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Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa. More posts by this contributor SimbaPay launches Kenya to China payment service over WeChat Africa’s agtech wave gets $10 million richer as Twiga Foods raises more capital Nigerian trucking logistics startup Kobo360 has raised $6 million […]

Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab has made its most ambitious investment to date after it backed India-headquartered budget hotel network OYO to the tune of $100 million. The investment was part of a $1 billion Series E round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund that closed back in September. The deal was first made public via a […]

ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the immensely popular video app TikTok, is in talks to raise $1.45 billion for a new fund, The Information reported on Friday citing sources. The fresh vehicle will help power artificial intelligence and media content for the $75 billion startup, which reportedly leapfrogged Uber’s valuation after raising $3 billion in October. ByteDance declined […]

Following speculation that SoftBank is hiring a China-based team, so the Japanese investment giant has brought on a first venture partner (and first female) for its $100 billion Vision Fund. Kirthiga Reddy, a former executive with Facebook, has taken the role and, in doing so, she becomes the first female member of SoftBank’s Vision Fund […]

It’s a busy week for Epic Games . Fresh from pushing out a major season 7 update for Fortnite, so the gaming giant has taken the wraps off its own games store. First announced earlier this week, the Epic Games Store is targeted squarely at Steam — the giant in the digital game commerce space […]

Fortnite, the world’s most popular game, is getting into the festive period after it released its much-anticipated Season 7 update which includes lots of Christmasy touches. The new season sees an iceberg smash into the island where the battle royale smash hit is located, that means there’s frozen terrain in the form of places like Frosty […]

Voice won't change everything but it will be part of a movement that heralds a new way to think about our relationship with devices, screens, our data and interactions.

Over the summer, Microsoft President Brad Smith called for governments to take a closer look at how facial detection technology is being implemented across the globe. This week, he returned with a similar message — only this time the executive is calling out fellow technology purveyors to help address myriad issues around the technology before […]

It’s been a rocky year for MoviePass, something that CEO Mitch Lowe acknowledged in an interview this week with Variety. “We have a lot to prove to all our constituents,” Lowe said. “We don’t just have to prove ourselves to our members, we also have to prove ourselves to the investment community, our employees, and […]

You don’t have to follow the financial technology industry or work with developers in faraway lands to know TransferWise, arguably the world’s leading peer-to-peer money-transferring startup. Thanks to its presence in more than 70 countries, low-cost rates for moving money internationally and, of course, its famous “nothing to hide” PR campaign that featured its semi-naked […]

Lightspeed has announced several new partners, including Slack's former head of growth, who joins the firm's enterprise team.

Getting news in the morning has long been my most used feature on Google Assistant. Asking Home “what’s in the news” brings up a quick flash briefing from a handful of selected outlets. It’s quick, it’s easy and it helps fill me in on the way out the door. Google’s long promised to improve on […]

Microsoft is working with Google to bring a native ARM64 version of Chrome to Windows 10 on ARM and as Mozilla announced today, it, too, is working on bringing a native version of Firefox to Windows 10 on ARM. The organization is doing so in cooperation with Qualcomm. Typically, to make any Windows 10 application […]

Qualcomm wants to become a major player in the PC/laptop market. Now that there is Windows 10 on ARM, that’s more than a pipe dream, but in its earliest iterations, those Qualcomm-based Windows 10 laptops used the Snapdragon 850 system on a chip that was specifically designed for PCs but still very much a direct […]

If you spend enough time scrolling through manicured photos of manicured lives on social media, you might come to the realization that maybe the fakeness of the online world has started to look too real. This might be why so many investors are starting to stare headlong into the world of avatars and digital influencers […]

Netflix is having another good year when it comes to racking up the Golden Globe nominations. Last year, Netflix topped the list of the most-nominated networks alongside HBO with 12 nods, even if that didn’t translate to many wins for the streaming service. This time around, Netflix has scored eight nominations for its TV series and another […]

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

Walgreens is gearing up for a battle with Amazon. The country’s second-largest pharmacy chain announced this week that it’s teaming up with FedEx to offer quick drug delivery. Through Walgreens Express, patients will be able to get prescriptions delivered to their home as quickly as the next day. Customers will get a text notification when […]

