Crunch Hype

Atomized, an early-stage startup that wants to create a modern tool to help developers deploy infrastructure faster, announced the first step of its funding journey today, a $500,000 pre-seed round from Zing Capital, Y Combinator and several unnamed angels. Company co-founder and CEO Nik Kotov says developers are spending over 20% of their time on […]

Drue Kataoka’s art has made it to collections in 30 countries — and even the International Space Station. Now the artist, activist and current face of Clubhouse’s app icon is releasing her first NFT to support Asian American causes. The auction will begin on digital art marketplace Nifty Gateway at 1:30 p.m. EST, May 13, […]

Pomelo, a startup building a fintech-as-a-service platform for Latin America, has raised $9 million in a seed round of funding. The Buenos Aires-based startup’s new infrastructure aims to allow fintechs and embedded finance players to launch virtual accounts and issue prepaid and credit cards via “compliant” onboarding processes. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption […]

Community control over police surveillance laws promote transparency and protect civil rights and liberties with respect to surveillance technology. To date, just 19 U.S. cities have passed such laws.

The countdown clock keeps on ticking, and you have just three days to secure your $99 pass to TechCrunch Disrupt 2021. You read that right — $99 is all that you’ll pay, $99 is all (everybody sing)! Silly Minions aside, you’ll snag serious savings if you buy your Disrupt 2021 pass before the deadline expires […]

Bird Rides, the shared electric scooter startup that operates in more than 100 cities across 3 continents, said Wednesday it is going public by merging with special purpose acquisition company Switchback II with an implied valuation of $2.3 billion. The announcement confirms earlier reports, including one this week from dot.la, that Bird intended to go […]

"I think when money's chasing money, you don't want to be the last guy holding the money. You want to be the chase,"

This morning Stampli, a software platform that optimizes corporate invoice management, announced a $50 million Series C financing round, led by Insight Partners with participation from Signal Fire and Nextworld Capital. The company launched in 2015 with the goal of simplifying the process of invoice management. Why is that needed? Services and software are purchased […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Danny unpacked Natasha‘s latest project: The Duolingo EC-1. The 12,000 word four-part series was published last week and is worth a read. But, until you get to it, enjoy our podcast […]

The UK government has published its long-trailed (child) ‘safety-focused’ plan to regulate online content and speech. The Online Safety Bill has been in the works for years — during which time a prior plan to require age verification for accessing online porn in the UK, also with the goal of protecting kids from being exposed […]

With so much focus on the ‘creator economy’, and countries hit by the effects of the pandemic, the self-employed market is ‘booming’, for good or for ill. So it’s not too much of a surprise that Collective,a subscription-based back-office for the self-employed has raised a $20 million Series A funding after launching only late last […]

Amazon this morning announced a handful of updates across its Echo Show line of smart screens. The top-level most interesting bit here is the addition of a pan and zoom camera to the mid-tier Echo Show. The feature is similar to ones found on Facebook’s various Portal devices and Google’s high-end Nest Hub Max. Essentially, […]

Low code and no code tools abound these days, as the industry attempts to give non-technical end users the ability to create applications without code (or very little anyway). Salesforce has been a big proponent of this approach to help reduce the complexity of working on its platform, and today the CRM giant announced a […]

Having a great idea for an app or game is one thing, but scaling it to become a successful business is quite another. A new fintech startup called Sanlo aims to help. The company, which is today announcing an oversubscribed $3.5 million seed round, offers small to medium-sized game and app companies access to tools […]

Amplitude, the well-funded product intelligence startup that helps businesses use their data to predict which features will drive the best business outcomes for them, today announced that it has acquired Iteratively, a startup that helps businesses build trustworthy data pipelines. Since data is at the core of Amplitude’s services, this acquisition will help the company […]

Divibank, a financing platform offering LatAm businesses access to growth capital, has closed on a $3.6 million round of seed funding led by San Francisco-based Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV). São Paulo-based Divibank was founded in March 2020, right as the COVID-pandemic was starting. The company has built a data-driven financing platform aimed at giving businesses […]

This morning Treasury Prime, a banking-as-a-service startup that delivers its product via APIs, announced that it has closed a $20 million Series B. The capital comes around a year since the startup announced its Series A, and around 1.5 years since it raised its preceding round. For Treasury Prime, the new capital was an internal […]

