Last week we announced that Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian will be speaking at our upcoming City Spotlight: Pittsburgh event. Today, we’re excited to announce another big guest: Mayor Bill Peduto. The event will be held on June 29. You can register here for free to listen to our conversations with Mayor Peduto and […]
It certainly follows then that some leading construction robotics companies are able to strike while the iron is hot with some healthy raises. Today, Bay Area-based Dusty Robotics announced a $16.5 million Series A. Led by Canaan Partners and featuring NextGen Venture Partners, Baseline Ventures, Root Ventures and Cantos Ventures, the round brings the startup’s […]
Nuro, the autonomous delivery startup founded in 2016 by former Google engineers Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, is expanding into parcel logistics through a partnership with FedEx. The multiyear, multiphased strategic partnership announced Tuesday aims to test and ultimately deploy Nuro’s next-generation autonomous delivery vehicle within FedEx operations. This bot will follow Nuro’s more recent […]
Pitching is the single most important skill a founder needs to refine to be successful in building a startup. You can’t attract a co-founder, teammates, customers or investors without a well-crafted pitch about your product and vision, and so learning how to pitch and communicate effectively tends to be the first gateway to early entrepreneurial […]
In just one month we kick off TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing and Fundraising (July 8-9). If you’re an early-stage founder (pre-seed through Series A), don’t miss out on this two-day bootcamp. You’ll learn from the top experts across the startup ecosystem and take away tips and advice that you can implement in your business […]
Solid Power, a solid-state battery developer backed by Ford and BMW, is going public. The company said Tuesday it would head to the NASDAQ via a merger with special purpose acquisition company Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp III at a post-deal implied market valuation of $1.2 billion. The transaction is expected to generate around $600 million […]
The UK’s competition watchdog will take a deep dive look into Apple and Google’s dominance of the mobile ecosystem, it said today — announcing a market study which will examine the pair’s respective smartphone platforms (iOS and Android); their app stores (App Store and Play Store); and web browsers (Safari and Chrome). The Competition and […]
Cruise, the self-driving subsidiary of GM, has tapped a $5 billion line of credit from the automaker’s financial arm to pay for hundreds of purpose-built electric and autonomous Origin vehicles as they start to roll off the assembly line. The access to the credit provided by GM Financial will push Cruise’s “total war chest” to […]
E-commerce platform Shopify announced this morning its one-click checkout service known as Shop Pay will become available to any U.S. merchant that sells on Facebook or Google — even if they don’t use Shopify’s software to power their online stores. That makes Shop Pay the first Shopify product offered to non-Shopify merchants, the company notes. […]
Following a smattering of leaks, Sonos and Ikea just unveiled the newest addition to their three-year-old Symfonisk line of home speakers. As the name implies, the Picture Frame is a medium-size, flat-panel speaker that can either be mounted on a wall or sat on a shelf via kickstand. As with the rest of the Symfonisk […]
Rocket Lab is developing two spacecraft based on its Photon platform to orbit Mars, studying the planet’s magnetosphere in order to gain a better understanding of the ways in which Mars’ climate has changed over time. The science mission was awarded through NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, and will fly to […]
Today, venture firm Andreessen Horowitz is officially launching its media property, called Future. I’m on vacation today but couldn’t resist covering this fascinating new project. The publication will initially focus on topics related to areas that the firm invests in but will expand over time using a mix of full-time staff, paid contributors and industry […]
Social calendar app IRL has been busy building a messaging-based social network, or what founder and CEO Abraham Shafi calls a “WeChat of the West.” Following its pandemic-fueled growth and further push into the social networking space with group chat and other features, IRL is today announcing a sizable $170 million Series C growth round, […]
Chaos and crisis are sisters, and none more so than when you dial for emergency help. A call to 911 in the United States and urgent numbers globally spins off a number of additional calls to emergency response teams, ambulances, hospitals and other actors who need to coordinate action to save your life. Theoretically, everyone […]
A long running privacy fight between Belgium’s data protection authority and Facebook — over the latter’s use of online trackers like pixels and social plug-ins to snoop on web users — has culminated in a ruling by Europe’s top court today that could have wider significance on how cross-border cases against tech giants are enforced […]
On the heels of making an acquisition in December of home management startup Setter, Thumbtack — one of the pioneers in the home services gig economy — has raised a big round to double down on the model. The company has raised a fresh $275 million, money that the company plans to use to built […]
French startup Klaxoon is announcing a product update for its whiteboard collaboration platform as well as a new hardware product. With Hybridity, the company is going to sell ready-to-use conference rooms that optimize hybrid meetings between people currently in the office and people on the go. Let’s start with the software update. Last year, the […]
G2 Venture Partners, a firm that spun out of Kleiner and Perkins Caufield & Byers, has raised $500 million to support entrepreneurs that aim to make existing industries more efficient, environmentally friendly and socially responsible. With Fund II, G2 is most bullish about technologies in transportation, logistics, manufacturing, agriculture and energy, with an increasing focus […]
Kai-Fu Lee’s Sinovation Ventures has its eyes on a niche market targeting software developers. In April, the venture capital fund led a $10 million angel round in Jingling, a Chinese startup developing Linux-based tablets and laptops, TechCrunch has learned. Other investors in the round included private equity firm Trustbridge Partners. Jingling was founded only in […]
Self-expression for many consumers today comes in the form of social media and apps. But if you’re a larger business, even if you can’t ignore platforms like Facebook, a website still remains central part of your digital equation. Today, Duda — which has built a platform for larger businesses, and typically the agencies they employ, […]
