Crunch Hype

Twitter announced this morning it has hired Sarah Personette, previously COO at Refinery29, as its new head of global Twitter Client Solutions. Personette will start in mid-October. She will be based in New York, where she’ll report to Head of Customers Matt Derella, also previously head of Twitter Client Solutions. The company says this will […]

A few days ago, I interviewed Ken Kocienda at TechCrunch Disrupt SF — he just released a book called Creative Selection. After working at Apple during some of the company’s best years, Kocienda looks back at what makes Apple such a special place. The book in particular starts with a demo. Kocienda is invited to […]

New Relic CEO Lew Cirne was feeling a bit nostalgic last week when he called to discuss the announcements for the company’s FutureStack conference taking place tomorrow in San Francisco. It had been 10 years since he first spoke to TechCrunch about his monitoring tool. A lot has changed in a decade including what his company […]

Earlier today, Snap made some waves when it announced that Imran Khan, its chief strategy officer, was stepping down from his role to pursue other opportunities. We have now confirmed with sources close to the matter that he’s leaving the company to start his own investment fund. Khan, who had been an early investor in […]

Ahead the launch of its own video streaming service, Apple has been awarded its first-ever Primetime Emmy for its original video programming, for “Carpool Karaoke.” The series won the “Outstanding Short Form Variety Series” category on Sunday night. This is not Apple’s first-ever Emmy – it has won other technical and engineering awards in the […]

The Bay Area may be the center of the global technology industry, but that hasn’t stopped one wealthy enclave from protecting itself from the future. The city council of Mill Valley, a small town located just a few miles north of San Francisco, voted unanimously late last week to effectively block deployments of small-cell 5G […]

Let the computers do the legal busy work so attorneys can focus on complex problem solving for their clients. That’s the lucrative idea behind Atrium LTS, Twitch co-founder Justin Kan’s machine learning startup that digitizes legal documents and builds applications on top to speed up fundraising, commercial contracts, equity distribution, and employment issues. For example, […]

Branch announced today that it has acquired TUNE‘s attribution analytics team and business, a part of the SaaS platform that focuses on optimizing and accurately attributing ad spend. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. TUNE, a Seattle-based startup founded in 2009, helps ad platforms tie marketing investments to measurable outcomes. Backed by Android co-founder […]

New York prosecutors have extradited a Russian hacker accused of breaking into JP Morgan, one of the world’s largest banking institutions. Moscow resident Andrei Tiurin, 35, was charged Friday after he was extradited from neighboring Georgia, with the theft of over 80 million records from the bank in 2014. The alleged hacker is said to have […]

Smart speaker ownership continues to grow, according to new research from Adobe Analytics out this morning. The company found that as of August 2018, 32% of consumers now own a smart speaker, up from 28% in January. That’s a 14% increase in just a matter of months – and those months didn’t include the busy […]

For years, marketers have been trying to optimize the online shopping experience to better understand their customers and deliver more customized interactions that ultimately drive more sales. Artificial intelligence was supposed to accelerate that, and today Adobe announced enhancements to Adobe Target and Adobe Experience Manager that attempt to deliver at least partly on that […]

The Boring Company just posted a video on Twitter showing its latest digging machine can be controlled by an Xbox One controller. Because, if you’re going to dig holes, why not make it a bit of fun? Software makes it easy to map PC controls to an Xbox pad. Instead of developing and fabricating a […]

Another day, and another departure at Snapchat’s parent, Snap. The company has announced in an SEC filing that Imran Khan will be stepping down as chief strategy officer, a role he has held since 2014. This is the latest in a series of executive moves at the company since it went public last year. The latest […]

On the face of it, Bolt represents a kind of return to Sphero — back to the early days of Orbotix. The Colorado startup had a bonifide hit on its hands with its first Sphero robotic ball, enough so that it rebranded the company accordingly. Announced today, the Bolt returns those core technologies and introduces […]

We searched high and low to find amazing early-stage startup founders from across the Middle East and North Africa. And we chose only the best of the region to compete in TechCrunch Startup Battlefield MENA 2018. Our world-famous startup pitch competition takes place on October 3 in Beirut, Lebanon, and we want you to join us […]

In what looks like an undeniably good strategic fit, U.K.-based business reporting software startup Supdate has been acquired by equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although I’m told it was an all-cash acquisition. I understand that Crowdcube is essentially buying the Supdate user base and tech/IP, and that Supdate founder Duane […]

