What moves the needle for digital lenders is serving loans to their respective customers. But where does this money come from? The pool is usually equity or debt. While some lenders use the former, it can be seen as folly because, over time, the founders tend to lose ownership of their businesses after giving out […]
Following a controversial ban on political discussions earlier this week, Basecamp employees are heading for the exits. The company employs around 60 people, and roughly a third of the company appears to have accepted buyouts to leave, many citing new company policies. On Monday, Basecamp CEO Jason Fried anounced in a blog post that employees […]
One of the best business models currently is serving as a market-maker between investors and investment opportunities. But the challenge with this market is: How do you get the investors to show up?
After a steady stream of studio acquisitions in late 2019 and early 2020, Facebook has been a little quieter in recent months when its came to bulking up its VR content arm. Today, the social media giant breaks that stream, announcing their acquisition of Downpour Interactive, the developer of the popular VR first-person shooter Onward. […]
Whether it be via SPAC, direct listing or traditional IPO, we are likely to see at least 10 to 15 fintechs go public this year — possibly more. The spotlight will be bright this year on fintech IPOs.
Jay-Z’s Roc Nation announced in 2017 that it was forming a venture investment arm called Arrive. And the firm has been busy since then — co-founder and president Neil Sirni said Arrive has made 29 investments thus far. At the same time, Sirni hasn’t really said much about those investments publicly, or about the broader […]
TechCrunch recently caught up with recent Y Combinator graduate Uiflow, a startup that is building a no-code enterprise app creation service. If you are thinking wait, don’t a number of companies already do that?, the answer is yes. But what Quickbase, Smartsheet and others are working on isn’t quite the same thing, at least from the […]
Eight months after former TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer quit in the midst of a full-court press from the Trump administration against the Chinese-owned social media giant, TikTok finally has a new permanent leader. ByteDance’s recently hired CFO Shouzi Chew will be assuming the role as TikTok CEO while still holding the CFO role at its […]
Anyone who has played a video game with voice chat in the past decade knows that there is some risk involved. You might be greeted by friendly teammates, but you may also hear some of the most toxic language you’ve ever heard in your life. Riot Games, the game developer behind ultra popular titles like […]
Blade, the French startup behind cloud gaming service Shadow, has been acquired by Octave Klaba’s fund following a commercial court order. Klaba is better known as the founder of OVHcloud, a French cloud hosting company. He’s acquiring Blade (and Shadow) through his investment fund Jezby Ventures — not OVHcloud. Shadow is a cloud computing service for […]
TC Early Stage is back in July and we have a fantastic lineup in store that’s laser-focused on marketing and fundraising. That includes, but is not limited to, Sequoia’s Mike Vernal, whose portfolio companies include Citizen, PicsArt, Whisper, Threads, Houseparty and more. Vernal will be leading a discussion on tempo and product-market fit. The chat […]
You could be excused for expecting the boom in consumer asset trading to keep going up and to the right. But will it? There are data in both directions.
Platforms like Shopify, Stripe and WordPress have done a lot to make essential business-building tools — like running storefronts, accepting payments and building websites — accessible to businesses with even the most modest budgets. But some very key aspects of setting up a company remain expensive, time-consuming affairs that can be cost-prohibitive for small businesses […]
Last call, founders. Today is your last chance to save $100 on a pass to TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing & Fundraising. Our last founder bootcamp event of the year takes place July 8-9, and it’s time to call on Saint Expeditus — the patron saint of procrastinators and programmers alike. He’ll help you kick […]
A U.S./Israeli startup, Sorbet — which is tackling what companies do with the financial risks as employees accrue paid time off (PTO) — has raised $6 million in a seed funding round led by Viola Ventures, with participation by Global Founders Capital and Meron Capital. The economics of paid time off is relatively hidden in […]
Conventional wisdom over the last year has suggested that the pandemic has driven companies to the cloud much faster than they ever would have gone without that forcing event, with some suggesting it has compressed years of transformation into months. This quarter’s cloud infrastructure revenue numbers appear to be proving that thesis correct. With The […]
Machine learning is capable of doing all sorts of things as long as you have the data to teach it how. That’s not always easy, and researchers are always looking for a way to add a bit of “common sense” to AI so you don’t have to show it 500 pictures of a cat before […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. First and foremost, Equity was nominated for a Webby for “Best Technology Podcast”! Drop everything and go Vote for Equity! We’d appreciate it. A lot. And even if we lose, well, we’ll keep doing our thing and making each […]
Tapping the geothermal energy stored beneath the Earth’s surface as a way to generate renewable power is one of the new visions for the future that’s captured the attention of environmentalists and oil and gas engineers alike. That’s because it’s not only a way to generate power that doesn’t rely on greenhouse gas emitting hydrocarbons, […]
YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok and Facebook’s Instagram have upended the film and TV industries, with a new wave of cinematographers, directors and actors leveraging innovations in technology to create new work and connect directly with billions of consumers to see it. Today, a startup is announcing some funding as it looks to make a similar […]