A problem with the software in Ericsson equipment is causing outages across the world, including O2 users in Great Britain and SoftBank users in Japan, according to a report in the Financial Times earlier today. Ericsson took blame for the outage in a press release. It apparently involves faulty software on certain Ericsson equipment used […]

Contentful, a Berlin- and San Francisco-based startup that provides content management infrastructure for companies like Spotify, Nike, Lyft and others, today announced that it has raised a $33.5 million Series D funding round led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from OMERS Ventures and Salesforce Ventures, as well as existing investors General Catalyst, Benchmark, Balderton Capital and Hercules. In […]

Want to run your own home shopping network? Facebook is now testing a Live video feature for merchants that lets them demo and describe their items for viewers. Customers can screenshot something they want to buy and use Messenger to send it to the seller, who can then request payment right through the chat app. […]

After last year’s stellar turn out of almost 1,000 Silicon Valley shakers and movers at our inaugural Winter Party, TechCrunch is returning with the 2nd Annual Winter Party in San Francisco on February 8. The party will feature tasty cocktails and canapés, party games and activities, plenty of photo ops, giveaways and some fun surprises. […]

Firefly, a startup that allows rideshare drivers to make money through digital advertising, is officially launching today. It’s also announced that it has raised $21.5 million in seed funding. The idea of sticking advertising on a cab isn’t new, but Firefly offers drivers what it calls a “digital smart screen,” allowing advertisers to run targeted, […]

The rumors were true: Microsoft Edge is moving to the open-source Chromium platform, the same platform that powers Google’s Chrome browser. And once that is done, Microsoft is bringing Edge to macOS, too. In addition, Microsoft is decoupling Edge from the Windows update process to offer a faster update cadence — and with that, it’ll […]

Last month, Pandora announced it would soon be bringing its “Genome” technology to a new space outside of music: it would leverage a similar classification system to make podcast recommendations, too. Initially, the feature was only available to select users on mobile devices, ahead of a broader public launch. Today, Pandora says its Podcast Genome […]

Mogu, a Tencent-backed service that offers fashion content and products to young women, has joined a string of Chinese tech companies pressing ahead to sell their shares through initial public offerings in the U.S. before year’s end. Mogu priced its sale at $14 per share on Wednesday, toward the lower end of a marketed range. […]

Around 40 partners of venture capital firms as well as limited partners came to Paris to talk about tech in France, from Andreessen Horowitz to Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures and more. The two-day roadshow took place at Station F, the Vision Institute, iBionext and the Elysée Palace. I grew up in France and it always […]

First, background checks at startups, then Huawei’s finance chief is arrested, SoftBank’s IPO is subscribed, and I am about to record our next edition of TechCrunch Equity. It’s Thursday, December 6, 2018. TechCrunch is experimenting with new content forms. This is a rough draft of something new – provide your feedback directly to the author […]

If you’ve got an Echo device at home, you’ve almost certainly played a few rounds of “stump Alexa,” asking Amazon’s assistant increasingly arcane questions in an attempt to elicit some baffled response. Likely you found it was all that difficult to confuse the AI. After all, Amazon doesn’t have the advantage of Google’s deep Knowledge […]

Movies Anywhere, the Disney-led movie service operated in partnership Universal, WB, Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox, is adding its first pay TV partner. Starting today, Comcast Xfinity TV customers will be able to sync their accounts with Movies Anywhere in order to access their movie purchases from the Xfinity Digital Store alongside those from […]

Qualcomm’s big Snapdragon Summit has become yet another battleground for smartphone one-upmanship, as companies duke it out around the latest flagship chips. OnePlus, which has carved out a name for itself by producing high-quality handsets on a budget, clearly intended to use the Maui-based event to establish itself among innovation leaders in the category. Ultimately, […]

Fire TV Cube owners can now use their media streaming device to broadcast announcements around the home, similar to a one-way intercom. Amazon says it’s launching a feature called “Alexa Announcements,” which allows customers to speak to Alexa on the Fire TV Cube, then have their message announced in their own voice to all other […]

The Linux Foundation’s OpenChain project helps companies find ways to comply with open-source licensing requirements. Today at the Open Compliance Summit in Yokohama, Japan, it announced Google, Facebook and Uber have joined the project as platinum members. As platinum members, the three companies become part of the governing board. Shane Coughlan, OpenChain general manager, says […]

After going public in the UK last year, Boku has made an acquisition to expand its carrier billing services, which let users bill mobile content purchases from companies like Apple, Microsoft, Spotify, and 152 other app and other content purveyors to their mobile bills. Today, Boku announced the acquisition of Danal, Inc, a specialist in mobile identity and authentication […]

The Y Combinator graduate has raised $2.2 million for its AI-powered Bay Area grocery delivery service.