OneDegree, a Hong Kong-based insurance technology startup, announced today that it has closed a Series A totaling HKD $200 million (about $25.5 million). Half of that amount was pledged by investors to OneDegree pending regulatory approval through the Hong Kong Insurance Authority’s new fast-track licensing program for online-only insurers. The company, which participated in Cyberport, the […]

Perlego, which has been dubbed the ‘Spotify for textbooks,’ has closed $4.8 million in finding. Leading the round is ADV, with participation from existing angel investors, including Simon Franks (co-founder of Lovefilm), Alex Chesterman (founder of Zoopla), and Peter Hinssen. Founded by Gauthier Van Malderen and Matthew Davis, Perlego provides students and professionals unlimited access […]

Following speculation about Jack Ma’s imminent retirement, Alibaba Group announced today that its CEO, Daniel Zhang, will succeed Ma as chairman next year. After stepping down as chairman on September 10, 2019 (exactly a year from now), Ma will continue serving as a board member until its annual general shareholders’ meeting in 2020. After that, […]

I spent TechCrunch’s latest Disrupt extravaganza asking questions of various notables onstage, and what struck me most was how fantastically optimistic they were. To pick two examples: Kai-Fu Lee talked about preparing for a world of mass plenitude and abundance 30-50 years from now; Dario Gil waxed enthusiastic about quantum computers simulating life-changing new materials […]

Priscilla Chan is so much more than Mark Zuckerberg’s wife. A teacher, doctor, and now one of the world’s top philanthropists, she’s a dexterous empath determined to help. We’ve all heard Facebook’s dorm-room origin story, but Chan’s epiphany of impact came on a playground. In this touching interview this week at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, Chan […]

Token structuring and tokeneconomics are among of the most important considerations when designing a blockchain. When thinking about how best to distribute these tokens, founders often think about how the tokens will impact external stakeholders such as their investors, the community, and stakers (people that can mine or validate block transactions according to how many coins […]

For all of the excitement centered around fintech over the past half-decade, most venture-backed fintech companies struggle to acclimate to public markets. LendingClub and OnDeck have plummeted since their late 2014 IPOs after several years of darling status in the private markets. GreenSky, which went public in May of this year, has been unable to […]

“Unmortgage enables everyone to live in the home they want to, that’s our mission,” Unmortgage co-founder and CEO Ray Rafiq-Omar tells me. “We do that by allowing people to buy as little as five percent of a home and rent the rest. So there’s no mortgage involved, hence the name Unmortgage”. The burgeoning London startup, […]

Half an hour into their two-hour testimony on Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey were asked about collaboration between social media companies. “Our collaboration has greatly increased,” Sandberg stated before turning to Dorsey and adding that Facebook has “always shared information with other companies.” Dorsey nodded […]

Reports of Jack Ma’s impending retirement are greatly exaggerated, it seems. Ma, the co-founder and executive chairman of Alibaba, has pushed back on claims that he is on the cusp of leaving the $420 billion Chinese e-commerce firm. The New York Times first reported that the entrepreneur plans to announce that he will leave the firm to pursue […]

Another domino has fallen in Alex Jones’ media empire. Apple confirmed with TechCrunch this week that it’s pulled the controversial conspiracy theorist/provocateur from the App Store this week, banning the Infowars app over violations to its “objectionable content” rules. Slightly more specifically, the host was determined to have violated the TOS around “defamatory, discriminatory, or […]

I’m deathly allergic to nuts, so I felt super excited when I heard about the Nima peanut sensor. I’ve ended up in the emergency room numerous times because there were nuts in something I thought did not contain nuts. With Nima, I could’ve tested those specific foods before consumption and probably avoided a trip to […]

European Union lawmakers are facing a major vote on digital copyright reform proposals on Wednesday — a process that has set the Internet’s hair fully on fire. Here’s a run down of the issues and what’s at stake… Article 13 The most controversial component of the proposals concerns user-generated content platforms such as YouTube, and […]

A lot can change in a year. Not when you’re Equifax. The credit rating giant, one of the largest in the world, was trusted with some of the most sensitive data used by banks and financiers to determine who can be lent money. But the company failed to patch a web server it knew was […]

It’s go-time people. As in go apply right now to compete in TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa 2018 — do it now because in 48 short hours, the application window slams shut for good. Think you have the best early-stage startup in Sub-Saharan Africa? Do you dream on a global scale? Then come to Lagos, Nigeria […]

