Crunch Hype

Pine Labs, a startup that offers merchants payments terminals, invoicing tools and working capital, said on Monday it has completed the first close of a $285 million funding as the nearly two-decade-old firm looks to expand its offerings and build and scale an online payments gateway. Baron Capital Group, Duro Capital, Marshall Wace, Moore Strategic Ventures […]

Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, I wrote about Facebook’s never-ending Trump problem. This week, I’m looking at Elon Musk’s wild week of whipping crypto markets. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny. […]

This week’s episode of Found features Courtne Smith, founder of NewNew, a social app where people pay to vote on your decisions. The platform takes the concept of social polling to the next level, essentially allowing everyone to monetize their choices by turning them into a kind of social stock market where others can purchase […]

Voice social network Clubhouse said on Sunday it will expand its Android app worldwide in a week, days after launching a beta version of its service on Google-owned mobile operating system for users in the U.S. The startup — backed by A16z, Tiger Global and DST Global and valued at about $4 billion — said it will […]

As cryptocurrencies become increasingly mainstream, the industry’s expanding carbon footprint becomes harder to ignore. The industry needs to address sustainability now or risk hindering innovation.

I feel hungover. No, not in the traditional sense, but in the dizzying way you feel when half of your world is celebrating double vaccinations and no masks, and the other half, across the world, is mourning death and not a shred of light at the end of the tunnel. The privilege of watching this […]

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter for your weekend enjoyment.

There is an atmosphere of collaboration, not competition, around the creation of hardware for gamers within the assistive technology community.

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices […]

Rocket Lab flew its 20th Electron mission on Saturday morning, but the launch ran into a significant issue just after its second stage engine ignited. The engine appeared to shut down just after the ignition, which is not what it’s supposed to do, and which is likely the result of an automated emergency shutdown process […]

Amazon has long maintained that its video streaming service, Prime Video, helps drive more sales on the shopping app. Now the e-commerce giant is testing what happens when it brings a video streaming service directly to the shopping app. The e-commerce giant, which launched an ad-supported streaming service (IMDb TV) in the U.S. two years […]

Proposed EU regulations could cripple AI development in the EU while China and the U.S. leap forward and lead to complete chaos when regulations in various EU bodies start contradicting.

Solana isn’t widely known yet outside of the crypto community. But insiders think the blockchain platform is interesting for a wide variety of reasons, beginning with its amiable founder, Anatoly Yakovenko, who spent more than a dozen years as an engineer working on wireless protocols at Qualcomm and who says he had a lightbulb moment […]

In an exclusive TechCrunch exposé, a founder shares the key lessons he learned while steering his startup through YC’s stringent selection process.

Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a good Easter egg out of Google. Not too long ago it felt like someone would discover a new hidden gag in Google’s products every few weeks. The company cranked them out like it was their job. While we haven’t seen as many new ones pop up lately, […]

We decided to dig into the company's financials to see just what challenges Bill Staples might face as he moves into the corner office.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a vocal proponent of electric vehicles, on Friday debuted a new proposal that would earmark $3.2 billion to boost EV infrastructure and adoption in the state. “This is a big deal,” Newsom said at a press conference Friday. “The Biden administration’s been talking a lot about this, they’re hoping to do […]

Using AI and ML to cut out the labor-intensive parts of M&A both speeds the process and reduces the time-consuming tasks that lead to burnout in the industry.

No matter what slice of the mobility market you’ve claimed as your own — AVs, EVs, data mining, AI, dockless scooters, robotics or the batteries that will charge and change the world — you won’t find a better place to showcase your extraordinary tech and talent than TC Sessions: Mobility 2021. Buy a Startup Exhibitor […]

Regardless of industry, a successful startup without a strategic advantage is just a validated business model vulnerable to copycat companies looking for a market entry point.

While Apple, Microsoft and the like were scrambling to bring their respective developer conferences online, Google made the executive design to just scrap I/O outright last year. It was a bit of an odd one, but the show went on through news-related blog posts. While we’re going to have to wait another year to darken […]

On the heels of a $600 million fundraise earlier this year, payments giant Stripe has been on an acquisition march to continue building out its business. In the latest development, the company has acquired Bouncer, a startup based in Oakland that has built a platform to automatically run card authentications and detect fraud in card-based […]

There’s a lot of noise out there. The ability to effectively communicate can make or break your launch.

Facebook has failed in its bid to prevent its lead EU data protection regulator from pushing ahead with a decision on whether to order suspension of its EU-U.S. data flows. The Irish High Court has just issued a ruling dismissing the company’s challenge to the Irish Data Protection Commission’s (DPC) procedures. The case has huge […]

When you’re head-down and nose to the grindstone — I’m looking at all you hard-working early-stage startup founders — it’s easy to miss a deadline for an outstanding opportunity. Case in point: competing in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 in September. We want every game-changing, innovative startup — from anywhere around the world — […]

If you never considered a career in the gaming industry -- or thought that your skill set wouldn’t translate -- know that this expanding job market needs employees from all types of backgrounds.

