Disney+, the on-demand streaming service that launched a year ago and has already courted over 86 million subscribers, is ready to expand to more international markets. At its annual investor day Thursday, the American entertainment giant announced a new streaming brand called “Star” that will feature content from ABC, FX and 20th Century Studios. In […]
If you’ve ever had a Father’s Day ad offering great deals for your dead dad sail into your inbox, you know that online advertising can be disturbing sometimes. Children’s gifts for people struggling to get pregnant, pet toys for your deceased doggo, the list goes on. Google is taking a small but helpful step to […]
Gorgias announced today that it has raised $25 million in Series B funding, bringing the startup’s pre-money valuation to $300 million. When the company raised its Series A just over a year ago, CEO Romain Lapeyre (who founded Gorgias with CTO Alex Plugaru) told me that it works with e-commerce businesses to automate responses to […]
Crafting and DIY tools are wonderful gifts right now. We're all stuck inside and, for many of us, the days are sort of blurring together. Why not help your friends and family learn to make stuff? And if they already know how to make stuff, why not help them make more stuff?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. What a week, yeah? Instead of the news cycle slowing as the year races to a close, things are still as hot as ever. We have funding rounds big and small, IPOs, first-day extravaganza and […]
After pricing above its raised range last night, Airbnb opened this morning at $146 per share, up around 115% to kick off its life as a public company. The company is now worth $158 per share. Using its IPO share count inclusive of shares reserved for underwriters, the company is worth $95.1 billion, but on […]
A group of industry heavyweights, including Google, Box, Citrix, Dell, Imprivata, Intel, Okta, RingCentral, Slack, VMware and Zoom, today announced the launch of the Modern Computing Alliance. The mission for this new alliance is to “drive ‘silicon-to-cloud’ innovation for the benefit of enterprise customers — fueling a differentiated modern computing platform and providing additional choice […]
Spotify said it has reset an undisclosed number of user passwords after blaming a software vulnerability in its systems for exposing private account information to its business partners. In a data breach notification filed with the California attorney general’s office, the music streaming giant said the data exposed “may have included email address, your preferred […]
Cityblock Health, a company that provides healthcare services to low-income communities, is now commanding a high-priced valuation of over $1 billion after venture capitalists poured $160 million into the company. The round was led by new investor General Catalyst with participation from crossover investor Wellington Management and support from major existing investors, including Kinnevik AB, Maverick […]
Twitter is partnering with Snap to bring tweets into Snapchat with a native integration that both companies hope will push users away from screenshots and toward more interactive embeds. Twitter users who are also logged into the Snapchat app on their phone will be able to access the functionality by tapping share on a particular […]
DoNotPay, the consumer advice company that started out helping people easily challenge parking tickets, has come a long way since it launched. It’s expanded to help consumers cancel memberships, claim compensation for missed flights and even sue companies for small claims. In the early days of the pandemic, the startup helped its users file for […]
Given how reliant many people have become on rideshare drivers and especially delivery workers during the pandemic, Uber is pushing for them to get priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Today, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent a letter to all 50 governors asking them to prioritize giving drivers and delivery workers the vaccine as essential […]
TC Sessions: Space is happening this December 16 and 17 — our first-ever dedicated space event. This is a live, virtual two-day conference featuring the most important people in the space industry, across public, private and defense. We’re thrilled to be hosting NASA’s head of the Human Spaceflight Office Kathryn Lueders, Rocket Lab CEO and […]
Google announced today it’s introducing a new search feature that will surface a list of authorized vaccines in users’ locations, as well as informational panels about each individual vaccine. The feature is first being launched in the U.K., which earlier this month gave emergency authorization to the BioNTech/Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. The company says the feature […]
As remote work continues to solidify its place as a critical aspect of how businesses exist these days, a startup that has built a platform to help companies source and bring on one specific category of remote employees — engineers — is taking on some more funding to meet demand. Turing — which has built […]
AT&T announced yesterday that it’s selling anime streaming service Crunchyroll to Sony’s Funimation for an acquisition price of $1.18 billion. According to the announcement, Crunchyroll has 90 million registered users and 3 million paying subscribers. The service started in 2006 as a site for fan-uploaded, fan-subtitled (and often pirated) content, but it has increasingly become […]
NASA and Boeing are looking to March 29, 2021 as the earliest possible date for their Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), a key qualifying demonstration mission in their ongoing Commercial Crew spaceflight program. Boeing is the second company selected by NASA to build and qualify a human space launch system for transporting astronauts to and […]
