Crunch Hype

E-commerce in the US is synonymous with using credit or other payment cards, but the story outside the US is very different. A fragmented mix of options — such as cash on delivery, bank transfers, mobile phone accounts and more — are used in different combinations, depending on the country where an online sale is […]

On May 11, Netflix released the teen dramedy “The Kissing Booth” just as the school year was wrapping up for teens across the country. By June, the company had a smash hit among the tweenage set, and Wattpad, the company that owned the rights to the The Kissing Booth, had its first true breakout vehicle. The […]

It’s been a rough few months for MoviePass. But every time the movie subscription service has faltered, one company has been there to pick up the pieces. Sinemia has done a solid job benefiting from MoviePass’s woes, even seeming to taunt its chief competitor with a handful of promotions. Now that Sinemia is launching an […]

Pandora is taking on Spotify with the launch of a new personalized playlist, The Drop, announced this morning. Similar to Spotify’s Release Radar, The Drop will also focus on new releases from artists its listeners care about. New tracks are added to the playlist on the day they’re released, the company says – that means […]

A multi-month investigation by Sweden’s Medical Products Agency into a number of unwanted pregnancies among users of ‘digital contraception’ app Natural Cycles has been closed after the startup agreed to clarify the risk of the product failing. But, on the self-reported data front, the agency said it was satisfied the number of unwanted pregnancies is in line […]

Less than three months after it raised $200 million led by SoftBank’s mighty Vision Fund, Indian digital insurance startup PolicyBazaar beefed up its new healthcare business through a $50 million capital injection. DocPrime, which lets visitors book consultations with doctors or schedule a range of medical tests, launched in August. Already, it claims to host […]

Now that Amazon’s proven the efficacy of Go with a trio of Seattle locations, the retail giant is starting to open up its cashier-free Go stores at a steady clip. New York and San Francisco are already on the horizon, and the company just sneakily launched a new store in Chicago. An Amazon ChicaGo, as […]

Zortrax has launched a new printer, the Inkspire, that prints using an LCD to create objects in high-quality resin in minutes. The printer – essentially an upgrade to traditional stereolithography (SLA) printers – uses a single frame of light to create layers of 25 microns. Most SLA printers use a laser or DLP to shine […]

Smartphone upstart OnePlus’s upcoming 6T flagship promises to bring changes — it’ll see it ditch the headphone jack and sport an in-screen fingerprint reader — but first there’s something else. OnePlus is developing its first smart TV. CEO Pete Lau revealed the details today, explaining that the device will mark the five-year-old company’s next step to “building […]

Altaba, the holding company of what Verizon left behind after its acquisition of Yahoo, said it has settled three ongoing legal cases relating to Yahoo’s previously disclosed data breaches. In a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the former web giant turned investment company said it has agreed to end litigation for $47 […]

On the heels of the Getty family regaining control of Getty Images, reportedly for about $3 billion, the company is announcing a move to expand use of its images to a wider set of eyeballs. It will now work with Amazon to provide images from its catalog of 200 million digital images to populate searches […]

Indonesia’s Go-Jek is planning to raise $2 billion from investors to fuel its ride-hailing battle with Grab in Southeast Asia. Go-Jek raised $1.5 billion earlier this year from investors that include Chinese trio Tencent, Meituan and JD.com, as well as Google, Allianz and Singapore sovereign fund Temasek. Now it is planning to raise a further […]

Adeyemi Ajao, the co-founder and managing director of Base10 Partners, was surprised to hear his firm's $137 million fund was the largest debut to date for a black-led venture capital firm.He and his co-founder -- managing director TJ Nahigian -- found out from none other than their fund's own limited partners, who told them they should seek out institutions looking to invest in diverse fund managers.

A cloud hangs over the UK housing market as the UK government stumbles slowly through its negotiations to leave the European Union. But startups that are bringing innovative twists to housing finance seem to be singing a different tune. Today, LendInvest, a peer-to-peer platform that connects property buyers in the UK with people willing to […]

Freightos, a marketplace for logistics providers, announced today that it has raised a $44.4 million Series C led by Singapore Exchange. Returning investors including General Electric Ventures (the lead investor of Freightos’ Series B extension last year), ICV and Aleph also participated in the round, which brings Freightos’ total funding so far to $94.4 million. […]

