Crunch Hype

The Raspberry Pi Foundation just announced a brand new model. The Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ is basically a flagship Raspberry Pi on a smaller printed circuit board, with a few compromises. It costs $25, or $10 less than the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+. The lineup is getting slightly confusing but bear with me […]

Rookout, a startup that offers debugging tools for applications that run on modern container and serverless platforms, is launching a new feature today that brings the equivalent of breakpoints to Kubernetes. “Traditional debuggers leave developers helpless on Kubernetes, because they can’t debug multiple ephemeral, shifting, distributed concurrent instances of code,” the company argues in its […]

The market for RPA — Robotic Process Automation — is getting a hat trick of news this week: Automation Anywhere has today announced that it has raised $300 million from the SoftBank Vision Fund. This funding, which values Automation Anywhere at $2.6 billion post-money, is an extension to the Series A the company announced earlier […]

We hear so much about managing the customer relationship, but companies have to manage the products they sell, too. Propel, a Santa Clara startup, is taking a modern cloud approach to the problem, and today it landed an $18 million Series B investment. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners. Previous investors Cloud Apps […]

A new startup called Italic says it’s already received more than 100,000 signups for a marketplace where you can buy handbags, eyewear and other luxury products directly from the manufacturers who work with the world’s best-known brands. The marketplace is officially launching today. Italic is also announcing that it’s raised $13 million in funding from […]

Personalization comes at a steep price. All your data gets sucked up into a company’s servers where they can do whatever they want with it. But Canopy is a new content discovery startup that’s invented impressive technology that lets it learn about you anonymously while all your data stays on your device. Built by the […]

As I write this, I’m somewhere in Asia, with a bag full of assorted cables and devices. I’ve gotten better at packing light, but I’ve still got a ways to go. Certainly there’s something to be said for those products that can pull double duty — take the new Huawei phone or most recent iPad […]

WeWork has hired Prabhdeep Singh to serve as the first global head of operations for its startup program WeWork Labs. It’s a program that relaunched earlier this year, providing early-stage startups with desk space, educational programs and mentorship. Since the relaunch, the company says it’s opened in more than 24 locations in 14 cities across […]

Apex.ai is emerging out of stealth today with quite the claim — an operating system for autonomous vehicles that will never fail Founded by long-time automated systems engineers Jan Becker and Dejan Pangercic, Apex.ai develops operating systems for various types of autonomous mobility platforms. Today, Apex.ai is also announcing a $15.5 million Series A round led […]

In July, Roku unveiled its entry into the voice-powered speaker market, with a pair of Roku TV Wireless Speakers designed to work with the company’s lineup of partner-built smart TVs. Those speakers will now begin to ship to customers starting on Friday, November 16. They’ll also go on sale in advance of Black Friday at […]

Docker and Mulesoft have announced a broad deal to sell products together and integrate their platforms. As part of it, Docker is getting an investment from Salesforce, the CRM giant that acquired Mulesoft for $6.5 billion last spring. Salesforce is not disclosing the size of the stake it’s taking in Docker, but it is strategic: […]

LocalGlobe, the seed-stage venture capital firm founded by father and son duo Robin and Saul Klein, and one of the most active firms in the U.K., is gearing up to launch a new separate fund aimed at Series B. According to sources — and since confirmed by LocalGlobe — the VC firm is raising a […]

Homeland Security’s supply chain task force is finally off the ground.. The public-private coalition, set up earlier this year, now has representatives from more than two dozen companies and industry groups signed up to help the government try to combat risks faced by tech companies from threats in the supply chain. Called the ICT Supply […]

The best parts of gaming are the jokes and trash talk with friends. Whether it was four-player Goldeneye or linking up PCs for Quake battles in the basement, the social element keeps video games exciting. Yet on mobile we’ve lost a lot of that, playing silently by ourselves even if we’re in a squad with […]

The Amazon Go store requires hundreds of cameras to detect who’s picking up what items. Standard Cognition needs just 27 to go after the $27 trillion market of equipping regular shops with autonomous retail technology. Walk into one of its partners’ stores and overhead cameras identify you by shape and movement, not facial recognition. Open […]

It has never been easier to launch a satellite into space. But EnduroSat wants to make it even easier by making CubeSats more affordable thanks to a unique platform. That’s why I’m excited to announce that EnduroSat CEO Raycho Raychev is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin to talk about his platform. Many industries have gone […]

Tyler Barriss aka SWAuTistic caused almost 100 SWATing attacks by calling the police on perceived online enemies and claiming that they were holding hostages and were heavily armed. One of these, in SWATs, launched in Wichita, Kansas last year, led to the death of a father of two named Andrew Finch. Now Barriss is facing […]

Dia&Co co-founder and CEO Nadia Boujarwah wants to change the retail market for plus-sized women.