Amazon Music, reportedly the third-largest subscription-based music service worldwide, is doubling down on voice. The company is today announcing the launch of new set of features that will allow Amazon Music customers to chat with Alexa in a more natural way in order to find and play the music they want to hear. The features […]

ECG/EKG was easily the new Apple Watch’s most lauded feature. It’s also been the most delayed. Of course, this kind of serious health feature is the sort of thing you need to get exactly right, for reasons that ought to be pretty obvious on their face. Electrocardiogram finally goes live today for Series 4 owners […]

Flipdish, the online ordering and loyalty platform for takeaways and restaurants, has closed a €4.8 million in Series A funding. The round is led by Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital, with participation by existing investor Elkstone. Founded in 2015, Flipdish enables restaurants to directly accept online orders and manage their online presence and operations, in […]

Looker has been helping customers visualize and understand their data for seven years now and today it got a big reward, a $103 million Series E investment on a $1.6 billion valuation. The round was led by Premji Invest with new investment from Cross Creek Advisors and participation from the company’s existing investors. With today’s […]

After a few days with the game, I’m no expert. Hell, I’m not even entirely sure I’m confident enough to take on all comers. I am, however, most definitely hooked. This scrappy little gaming upstart just might have a future ahead of it, after all. I admit that I’ve not played a Smash Bros. title […]

Lyft has filed a draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its long-awaited initial public offering, Lyft wrote in a press release today. However, the exact timing of the offering is unclear. In a confidential filing with the SEC, Lyft did not state the number of shares it expects to offer, […]

Spotify's 2018 Wrapped feature is here to give you insight on what you streamed this year.

It’s been a good week for Japanese startups. Fresh from Google making a rare investment in the country when it backed AI startup Abeja, so Salesforce — another U.S. tech titan — has announced a $100 million fund for enterprise startups in Japan. The Japan Trailblazer Fund is Salesforce Venture’s first local fund in Asia. […]

M17, the Taiwanese streaming company that controversially priced on the NYSE but didn’t list, has returned to the private markets after it raised a $25 million funding round. The round was led by Terry Tsang — CEO of Hong Kong-based games company Madhead — with participation from Pavilion Capital, Stonebridge Ventures and existing investors. This new investment follows a $35 […]

LeanIX, the Software-as-a-Service for ‘Enterprise Architecture Management’, has closed $30 million in Series C funding. The round is led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from previous investors Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners (DTCP), Capnamic Ventures, and Iris Capital. It brings LeanIX’s total funding to nearly $40 million since the German company was founded in 2012. […]

AsiaYo, a travel accommodation booking platform based in Taipei, Taiwan, has raised a $7 million Series B led by Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund, a non-profit initiative run by the Chinese e-commerce giant, and China Development Financial. Darwin Ventures and Delta Ventures also participated in the round, which brings AsiaYo’s total raised since its launch in […]

Startup Battlefield Africa in Lagos, Nigeria, is coming up fast. As usual, we have a great lineup of panels that will include investors and founders discussing issues such as blockchain, raising venture capital on the continent and beyond and more. And of course companies will compete in Startup Battlefield, our premier startup competition. Startup Battlefield consists of […]

Netflix is increasing its efforts in Asia after it commissioned more local content and began testing more aggressive price points, but one local rival is hitting back with a program to spotlight promising creators in the region. Malaysia-headquartered Iflix, which operates in 26 countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, today announced a $5 million program […]

A string of Chinese stocks fell hard on Thursday after the arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver deepened concerns over US-China trade tensions. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong was off 2.76 percent as of 12:40 p.m. On the Mainland side, the CSI 300 […]

It’s official: Google is killing off Allo. The messaging app was only launched in September 2016 but it was pretty much flawed from the word go with limited usage. Google was, once again, painfully late to the messaging game. The company said it had ceased work on the service earlier this year, and now it has announced […]