We’re less than one month away from hosting our first Startup Battlefield pitch competition in the Middle East and North Africa. Holy smokes, we’re so excited to showcase the region’s most promising early-stage startups at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield MENA 2018 on October 3 in Beirut, Lebanon. We’ve selected the participating startups, and their founders are […]

What’s the next best thing to competing in TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa 2018? Being part of the live audience and watching up to 15 of sub-Saharan Africa’s best innovators, makers and technical entrepreneurs launch their early-stage startups to the world in our premier startup-pitch competition. Startup Battlefield Africa 2018 takes place in Lagos, Nigeria on December 11. […]

Amazon has had a complicated relationship with small businesses over the years: on one hand, it’s long been a channel for them to sell goods online to a wider audience; but on the other, some have lamented giving over too much customer “ownership” to it in the name of sales, and not being able to […]

It’s that time again, folks, time to say goodbye to a social media service from days past. Following the shuttering of Klout earlier this year, now Path, the one-time rival to Facebook, is closing its doors, according to an announcement made today. (Yes, you may be surprised to learn that Path was still alive.) The […]

Another tech billionaire will scoop up a major news outlet. Meredith Corporation, which acquired Time Inc. in January, announced today that it has agreed to sell its eponymous magazine to Salesforce.com co-founder Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne Benioff for $190 million in cash. Meredith said in March that it planned to sell Time, Sports […]

Thanks to John Biggs for inspiring this piece; I cosign most of what he says here. I have long been mystified by LinkedIn, because of its spectacular uselessness (for me) as a professional social network. But I also assumed it was useful for someone. Now, though, I’m beginning to wonder if the emperor is naked […]

Since Dara Khosrowshahi came to Uber as CEO about a year ago, there has certainly been less drama, but drama remains. Over the last few months, there were reports of Uber COO Barney Harford making insensitive comments about women and racial minorities, as well as Uber’s now-former Chief People Officer Liane Hornsey making denigrating comments […]

If the whole map is red and it’s a short ride, maybe you’d prefer taking an Uber JUMP Bike instead of an UberX. Or at least if you do end up stuck bumper-to-bumper, the warning could make you less likely to get mad mid-ride and take it out on the driver’s rating. This week TechCrunch […]

In a world where thousands and thousands of startups are started in the Bay Area every year, becoming a name that everyone recognizes is no small feat. Theranos reached that summit, and it all came crashing down. The story of the fraudulent rise and precipitous fall of the company and its entrepreneur, Elizabeth Holmes, is […]

There is a documentary series currently airing on iQiyi, China’s Netflix equivalent, about a Chinese bitcoin enthusiast who attempts to survive 21 days by merely living on 0.21 bitcoin, or $1,300, without any help or donations. He You Bing is traveling and carrying nothing with her, and she has to retrieve food, housing, and basic […]

Facebook is advertising for a human rights policy director to join its business, located either at its Menlo Park HQ or in Washington DC — with “conflict prevention” and “peace-building” among the listed responsibilities. In the job ad, Facebook writes that as the reach and impact of its various products continues to grow “so does […]

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 Harley-Davidson is opening a Silicon Valley R&D center to power EV production With a $10 million round, Nigeria’s Paga plans global expansion Samantha Stein Contributor More posts by this […]

Twitter will now put live streams and broadcasts started by accounts you follow at the top of your timeline, making it easier to see what they’re doing in realtime. In a tweet, Twitter said that that the new feature will include breaking news, personalities and sports. The social networking giant included the new feature in its […]

A security researcher has found a new way to crash and restart any iPhone — with just a few lines of code. Sabri Haddouche tweeted a proof-of-concept webpage with just 15 lines of code which, if visited, will crash and restart an iPhone or iPad. Those on macOS may also see Safari freeze when opening […]

“Insatiable,” the Netflix comedy about an overweight high school girl who suddenly becomes slim and beautiful thanks to having her jaw wired shut for a summer, has been drawing controversy ever since its first trailer went online. The reviews for the show were almost uniformly negative, yet they didn’t quite prepare me for the terribleness of […]

If you only have one smart home device, it’s likely something simple and fun like a voice-controlled speaker or color-changing LED light bulb. As you expand your smart home setup, you can begin to swap out gear that isn’t as flashy but you still use everyday.