Mozilla is adding a new security feature to its Firefox Quantum web browser that will alert users when they visit a website that has recently reported a data breach. When a Firefox user lands on a website with a breach in its recent past they’ll see a pop up notification informing them of the barebones […]

If data is the new oil, you might think of apps are the cars that need it to move. Now, a startup that has built a platform to let everyone — not just those with technical expertise — make and drive their own “cars” has raised a significant round of funding to grow its business. […]

Google has released its annual Thanksgiving traffic and search trends report, created by analyzing data from last year’s holiday season. It breaks down the best and worst times to travel by state and also throws in information about when popular places, like grocery and liquor stores, are the most crowded. Even if you can’t avoid […]

1 in 41 men will die of prostate cancer. But sticking a needle through your rectum into your prostate to screen for cancer brings along a ton of bacteria and terrible side effects like pain, infection, urinary trouble, and even erectile dysfunction. It turns out you can detect cancer with Magnetic Resonance Imaging…it’s just prohibitively […]

It’s not been a pretty year for anyone who owns Bitcoin, but the last 24 hours has been a period to forget as the cryptocurrency dropped below $100 billion in market cap for the first time in more than a year. You have to go back to the end of October — the 29th to […]

There are few things certain in our world except for the uplifting tendencies of technology. I’ve spent the past few years trying to prove this to myself, at least, by interviewing hundreds of thinkers on the topic. I’ve come to a singular conclusion: when tech moves into a city, be it an iOS dev shop […]

Don’t miss your chance to bear witness as a cohort of sub-Saharan Africa’s exceptional entrepreneurs launch their early-stage tech startups to the world. Startup Battlefield Africa 2018, our premier pitch competition, takes place on 11 December in Lagos, Nigeria. Join us to cheer on the competitors and enjoy a series of outstanding panel discussions from […]

Das ist super geil — this is awesome! Early-bird prices for Disrupt Berlin 2018 passes have returned to the roost. But you need to act fast, because our time-sensitive offer expires in just 48 hours. This opportunity translates to serious savings in any language — up to €500. Here’s even more good news. During this […]

Urban Massage, the London-headquartered startup that lets you book a vetted massage therapist “on-demand”, is expanding into new wellness services in addition to changing its name. Now simply called Urban, the company, which operates in several U.K. cities along with Paris, is adding the ability to book an expert nail technician, GOsC-regulated osteopath, or skin […]

Sad news for anyone into giant robots: Google parent Alphabet is closing down Schaft, its secretive unit that develops bipedal robots aimed at helping out in disaster efforts and generally looking badass. The news was first reported by Nikkei, but Alphabet confirmed to TechCrunch that the business will be shuttered. It said it is helping staff find […]

French hardware startup Netatmo got acquired by the biggest manufacturer of switches and sockets in the world, Legrand. Terms of the deal are undisclosed. Legrand and Netatmo already collaborated together on some products. Back in 2017, the company announced that it would work with industrial groups to connect everything in your home, starting with Legrand […]

I have seen the future — in fact, I have worn it. It’s big and awkward kind of digs into the top of your head with little metal bars designed to hold it in place. I was like 95 percent sure Wear Space was some viral bit of social commentary the first time it popped […]

Amazon’s HQ2 process was bound to polarize (though I do enjoy a good dueling op-ed on these pages) no matter how it landed. But the decision to set up shop in New York City is likely ruffling more feathers than just about any other possible outcome. As a resident of neighboring Astoria, Queens, the less […]

The rise of smartphone cameras and social media in recent years has fuelled a new level of marking and sharing memories using photos, but one startup is betting that people are prepared to go the next level and spend money to hire professional photographers to make their photos even better. Focused on travel, Sweet Escape […]

Wearables are great, sure, except you have to wear them. Wouldn't it be nice if that functionality was printed right onto your skin? Well, even though it's not for everybody, it sounds like it might soon be a possibility: CMU researchers have created a durable, flexible electronic temporary tattoo that could be used for all kinds of things.

