A group of Democratic lawmakers wrote to Mark Zuckerberg this week to press the CEO on his plans to curate a version of Instagram for children. In a hearing last month, Zuckerberg confirmed reporting by BuzzFeed that the company was exploring an age-gated version of its app designed for young users. Senators Ed Markey (D-MA), […]
In the first quarter of 2021, American consumer cryptocurrency trading giant Coinbase grew sharply, generating strong profits at the same time. For Coinbase, the disclosure of its preliminary Q1 2021 results comes a week ahead of its direct listing, an event that will see the company begin to trade publicly. As it is both cash […]
Bay Area-based Rapid Robotics today announced a $12 million Series A. The new round, led by NEA, brings the company’s total funding up to $17.5 million. It joins a recently closed seed round, announced way back in November of last year. Existing investors Greycroft, Bee Partners and 468 Capital also took part in the round. […]
TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey European founders and investors in cities outside the larger European capitals. Over the next few weeks, we will ask entrepreneurs in these cities to talk about their ecosystems, in their own words. This is your chance to put Belfast on the Techcrunch Map! If you […]
Apple has launched a new app, Find My Certification Asst., designed for use by MFi (Made for iPhone) Licensees, who need to test their accessories’ interoperability with Apple’s Find My network. The network helps users find lost Apple devices — like iPhones, AirPods and Mac computers, among other things — but is poised to add […]
Instead of sending batteries straight to recycling — and leaving unrealized value on the table — startups and automakers are finding ways to reuse batteries in a small and growing market.
Today, in a twist, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has announced a proposal for a $10 million allocation in the state budget to create a seed fund for Black and Latinx startups, TechCrunch has learned exclusively. The Black and Latinx Seed Fund will be administered by the New Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). NJEDA CEO Tim […]
The competition for note-taking is as fierce as it has ever been with plenty of highly-valued productivity startups fighting for an audience it can potentially serve endless productivity offshoots. In the past year, Notion raised at a $2 billion valuation, Coda raised at $636 million, and Roam raised at $200 million. A new competitor in […]
Wisk Aero, the air mobility company borne out of a joint venture between Kitty Hawk and Boeing, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Archer Aviation alleging patent infringement and trade secret misappropriation. Wisk claims in the lawsuit that Archer perpetrated a “brazen theft” of confidential information and intellectual property. The lawsuit points to the design of […]
GM is adding an electric Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck to its lineup, as the automaker pushes to deliver more than 1 million electric vehicles globally by 2025. GM President Mark Reuss said Tuesday that the Chevrolet Silverado electric full-size pickup will be based on the automaker’s Ultium battery platform and will have an estimated range of […]
Esri, the geographic information system (GIS), mapping and spatial analytics company, is hosting its (virtual) developer summit today. Unsurprisingly, it is making a couple of major announcements at the event that range from a new design system and improved JavaScript APIs to support for running ArcGIS Enterprise in containers on Kubernetes. The Kubernetes project was […]
Twitter is abuzz with the news that Topps, a company perhaps best known for making collectible trading cards, is going public via a SPAC. The reverse merger with its chosen blank-check company values the combination on an equity basis at $1.163 billion. That makes Topps some sort of unicorn. And because it has both e-commerce […]
Facebook confirms it’s testing a new QR code feature and payment links for use with Facebook Pay to make it easier for people in the U.S. to send or request money from one another. The QR code feature, similar to Venmo’s QR codes and others, will allow a user to scan a friend’s code with […]
While it’s true the VC world has gone SPAC-happy, the reverse merger method hasn’t been a huge driver in robotics thus far, with some notable exceptions like Berkshire-Grey. This morning, however, Utah-based Sarcos Robotics announced plans to board the SPAC train, courtesy of Rotor Acquisition Corp. The deal could potentially value the robotic exoskeleton maker […]
Facebook’s lead data protection regulator in the European Union is seeking answers from the tech giant over a major data breach reported over the weekend. The breach was reported by Business Insider on Saturday, which said personal data (including email addresses and mobile phone numbers) of more than 500 million Facebook accounts had been posted […]
The last year has put a spotlight on mental health, and startup Real is looking to shake up the space with a product that makes group therapy available on-demand. Founded by CEO Ariela Safira, Real is inspired by a longstanding methodology in the world of mental health: Group therapy. AA, for instance, has been around […]
TikTok this morning announced the launch of a new feature designed to make its app accessible to people who are hard of hearing or deaf. The company is today debuting auto captions — a feature that, when enabled, will automatically transcribe the speech from a video so viewers can read what’s being said in the […]
A partnership between the University of North Carolina’s Kenan Flagler Entrepreneurship Center, the Opportunity Hub and 100 Black Angels and Allies Fund, set up to improve representation and support of diverse founders in the tech industry, is getting more heavy-hitting partners from Duke and Stanford. As part of the partnership, faculty affiliated with Stanford and […]
Sonos has a new speaker that starts shipping later this month, and it’s a significant departure from the company’s usual offerings in a number of ways. The all-new Sonos Roam is a compact, portable speaker with a built-in battery and Bluetooth connectivity — but still very much a Sonos system team player, with wifi streaming, […]
Machine learning (ML) models are only as good as the data you feed them. That’s true during training, but also once a model is put in production. In the real world, the data itself can change as new events occur and even small changes to how databases and APIs report and store data could have […]