As private companies like Axiom Space, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX prepare to ferry private customers to the stars, a whole new market is opening up to train affluent would-be travelers for their future missions. Case in point: space training company Orbite, whose goal is to combine aeronautics and five-star hospitality in its inaugural […]

Job-hunting for those close to leaving or just out of college is a different ballgame these days than it used to be. Gone (at least for now) are the open job fairs and so-called milk rounds where prospective employers go en masse to tap student bodies for potential new entrant hires. In their place, virtual […]

Mental health has been put into the spotlight in a big way in recent times. For many of us, our lives and lifestyles have changed massively in the last year, and alongside that, we’re collectively facing pandemic-fueled mortality on a global scale in a way that hasn’t existed for generations, a perfect storm of sorts […]

When eventually they become a working reality, Quantum computers won’t be of much value if they simply sit there on their own. Just like the internet, the value is in the network. But right now there’s scant technology to link these powerful devices together. That’s where QphoX comes in. Thus Dutch startup has raised €2 […]

Vacation rental startup Holidu has tucked $45 million in Series D funding into its suitcase — bringing its total raised since being founded back in 2014 to more than $120M. The latest funding round is led by 83North with participation from existing investors Prime Ventures, EQT ventures, Coparion, Senovo, Kees Koolen, Lios Ventures and Chris […]

E-commerce continues to be a huge focus for investors watching consumer behavior and spending patterns in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the latest development, UK startup Lyst, a portal for high fashion brands and stores to sell directly to users, has picked up $85 million, in what the startup is describing as a […]

Swarmia, a B2B SaaS company for software development teams dealing with data, has raised a €5.7 M Seed round and a previously unannounced 1M€ pre-seed round, taking its raise to €6.7M ($8M). The Seed round was led by Alven Capital and joined by Jigsaw VC, Irena Goldenberg, Alex Algard, Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen, Jonathan Benhamou and Romain […]

Quix, a platform for Python developers working on streaming data, has secured a £2.3 Million ($3.2M)Seed funding round led by Project A Ventures in Germany, with participation from London’s Passion Capital and angel investors. The Quix Portal is also providing developers with a free subscription to a real-time data engineering platform. Quix attracted angel investors […]

The circular economy — where consumers themselves are both the suppliers and buyers of goods and services — has come into its own in the last year of lockdown living as a popular and trusted way to buy and sell things. Now one of the larger players in that system — the clothes and home […]

A lot of 9 CryptoPunks portraits ended up selling for just under $17 million in a Christie’s auction Tuesday evening, marking another substantial moment for NFT art sales. The lot of pixelated portraits were from the collection of the NFT platform’s co-creators Matt Hall and John Watkinson. The CryptoPunks platform is one of the first […]

Charity Dean has been in the national spotlight lately because she was among a group of doctors, scientists and tech entrepreneurs who sounded the pandemic alarm early last year and who are featured in a new book by Michael Lewis about the U.S. response, called The Premonition. It’s no wonder the press — and, seemingly […]

If you ever bought power banks, water bottles, toys, or other daily goods on Amazon, the chances are your suppliers are from China. Analysts have estimated that the share of Chinese merchants represented 75% of Amazon’s new sellers in January, up from 47% the year before, according to Marketplace Pulse, an e-commerce research firm. Chinese […]

Seeing someone mention their pronouns in their Instagram bio has become commonplace — so much so that the app now has a dedicated location where users can put pronouns without taking up that valuable profile space. The company announced the new feature on Twitter, saying that it is only available in a few countries just […]

While much of the world eagerly watches to see if the vaccination rollout helps curb and eventually stamp out Covid-19, one of the companies that has been helping to manage the spread of the virus is announcing a big round of funding on the heels for strong demand for its technology. Huma, which combines data […]

SaaS-maker Birdie has closed an $11.5 million Series A round of funding led by Index Ventures. Existing investor Kamet Ventures also participated. The UK-based caretech startup has raised a total of $22.9M since being founded back in 2017 (a 2018 raise that was called a Series A at the time is now being classed as […]