Last call, y’all. Today’s the final day to keep more money in your pocket and still enjoy three opportunity-packed days at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 on September 21-23. Our super early-bird price — $99 — disappears tonight, May 14 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Get your click on, avoid the price hike and buy your pass right […]

Similar to how telehealth faced declines as patients returned to in-person care, edtech will face similar drops as schools become a safer option for students and teachers.

Cisco has been busy on the acquisition front this week, and today the company announced it was buying threat assessment platform Kenna Security, the third company it has purchased this week. The two companies did not disclose the purchase price. With Kenna, Cisco gets a startup that uses machine learning to sort through the massive […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The fully vaxxed and officially fully immune took over the podcast this week, with Natasha and Danny co-hosting the show while the inimitable Alex is out from Shot No. 2. Grace and Chris, as always, were behind the […]

While modern machine learning systems act with a semblance of artificial intelligence, the truth is they don’t “understand” any of the data they work with — which in turn means they tend to store even trivial items forever. Facebook researchers have proposed structured forgetfulness as a way for AI to clear the decks a bit, […]

Peloton wasn’t the only at-home workout giant exposing private account data. Rival exercise giant Echelon also had a leaky API that let virtually anyone access riders’ account information. Fitness technology company Echelon, like Peloton, offers a range of workout hardware — bikes, rowers, and a treadmill — as a cheaper alternative for members to exercise […]

One. That’s the number of African tech companies that have gone public on the NYSE in the last 10 years. Two, if you’re counting local exchanges. The former is African-focused e-commerce company Jumia and the latter is Egyptian fintech company Fawry. As a tech company, Fawry’s listing on the Egyptian Stock Exchange is a rarity. […]

Electric car startup Fisker signed an agreement with Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles iPhones, to co-develop and manufacture a new electric vehicle. Production on the car, which will be sold under the Fisker brand name in North America, Europe, China and India, will begin in the U.S. by the end of 2023. Numerous details, […]

Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

New media poster child Substack announced today that they’ve added a small community-building consultancy team to its ranks, acquiring the Brooklyn-based startup People & Company. The small firm has been working with clients to build up their community efforts, and its team will now be tasked with building up some of the newsletter company’s upstart […]

A startup’s best marketing asset is its story. The knowledge and expertise of its team, together with the why and the how of its offering provides the most compelling content.

Lambda School has attracted a lot of attention, and raised some $130 million in venture funding from an impressive list of investors, for its novel approach to coding education: offering six-month virtual computer science courses for $30,000, with the option of paying for the courses in installments based on a sliding scale that only kicks in […]

Last month, the organization behind Burning Man announced that the festival/experience would not be returning to the desert of Nevada this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and would instead be attempting a virtual event, once again aiming to bring attendees access to a handful of web-based experiences. Today, the Burning Man org released tickets […]

Orbital imagery is in demand, and if you think having daily images of everywhere on Earth is going to be enough in a few years, you need a lesson in ambition. Alba Orbital is here to provide it with its intention to provide Earth observation at intervals of 15 minutes rather than hours or days […]

Here are some advanced equity planning strategies that you can implement at different stages of your company life cycle to reduce tax and optimize wealth for you and your family.

At the market close this afternoon ahead of its earnings report, New Relic, an applications performance monitoring company, announced that founder Lew Cirne would be stepping down as CEO and moving into the executive chairman role. At the same time, the company announced that Bill Staples, a software industry vet, would be taking over as […]

Last month, Jean-Michel Lemieux, the chief technology officer of Shopify, and the company’s chief talent officer, Brittany Forsyth, both announced that they are stepping down from their roles. Chief legal officer Joe Frasca is also set to step down, with all three ending their tenures next month. In their next chapters, all seem keen to advise, […]

Pinterest is expanding into live events. The company is planning to host a three-day virtual event that will feature livestreamed sessions from top creators, including big names like Jonathan Van Ness and Rebecca Minkoff, among others. The virtual event will run inside the Pinterest app from May 24th through May 25th, and will serve as […]

When faced with shifting terms, I apply four basic principles to frame my approach. First: avoid any escalation that endangers the overall success of the enterprise.

PayPal announced today it’s acquiring Happy Returns, a returns solution provider that offers online shoppers access to easier ways to send back unwanted merchandise to retailers without having to box it up and ship it themselves. The company today offers a network of more than 2,600 drop-off returns locations in the U.S., including those in […]

Subscription business models are attractive, but there are two major pitfalls. First, payment. Second: How do businesses cover the funding gap between when customers sign up and when they pay?

As the autonomous vehicle industry in the United States marches toward consolidation, a funding spree continues to exhilarate China’s robotaxi industry. Momenta, Pony.ai, WeRide and Didi’s autonomous vehicle arm have all raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the past year. And 21-year-old search engine giant Baidu competes alongside the startups with a $1.5 billion […]

As consumer behavior and expectations around privacy have shifted — and operating systems and browsers have adapted to this — the age of cookies as a means of tracking user behavior is coming to an end. Few people will bemoan this, but advertisers and marketers rely on having insights into how their efforts translate into […]