For all the potential upsides of crowdfunding, backing a project always feels like a gamble. And some fairly high profile campaigns over the last few years have helped removed some of the model’s luster. Indiegogo’s hoping to curb some of those failures with guaranteed shipping, a new feature that suspends funding unless a product actual […]

Dolby’s been making a bigger push for consumer recognition in the last few years, so it was really just a matter of time before it released a branded product. As far as those things go, headphones make as much sense as anything. Even so, the over-ear bluetooth headphone market is a tough on to crack, […]

Salad startup and retailer Sweetgreen recently raised a $200 million Series H round led by Fidelity that valued the company at more than $1 billion. This round brings Sweetgreen’s total amount of funding to $365 million. With this additional $200 million in funding, Sweetgreen is setting its eyes on other food categories and looking to […]

Pirate Studios, the music technology company that operates fully automated and self-service 24 hour music studios, has secured $20 million. The investment was led by Talis Capital, the London-based VC family office. Talis was already an existing backer of Pirate Studios, with Talis’ Matus Maar also named as a co-founder of the startup. Other investors […]

With California’s recent cluster of devastating wildfires destroying homes and claiming lives, Airbnb is offering some shelter to displaced residents in its home state. This week, the company added free housing listings to serve evacuees affected by the Hill and Woolsey Fires outside Los Angeles and the Camp Fire in northern California. The free Airbnb […]

If a food item isn't safe to eat, it's best to find that out before someone eats it. But manual testing of every jar and bottle isn't possible, even when a threat, like the recent baby food scare, is known. MIT researchers have found a way to check many items instantly, non-invasively, and from a distance — using the RFID tags many products already have.

De Correspondent, a Dutch news organization aiming to “unbreak the news,” is planning to launch in the United States next year as The Correspondent. To fund its efforts, it’s hoping to raise $2.5 million from future readers. Co-founder and CEO Ernst Pfauth (a former tech journalist who previously served as editor in chief at The […]

Facebook secretly retracted messages sent by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, TechCrunch reported seven months ago. Now for the first time, Facebook Messenger users will get the power to unsend too so they can remove their sent messages from the recipient’s inbox. Messages can only be unsent for the first 10 minutes after they’re delivered so that you […]

When Oracle filed a protest in August with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that the Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI RFP process was unfair, it probably had little chance of succeeding. Today, the GAO turned away the protest. The JEDI contract has been set up as a winner-take-all affair. With $10 billion on the table, there has […]

Starting this weekend, Tinder will allow college students on its Tinder U service to match with others outside their own university for the first time. The dating app is positioning this market test of a potential Tinder U expansion as the “Rivals Week” — a way to match users with those who attend a rival […]

Uber, which is expected to go public sometime next year, just released its Q3 2018 financial results. Uber’s net losses increased 32 percent quarter over quarter to $939 million on a pro forma basis, though Uber expected these losses as it continues to invest in future growth areas. On an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation […]

I’ve been traveling a lot this year — more than any year in the past. It’s been both a blessing and a curse, so thanks TechCrunch for that. Honestly, I should probably be packing for Asia instead of writing this.

PagerDuty, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company that sends companies information about their technology, doesn’t receive a fraction of the press that other fast-growing enterprise software companies receive. In fact, though it counts as customers heavyweight companies like Capital One, Spotify and Netflix; it employs 500 employees; and it has five offices around the world, it […]

French startup iBanFirst is raising another $17 million (€15 million) from Serena Capital and Breega Capital, with existing investor Xavier Niel putting in more money, as well. iBanFirst solves a very specific problem. If you operate a company that works with suppliers all over the world, chances are you waste a ton of money exchanging […]

Astropad’s Luna Display isn’t just for your MacBook. It turns out that you can take advantage of that tiny little red dongle to turn your iPad into your one and only Mac Mini display. The Luna Display was designed to extend your laptop display. Many desktop users who travel tend to feel limited with a […]

The good news: Niantic/WB Games/Portkey has released a trailer for “Wizards Unite,” the Harry Potter game built in the same spirit as Pokémon GO. The bad news: It… doesn’t show much. If you were hoping for gameplay footage or really anything detailing how the game will work, you’re out of luck. Alas! It’s just a […]