Panaseer, which takes a data science approach to cybersecurity, has raised $26.5 million in a Series B funding led by AllegisCyber Capital. Existing investors, including Evolution Equity Partners, Notion Capital, AlbionVC, Cisco Investments and Paladin Capital Group, as well as new investor National Grid Partners, also participated. Panaseer has now raised $43 million to date. […]

After months of deliberations, the FCC is ready to start helping people cover the cost of broadband and connected devices through two emergency funds amounting to more than $10 billion. If your household has trouble paying for internet access or shares a single computer, or your wallet has just had a rough year, you probably […]

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Jamf, the enterprise Apple device management company, announced that it was acquiring Wandera, a zero trust security startup, for $400 million at the market close today. Today’s purchase is the largest in the company’s history. Jamf provides IT at large organizations with a set of management services for Apple devices. It is the leader in […]

Shortly after Samsung announced that it won’t be attending the upcoming MWC Barcelona, Chinese hardware giant (and Motorola parent) Lenovo has confirmed with TechCrunch that it has also decided to forgo the in-person event. The event is scheduled for June 28 to July 1. “Lenovo is not attending in person but will participate in the […]

eBay is joining the NFT frenzy, telling Reuters today that going forward it will allow the sales of NFTs on its platform, a mainstream embrace that follows billions of dollars in NFT purchases over the past few months. The e-commerce company seems poised to slowly build up sales of digital collectibles on the platform, starting […]

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck shared more details on the company’s next launch, which is set to take off from its New Zealand facility on May 15. The Electron vehicle will be carrying satellites from BlackSky, but delivering that payload is only half of the mission: the other half will be recovering the booster stage […]

For Subaru diehards holding out for an electric vehicle, the wait is almost over. The Japanese automaker just announced new details about its first-ever EV, which is set to hit the streets in 2022. Subaru will call its first EV the Solterra, a fitting name for a brand synonymous with outdoor adventures and you know, […]

Global trends make it clear that the Next Big Thing isn’t any single thing at all. Instead, the future is about open innovation and integration of elements across the entire energy supply chain.

Selling to developers is different from the standard B2B playbook, but it isn’t impossible. There’s a considerable amount of opportunity to create real value for this persona.

It’s beginning to feel a bit like 2020, as yet another major manufacturer has announced that it won’t be attending MWC’s upcoming in-person event in Barcelona. Roughly a month and a half out, Samsung is joining a growing list of companies that already includes Google, IBM, Nokia, Sony, Oracle and Ericsson. “The health and safety […]

It’s the golden age of collectibles and legacy institutions are looking to move beyond trading cards, embracing new tech that brings the fandom together online. Sequoia Games, a new game studio launching out of stealth, is aiming for a hit with its tabletop AR game that’s looking to find an audience in a post-Top Shot […]

African e-commerce giant Jumia today shared its earnings for the first quarter of 2021 that ended in March. While its customer count grew, a drop in the company’s revenues spoke to the fact that it is still reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most areas in Africa where Jumia operates have lifted their […]

The tabletop gaming industry has exploded over the last few years as millions discovered or rediscovered its joys, but it too is evolving — and The Last Gameboard hopes to be the venue for that evolution. The digital tabletop platform has progressed from crowdfunding to $4M seed round, and having partnered with some of the […]

SPACs are desperate and asset prices are high as media recovers some and digital ad sales spike. SPAC now or forever hold your peace.

Uber and Lyft will provide free rides to any user traveling to get the COVID-19 vaccine through an agreement reached with the White House. The free rides will last through July 4, the date when President Joe Biden wants 70% of U.S. adults to be vaccinated, according to the WSJ, which was the first to […]

Consumer credit reporting agency TransUnion recently announced it had invested an undisclosed sum in Spring Labs, which is building out a blockchain-based data-sharing platform. Now, TechCrunch has exclusive details on the size of that round and the nature of the relationship. First off, the fact that TransUnion, a public company with a $20 billion market […]

YouTube is giving its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, an injection of cash to help it better compete with rivals. The company today introduced the YouTube Shorts Fund, a $100 million fund that will pay YouTube Shorts creators for their most viewed and most engaging content over the course of 2021 and 2022. Creators can’t apply […]