — the Chinese e-commerce giant led a $1.1 billion round last year, while SoftBank recently transitioned its shareholding […]

Update 2: Everyone has been cleared to return to the buildings. Facebook spokesperson Genevieve Grdina issued this statement: “Late this afternoon, we received a bomb threat and took swift action to evacuate several buildings at our Menlo Park campus. We take the safety and security of our people at Facebook extremely seriously and are glad […]

Two years ago, a couple of VCs from Shea Ventures, a 50-year-old, L.A. -based investment firm, banded together to create a Pasadena, Ca.-based early stage venture firm called Calibrate Ventures. Investors clearly like what they’re building. Firm founders Kevin Dunlap and Jason Schoettler are today announcing that they have closed their debut effort with $80 […]

The decision concludes a three-days-long court hearing in which the judge and the public prosecutor debated whether Wanzhou would breach her bail conditions.

Wix is taking a big step beyond website building today with the launch of a suite of products called Ascend. PR Manager Matt Rosenberg explained that just as Wix was founded with the aim of “demystifying and democratizing how you get online,” Ascend has a similar mission: “You don’t have to be a developer and […]

Instead of a standard based on wealth, or even knowledge -- one based on users’ contributions of time and attention.

"I want The Riveter to be the place people think of when they think of women and work," says its CEO Amy Nelson.

Internet users are already being tracked to death, with ads that follow us around, search histories that are collected and stored, emails that report back to senders when they’ve been read, websites that know where you scrolled and what you clicked and much more. So naturally, the growing podcast industry wanted to find a way […]

Almost one year after a California judge dismissed Apartment Investment & Management Company’s lawsuit against Airbnb, both companies have agreed to settle all of their disputes. Aimco, which owns or manages 50,000 properties, had filed lawsuits in both California and Florida state courts, seeking monetary damages as well as court orders to stop Airbnb from […]

When Dell voted to buy back the VMware tracking stock and go public again this morning, you had to be wondering what exactly the strategy was behind these moves. While it’s clearly about gaining financial flexibility, the $67 billion EMC deal has always been about setting up the company for a hybrid and private cloud […]

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has floated the idea for an all-electric pickup truck numerous times in the past two years. Now, he’s back at it, this time with a teaser that Tesla might have a prototype to unveil in 2019. Musk mentioned on Twitter the desire to produce a pickup truck way back in April […]

There's lots of research going into tiny drones, but one of the many hard parts is keeping them in the air for any real amount of time. Why not hitch a ride on something that already flies all day? That's the idea behind this project that equips bumble bees with sensor-filled backpacks that charge wirelessly and collect data on the fields they visit.

The investment bank is said to be leading Uber's IPO, expected in the first quarter of 2019. JPMorgan, meanwhile, has reportedly been hired to lead Lyft's offering.

The question of how self-driving cars will interact and communicate with humans is one that has come up before, but the answer is still up in the air. Google has been looking into this at least since 2012, and earlier this year, Uber filed a patent for using flashing lights and sounds to talk to […]

Google may have evaded the first few rounds of grill-a-tech-exec, but its CEO Sundar Pichai wound up in the hot seat on the Hill after all. Pichai appeared today, weathering a three-and-a-half-hour hearing solo with no competitors to offload congressional ire onto. To his credit, Pichai performed very well. Instead of adopting Facebook’s flavor of […]

Ah, holiday board gaming. A roaring fire. A glass of nog. And a raging debate over whether the blue guy was next to the red square or vice versa.Buying a gift for a board game fan? Just need something new to bring along to the get together? In this roundup we highlight some of what we've been playing lately - from the easy to the immensely complex - and give you and your family fodder for your next bout of holiday fun. Some new, some old, all great.

We were promised jetpacks, but let's be honest, they're just plain unsafe. So a nice drone ride is probably all we should reasonably expect. Lift Aircraft is the latest to make a play for the passenger multirotor market, theoretical as it is, and its craft is a sleek little thing with some interesting design choices to make it suitable for laypeople to "pilot."

Thought VR was too expensive and too bulky? Well, VRgineers is here with a giant $5,800 headset to prove that you lack perspective. The Prague-based startup just showed off its latest piece of high-end VR hardware, which it will be launching at this year’s CES expo. The headset sports a 180-degree field-of-view, dual 2560 x […]

Apparently, a lot of people realize at the last minute that they don’t have either beer, wine or liquor in their home when they need it. It’s certainly the most obvious explanation for a sizable new round of funding into Drizly, a six-year-old, Boston-based on-demand delivery app for alcohol that works with roughly 1,000 brick-and-mortar […]

Tesla is now seeking $167 million in a lawsuit against Martin Tripp, the former Tesla employee who CEO Elon Musk has referred to as a saboteur, CNBC first reported. The lawsuit, originally filed in June and seeking just $1 million at the time, alleges Tripp stole confidential and trade secret information, and gave it to third […]

Members of the House Judiciary committee have today closely questioned Google’s CEO about the company’s intentions in China, following reports this summer it’s planning a controversial return to the market despite local censorship of Internet services. Mountain View pulled its search engine out of China back in 2010, under pressure over censored search results. It also cited cyber […]

Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted today that YouTube needs to do better in dealing with conspiracy content on its site that can lead to real-world violence. During his testimony on Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, the exec was questioned on how YouTube handles extremist content that promotes conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and, more recently, a […]

At the heart of the lightweight augmented reality glasses that you’ve been promised is a display engine that a handful of tech companies are racing to improve. WaveOptics is one such startup looking to expand the capabilities and shrink the form factor of waveguide displays. The U.K.-based company has just raised $26 million in what […]

No one has any trouble tracking their steps today. But how can you make sure people know you're doing it? Ostentatiously checking your phone or watch every five minutes is a pain. What if I told you there was a shoe with a step-tracking computer sticking out of it where everyone could see? It's a Puma. It was born in 1986, and will be reborn in 2018 — briefly.

TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa just finished in Lagos, Nigeria, where 15 companies took the stage for the chance of winning the $25,000 equity-free grand prize, a trip for two to TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 and the coveted title of “Africa’s Favorite Startup.” The winner of the event was M-SCAN from Uganda, which develops portable […]

It’s an ad duoply battle. Facebook is starting to test search ads in its search results and Marketplace, directly competing with Google’s AdWords. Facebook first tried Sponsored Results back in 2012 but eventually shut down the product in 2013. Now it’s going to let a small set of automotive, retail, and ecommerce industry advertisers show […]

Access to healthy food is particularly difficult in food deserts — areas where more than 40 percent of households don’t have access to a car, are located more than half a mile away from a grocery store and have a median income of less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level for a family […]

Sidecar, an early player in the ride-hailing market, is suing Uber: "It was never a fair fight. That’s why Sidecar failed," says former Sidecar CEO Sunil Paul.