The future of Coinbase looks something like the New York Stock Exchange. That’s according a vision laid out by CEO Brian Amstrong who was interviewed on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco today. Coinbase is known for being the most popular exchange for converting fiat currency into crypto — most of the largest traded […]

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, wants to take his company public — maybe on the blockchain. Onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018, Armstrong dished on his ambitions for the future of Coinbase. “We are self-sustaining,” Armstrong said. “You know, we’ve been profitable for quite a while. We don’t have any plans […]

Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win $100,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup. After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ […]

Circumventing the Google Play store wasn’t exactly a gamble for Epic, given the fact that Fortnite is essentially a license to print money. But even by its own standards, the game is posting some impressive numbers three weeks after hitting Android. In a blog post this week, Epic noted that the wildly popular sandbox survival […]

At a symposium in Washington DC on Friday, DARPA announced plans to invest $2 billion in artificial intelligence research over the next five years. In a program called “AI Next,” the agency now has over 20 programs currently in the works and will focus on “enhancing the security and resiliency of machine learning and AI technologies, reducing […]

After a string of executive departures over the past several months that continued Friday with the resignations of two people in high-profile positions, CEO Elon Musk announced a series of promotions and job updates in an email sent to employees. To be clear, these are not new hires and some of these promotions were already […]

A day after cutting the ribbon on its second (and largest) cashier-free convenience store in Seattle, Amazon has confirmed it will be bringing the Go concept to the City that Never Sleeps. The Information first noted the news through a number of job listings last night. The company has since confirmed its plans in an […]

Unity Technologies, the highly valued startup behind one of the most popular game development tools, lost its CFO Mike Foley last week, Business Insider (paywalled) reported. A company spokesperson confirmed the CFO’s departure, saying it was a “friendly and mutual decision between both parties,” while also noting that the company was searching for a replacement […]

Apple Music is rolling out a new playlist series that will feature the Top 100 songs on Apple Music globally and for those countries where Apple Music is available. Because they’re playlists, users will be able to add these top charts for their country or the Top 100 Global songs to their library so they can […]

A group of security researchers say dozens of popular iPhone apps are quietly sharing the location data of “tens of millions of mobile devices” with third-party data monetization firms. Almost all require access to a user’s location data to work properly, like weather and fitness apps, but share that data often as a way to […]

There’s a dark cloud on the horizon. The behavior of cloud infrastructure providers, such as Amazon, threatens the viability of open source.

Quantum computing has moved out of the realm of theoretical physics and into the real world, but its potential and promise are still years away. Onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, a powerhouse in the world of quantum research and a young upstart in the field presented visions for the future of the industry that illustrated […]

Peer into the future — or a future, at least. Having otherwise run out of things to improve on, Nokia brand licenser HMD is apparently bringing a five-camera phone to market (well, six, probably, if you count the other side). Because three or four would be taking the easy way out. The leaked image of […]

Branch, the deep-linking startup backed by Andy Rubin’s Playground Ventures, will enter the unicorn club with an upcoming funding round. The four-year-old company, which helps brands create links between websites and mobile apps, has authorized the sale of $129 million in Series D shares, according to sources and confirmed by PitchBook, which tracks venture capital […]

Another day, another whopper of a tariff. The Trump administration has been busy finalizing the rulemaking process to put 25 percent tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, which will almost certainly affect the prices of many critical technology components and have on-going repercussions for Silicon Valley supply chains. That followed the implementation of tariffs […]

While the Adidas Futurecraft 4D shoes are cool looking sneakers, the story behind those shoes is even more interesting. The sportswear company has partnered with Carbon to design a new kind of sneakers. Behind the Futurecraft 4D, you can find a process that is not that new — 3D printing. Many companies promised an industrial […]

E-commerce beauty startup founder, Glossier CEO Emily Weiss, dished on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 this morning about some of the company’s top competitors in the e-commerce space, including Amazon as well as the forthcoming threat from Instagram – which is building out its own standalone shopping app, according to reports. Glossier, founded in […]

Tachyon, the accelerator of the blockchain powerhouse ConsenSys which launched earlier this year, has announced the first cohort for its 10 week accelerator program which is aimed at taking early stage blockchain projects from idea to a viable product. Sixteen companies were selected from around the world and will be brought together in San Francisco […]

Elon Musk made an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast hosted by the eponymous comedian, where the pair smoked a blunt and pondered the flat-Earth movement, the future of AI, “inventing shit” and several other of the eccentric billionaire’s favorite topics. The now-viral interview, which was live-streamed to thousands of viewers, was immediately […]