In venture capital, a variant on the Glengarry Glen Ross mandate is most fund managers’ modus operandi: Always. Be. Raising.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will this week test a new “presidential alert” system that will allow the president to send a message to every phone in the US. The alert is the first nationwide test of the presidential alert test, FEMA said in an advisory, which allows the president to address the nation in the […]

By now you’ve probably heard of the Defense Department’s massive winner-take-all $10 billion cloud contract dubbed the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (or JEDI for short). Star Wars references aside, this contract is huge, even by government standards.The Pentagon would like a single cloud vendor to build out its enterprise cloud, believing rightly or wrongly that […]

Fake social media profiles are useful for more than just sowing political discord among foreign adversaries, as it turns out. A group linked to the North Korean government has been able to duck existing sanctions on the country by concealing its true identity and developing software for clients abroad. This week, the US Treasury issued […]

Venture capital is known for being an opaque industry, so it's no surprise most of us have no idea what the average VC earns in a year.

This weekend, NASA is launching a new, high-tech satellite to monitor the planet's glacier and sea ice levels — with space lasers, naturally. ICESat-2 will be a huge boon for climatologists, and it's also a bittersweet occasion: it will be the final launch aboard the trusty Delta II rocket, which has been putting birds in the air for nearly 30 years.

Satellite imaging and analytics company Planet is taking the wraps off its new manufacturing space in San Francisco. Founded by ex-NASA employees, Planet is leveraging some of the $183 million in funding it’s amassed to expand. In the basement of a nondescript office building in the middle of Harrison Street in San Francisco, Planet is […]

Bon anniversaire, Let’s Encrypt! The free-to-use nonprofit was founded in 2014 in part by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and is backed by Akamai, Google, Facebook, Mozilla and more. Three years ago Friday, it issued its first certificate. Since then, the numbers have exploded. To date, more than 380 million certificates have been issued on 129 million unique […]

California plans to launch a satellite to monitor pollution in the state and contribute to climate science, Governor Jerry Brown announced today. The state is partnering with satellite imagery purveyor Planet to create a custom craft to "pinpoint – and stop – destructive emissions with unprecedented precision, on a scale that’s never been done before."

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has provoked a senatorial response from California after calling the "nanny state's" new net neutrality legislation "radical," "anti-consumer," "illegal," and "burdensome." Senator Scott Wiener (D-CA), in response, said Pai has "abdicated his responsibility to ensure an open internet" and that the FCC lacks the authority to intervene.

Twitch is today announcing changes to its security procedures for its TwitchCon event taking place in San Jose, California on October 26-28. The update follows news of the tragic shooting at an esports event in Jacksonville, Florida last month where three people died, including the shooter, and 11 were injured. Twitch said it would review its […]

The U.K. government says that access to satellites and space surveillance programs will suffer in the event of a “no deal” departure from the European Union . Britain has less than six months to go before the country leaves the 28-member state bloc, after a little over half the country voted to withdraw membership from […]

Electric vehicles still make up just a fraction of the cars, trucks and SUVs on the road today. But that’s changing: The number of electric and plug-in hybrid cars on the world’s roads exceeded 3 million in 2017. By 2025, there are expected to be 20 million electric vehicles in just North America and Europe. […]

In the off-chance you haven’t already had your fill of phone news for the week, Google just offered up a few friendly reminders that it’s got its own handset coming out in the not so distant future. The company’s event isn’t happening until early next month, but Google’s started with the teasers. Here’s a site […]

I only wanted one thing out of 2018's iPhone event: a new iPhone SE. In failing to provide it Apple seems to have quietly put the model out to pasture — and for this I curse them eternally. Because it was the best phone the company ever made.

Drone operating system startup Airware today suddenly informed employees it will cease operations immediately despite having raised $118 million from top investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Google’s GV, and Kleiner Perkins. The startup ran out of money after trying to manufacture its own hardware that couldn’t compete with drone giants like China’s DJI. The company at […]

It’s been too long without any kind of outlandish news from any of Elon Musk’s companies, but SpaceX has filled the void with the announcement of a newly redesigned BFR spacecraft and the news that it will fly around the moon with a soon-to-be-named first passenger. Whenever they get around to actually engineering and building […]

Chime, the no-fees mobile bank valued at $500 million as of its last round, has put some of its funds to use with its first acquisition. The deal is for Pinch, a startup that was focused on helping millennials and other young adults build better credit. It was best known for a service called PinchRent, […]

Tomorrow is apparently Batman Day. That mostly means promotions from the folks at DC Entertainment and the long-awaited launch of the company’s DC Universe streaming service. If nothing else, the site is an interesting mix of multimedia content in a world of video-only sites, including original series, older content and digital comics. Users who signed […]